Introduction
The Tetragrammaton undergirds the exceedingly rich and diverse linguistic theosophical works that were penned within the framework of the thirteenth-century literature known as “kabbalah.” As per all these inquiries, the unified godhead—referring to the revealed “positive” extension of the divine—comprises different powers or elements that form an organic-cum-holistic body. These theories often drew on a combination of middot (divine psychological and functional traits),Footnote 1 sefirot (eons or supernal emanations), familial imagery (including father, son, and holy spirit),Footnote 2 and divine names, above all YHWH.Footnote 3 Besides discussions pertaining to the theosophical components and practices aimed at cleaving to and uniting these elements, there are commentaries that focus on the divine names and their letters qua the building blocks of the godhead.
Over the last few years, the two authors have identified and analyzed dozens of kabbalistic commentaries on the Tetragrammaton from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.Footnote 4 The majority of these compositions have yet to be published and have largely been ignored by scholars of kabbalah. According to this body of works, the divine names constitute the ontological fabric of and shed new light on many kabbalistic discussions concerning the godhead, its elements, and the practices tied to this diversity. Through the prism of these forgotten commentaries, we provide a fresh look at the early kabbalistic godhead of divine names. In our estimation, this approach will elucidate the Tetragrammaton’s role in the early kabbalists’ theosophical, theurgical, and mystical discussions.
The kabbalistic godhead under review constitutes a major turn of events in the annals of Jewish thought. Scholars have debated the extent to which this phenomenon is built on Jewish sources and, alternatively, external traditions, such as Gnosticism and Neoplatonism. In addition, there is little consensus over whether this development is better classified as a theological response to the rise of medieval Jewish philosophy and its transcendent deity or to the philosophical criticism against the worship of intermediary forces.Footnote 5 While biblical and rabbinic sources portrayed a sole creator in anthropomorphic and mythical terms,Footnote 6 they did not put forth a systematic godhead.Footnote 7 Medieval Jewish thinkers introduced a “philosophical monotheism” theory in which God is transcendent, unapproachable, and immutable. For this reason, they refrained from developing a theory in which god participates or extends his being into a godhead. With the emergence of kabbalah at the beginning of the 1200s, however, medieval Jewish thought contributed immensely to the development of this idea.
Gershom Scholem viewed the rise of kabbalistic theosophy as a synthesis of Neoplatonism and esoteric Gnostic traditions that penetrated Jewish lore during antiquity and eventually rose to the surface in the late twelfth century. Save for the rabbinic and Hellenistic forms of Judaism, the distinguished scholar posited that a third, Gnostic branch took root in antiquity.Footnote 8 Mosaic Gnosticism’s principal contribution, he averred, was the kabbalistic divinity of sefirotic emanation. This view, which most scholars have rejected, perhaps accounts for Scholem’s emphasis—in some of his studies—on the sefirot as a Jewish version of the Gnostic or even Zoroastrian eons.Footnote 9 In so doing, he marginalized other equally vital aspects of the kabbalistic godheads, such as divine names and middot.Footnote 10
Since Scholem’s formative studies, other researchers have also drawn such a correlation with Neoplatonism. That said, they contend that the internal rabbinic traditions are the primary source of the kabbalistic godhead.Footnote 11 The literature has also recognized the pivotal role of the divine names and their constituent letters in the early kabbalistic theosophies and, all the more so, later phases of the kabbalah. However, this outlook has yet to be outlined in a systematic and thorough manner.Footnote 12 The commentaries on the divine names break new ground on the centrality of this discourse and invite a fresh look at the emergence of the godheads in early kabbalah. What is more, the practices espoused in this corpus revolve around these same appellations.
