Maria Endel, Menachem Yaglom, Esther Yaglom, Galina Zelenina

Kabbalah in the Twenty-First Century: Departure from Judaism?

Maria Endel - Independent Researcher (Moscow, Russia).

Menachem Yaglom - Independent Researcher (Jerusalem, Israel).

Esther Yaglom - Independent Researcher (Jerusalem, Israel).

Galina Zelenina - Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies, Russian State

University for the Humanities (Moscow, Russia). galinazelenina@gmail.com

Conversation with Russian-language scholars of Kabbalah from Moscow and Jerusalem is devoted to the history of Kabbalistic thought on the territory of Russian empire, to the peculiarities of Eastern European Hasidic mysticism and Kabbalistic aspects of contemporary Hasidism (in Russia as well as abroad) and to the reception of Kabbalah in Russian culture. Counterpoint of these topics is phenomenology and sociology of "scientific Kabbalah" by Michael Laitman - Russian-language version of a much broader phenomenon of New Age Kabbalah and attempts to practice Kabbalah outside of Jewish tradition and Judaism. This is a very widespread trend, which exists simultaneously with traditional forms of Kabbalistic studies - in religious institutions, universities and home study groups.

Keywords: Kabbalah, mysticism, Yehudah Ashlag, Baruch Ashlag, Michael Laitman, Sephirot, Moshe Idel, Yehuda Liebes, Zohar, Philip S. Berg, Hasidism, (Free)masons.

BELOW is a conversation conducted by Galina Zelenina, which was attended by Maria Endel (Moscow), a researcher of Jewish mysticism and its reception in the Russian Academy of Sciences.-

Zelenina G., Endel M., Yaglom M. Kabbalah in the XXI century: Coming out of Judaism? // State, religion, and Church in Russia and abroad. 2015. N 3 (33). pp. 170-191.

Zelenina, Galina, Endel, Maria, Yaglom, Menachem and Yaglom, Esther (2015) "Kabbalah in the Twenty-First Century: Departure from Judaism?", Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 33(3): 170 - 191.

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Sonstve, as well as Menachem Yaglom and Esther Yaglom, experts in Kabbalah and Hasidism, organizers of one of the Russian-language Kabbalistic seminars in Jerusalem.

The conversation focuses on several topics: the Kabbalistic boom of recent decades in Israel and Russia; the differentiation between yeshiva, university, and "sectarian" (or New Age) Kabbalah studies; the sociology of Kabbalistic circles; and the tendency to separate Kabbalistic knowledge from the Jewish religion in general, or at least from Orthodox religious practice.

In addition to this conversation, the following material is published: a fragment of an article by an Israeli researcher of Jewish mysticism and Hasidism, Jonathan Meir, about the modern phenomenon of Kabbalah popularization and exoterization (the fragment is devoted to the implementation of this trend in the Russian-speaking space).

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What do we mean by Kabbalah?

Maria Endel: Kabbalah is a Jewish version of mysticism, a collection of ideas and texts that first appeared around the 13th century. Although there are earlier books, the main complex of these ideas appears precisely in the texts of the XIII century. There are different directions in Kabbalah, and there are different variants of its classification. The simplest division of Kabbalah is into theosophical and ecstatic. Both of these trends emerged in the 13th century. Theosophical Kabbalah is associated with the contemplation of the Creator and with reflections on creation. Ecstatic Kabbalah is more practical, it implies attempts to go beyond the "I" and merge with the Creator, while using some literal practices.

An important stage in the development of the theosophical tradition is the Lurian Kabbalah, associated with the name of Yitzhak Luria (Arizal) and his school, which existed in Safed in the XVI-XVII centuries. In Lurian Kabbalah, this tradition probably reaches its maximum complexity and ramification. But this is a stage in the development of the theosophical Kabbalah. The ecstatic Kabbalah, created in the same XIII century by Abraham Abulafia, which later appeared in rather marginal works, and in the XX century became very widespread, did not pass this stage, and the Luria school practically did not notice ecstatic Kabbalah.

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Esther Yaglom: Within the academic tradition, Jewish mysticism is generally divided into two stages: early mysticism (up to about the 12th century) and Kabbalah itself. It should be noted that although the main Kabbalistic concepts and values appear only in the 12th and 13th centuries, they could not have emerged out of nowhere. One of the most important sources of Kabbalah is the Zohar, created in the tradition of the Komarno Hasidic school, based on the development of the teachings of Lurian Kabbalah. Within the tradition, there is a statement that the Zohar existed in the era of the Babylonian gaons. Science, of course, cannot take such claims seriously, although it cannot completely refute them. This means that the question of the development of" early Jewish mysticism "into" Kabbalah " is more complex than we currently realize, and many of the answers to it are hidden in the literature, which, if it has been read for a long time, is still not fully understood by the modern academic consciousness.

Is there a "quality verification"tool? How to distinguish authentic Kabbalistic products from quackery?

Maria Endel: I think it makes sense to talk about some specific terminology, at least a minimal set of ideas. For example, if we see in the texts or practices of any group the concept of the ten Sefirot, the concept of Tzimtzum, the interpretation of letters and gematria, then we can say that it is somehow connected with Kabbalah.

