The Kabbala has been called "The Secret Garden," and in the Talmud there is a Story of 4 Philosophers and Sages who wandered into the Garden and there found and ate the fruit of a Pomegranate tree which was known for its Intoxications. The 4 went into a Trance where they beheld the Tree of Life which Instructs on Kabbala and god's Emanations. One of them went hopelessly Insane. Bug-fucking Nuts. He stripped himself naked, slithered Withershins around the tree and then ran deeper into the Secret Garden - Screaming about Enoch. Another laughed, farted, and lost all Faith; he pissed on the Drunken Tree and left. The third Sage grabbed his Heart, his Head, and his Dick and then fell over Dead. Only Rabbi Akiva groked his vision, passed out, then woke up hungover and gaunt. He took a Pomegranate for later then walked out of the Secret Garden Singing: "Big Chief Buffalo Nickle, a mighty man in his day . . ." The Talmud says: "Whoever ponders on 4 things, it were better for him if he had not come into the World: What is Above, What is Below, What was before Time, and What will be Hereafter." Spinoza, the most Mystical of all Logicians, was not a fan of Mysticism. He thought the Symbolism which oozed from every pore of Kabbala was childish. Even naive. But Kabbala came with the Sephardim up from the Spains and Portugal. Kabbala was what drew a neat line between the Communities of the Northern Ashkenazi and the Swarthy Southern Sephardi. There was pressure in the Sippe to Hoe the Row in the Secret Garden. So the Yoot Spinoza got Fruit from the Garden at Yeshiva every day. Both Rabbi Aboab and Rabbi ben Israel were instructors at the School Baruch attended. Both were steeped in Kabbala - Woolly-Eyed Deep Believers in the Emanations. Sister Samuel lashed Skippy with the Blood and the Wounds. She was the 1st Nun who explained to us that all Nuns took Jesus for a Bridegroom - that the Risen Christ was her husband. Images like that disturbed Skippy who was Off Just Enough and didn't need the weight of Sex Scenes between the runt Nun and the 2nd Person of the Trinity bumping around while he was trying to learn Latin Datives and Accusatives. The 5 Mystic Wounds of Christ could cure every Evil known in 1956 - after Elvis and Kerouac they drained of their Chi like Alkaline Batteries left on the shelf. Skippy understands Spinoza like a twin or a Reincarnation.
Kabbalah flows out of Neoplatonism, thru Arab Scholars, from the Greek. It's a stream which has drawn water from many Fonts. But then since Water takes the Form of the Container provided, Kabbalah springs to us from the Zohar - the Book of Splendor - which may have been written in Spain in the 13th Century during the Golden Age of Andalucia and the Convivencia. Pooler Jones says: Toledo - but offers no proof except a vague certainty. The Zohar shares another similarity with the Corpus Hermeticum besides the Neoplatonic, Arab, Greek pedigree: it came with the Caché of a rumored Ancient author with Heavenly connections. But like other Relics - this has been hotly disputed. So Geschichte blames Rabbi Moses de Leon (1250 - 1305) - whose Homies called him Moshe ben Shem-Tov. We'll call him Moshe - because it rimes with Muschi and that's what this is all about. It was Moshe who claimed that the Zohar was written by the famous 2nd Century Sage Simeon bar Yohai who is called RaShBI and was one of the Tannaim - the legendary 120 Rabbi-Sages who shepherded Judaism thru their nasty little squabbles between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Rashbi was said to be a man of Miracles & Wonders - this being the Days of the Christ, the entire Mediterranean was choking with Miracle Men curing lepers & raising the dead left and right. You couldn't walk anywhere around Jerusalem without bumping into some Zombie, like Lazarus, who had been called out of his tomb and sent back to work in the Vineyards. The place stank of the Used-to-Be Dead. The Rashbi even went to Rome and called out a Demon which had lodged itself in the Emperors daughter - some fuckin' Anshe Shem with no other place to go, ducking the Archangel Michael with his long, long, lance. So Moshe either wrote the Zohar or had it Compiled from older sources - both History and Mystery (Geschichte und Heilgeschichte) love a GummiMuschi - a Hole in the Provenance. It was written in a very odd strain of Aramaic - a Hebe Slang also spoken by Christ. The Tone of the language was nearly Bathetic, slipping effortlessly between an elevated vocabulary of the truly Sacred and a Profane argot which was the Shibboleth of Whores, Pimps, Thieves, and Poets. The Book of Splendor was wildly popular. When Moses de Leon died, a rich man offered the Widow a fortune for the Rashbi Original Manuscript from which Moshe had transcribed the Zohar. The Widow blushed and fessed-up that Moshe had written it himself and had spread the tale of Simeon bar Yohai as the author because the Rashbi had Auctoritas and there was money to be made from mining that vein.
