<div>We recently received the URL <a href="http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh">http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh</a> 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.
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<div>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).
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<div>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.
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<div>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.
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<div>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).
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<div>Mikha'el Makovi</div>