Can't there be profanation and graphomania using these concepts and terms?

Maria Endel: From my point of view, we can talk about phenomena that are more interesting and less interesting, more original and less original. If we see on the Internet the revelations of a person who has read some books for six months (whether in English or Russian), it is most likely unoriginal and uninteresting. But you can't say that this is better or worse than something else. If we respect Judaism, a particular Jewish tradition, then we will say that the Kabbalah created within the framework of this tradition is high - quality, real Kabbalah. And if we look at suspensions and adhere to a scientific approach, then we strive to avoid unambiguous assessments.-

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noc and rather describe the phenomenon and understand how much it is a new step in Kabbalah or, perhaps, it is a new step in New age.

Menachem Yaglom: In my opinion, authentic Kabbalah can only exist within the framework of the Jewish tradition, because it is very much based on Talmudic literature - Midrash literature, on the concept of commandments, which are fundamentally important for Kabbalah. Kabbalah that exists outside of Judaism is either a marginal Kabbalah , such as the Christian Kabbalah, which sprouted from the Jewish Kabbalah; or such as the Lightman Kabbalah , a sectarian teaching that claims to be the only true school that corrects mistakes or deliberate fraud committed by the creators of the original Kabbalistic teaching. The Lightman type of Kabbalah is as far removed from traditional Kabbalah as the Kabbalah of Christian thinkers. That is, a sign of genuine Kabbalah is a sufficient knowledge of the Jewish classical texts and maximum respect for the Jewish laws; not necessarily their scrupulous observance (maybe even violation), but at least their knowledge and orientation to them.

Was there any special Russian Kabbalistic school - a mystical tradition created and developed by Hasidim in the territories that became part of the Russian Empire? Or not just Hasidim?

Menachem Yaglom: In the territory that once belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and then became part of the Russian Empire, Kabbalah flourished luxuriantly. There was a pre-Hasidic Kabbalah, and there were great Kabbalists who lived before Besht, such as Yaakov Kopel Lifshitz from Mezherich and many others. There were mystical brotherhoods that often, though not always, secretly nurtured Sabbatian ideas. The very powerful Kabbalistic tradition of Eastern European Jewry has recently split into two waves: Hasidic Kabbalah and "Lithuanian" Kabbalah, which goes back primarily to the Vilna Gaon. These were two different approaches to Kabbalah within a single tradition. As far as I can see, the kabbalah of the Vilna Gaon was more speculative in nature. And Hasidism is "Kabbalah turned ethos," as Martin Buber put it. In all Hasidic schools, Kabbalah was seen as a tool for human improvement, as a language that allows us to talk about the essence and purpose of service, as a means of spiritual development.

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a way of thinking and being that leads to the achievement of the goals of creation. All Hasidic authors are more or less based on Kabbalah - for Hasidism, this is an absolutely pervasive thing. Another thing is that there are schools in which Kabbalah is a service tool (as in most areas of Ukrainian Hasidism), and there are schools and courtyards that devote themselves entirely to Kabbalah (as, for example, the Komarno school).

Maria Endel: Hasidism is considered a new stage in the development of Kabbalah, when all these numerous theosophical schemes created by Lurian Kabbalists are trying to incorporate into the human soul. In other words, what was first considered a description of the macrocosm becomes a description of the microcosm.

Esther Yaglom: It should be mentioned that among the sources of early Hasidism there is an anonymous treatise called "The Testament of R. Israel Besht", which I have been working on translating into Russian for some time. According to some researchers, it contains 40% of Besht's sayings, and the rest refers to the teachings of the Great Magid of Mezherich. This treatise, among other things, lays the foundations of a certain Kabbalistic lexicon for adherents of Hasidism. In other words, this is a kind of beginner's guide, where the concepts of Kabbalah are formulated, which should be included in the daily religious practice and daily life of a Hasidic. This source shows that all Hasidism is a practical reworking of Kabbalah, in the sense of "Kabbalah in life", so that every Hasidic, even if he does not have the opportunity to study much, can assimilate a system of concepts that will outline for him the mythological space of the world. However, for all its practicality, this project was not based on the idea of "simplifying" Kabbalah, leveling its values and emasculating its content. Living Kabbalah in early Hasidism required a person to develop the capacity for deep mystical experience-even at not very appropriate moments in life.

And today's Hasidism, including Chabad, and today's Litvak Judaism-do they continue Kabbalistic studies, and how high a place do these studies occupy in their axiology?

Menachem Yaglom: Chabad is a deeply Kabbalistic movement, it has a very powerful Kabbalistic school. Basic Chabad Books - and books in Chabad play a bigger role than books in Chabad.

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in most other Hasidic movements, because Chabad is initially an intellectual movement focused on the constant study of texts, these are the texts of Kabbalah. Tania is certainly a Kabbalistic book, as are the other works of the Alter Rebbe, and the main non-Halakhic works of his children are very high and sophisticated Kabbalah.

