Human Beings Become Lights and Letters: from Talmudic Midrash to a Zoharic Vision

• In Event: Graduate Student Lightning Session: Philosophy, Mysticism, and Theology

Abstract

Within the 'Heychalot' literature of the Zohar, there is an intensive use of visual mysticism where the colors, lights and spirits are the foundations of the mystic person's experience. Through the practice of these elements in imagination and thought, he rises up to a vision of the upper Heychalot – The Devine Halls.
But it is not only tools of imagination, rather an intellectual use of the prior biblical and midrashic stratum.
In this presentation I will like to explore one example that uses the biblical story as a base to the mystical vision of the Zohar.
I'm referring to the evolution of the motif of the 72 elders. These figures appear first as prophets in the bible, then as the Sanhedrin in the Talmud. Even the Zohar indicates two different phases of this motif: in Heychalot Bereshit it evolves to be a heavenly court that is composed out of 72 lights while the Heychalot Pekuday suggests it as a representation of God's name of 72 letters.
This spiritual evolvement opens a discussion on two developments that happen to the biblical myth. The first one is from the biblical text onwards – abstraction: the biblical motif is transferred of human body to the god and assimilate as lights or God's name. The other is back to the biblical text – enrichment: by the interpretive process the biblical motif is enriched as its human characters become a direct representation of God's name. Thus representation makes these characters to divine entity in itself

Author

• Tchiya Fruman, Ben Gurion University of the Negev