CABBALA (Hebr. qabbālāh, “tradition”). — A term originally referring to the prophetic books of the Bible, which since the twelfth century A.D. has designated Jewish esoteric doctrine. The emergence of this doctrine was influenced, to a greater or lesser extent directly, by the theosophy ma'āšeh mer-kābhāh (“work of the divine chariot,” Ez. 1) and the tannaitic cosmogony, ma'āšeh bērēšīth (“work of the beginning” of creation), by the Gaonite Sa'adjah’s (v.) commentary on the “Book of Creation” (sēpher jēšīrāh), the speculations on the divine names of Judah Levita and Abraham ibn Ezra, the doctrine of will and the Word which the cabalists (mēgabbālām) drew from Ibn Gabirol and Joseph ibn Saddiq, the historical-philosophical speculations on creation by Abraham bar Hijjā, Neoplatonic emanationism (the theory of the levels of being in a threefold gradation: intellect, soul, nature), Neoplatonic psychology, the doctrine of the active intellect, the prophetological doctrine of Maimonides, and Hasidism or Pietism, which became established in Germany and France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Sa'adjah’s theory of the šēkhīnāh (divine immanence) is there linked with speculations on the primordial man ('adhām qadhmōn) and the cherubim, originating in the mysticism of the “chariot,” and with a particular theory of the “logos.”
The c. does not represent a mystical conception of God; the state of ecstasy has only secondary importance in it, and the principle “I in you” is absent. Rather, it aims at a theoretical knowledge of the divine attributes, a knowledge of a contemplative character, resulting from revelations which the master communicates confidentially to his chosen disciples.
Nor are magical conceptions in the c. truly magical. Magic appears only in the practical c. (the “cabbala”), and not in the speculative c., insofar as it seeks to influence the divine will without becoming its master.
Demonology is not truly such, insofar as it does not regard demons as beings who rise up against God, but as evil forces at God’s service. In general, the basic principle of biblical prophetism prevails in the c.: “I and you,” joined to an element of national egocentrism: Israel depends entirely on God; the salvation of humanity and of the entire cosmos, in turn, depends on the purity of the community of Israel. This is an idea—the notion that nature suffers and declines with man and because of man, and with him rises again and is renewed—which, undergoing the most varied developments and elevations, runs through all of Sacred Scripture, from the opening pages of Genesis to the letters of St. Paul (cf. P. H. M. Biedermann, Die Erlösung der Schöpfung beim Apostel Paulus, Würzburg 1940).
Cabalistic literature is contained in many unpublished manuscript works (very many of them in Jerusalem). Belonging to the ancient period are the Pir'xe hēkhāhāth (“Heavenly Palaces”) and the book Bāhir (“Radiance”); translated and edited by G. Scholem, Das Buch B., Berlin 1933). Most cabalistic works, including the celebrated book Zōhar (“Splendor”), circulated as anonymous literature or under pseudonyms. Thus the Zōhar was attributed to a Palestinian doctor of the second century A.D., Simeon ben Jōhāj. The Zōhar is a collection of writings—the fundamental part in the form of a theosophical commentary on the Pentateuch—which became “the Bible” of cabalism. The “editor” was the thirteenth-century cabalist Moses de León. The Zōhar appears to have aimed at counterbalancing the influence of Aristotelianism and its Jewish followers. Some of the writings included in the Zōhar differ on certain important doctrinal questions from the thought of Moses de León. A critical edition of the Zōhar is still lacking. The method followed in the exposition is allegorical. The symbol exists independently of the discovery of the object symbolized. In this way the c. succeeds in preserving the entirety of the traditional material contained in rabbinic teaching.