Another thing is that Chabad found a certain didactic move that allows us to abandon the word "Kabbalah". Chabad says that the Baal Shem Tov and his successors have achieved a perfect synthesis of all four levels of understanding of the Torah: literal meaning, allusion, midrash, and Kabbalah, and therefore, after the emergence of Hasidism, one should not refer to the previous Kabbalah at all; more precisely, one should not follow ordinary people, but should - ad -1 and scientists of the highest level. And although the Tanya and all subsequent Chabad literature is full of quotations from the Zohar, the Ari writings, and so on, the average and even not so ordinary Chabad person is allowed to use all these sources only in those quotations that are given in the Chabad texts.

All other Hasidic movements are also based on Kabbalah, but in very different ways. In some schools, Kabbalah itself is almost never taught - as, for example, in Gura Hasidism, one of the largest modern Hasidic movements. In others, such as Bratslav, intellectuals are required to study the Zohar and Lurian texts. In general, the spread is very large, but at the same time Kabbalah is really present in all Hasidic movements.

If we talk about non-Hasidic Ashkenazi Kabbalah, then in the so-called Lithuanian circles, until recently, it was believed that Kabbalah is the property of the chosen, the great. That is, Kabbalah was taught exclusively by the most prominent rabbis, and they preferred to hide their knowledge in this area. In the last two decades or less, Kabbalah has been actively studied in many Lithuanian yeshivas. Moreover, there are commented editions of classical Kabbalistic texts intended primarily for Lithuanian eshibotniks. In some Lithuanian yeshivas, there are even regular - although, of course, optional - lessons on Kabbalah. This is a completely new phenomenon, this has never happened before

1. Admor-an abbreviation of the words "adoneinu, moreinu ve-rabeinu": "our lord, teacher and rabbi", a title of outstanding sages and figures of the generation.

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no sign of it. That is, once elite knowledge is now becoming publicly available.

Is there an idea in any Jewish movement or school that Kabbalah is a heresy within Judaism?

Menachem Yaglom: It doesn't exist - neither among the Hasidim nor among the Litvaks. Hasidim can't have such an idea because Hasidim are Kabbalists by definition. Among the Litvaks, there is a belief that Kabbalah is esoteric knowledge, intended exclusively for the elite, and when those who should not begin to study it, it turns out to be a profanation of Kabbalah as such.

Of all the Judaist movements I know, the only consistent deniers of Kabbalah who consider it a heresy are the Dardaim 2, Yemeni rationalists, and Maimonides worshippers who consider Kabbalah alien to Yemeni Jewry, introduced to Yemen as a result of several successive national catastrophes. This is an extremely exotic position, and I've never heard of anyone else sharing it. If there are any marginals, it is the Dardaim, as Kabbalah certainly became mainstream Judaism by the 19th century. However, the Jewish Enlightenment figures, the Gaskals, for the most part, also had a very negative attitude towards Kabbalah.

How did Kabbalah enter the Russian cultural space and the field of interests of the Russian intellectual elite?

Maria Endel: Freemasons started to take an interest in Kabbalah under Catherine the Great. Since the end of the 70s of the XVIII century, Freemasonry has been spreading in Russia, which is primarily associated with the name of Ivan Elagin - Catherine's dignitary. He becomes head of the Russian Provincial Lodge, a division of the Grand Lodge of England. Under his leadership, another 15-20 lodges were opened, which included 400-500 people - the highest dignitaries, the top of the society of that time.

2. From the Hebrew dor dea-generation of knowledge.

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According to archival research, Elagin himself was very interested in Kabbalah, looking for teachers, and at different times he was taught by different people. He tried to learn Hebrew - there are very funny notebooks where he writes down the names of the Sefirot in Hebrew and in Russian.

It is obvious that he was not the only one; the same archival materials show that there was an interest in Kabbalah - and not only in Jewish Kabbalah, but also in Christian Kabbalah as a very special phenomenon. It is clear that this interest was precisely Christian. There are many texts where individual Kabbalistic subjects collide with Christian ones and an attempt is made to integrate Kabbalistic ideas into Christianity. In particular, it is said that there is indeed a gap within the world of the Sefirot, but Jesus comes to eliminate this gap. Russian Freemasons had several texts translated from Hebrew - the original Kabbalistic texts of the 13th century and later, already Lurian, texts of theosophical Kabbalah. These are manuscripts that have not yet been published. There are also various papers and diary entries that show how people tried to comprehend Kabbalistic ideas, learn new terminology, and generally understand what they wanted to say.

The basic idea, which I think was shared by most people who were interested in this, was that Kabbalah is some genuine secret knowledge that was received by Abraham or Moses and later distorted by the Jews who preserved and transmitted it; and the task of Christian Kabbalists is to purify it and restore it to its original form. The absolute majority thought so. And there were people who were in close contact with the Jews, received knowledge from them and believed that this knowledge was preserved by the Jews in its purest form and now it is possible to gain it through them. In fact, there were perhaps several dozen such people interested in Kabbalah in Russia at the end of the XVIII - beginning of the XIX century. But we must remember that these were influential officials, the elite of the Russian state.

