Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism

The compiler of the Yalkut Shim’oni collected in the thirteenth century the old Aggadahs which, as preserved by the Midrashic literature, accompanied the biblical text. In the Yalkut Reubeni, on the other hand, we have a collection of the Aggadic output of the Kabbalists during five centuries.

“for it is wholly in thee and thou art wholly in it.”

Thus the exodus from Egypt, the fundamental event of our history, cannot, according to the mystic, have come to pass once only and in one place; it must correspond to an event which takes place in ourselves, an exodus from an inner Egypt in which we all are slaves.

As the idea is finally developed by the outstanding representatives of the new school, God is not so much the master of the universe as its first principle and prime mover.

The finite word of man is aimed at the infinite word of God.

For in its classical form, religion signifies the creation of a vast abyss, conceived as absolute, between God, the infinite and transcendental Being, and Man, the finite creature.

To know the stages of the creative process is also to know the stages of one’s own return to the root of all existence.

The “Midrash on the Creation of the Child” relates that after its guardian angel has given it a fillip upon the nose, the newborn child forgets all the infinite knowledge acquired before its birth in the celestial houses of learning. But why, Eleazar asks, does the child forget? “Because, if it did not forget, the course of this world would drive i

He who gains the deepest knowledge of the true essentials of reality—so he says in one place—at the same time acquires the deepest humility and modesty.42