[Avodah] Rav Hirsch and Kabbalah

[Michael Makovi]

We recently received the URL http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh  from
our friend, and I remarked that I was especially interested in Rabbi
Danziger's review, as he said on Kabbalah that which I have been saying, as
against what Rabbi Elias says in his perush to 19 Letters and Dayan Grunfeld
says in his introduction to Horeb (and which is the shita held by a yeshiva
mate of mine, who I've been unsuccessful in prevailing upon). B'kitzur,
Rabbi Danziger says that Rav Hirsch accepted the Kabbalah and the Zohar per
se, but read them as one does Midrash Rabbah, stripping Kabbalah of all
theosophy and theurgy; Dayan Grunfeld and Rabbi Elias on the other hand say
that Rav Hirsch chose to emphasize his own ethical/moral practical/worldly
philosophy only to complement not dispute/replace the mystical philosophy.
Rabbi Danziger replies that Rabbi Hirsch's anthropological philosophy of
Judaism leaves no place for mysticism in Torah; in many places, Rav Hirsch
says the Torah is concerned *exclusively* with mitzvot and the knowledge we
need to carry them out; any theology per se for its own sake is illegitimate
in Torah.

What I found interesting then, is one of the aggadah articles on that same
URL; there, Rav Hirsch says that he was never interested in the details of
olam haba and techiyat hameitim, because these are irrelevant to mitzvot
performance. It seems logical, to me, that if Rav Hirsch never interested
himself in these as he felt them to be relatively unimportant, then kal
vachomer he'd hold that mysticism and theosophy and theurgy are absolutely
not part of Judaism (I choose to disregard dayyo).

Actually, Rav Hirsch there refuses to take a stand on astrology and magic
between the Rambam and Ramban, saying the two are prohibited in any case, so
it makes no difference. It seems to me that therefore, he may actually be
willing to admit that perhaps, there are such things as upper worlds and
such that we affect, but he'd say that if so, theosophy and theurgy are
nevertheless beyond the concern of Judaism, for what difference do they
make? A thought to ponder, if nothing more.

One question remains, however. Rav Hirsch says Kabbalah was misunderstood to
be theosophy and theurgy. Dayan Grunfeld takes Rav Hirsch to mean that
Kabbalah was misunderstood *by the masses*, to be *gross* theosophy and
theurgy; Dayan Grunfeld is sure that Rav Hirsch holds that the Kabbalists
themselves properly understood Kabbalah, and that Rav Hirsch himself holds
by their interpretation, which is mystical (but not grossly so, as was
misunderstood by the masses to be the case). But there is a question on the
shita of Rabbi Danziger (according to whom Rav Hirsch rejected any mystical
interpretation of Kabbalah): just who did Rav Hirsch hold misunderstood the
Kabbalah (Letter 18, he says that Kabbalah was misunderstood; but by whom)?
Rav Hirsch accepted the Zohar, but did he hold *everyone* misunderstood the
Zohar except himself (and perhaps a few others), or did he hold (read:
assume, if I may be so bold) that most of the Kabbalists held the same
midrashic/allegorical non-theosophic/theurgic interpretation that he held
by, and that the masses alone interpreted Kabbalah (wrongly) as mysticism?
In either case, Rav Hirsch himself rejects mysticism, but the nafka mina is,
would he ever countenance studying the Arizal, or would he say the Arizal
misunderstood the Kabbalah? And lest we say Rav Hirsch would never say such
a thing, Rav Hirsch certainly had no difficulty saying the Rambam
misunderstood Torah hashkafah.

A last question: Is there any serious Torah authority, besides Rabbi Yihyeh
Kapach and the Dor Dorim (sp?), that holds by the academic (eg. Gershom
Scholem) view of Kabbalah being a product of Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and
the like? I myself hold by Rav Hirsch's anthropological/this-wordly view of
Judaism, but I reject his interpretation of Kabbalah itself; it seems
difficult (to me) to say that it was meant originally as anything except
davka theosophy and theurgy (whether one takes that as a good thing or a bad
thing, is a separate subject). I have read a quote by Rabbi Saul Lieberman
(introducing Prof. Scholem) that Rabbi Lieberman said Kabbalah is nonsense
(but the academic study of nonsense is scholarship); does anyone know the
authenticity of this quote? And I know that Rav Hertz rejects that Kabbalah
is a product of Neoplatonism (he tries to show that the mystical yearning is
a univeral human one, for which we can also see echoes in the Nevi'im), but
he nevertheless upholds the basic idea that Kabbalah is speculative and
unreliable, and a product of its times one way or the other (he goes so far
as to say that the idea that the Hebrew letters have mystical power, based
on a leap the idea that the Torah is min shamayim, is "one of the diseases
of the human mind")(in his Sermons, Addresses, and Studies, Vol 3). I lack
Rabbi Isidore Epstein's book Judaism on hand at the moment to see what he
says on Kabbalah (his approach is generally historical, so I am sure he has
something interesting to say, one way or the other). Does anyone know of any
other "modern" type Orthodox authorities that have anything similarly daring
to say on the subject? I am sure there are quite enough on the other side
(Rabbi Kanievsky declaring Rabbi Yihyeh Kapach a heretic for his views on
Kabbalah).

Mikha'el Makovi
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