Russian intellectuals were still interested in Kabbalah later , such as Vladimir Solovyov. It is known that one of his lectures at the Higher Women's Courses was entirely devoted to Kabbalah. His interpretations are very similar to Masonic ones, because he used roughly the same sources, primarily the writings of Christian Kabbalists. At the same time, the Nightingale-

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he doesn't inherit the Masonic tradition - he just read the same texts as the Masons.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Kabbalah is becoming more or less commonplace, and no one is surprised by Kabbalah anymore. And in this background, it is present in almost all the great Russian philosophers of that time: Florensky, Bulgakov, Losev - in the " Philosophy of Name "and"Dialectics of Myth". But after these works in Kabbalistic studies, there is a failure-up to the time of Perestroika.

Was Kabbalah a theme for the Jewish movement of the 1970s and 1980s-in its religious or cultural dimensions?

Menachem Yaglom: There was some interest in Kabbalah among the refuseniks and amateur Ba'alei teshuvahs in Soviet times. In both Moscow and St. Petersburg, since the early 1970s, there have been individuals who have studied Kabbalah and even taught it; circles have sprung up, but very narrow ones. In the 1980s, there was a joke that there were two Kabbalistic schools in Moscow: one studying the Zohar, and the other studying the Zohar. Mikhail Kravtsov studied the Zohar book, and I studied the Zohar book.

Back then, they read everything they could get their hands on, which is practically everything that was published before the revolution. The fact is that in the attics of synagogues - Moscow, St. Petersburg, and throughout the Union, where there were still functioning synagogues - there were huge deposits of books. After the death of the bearers of the tradition, their children, who retained some reverence for Jewish books, most often gave their libraries to synagogues, which were literally littered with Jewish books - any. In the attics of both the Moscow Choral Synagogue and the Maryina Roscha Synagogue, you could find absolutely everything - any Kabbalistic works, including the rarest and most valuable publications, any Hasidic texts, etc. We rummaged in these attics, found books, brought them home, read them, and tried to understand them. Naturally, we read a lot of the Zohar. But, of course, we are talking about units that could read these texts and even understand them to some extent.

After almost all the participants in these "studies" left for Israel, the tradition of studying Kabbalah in Russia, as far as I understand, was again interrupted, and there was no Kabbalah in the framework of the "Jewish renaissance" of the 1990s. Until Lightman and his sectarian Kabbalah were imported here.

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Maria Endel: Yes, there is an extraordinary explosion of interest in Kabbalah associated with Laitman's name. The number of his followers increased tenfold every year. The peak of this movement is in 2002-2004, and then it began to decline. If then we were talking about thousands, even, probably, about tens of thousands, now it is rather hundreds of people.

Mikhail Laitman was born in Vitebsk, majoring in electrical engineering, and left for Israel in the 1970s, where he met Baruch Ashlag, the son of Yehuda Leib Ashlag, a very significant figure in the history of Kabbalah. The elder Ashlag is an Ashkenaz from Poland, born in 1885 and died in 1955; he emigrated from Poland and spent most of his life in Israel. He made a certain revolution in Kabbalah, which is related to the attitude towards non-believers. In order to understand what exactly this revolution is, it must be said that he thought about the structure of the world in general. In his writings, he writes that the Creator is a one-hundred-percent desire to give, a certain force that gives, and a person is a vessel that perceives. Before the fall, everything was perfectly arranged: a person perceived something-light, relatively speaking, which gives-and passed it on. After the fall, everything broke down, man became selfish, and since then the essence of human nature is the desire to receive without the desire to give. And this is the most important breakdown that needs to be repaired: teach a person to give. To do this, a person must go through certain stages, carrying out special practices - prayers, meditations. As a result, in such eschatological times that are now coming, a person must learn to give one hundred percent - just like the Creator. Thus, a person reaches the highest point of his development, including Kabbalistic development.

What exactly is the revolutionary nature of Ashlag's ideas? The fact that he believes that this is how more or less all people are arranged: Jews, non-Jews, observant Jews, and non-observant. Maybe the percentage of Jews is a little higher, so to speak, the ability to give, which is why they were given the Torah and so on. But this is basically how all people work. This is a revolutionary statement, because it is generally accepted among Kabbalists - theosophists, ecstatic, Lurian, and non - Lurian alike-that the soul of a Jew is fundamentally different from that of a non-Jew. The soul of a Jew consists of three parts: nefesh, Ruach, and neshama. All these parts come from divine sources, are connected with both the Sefirot and the higher world of Atzilut, and all of them are connected with the Sefirot.

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the souls of non-believers come from the other side, the so-called "left side" - from the realm of impurity. And before Ashlag, it never occurred to anyone to argue with this attitude. Ashlag, being a completely traditional person, from this environment, said: no, this is not so, among the peoples of the world there are people who are also ready to give, and these people should be brought closer - they should be taught Kabbalah. First of all - them, and then they will spread this knowledge further. And the more widely Kabbalah and the ability to give spread, the faster deliverance will come.