As opposed to the divine names and middot, the sefirot only turn up in Sefer Yeṣirah and its early commentaries from the tenth century onwards.Footnote 13 While the sefirot had a minimal presence in the Jewish literature that preceded the kabbalah and are by no means the cynosure of Sefer Yeṣirah, the names have biblical, rabbinic, magical, philosophic, and mystical sources, including Sefer Yeṣirah. These compositions stress the role of the Tetragrammaton’s letters in the creation of the cosmos and reality as a whole.Footnote 14 One would be hard-pressed to overstate the magnitude of the sources that pertain to God’s names, including semi-ontological or hypostatic discussions on the linguistic essence of the divine—a discourse that perhaps laid the groundwork for the emergence of the kabbalistic theosophy of these names.Footnote 15 Furthermore, there are similarly rich traditions on the names of God and angels, particularly Metatron, mostly in the Hekhalot and Ashkenazi sources, among others.Footnote 16 Whereas the early kabbalah eschewed incorporating most of the angels into the godhead, the vision of an appellational divinity corresponded with the supernal realm of angelic names.Footnote 17
These stages, along with metaphysical perceptions of the names introduced by medieval Jewish philosophers, subsequently nourished many of the relevant theosophical discussions on this topic in early kabbalah. While the godhead of sefirot seems foreign to the rabbinic tradition, to the extent that Scholem stipulated a Gnostic influence, the theosophy of names and middot coheres with this vast lore, including discussions portraying the names’ hypostatic status in the Hekhalot literature and the output of the German pietists (Hasidei Ashkenaz).
Scholem’s accentuation of the Gnostic-like sefirot as the essence of the kabbalistic theosophy reverberates in the historiography of kabbalah, which came to be portrayed as a form of Jewish theology standing in contrast to rabbinical Judaism. Furthermore, this contributed to the idea (also promoted by Scholem) that YHWH and other divine names are symbols that allude to the sefirot. In our view, the kabbalistic sources imply that the names and the sefirot are corresponding theosophical discourses that frequently refer to and interconnect with each other in a way that repudiates the symbolic character of these discussions. Moreover, these texts debunk the unfounded theory that the sefirot are somehow more numinous or recondite than the names and middot.
As illustrated below, divine names not only serve as a fundamental theosophical discourse but undergird theurgical and mystical practices as well. The Tetragrammaton was at the focus of these early kabbalistic practices, thereby attesting to the outsized role of the theosophy of the names. Scholem’s contention aside, these practices are not symbolic acts, for the kabbalist cleaves to and works directly with the name.
The said discourse generally assumes that the linguistic entities are interwoven into an ontological divine “matrix,” “chain,” or “fabric.”Footnote 18 Interconnected and issuing from the Tetragrammaton, these elements form the godhead of divine names. In essence, such discussions posit that none of the appellations, including the Tetragrammaton, stands alone, but are part of a linguistic chain. Therefore, God’s names are not discrete symbols but complex beings that interact with their counterparts and other theosophical entities.
The divine appellations are often described as the body of God through which the shefʿa (abundance) or the holy spirit duly emanates. The ontic bond between the names is reflected in the inter-weaving of various constituent letters. Put differently, the appellations interconnected in ways that enabled them to share their inner essences and transport them beyond the divine boundaries.
Horizontal and Vertical Chains of Divine Names
For the most part, the linguistic theosophies in early kabbalah focus on horizontal and vertical axes, each comprised of several linked appellations. These axes derive from rabbinical discussions that connect specific names with middot. The most famous of these, which left a profound mark on early kabbalah, is the identification between YHWH and the measure of divine “grace” and between Elohim and the measure of divine “judgment.” Myriad studies have already parsed the manner in which the rabbinic discussions on God’s virtues and names fed theosophical structures in early kabbalah.Footnote 19 The horizontal arrangement of the virtues of judgment (din), grace (ḥesed), and mercy (raḥamim)—identified as or with a farrago of divine names—evolved into a major avenue in different early kabbalistic theosophies. This axis is primarily concerned with grasping divine action and its characteristics, as well as balancing between left and right (female and male). Accordingly, theurgical steps along this axis endeavor to maintain the equilibrium between the extremes.
A different theosophical axis vertically links the names Ehyeh, YHWH, and Adonai. This kabbalistic tradition reached an advanced stage of development in the thirteenth century, grounding itself in Midrashic sources that describe God’s revelation as Ehyeh asher Ehyeh (“I will be who I will be,” Exod 3:14) along with its connection to the Tetragrammaton and its epithet Adonai (Lord).Footnote 20 According to some kabbalists, Ehyeh is the inner, hidden source of YHWH; and the same can be said for the relationship between the latter and Adonai. However, it bears noting that these Midrashic sources make no reference to a vertical theosophic axis where the names emanate from each other.