Besides - the Etics will tell you that the Zohar is full of Spanish Idioms and Metaphors and even Spanish Syntax - all unavailable to the Rashbi in the 2nd Century C.E. Well fuck you very much, says Moshe - who counters with the rumor that the Rashbi lived in a Cave for 9 years with Rabbi Akiva and that the 2 of them were constantly Blissed on Pomegranate Seeds which had been stolen from the Secret Garden. So maybe they invented Spanish as a Pidgin Tongue to navigate the Psychedelic darkness of the cave. Over time, the Jews bought into Moshe's story and accepted the Apocryphal dating and Rashbi as the author. Joe Goebbels was right about Propaganda and how it worked best when people wanted to believe in the first place. The truth is that the Zohar fulfilled a Complementary Opposition in the Jewish Mind. Maimonides and Halakha were the Rational part of Judaism, they were Left-Brained and Linear and very Hierarchical. That strain saw Man as a dirty little fragment of the Cosmos whose Salvation and Immortality was hinged on Man's suffering and his ultimate Perfection. The Zohar, and the Kabbalists it invented, saw Man as the Lord of the Dance, the Linchpin of Creation, tied up with god, where both were held ransom by the Other and where Man's Salvation & Immortality would depend on Man's Opus, his Work, and his Morality which he would shape himself. The Zohar puts Man as the Operant who Perfects himself while he Frees god from his entrainment in Matter. The Tree of Life is waiting for Man to pick the Pomegranates of the Sefirot and thus let loose the Emanations of god's essence. It would be that Dew, that Ross, which would Vivify the Universe again - Baptize it back into Wholeness. In the Intuitive and Creative Zohar it is Man who Jacks the Chi and floods the Universe with god's Graces. So the story today is that the Zohar was a Revelation from god to Abraham & Moses and that it was passed by mouth thru time until Moshe finally gave it all a written Form in Medieval Andalucia. So there, the Orthodox harumpfff; the Hippies just grin - they grab their hearts, their head, and their dicks and wink. They fake the falling over Dead part - that, they say, is a Metaphor for being Born Again.
There is a Secret in the Secret Garden behind the Ornate Door, said Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, aka - the RaMaK (1522-1570). RaMaK was the Honcho of the Yeshiva for Portuguese Immigrants in Safed which was the Geopolitical Center of Qubala in the Holyland. There are 36 ways of spelling Kabbala - like the Decans - and this fact, by itself, starts to explain the arguments over its content. Jack Cordoba - that's what Skippy likes to call Moses ben Jacob Cordovero - started hearing Angels when he was 20, just a Yoot. They told him to study Kaballah. He did, with a Will, and like Maimonides with the Halakha, he found the material scattered, episodic, self-contradictory. So, like the RaMBaM, the RaMaK sat down and brought Organization to the mess. He too was Sephardic - the family fled from Cordoba to Safed in the Land of Israel - and he too inherited the hot Spanish Sun in his blood - a Sun which had always welcomed Mysteries. Jack Cordoba thrived on Qabala and its first born - the Zohar. So he wrote his 1st book: Pardes Rimonim - the "Orchard of Pomegranates" - aka the "Secret Garden." The huge tome brought sense and system to the chaotic wealth of Kabbalistic Thought and even tried to bridge the seemingly unfathomable chasms between different Schools of Kabala. When RaMaK was done Caballah had a kind of unity. It was, in the terms of Semiotics: Self-Consistent and Self-Referential. The Pardes, as the book is called, opened up Kaballah to more than just Sages and Poets and Madmen singing about Enoch. His 2nd book: Ohr Yakar - "On Precious Light" - was a 16 Volume commentary, explication, and meditation on the Zohar and all of the literature which had been occasioned by the "Book of Splendor." In 1551 he founded the Kabbalah Academy in Safed and sat as its Dozentinführer for 20 years until he dropped dead of Bliss. It was RaMaK who emphasized the Erotic Nature of Kabbalah and its Secrets. Picking Pomegranates was Typological, he said, with the Archetype in Eden where all Forbidden Fruit was equated with the Gnosis of Sex. Persephone smiles up from Hades where she gives head to Azzael himself, herself the captive of Pomegranate Seeds. Demeter Mourns, her tears not enough to water the Wasteland - so she sits, Baitin' & Waitin' on Satan.