There are some funny things in his teaching. For example, he was very interested in Marxism and believed that history is such cycles when the egoistic principle prevails, and then it is replaced by an altruistic one. At the end of each cycle, a revolution takes place, because the altruistic principle in people revolts against the egoistic one.

And as always in Judaism, this is such a big family, there are many Ashlags. In particular, his son Baruch Ashlag inherited this teaching, and Laitman took it from him. He was Baruch's chauffeur for a while, but then decided that it was time for him to spread Kabbalah himself, and created a movement called Bnei Baruch ("Sons of Baruch") "in honor of Baruch Ashlag." Laitman became the main propagandist of Kabbalah in post-Soviet Russia and in general in the entire Russian-speaking space. This is not only post-Soviet Russia , but also Russian-speaking America, including South America, as well as Australia. He was absolutely everywhere where there are Russians and Russian Jews. Another Ashlag follower who works for an English-speaking audience is Philipp Berg, a teacher of Madonna and other Britney Spears; he did a good job in Hollywood.

Laitman came to Russia with the idea to show that Kabbalah is a science. To do this, he had to introduce himself as a scientist. He got the title of professor here from some mythical academy and defended his thesis at the Academy of Sciences in philosophy.

He went on to say that Kabbalah has no special relation to religion, that it is a kind of universal science, universal knowledge, acquiring which a person finds the right path in life, becomes successful. And the end result is a certain God-likeness, because the person turns into a one-hundred-percent, absolute altruist. This program was well received by his audience, which included Jewish businessmen and Jews.-

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rei-politicians. They just wanted to be like the gods. Laitman caught them writing something like this: "We have a higher goal ahead of us. When we step out of selfishness, we find ourselves in a completely different universe, a different dimension. We go to a level that is above all the phenomena of our world, where we can influence everything that happens. This is really the level of the Creator! And this way out is possible."

Moreover, he preached not only among Jews and generally declared that Kabbalah, as a scientific knowledge that is not related to a particular religion, is available to everyone. He even issued a ban on performing religious rites during classes of groups other than Jewish ones. He himself appears at various performances in a kippah, then without a kippah and insists that the Jewish coloring in Kabbalah is a pure accident. But at the same time, historically, the group that was closest to him was a group of Jews: the top Jewish businesses in Russia and members of the Federation Council.

These are the ones who were around Lightman. And then there were, I think, students and all sorts of young people, as they say, seekers, who simultaneously with classes in Lightman groups could go to various other esoteric parties. At the same time, it should be understood that participation in this movement required a certain discipline from a person: he had to attend classes at least once or twice a week, he really had to study. There were separate men's and women's groups, they studied separately. For women's groups, as always, there were some exemptions, but in general there was also a rather strict discipline.

Learning at the same time was not so easy, because Lightman's books were used as textbooks. And these are quite difficult texts to learn, because, for example, Lightman's translation strategy is that he leaves all the terms untranslated. That is, a person must learn at least 500 Hebrew and Aramaic words, and in a very specific, Kabbalistic meaning. Lightman has books of various levels. There are quite popular books that are written in more or less human Russian - poor, but Russian. And it summarizes the teaching of Ashlag: for everything to be good, you need to be an altruist. And there are books that are written in a language that is close to gibberish: you open them, and if you are just outside, you will not even understand what is being said.

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It's full of absolutely unimaginable Lurian Kabbalistic terminology, the devil will break a leg.

What did Lightman actually teach his followers other than altruism? What was the specific content of his teaching, and was there any innovation in it compared to the Ashlag teaching?

Maria Endel: The content is something like this. The whole world, as Laitman himself says, was created by God according to a certain" instruction", libretto. According to this instruction, there are 125 steps that a person must go through to become like the Creator. In order for him to pass these stages, it requires daily practice to track his thoughts and actions. Here I wanted this, and there I wanted that. What does this mean? This means that the ray from the Sefira of Kether does not fall into the Sefira of Yesod, but into the Sefira of Malchut. Something like this.

If you listen to his lectures on YouTube or the lectures of his follower, the notorious oligarch Vladimir Slutsker3, it is impressive. It sounds like higher mathematics or physics. For the uninitiated, this seems just nonsense, because there is a huge amount of terminology with a rather unclear logic and unclear result.

As for innovation, Laitman, like Slutsker, is good just because they do not invent anything themselves - they just repeat what they have learned. The Ashlag teaching, of course, is not as simple, not as primitive, as I say here - it is much more complex. And Lightman learned it well and broadcasts it without changes. Except that it makes it easier for your audience, tries to make it as clear as possible.

The fact that his lectures sound like higher mathematics - is this an appeal to the audience of late Soviet Jews with mainly technical education?

Maria Endel: I think so. These Jewish businessmen clustered around Laitman - they're all techies, they've graduated from everything from fence-building to MAI because they weren't accepted to university. And the language of Lightman - also an engineer-they are in ka-

3. For example, here: http://kabbalist.ru/10_lectures.html (accessed: 28.09.2015).

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in some sense, he bribed me. This is not even a pseudoscientific, but, I would say, a pseudo-technical language. And they believed the content, because they knew the language, because they were spoken to in their own language. Don't underestimate this factor.