This vertical axis embodies the central role of action and delegation within the divine system, namely the issuing forth of each name from the one above. As such, God’s overflow is conveyed from the divine source to the sub-divine realms. In common kabbalistic parlance, this axis constitutes “the middle line” (kav ha-emṣa’i) of the theosophical system or space. To wit, it is mainly responsible for preserving the balance between the “sides” along the horizontal axis. By virtue of this theurgical act, the divine shefʿa is proactively advanced downwards.Footnote 21
The Hypostatic and Metaphysical Perceptions of the Names
Against the backdrop of this emerging nominal theosophy, a few sources offered hypostatic views of the Tetragrammaton, other divine names, and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Such ideas, which were developed in the Hekhalot and Ashkenazi literature,Footnote 22 also undergirded the theosophical discourse of the kabbalists. As per the Hekhalot corpus, God’s appellations are a crucial component of the mythical divine ontology; engraved on God’s body or throne, the names are occasionally independent beings.Footnote 23 Correspondingly, they play a vital role in the ecstatic techniques of such ancient Jewish texts.Footnote 24 There is a radical difference between a hypostatic perception and a theosophy of names. In a linguistic theosophy, the names are the substance of the divine, emanating from its source and transmitting divine flow from one name or letter to another.
The medieval metaphysics of divine names set the stage for kabbalistic theosophy. Such speculations formed a critical link between the appellations qua metaphysical beings that are part of an ontological structure of emanation, the knowledge contained in the names, and the idea that one may cleave to them and draw from their knowledge and metaphysical power. While categorically different than the kabbalistic theosophies at hand, these discussions—some of which turn up in commentaries on Sefer Yeṣirah—offer a systematic metaphysical understanding of God’s names.Footnote 25 The vast majority of Jewish philosophers in the Middle Ages, as well as some kabbalists, were proficient in Arabic. This fact makes Islamic sources from around that period—many of which also show a particular interest in the metaphysical status of letters and the names of God—potential sources of inspiration.Footnote 26
The new ontic perception of YHWH and other divine names laid the groundwork for devequt (cleaving or adherence) to the name, often in a mental fashion—a concept that was later absorbed into early kabbalah. This novel idea of cleaving to the Tetragrammaton or, as per Abraham ibn Ezra, the “realm of names,”Footnote 27 constituted a marked shift from hypostatic to metaphysical outlooks on the appellations. In the renowned exegete’s semi-Neoplatonic system, the Tetragrammaton and Ehyeh are identified with the “One.” At the same time, the rest of the names (as well as the former two, when qualified) are associated with the domain of the emanated Nous (intellect), the “All,” recognized as a linguistic angelic realm. As such, the appellations are equivalent to metaphysical “forms” or angels that inject a modicum of diversity into the uniform noetic realm. Hence, one can cleave to these names by assimilating their knowledge. In so doing, they sway the power injecting into and transmitted via the appellations. Consequently, the divine names are a “matrix of power” that overrides the astral hierarchy.Footnote 28
Another intriguing discussion on the Tetragrammaton surfaces in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari (4:15), where a metaphysical or even numinous understanding of this appellation is put forth.Footnote 29 According to Halevi, the ideal Jewish prophet engages directly with and “tastes” YHWH as part of a quasi-mystical cleaving to the name; the Tetragrammaton is “carried” by the holy spirit, which engulfs the mystic. These ideas comprise one of the seminal pre-kabbalistic discourses on YHWH. In this context, the name is identified as the holy spirit or a numinous light that penetrates the seer’s heart as well as the object of mystical cleaving. Notwithstanding the lack of consensus over Maimonides’s perception of the appellations in The Guide to the Perplexed (3:51), his words on this subject undoubtedly left an imprint on kabbalists’ understanding of YHWH.Footnote 30
This turn of events set the stage for the kabbalistic theosophy of the divine names; the reification of the Hebrew alphabet,Footnote 31 Sefer Yeṣirah portrayal of the Tetragrammaton, and the medieval Jewish philosopher’s ontological identification of the names with elements in the hierarchic metaphysical system, all prompted a new understanding of the names qua divine entities.