Kaballa is a Metaphysic. It looks to the Forms behind the Talmud and even the Torah - that's a very dangerous thing to do. First, it won't be allowed. The Mainstream will Erupt with indignation and try to bury you with their data-points and the Law. Like Hans Kung, the Kabbala asks the biggest question there is: Why is there Something instead of Nothing? Never mind - at first - what the World is - What and Why was there a Creation? Given that god Exists - Why are We here? And if god really does live Beyond and Outside of Space and Time and Apart from the World which he created, then how does that kind of Eternity influence our Mortality? Why do things Die which are Outside of god? In Cabala, Ein-Sof - the Infinite god - has no Static Form. Ein-Sof is mostly Undefinable and except for the Masks which Monkeys give god, Ein-Sof cannot be Expressed. Mostly. Because it doesn't stop us from trying. God, in Qaballa, is Evolving with the Monkeys - changing Together - as each of them Perfect each other and Become. Ein-Sof is the Creator of the Monkeys and Created by the Monkeys. Like the Escher Print of the 2 Hands drawing each other into Being. As Ein-Sof 'Grows' with the Monkey and all the Masks slip away, it is slowly revealed that Ein-Sof is Ayin - "Nothing Whatsoever." Ein-Sof is always Hidden and always in Plain Site. It is All of the Nothing and None of Everything. The only way the Monkeys can know Ein-Sof - the Infinite god - is thru its Emanations. God's Secretions. Spiritual Blood, Sweat, and Tears et al. The 'Body' of god has 10 Portals, Pores - Gates - thru which god's Graces Emanate. Though, if you think of them as Openings - you miss the Point. Monkeys suck off these Nipples - it's the only way that god can be 'apprehended.' The Einer Hides - 'Obvia' - Unmanifested in all that kind of Unknowable Glory. Spinoza was very attracted to this perception of god. Two of his Yeshiva Teachers - Rabbi Issac Aboab, and Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel - were Kabbalists and they had fond hopes for the future of Baruch, the brilliant Yoot who was fascinated by the Pregnant Nothing.
Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel

by Rembrandt
So you could say that between the Orthodox Rabbi Morteira and the 2 ProtoHippies Aboab and ben Israel there was a Doctrinal War for the Soul of Baruch Spinoza. But further, that his war in Microcosm was also being fought in Mokum Aleph as a whole as well as the Body of Judaism around the World. The Bean-Counters, with all their Laws, against the Mystics, with all their Metaphors. The war was about the Nature of god and his relationship - or lack of - with the Monkeys. "God is Great," was the common wisdom. "God is Good," was the common hope. Then why does god permit his Chosen People to suffer? If History is also Revelation (if Geschichte 'IS' Heilgeschichte) then what is the Meaning of the Bloody Narrative of the Spanish and the Portuguese Jews - the ex-Marranos - who were freezing their Iberian asses off, hunkered in Haven in ADAM by the cold Northern Seas? Jewish Yoots in Mokum A were 2nd and 3rd generation - they had Questions which their Immigrant Parents had not been able to form. What the Fuck was the Meaning, they asked, of Jewish Suffering? Only the Kabbala had an answer. Because the Jews were in Exile, was god in Exile too? Can the Truth hide from its People? Only the Kabbala had an answer. Is the Necessary and Eventual Redemption of the World tied to the Redemption of the Jews? The Yoots of Amsterdam had these big questions and Aboab became a Guru, an Elvis, a Prophet - a John the Baptist Type - because he had answers and the answers were hidden - and revealed - and lay in the Secret Garden - the Kabbala. Mokum A went Messianic - it was a Type of 1956 and Elvis and Kerouac were Coming! Hang on! Do not Murder the Vapid Old People in their Sleep just yet! The Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam and the other Northern Havens could taste their Answers in the Wind - just like Dylan said. The Messiah is Coming! "Surely some Revelation is at hand." Spinoza had no time for a Messiah he had already dismissed as a fantasy. So he was amused and attracted by Kabbala - it had Bling & Surreal, Mind-Expanding images and metaphors. But he already knew that it was just another Mask of god and that Monkeys would always follow the Mask while the god slipped away back into the Unknowable and the Nothing. Still . . . Kabbala was in the Air and Spinoza had to breathe.
Rabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
Semiotic Theory says the World is a Code, so does the Cabala which sees the Cosmos as a Divine Code in the way Danté saw it as a Divine Comedy. It was a Story - a Narrative - so what did the Story have to say about the Catastrophes of the Jews? The Kabala answered thru the Lion. Rabbi Issac Luria (1534-72) aka 'The Lion,' was taught Kabbala in visions by Elijah the Prophet himself. His mother was Sephardic, his father Ashkenazic. In Safed he was Pomegranate Buddies with Joe Karo and a fan of Karo's concept of the "Set Table." The Lion modernized Kabbala and brought it closer to Philosophy and Psychology. Here's the Skinny on Luria's Narrative: Ein-Sof - 'That without End' - wishing to give birth to all the Histories, Contracted to a Point which was neither Here nor There. Here was the decision to Weave Yesh (Something) from its Ayin (Nothing). BAM!!!! TZIMTZUM the Mystical act of "contracting and concealing itself from a point, thereby forming a central, metaphysical Void." From this Void - from this Fecund Womb of the Unwoven Nothing - spills out Adam Kadmon, the ProtoType of Angels and Monkeys and Everything Else we sense in the World and in our Minds. Adam stands there Buck Naked sweating Light which becomes the 10 Sefirot - the "Archetypal Values." Adam ejaculates the 22 Holy Letters which will serve as Structure and Backbone for the Universe and Everything in it. The Light forms into Vessels to Contain Itself and Encompass each of the 10 Sefirot. 3 of them Hold Fast and fill with Attributes of god. But the lower 7 cannot Contain Themselves and they Shatter - which is the First Fall, from which all other Falling will Issue. Shevirat ha-Kelim it was called: the Breaking of the Vessels. The 22 Letters, which had once Spelled out the Names of God, were ambigulated into Chaos and Nonsense and Lies, lies, lies . . . The Breaking of the Vessels splits the Opposites: good and evil decouple, the Unity of Place empties out into Separated Directions, Matter wrestles free from Spirit and Falls faster because of the Weight, Male and Female find their Separate Borders. Parts of god are trapped in all these things and live as Sparks which become obscured as the Light fades and thickens into Matter. 7 Vessels have shattered and are lost in the dark Below. The 3 Above mourn for Restoration.
Click on the Pomegranate below 11 times to see images of the Secret Garden. Remember - the Decoupling after the Broken Vessels has Separated everything, including Meaning. So Tenor has moved aside for its Vehicle. Metaphor Rules. In Kabbala as in Code as in Life: Nothing is only what it Seems. Everything really is Everything Else. Shit does Yield its Gold - if you know how to Talk it Home. And don't Balk at Mary - she was a Jew also and there is a legend that before she died she met Rabbi Akiva at a Well and that they spoke of many things.
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