There is an opinion that Laitman's project is a wiring project, and its purpose is purely commercial. Is it so? Or did Lightman still have good goals, and a successful financial project was combined with a project, say, to fix the world?

Maria Endel: This is an interesting question - who is Laitman: just a scoundrel for whom Kabbalah has become a business, or such a pure soul, around which very specific people gathered and used it to create a financial pyramid?

Of course, all his followers deducted tithes from their income, and the income of senators, for example, is still very large. Financially, it was, I think, quite a lucrative venture. But these deductions were made openly, transparently, with universal consent.

It seems to me that neither Laitman nor Slutsker saw Kabbalah as a commercial project. With all the rigidity of Slutsker, with all the scandals associated with him, it is unlikely that he would have made money on Kabbalah - he was already a very non-poor person. He and similar oligarchs are people who have received a lot of money in some very strange way, but who at the same time felt that happiness was not in money, they wanted something else. These are people who really wanted to understand something and change it for the better.

I remember one time they invited me to a restaurant (they wanted to hire me), and one of them, after drinking, said to me: "Well, in general, life is empty without this Kabbalah. I have an apartment in New York and a yacht in the bay. So what else should I do? Another apartment in New York to buy?". I think this person spoke absolutely sincerely. A lot of money fell on them, but they were completely disoriented, did not understand what to do next, how to live in general. That is not to say that this is a purely commercial project. However, there were certainly people in these groups who were motivated by commercial, career, or other considerations that were far from purely spiritual.

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Why did this movement decline?

Maria Endel: It started, I think, with the fact that Slutsker, who was the richest and most influential of Laitman's students, quarreled with him. Slutsker left his teacher and created his own group and subgroups. Perhaps it was this split that undermined the movement, because it turned out that it was not one, that there was no longer one truth, but two.

But in general, I think that it is like any fashion: it passes the peak and comes to naught. After all, not only that ended; now interest in esotericism in general is clearly on the decline. And in the 1990s, there were a lot of preachers and a powerful esoteric movement. In general, I think life is getting boring. We have Orthodoxy, which solves all spiritual problems. And there is, accordingly, Chabad Judaism, also close to the authorities, which also officially solves all spiritual needs and problems. Time is different - a continuous "vertical", in which only large structures like itself survive.

Can we say that the senators ' study of Kabbalah repeated the situation of Catherine's time?

Maria Endel: In a sense, yes. Once again, Kabbalah attracted the interest of senior officials. It was only under Catherine that these people were Russians, but here they were still mostly Jews by origin, although Laitman tried to abstract from Judaism. Slutsker, on the other hand, wanted to integrate into the Jewish official world in order to preach among Jews. He had the idea that traditional Jews do not know the truth, but he, Slutsker, understood it and it is necessary to convert them, not only gentiles.

And what is the attitude of representatives of this "official Jewish world", orthodox Judaism, to Laitman and his followers? Do they consider him a Kabbalist, or at least do they see him as a useful popularizer?

Maria Endel: The attitude towards Laitman is definitely bad, because they don't even think that he brings anyone closer to Judaism-those who are far away, but could potentially come closer - as Chabad people tend to do. Even in this article, Lightman does not pass - he is an unequivocal enemy.

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And in Israel - apart from Laitman's groups - do Russian-speaking people study Kabbalah? And how is this embedded in the general trends in Israeli Kabbalah - yeshiva and academic?

Esther Yaglom: In general, in Israel in the last twenty years, there has been a rise in interest in Kabbalah, both among the religious public in yeshivas and colleges, and among the secular public in universities.

I remember Moshe Idel always telling me that when he came to Hebrew University as a young man, there were only a few people who studied Kabbalah. The very word "Kabbalah" was foreign to the university public. Now Moshe Idel and Yehuda Libes (they are the same age, born in 1947) are two venerable emeritus professors who formed the basis of the generation of Kabbalah researchers after Gershom Scholem. And after 20 years, there were already so many people who wanted to study Kabbalah that it became difficult to get into graduate school on Kabbalistic topics. Officially, 25 graduate students were assigned to one manager, and then the number of people who wanted to get to each of them began to reach 40.

Many people went to the study of Kabbalah just to be able to study Kabbalistic texts from the point of view of a modern person, but probably half or a third were able to stay in science. Actually, there are not many Kabbalah professors, although there are several times more than there were two decades ago.

In general, in modern Israel, there is a very strong desire to learn in different social strata. Religious knowledge suddenly became necessary, fashionable and interesting, and mysticism turned out to be such a cherished field that everyone suddenly wanted to study. It is unlikely that this is caused by the search for practical means to achieve good luck in life; rather, the reason is that it gives new content to life, opens the inner gates to the perception of beauty, pleasure, happiness, meaning of life. And people who can't study it in traditional institutions - for example, broad sections of the intelligentsia, non - Orthodox people, especially women, who are not allowed in yeshivas and kolels-go to study Kabbalah at the university, as well as in various Beit Midrashim, secular yeshivas and all sorts of intermediate educational institutions that are open to any contingent and where they will be given the opportunity to read texts independently. 60 - 70% of them are women. By the way, some Orthodox people come to the university specifically to study Kabbalah at the academy, and there are also many representatives of the national-religious direction.