At the center of cabalistic thought stands the doctrine of the ten sēphirōth, a term which J. Klatzkin (Thesaurus philosophicus linguae hebraicae, III, p. 109) explains as “powers (degrees, madhrēghōth) or qualities in the concatenation of emanation and creation.” The organic connection among the sēphirōth is presented graphically in the form of a tree or of the primordial man. Through knowledge of the intimate essence of the ten sēphirōth, the pious man (saddiq) brings his spiritualized prayers and pious works before the Absolute, the 'ēn sōph (“without end”). The sēphirōth are related to the Decalogue and to the ten words through which the world was created (Abhōth, V, 1; Hagīgāh, 12 a). The canonical order in which the sēphirōth follow one another is: kēther (“crown”), hokhmāh (“wisdom”), bī-nāh (“intellect”), gēdhullāh (“greatness”) or hēsedh (“grace”), gēbhārāh (“strength”) or dīn (“judgment”), tiph'ēreth (“beauty”) or rahāmīm (“mercy”), nesah (“duration,” “splendor”), hōd (“majesty”), saddīq (“just”) or jēsōdh ('ōlām) (“foundation of the world”), maikhāth (“kingdom”) or 'ōjārāh (“crown”). Each of the sēphirōth also has other symbolic names, associated with scriptural verses.
From the twelfth century onward, major centers of cabalistic study arose in Provence. In Spain, the c. was favored by Solomon ben Adret (v. ADRET), who was not, however, active from a literary standpoint. A representative of contemplative c. was Abraham Abulafia (thirteenth century). His disciple Josef Gikatila came under the influence of the Zōhar. The cabalistic doctrine of Jishāq ibn Latif (late thirteenth century) had a philosophical character; that of Abraham ben Eliezer (in Jerusalem from 1515) was apocalyptic in character. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the city of Safed (Upper Galilee) rose to great importance for the development of the c. The great codifier Josef Caro was also under the influence of the c. Moses Cordovetio (1522–70), the systematic theologian of the c., was celebrated. Superior to him was only Isaac Luria, called Ha-'āri (1534–72). Among the opponents of the c. was the well-known rabbi of Venice, Leone Modena. Cabalism influenced two extensive pseudo-messianic movements: Sabbatianism and Frankism.
Among Christians, Marsilio Ficino cites the book Bāhir under the title “Lucid” in the treatise De christiana religione; Pico della Mirandola (1463–94) pursued Jewish studies together with Elia Del Medigo and JōhānāALEMANNI (v.). In a letter addressed to Pico, Elia sets forth the fundamental principles of the cabalistic system. In his work Bēhinath had-dāth (“Examination of religion”), Elia maintains that the identification of God with the sēphirōth is incompatible with the Jewish faith; if the 'ēn sōph is admitted as the first cause above the sēphirōth, there can be no true contradiction with religion. Flavio Mitridate prepared Latin translations of cabalistic works for Pico. Pico was the first to bring the c. into contact with Christian thought; he frequently appeals to it in the “Conclusions.”
Giovanni Reuchlin (d. in 1522) systematically expounds the c. for Christian use in De verbo mirifico (1494) and in De arte cabalistico (1517): the name of Jesus is the true “verbum mirificum.” Other Christian scholars of the c. in the sixteenth century were Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo, Paolo Riccio, and Pietro Galatino. The Protestant mystic Guillaume Postel translated the Zōhar and the Book of Creation into Latin; the school of Jacob Böhme devoted itself to cabalistic studies.
Among the Jewish representatives of the c. in Italy we may mention: in the tenth century, S. Donnolo da Oria (cf. D. Castelli, Il commento di S. D. sul libro della Creazione, Florence 1882); in modern times, the moralist Moses Hajim Luzzatto (1707–46) and the rabbi Elia Benamozegh (1822–1900).
BIBLI: G. Scholem, Kabbala, in Enc. Ind., IX, pp. 630-732; U. Cassuto, Gli ebrei a Firenze nell'età del Rinascimento, Firenze 1918, ind. s. V. Kabbala; E. Zolli, Profetismo e misticismo in Israele, in Studi storico-religiosi, Udine 1933, pp. 246-53; G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Nuova York 1946; G. Vaida, Introduction à la pensée juive du moyen âge, Parigi 1947, pp. 197-210 and 238-40.