Between Theosophical Discourse and Symbolism: Scholem Weighs in on the Name of God
In a couple of groundbreaking studies, Scholem acknowledged the centrality of the divine names and their components—the Hebrew letters—to the kabbalistic godhead.Footnote 32 He wrote:
The process which, on the one hand, is described as the emanation of Divine energy and light could be described equally well as the process in which the Divine language unfolds. This constitutes an essential parallelism between the two kinds of symbolism chosen by the Kabbalists to describe their ideas. They speak of attributes and spheres of light, but they speak in the same connection also of Divine names and of the letters of which they are composed. From the first appearance of Kabbalistic teachings, these two façon de parler appear together. The secret world of God is a world of language, a world of Divine names which, in their own way, develop out of each other. The elements of the Divine language appear as the letters of the Holy Writ. The letters and the names are no conventional means of communication. They are much more than that. Each of them represents a concentration of energy and expresses some fullness of meaning which may not be translatable into human language, or, at least, not exhaustively.Footnote 33
Scholem highlighted two “symbolic” frameworks that are used by kabbalists to describe God: language (letters and divine names); and sefirot, which he associated with light imagery. Moreover, the scholar addressed the Tetragrammaton’s ontology while discussing the kabbalistic views of the Torah—which is perceived as divine and is sometimes identified with YHWH.Footnote 34 Elaborating on these two parallel discourses in his article on the divine name, Scholem famously averred that both point to the hidden divinity, designed to overcome the essential gap between the human and the sacred, particularly its assumed concealed apophatic dimensions.Footnote 35 In other words, Scholem characterized all the kabbalah’s theosophical discourses as symbolic. While concentrating on the theological symbolic function of the names and sefirot, he refrained from examining this function through the lens of the theurgical practices that demand cleaving to and ontologically operating on these entities. A case in point is the act of guiding the divine overflow—the holy spirit—from and via the “symbolic” apparatus.Footnote 36
Another of Scholem’s early projects was devoted to the kabbalistic genre of commentaries on the ten sefirot. Within this framework, he prepared an annotated catalog of these texts, listing the various manuscripts onto which they were copied (as they were known to him then).Footnote 37 This index has subsequently garnered discussions, elaborations, updates, and clarifications that continue until this very day.Footnote 38 To reiterate, Scholem enumerated the letters and names alongside the sefirot. This insight wasn’t developed further in his later studies. At the same time, he emphasized that the “Gnostic” origins of the sefirotic godhead constitute the fundamental divine reality. Moreover, he noted that all theosophical discourses are emblematic of what he considered as the unrepresentative, apophatic supernal realm.Footnote 39 In other words, the sefirot were to become the principal symbolic content of the Gnostic-inspired kabbalistic godhead. Although inherently closer to the Jewish tradition by a wide margin, and the cynosure of the kabbalists’ praxis, the divine names were grasped as functioning symbolically in the Jewish language, imagination, and liturgy, not as divinity itself.Footnote 40 However, we contend that this account misconstrues the role of the linguistic theosophical discourse in early kabbalah, thereby hindering the scholarship on the attendant practices.
While some scholars continue to explore the linguistic aspects of God’s names in early kabbalah (more on this below), many others present this corpus’s doctrine of the godhead as underscoring the ten sefirot, even in cases where they are nearly absent (e.g., the Zohar literature) or marginal (Joseph Gikatilla’s Shaʿarei Orah). In this reading, the kabbalist’s discourse is foreign to or at odds with the biblical and rabbinic literature, which are utterly devoid of sefirot.Footnote 41
Although the names serve as the body and substance of the divine, which in turn channels the godhead’s power, they simultaneously exist in the human realm: liturgical and mystical activity, language, and thought. There is no evidence that the names function as symbols aimed at bridging the cavernous divide to the recondite and unattainable godhead.Footnote 42 To the contrary, they stand for the positive linguistic continuum that ontologically links the human with the divine. Perceiving God’s names in this fashion (as symbols) scuttles the notion that they are divinity or share the same substance with God. Assuming that the names are symbols, they must refer to something beyond themselves: the apophatic Ein Sof (stipulated only in some systems) or some other concealed aspect of the divine. It is evident from numerous discussions, including the special commentaries on the divine appellations, that the latter are beings that emanate from each other, are comprised of the same substance as their source, and can transmit God’s overflow to the lower realms. As such, the mystagogues ontically cleave to, unify, and draw this abundance from the names. Scholem provided no evidence that the names, particularly the Tetragrammaton, serve in a figurative capacity. In fact, their above-mentioned qualities are at loggerheads with these sort of characterizations.