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Are these people just unorthodox or completely irreligious? Do they have the idea, like Lightman, that Kabbalah exists separately from Judaism? Or at least separate from compliance: that one can learn Kabbalah and other texts, gain knowledge, including secret knowledge, but not be a observant Jew?

Menachem Yaglom: Of course, there is such an idea. But the point is that the university public has a slightly different approach. Initially, Scholem created the academic science of Kabbalah. Just as the science of Buddhology deals with knowledge about Buddhism, but not Buddhism, and the line between one and the other is very thin, so the science created by Scholem is focused on the acquisition of knowledge about Kabbalah, and not on the knowledge of Kabbalah. This is a fundamentally different approach-detached, positivist to a large extent. But many of those who go to universities to take courses on Kabbalah try to get closer to Kabbalah itself, and not to the science of it-much like the Baalei Teshuva of the Soviet era read the books of Belenky and other anti-Judaism fighters from the "Scientific Atheist Library" in order to gain some knowledge of Judaism, and not about it. Judaism. And it is very difficult for professors, researchers of Kabbalah, to refrain from identifying with it. For example, Yehuda Libes, it seems to me, considers himself no less a Kabbalist than a scholar of Kabbalah. And there are many such people, including among the teachers of Israeli universities. Avi Elkayam, Israel's foremost scholar of Sabbatianism and all sorts of esoteric Kabbalah, is not only and not so much a university professor, but - and over the years more and more-a heresiarch, a neo-Sabbatian who carries out a wide variety of Sabbatian practices. For example, he celebrates Shabtai Zvi's birthday on 9 Av in a big way-with music, dancing, and all sorts of clever meditations. Of course, Avi Elkayam is an active heresiarch, and not just a university professor.

Esther Jaglom: I made a serious mistake at the time, believing in the inevitability of a detached positivist approach in the academy. Scholem may have distanced himself from the subject of his study. In any case, my first teacher in science, Moshe Idel, told me exactly this: "Never believe what you are studying, never identify yourself with the subject

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studies". Libes , my other teacher, was never far away. He spent his whole life figuring out his relationship with the commandments: then he took off the kippa, then put it on again. His wife, Esther, has always maintained the atmosphere of a Jewish home. Some of Libes ' classes are held not at the university department, but in different homes-in the circle of his long-term students, who, becoming independent teachers, continue to attend his lectures. To this day, even in retirement, he has a constant day and hour when he reads his courses, because that's what he has decreed with his favorite students-constant Torah hours. He spends a lot of time communicating with the religious part of the audience. His classes, as in the past, are attended not only by secular people, but also by Hasidim from Mea Shearim. And it seems to me that these people generally do not have such an agenda: "We are ours, we will build a new world; the commandments are old, we will throw them out and read only the texts." Some of the audience may think so, but not all of them.

There is also a wonderful student of Libes - my friend and teacher Melila Gellner. She teaches the Zohar at the university, with the most esoteric parts of the Zohar being the Idrot. It is visited by people who have been studying for half their lives, and the young people are beautiful and very bright. Many of them have a completely religious Jewish perception of the world, which comes from blood, and not from education at all. Melila herself is a type of religious reformer. Just as Idra Raba is a certain revolutionary manifesto in the Jewish religion, so Melila, who teaches it , is a bright personality who strives to revitalize modern Jewish religious thought. She not only teaches at the university, but also was at the origin of many creative and educational initiatives, secular yeshivas, Beit Midrash, and is now associated with many of them. She teaches Kabbalistic texts as a call for humanization and spiritual renewal of Israeli society. She and her audience are completely alien to the idea that we should throw junk in the landfill and take knowledge, like Lightman.

And what happens outside the academy, in purely orthodox circles?

Menachem Yaglom: There are several powerful Kabbalistic traditions: Hasidic, Lithuanian, Sephardic. There are several dozen Kabbalistic yeshivas and kolels in Jerusalem alone,

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including very large ones; mostly Sephardic, to a lesser extent Ashkenazi. Actually, the classical Kabbalistic Ashkenazi Yeshiva is one - "Shaarei Shamayim". There are traditions in Iraq, Yemen, and North Africa that differ somewhat in their approaches, although all have largely adopted the principles of the Sephardic Kabbalah of Rashash - Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, an 18th - century Jerusalem Kabbalist and head of the Beit El Yeshiva.

There are purely Kabbalistic Hasidic courts of so-called "self-made admors" who are not descendants or students of former tzaddiks, but become admors when they are recognized as such by sufficiently large groups of followers. The most prominent figure in this field is Yitzhak-Meir Morgenstern, who created an ecstatic Kabbalistic Hasidic court that attracts people from a wide variety of circles - both ultra-Orthodox of all stripes, as well as university scientists, as well as students of national religious yeshivas. Morgenstern's Yeshiva is called "Torat Chacham"after the book of the same name by Chaim de la Rosa, a disciple and successor of Shalom Sharabi and the third head of the Beit El Yeshiva, who wrote probably the most complex book in the Sephardic Kabbalah tradition - the Beit El Kabbalah. And the court of Morgenstern arose around the study of this book.