A number of scholars have reevaluated YHWH’s importance to early kabbalistic theosophy, theurgy, and mysticism. To begin with, Idel showed that the terms “kabbalah” and kavvanah (mental “intention”) are linked to the passing down of traditions concerning YHWH—above all its forms of pronunciation—during the Gaonic period and subsequently among the mystics in Italy, Ashkenaz, and the Iberian Peninsula. Thereafter, the kabbalists adopted and developed this lore into mystical and theurgical practices. Footnote 41 Elliot Wolfson explicates the role of language in the poetic imagination of the kabbalists:
From the kabbalistic standpoint… the process of emanation is envisioned concurrently as vocalization of the name that is ineffable.… Inasmuch as the name comprises the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, semiotic folds of boundless light-energy, as it were, the substance—as much wave as particle—of everything that exists in all realms of being, we can say that kabbalists viewed the arrayment of the divine image as the unfolding of language and the flowering of light; to put on a garment is to render visible the invisible, to inscript erasure, to don the nameless in the book that is entirely the name.Footnote 44
Wolfson conceives of the linguistic and graphic derivation as an individuation of the Hebrew alphabet from the Tetragrammaton. The close arrayal of letters and sefirot (or lights), along with the stress on the leading role played by kabbalistic theosophy’s linguistic components, resonates with Scholem’s early remarks on the two modes of emanation. Musing over various aspects of the linguistic theosophy in the first kabbalists’ works, Haviva Pedaya has significantly enhanced the analogous literature on divine names.Footnote 45 In particular, she grapples with the theory of the “fragmented name.” That is to say, Pedaya insists on the vitality of the appellation in this corpus’s signature theurgical operation. Additionally, the scholar has emphasized the preponderance of God’s names in the mystical and ecstatic aspects that she has discerned in theosophical-theurgical kabbalah.Footnote 46 The above-cited endeavors notwithstanding,Footnote 47 the topic of the godhead’s linguistic dimension and how it ties into Spanish kabbalah’s analogous practices warrant a closer look.
Theurgy and the Theosophy of Names and Sefirot
Over the pages to come, we will illustrate how the linguistic theosophy connects with the theurgy of and adherence to the name in early Spanish kabbalah. This literature’s commentaries on the names and attendant practices show that the names were grasped as the divine itself, rather than mere symbols thereof. The kabbalistic theosophies were structured, inter alia, around an interpretation of Sefer Yeṣirah. According to some readings, the book’s opening section describes the godhead’s intra-divine emanation process; and the rest of the work explores the creation of the universe. Both of these pivotal occurrences stem from the permutation of the Hebrew alphabet, which Sefer Yeṣirah considers a divine name in its own right, and the letters of the Tetragrammaton.
According to thirteenth-century kabbalists, the name is the source, the quiddity, and an extension of the godhead.Footnote 48 The permutation of YHWH’s letters is the mechanism by which the Lord emerges as a theosophical text, a linguistic “space.” Footnote 47 Medieval commentaries on the Tetragrammaton attest to the fact that the early kabbalah theosophical discourse on the divine names was quite refined, at least as a discourse running parallel to that of middot and sefirot. Arranged into different theosophical configurations, these names were deemed to be actual components of God. This innate feature explains their role in theurgical actions, Torah study, and prayer. An exemplar of this outlook turns up in the ensuing passage:
If you are among the enlightened, know and comprehend that the four letters of the name [YHWH], each and every one [of them], understand, is for the sake of hidden theosophical beings [havayot], from the potencies of the blessed name. Each one of the letters stands for a theosophical entity [davar],Footnote 50 as the yod stands for ḥokhma [wisdom], the he for teshuva [repentance], the vav for the six theosophical extensions [of divine space],Footnote 51 and the final he for the [lower] crown that encompasses everything. Moreover, the aleph of [the name] Ehyeh was concealed, meaning it is the keter elyon (the highest crown). Since the Cause of Causes [sibat ha-sibot] is not to be articulated but in one’s thought, as it is written [Ps 100:3]: “[It is He], not ourselves [ve-lʾo anaḥnu; ולא אנחנו] who made us. And the word ve-lʾo [ולא] is written with an alef, yet we traditionally read it sans the alef [ve-lo anaḥnu; ולו אנחנו], meaning “and we are His.”… However, the replacement of alef with a vav Footnote 52 indicated Tifʾeret, for the hidden alef is the great power that endures through everything.Footnote 53
Though attributed to one of the first kabbalists, R. Ezra ben Shlomo of Girona, this short commentary on the Tetragrammaton was apparently written by an anonymous member of Nahmanides’s school who adapted early Provencal and Geronese traditions. These words describe how the four letters of YHWH sustain the godhead, whereas aleph—the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and of the name Ehyeh—constitutes its hidden source.Footnote 54 The author goes off on a brief tangent concerning the written form (ketiv) of Psalm 100:3 versus the tradition of the verse’s reading (qere) for the purpose of describing the transition from the concealed aspect of divinity (as embodied in the letter aleph, which serves as the negative character of the Hebrew word lʾo [no], to the godhead’s incipient positivity [in the form of the letter vav]). The dual semantics of this passage uncover the causal relationship between the hidden aleph and the ensuing linguistic framework. Correspondingly, the excerpt hints to the personal nature of God’s revealed aspect (“and we are His”). Another unpublished commentary on the Tetragrammaton reads thus:
Know that in the shape of the letter alef are the ten abstract emanations, and the alef runs parallel to the Cause of Causes.… When Pure ThoughtFootnote 55 decided to create existence, he gave rise to Wisdom—the head of the ten noetic and spiritual sefirot; this is the top of the alef, which resembles the letter yod [=10].… And the divine wished to create a name [i.e., YHWH] for Himself to testify that He is the emanator of all, the reason for everything, the creator, the maker, and the foundation of it all. And at the outset of creation, when He begot Wisdom, wherein the ten sefirot are included, He placed at the beginning of His [revealed] name [i.e., the Tetragrammaton] the letter yod.… Footnote 56
It bears noting the author’s use of terms meant to express parallelism that could be misunderstood as symbolism. Such words link names or letters to sefirot by denoting that they stand “opposite” (keneged) or are a “hint” (remez) of specific emanations. In our view, these terms refer to corresponding theosophical discourses that reference each other. At this juncture, the commentary elaborates on how the letter he—the second of YHWH’s four letters—parallels the emanation of Binah (Intelligence); the latter issued from Ḥokhmah (Wisdom), which corresponds to the letter yod. This is followed by the letter vav and finally the last he, which run parallel to the six lower sefirot and the lowest-cum-final emanation (referred to as “midat ha-Din”; the attribute of Judgment), respectively. Later, the anonymous writer argued that the Tetragrammaton is known as the Shem haMeforash (the Explicit Name) because it explicates the hidden alef, the “Cause of Causes,” in its capacity as the positive and revealed part of the godhead. The letters and names are not emblematic of the sefirot, but signify a parallel discourse. In addition, each of the corresponding discourses refer to the other. These sort of commentaries form the backdrop for the discussions that allude to the mystery of the name and its unification practices; to unite the name with its letters and spirits (i.e., the emanations), kabbalists must grasp every last cog in the manifold theosophical system.