In addition to Sephardic and Ashkenazi yeshivas and Hasidic courtyards, Kabbalah is studied in considerable detail and depth, surprisingly enough, in the "knitted" yeshivas of religious Zionists, including in army yeshivas. I once studied at a similar institution-Beit Morasha, which corresponds to the ideas of Rav Kook and combines yeshiva proper, very high-level, and university education. There were brilliant Kabbalah lessons - at a very high level, very deep.

And finally, there are circles for which the idea of abandoning the commandments, leaving only the text, is very important. This is not to say that these circles are non-religious. In general, the concept of "religious" in Russia and in Israel is fundamentally different. In Russia, a person who believes in God is considered religious. In Israel, however, there is no question of being religious - by default, it is assumed that everyone is religious. But at the same time, someone keeps the commandments, someone refuses to keep them, and someone opposes the observance.

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For example, the secular yeshiva "Bina" and a number of other institutions that also study Kabbalah are institutions that do not observe in principle, although there may well be individual observant people. In general, Kabbalistic circles, so to speak, intellectual to one degree or another, are very numerous in Israel, and most of them do not rely on any tradition; they only study texts according to this or that method or without any method at all.

Do they study primary sources, or retellings, or some adapted editions?

Menachem Yaglom: This is an important question. The basis of Kabbalah is the Book of Zohar, without the Zohar, Kabbalah simply does not exist. The Zohar has been an esoteric book for a very long time, mainly because of its complex and inaccessible language, which differs from the Talmudic language, the Targum language, and generally from the well-known dialects of Aramaic, as well as the lack of any consistent and publicly accessible commentaries. Pre-existing commentaries on the Zohar were more likely to delve into the analysis of the text, rather than trying to somehow reveal and explain it. And in recent decades, there have been a number-I know of six-of complete translations of the Zohar into Hebrew, with detailed consecutive commentaries addressed to varying degrees to the general public. That is, the Zohar from a purely esoteric book gradually becomes a publicly accessible book.

But the Russian translations of the Zohar - there are several of them, Laitman's or various Ashlagian ones-are all absolutely monstrous. There is one small book, a translation of fragments from the Zohar, made by Mikhail Kravtsov, but this is a drop in the bucket. And in general, there are almost no published decent translations of Kabbalistic texts. That is, Russian literature of this kind does not yet exist.

Is there an oral Russian-language tradition, practice, and clubs?

Menachem Yaglom: There is our circle and the circle of Mikhail Schneider, in which several dozen people move; there are other circles that are unknown or little known to us. Despite the fact that the study in them takes place in Russian and everything else.-

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As Russian speakers, these circles are part of a large non-Russian community of Kabbalah students. Although the Russian language, of course, contributes something of its own. It is clear that all Russian people who study Kabbalah not only speak Russian, but also think in Russian. This gives a slightly different view, a different turn of thinking - and this is quite a lot.

There is a fundamental difference between us and Misha Schneider. We are largely isolated in the Russian environment - this is historically the case. Schneider, on the other hand, was able to break down the wall and become part of the general Israeli and, to some extent, global science of Kabbalah. He wrote three large monographs in Hebrew and a large number of excellent articles. He doesn't write anything in Russian for a long time - only in Hebrew. But at the same time, his articles and books are very much based on Russian thinking, because he was brought up in the Russian language, Russian culture, and Russian literary and humanitarian traditions.

Esther Jaglom: At the moment, it is difficult for me to formulate how I fundamentally differ in my perception of Kabbalah from the same Melila Gellner, although, of course, we have much more differences than we have in common. I will say that now I am much more interesting not in the Russian-speaking community, where I am oppressed by a sense of some impasse.

We teach Kabbalah to young people and students - both in Israel and in Russia. They all look quite secular, people of the modern world. At the same time, teaching is much easier for those who were born in Israel and went to school here. They were taught that the Torah is not just a text, but a source from the end of the 13th century-not just a subject of research. They perceive the Zohar as something that is directly relevant to their life and to the present. In addition, certain verses of the Torah are known to them, they have somehow crossed paths with them before, and in Kabbalah the Torah comes to life for them, opens up in a completely new way. These young people read the Zohar and suddenly see that reality is shaped by the Torah.

And it is very difficult to explain to students from Russia that this is not just a text, that through these cells, through these letters, through this ligature, we see what is happening to us now. They need to explain this for a long time. And they do not know the Bible verses - they know one percent of what is found there, and this is a serious obstacle, because after all, Kabbalah and all Jewish teaching is based on the Biblical text and its interpretations. This is the one-

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these multi-story texts are prism on prism, with some lines shining through others, creating holograms. Therefore, again, it is very difficult to master Kabbalah outside of the living Jewish tradition.

Interviewed by Galina Zelenina

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