The unification of the name, as well as the synthesis or permutation of its letters with the sefirot, underpinned the liturgical practice and kavvanah-oriented performance of commandments in early kabbalah. In the name of his mentor R. Isaac “the Blind” (known as “the Pious” and the son of R. Abraham b. David of Posquières), R. Ezra ben Shlomo averred thus:
Our master, the Ḥasid [the Pious] of blessed memory, said: For “the enlightened” and “those who contemplate His name,”Footnote 57 the essence of service is “and to Him shall you cleave [Deut 13:5].” And this is the Torah’s dictum [klal she-baTorah] on prayer and benedictions: to align one’s thought to His “Faith” [Wisdom] as though it cleaves to the upper realms [le-haskim maḥshavato be-emunato kʾelu deveqah le-maʿalah]; to attach the name by means of its letters [le-ḥaber ha-Shem be-ʾotiotav]; and to encapsulate the ten sefirot therein [li-khlol bo ‘eser sefirot] “as the flame is bound to the coal.”Footnote 58 In one’s mouth, It [YHWH] should be verbally referred to by His epithet [Adonai]; while within one’s heart he should conjoin [the Name] in its structure [yehabreno be-vinyano], in accordance with its written form [u-kekhtavo].”Footnote 59
The kabbalistic lore that Ezra transmitted revolves around an ontological understanding of the name. Furthermore, kavvanah is applied directly on YHWH. Within this framework, the theurgical unification concentrates on bringing together the letters and sefirot within the name. The latter is a theosophical whole and the locus onto which the sefirot are integrated. From this standpoint, the name is the infrastructure or body on which the sefirot depend.Footnote 60
YHWH’s emergence as the godhead renders this appellation a religious object of both mystical cleaving and theurgical unification. Performed in a liturgical context, these two steps include an element of overflow that is drawn from the Tetragrammaton. The mystic-theurgical operation on the name—a significant kabbalistic innovation—perhaps stems from the theosophication of YHWH. These two developments complement one another. More specifically, the practice of mystic-theurgical kavvanah on the Tetragrammaton developed hand in hand with its theosophy. In all probability, linguistic theosophy emerged from the centrality of the name in blessings, prayers, and magical practices too.Footnote 61 The linguistic speculation on the divine names enriched kabbalah practice by establishing a deep connection with the liturgical text. This idea was further developed in the theosophical commentaries on God’s names.
All theosophical elements are applicable to kabbalistic theurgy, but the divine name occupies a special place in the practice of theurgical unification. Oftentimes, this measure includes the parallel theosophic elements of divine middot and sefirot. While the attributes and names surface in and are integral to the liturgical text, the sefirot are neither mentioned nor fill any role in classic Jewish liturgy or halakhic practice and texts. This contributed to the perception of the sefirot as a hidden theosophy, symbolically referenced by the divine names and middot mentioned in the liturgy.
Scholem’s symbolic understanding of the theosophical discourse advanced the notion that such exchanges articulate something beyond their own selves.Footnote 62 He indeed considered the sefirot as one of the symbolic discourses that point to the hidden godhead, but is not the object of such representation. Put differently, the sefirot, like the names, signify the ineffable dimension of God, who Scholem assumed exists. For some researchers, the sefirot have become the hidden content of the godhead, rather than a “symbolic discourse” to which the names and middot refer.Footnote 63 In our estimation, though, the texts lack compelling evidence to support both interpretations. The names constitute a theosophical discourse that parallels the other. Given their literal character, there is no reason to suppose that the discourses allude to something beyond themselves.
Kavvanah involves unifying the letters of the Tetragrammaton and the sefirot in a single mental act on the same metaphysical plane. The theurgical practices include cleaving to and directly operating on the name. This objective is accomplished via human thought. Moreover, the action has direct ontological ramifications: a united theosophy and the overflow of divine essence through the name unto the practitioner. The theurgical deed reflects the inherent unity of the name, which functions like a divine organic body. As a result, the emanations and their constituent letters merge in a process that ultimately allows the shefʿa—an overflow often identified with the holy spirit—to be channeled from and through the unified appellation.
This endeavor involves the unification of YHWH’s four letters, the unification of these components with the ten sefirot, or the unification of multiple names. Only a theosophical approach to the divine names can satisfactorily elucidate such unifications qua theurgical operations on names of this sort in their capacity as segments of the godhead. As the kabbalah developed, especially from the sixteenth-century onward, these processes became increasingly complex.Footnote 64 Merging two linked names of God triggers the release of divine power, which is channeled towards a specific matter of concern. Such actions, sometimes referred to as yichudim, are not emblematic acts of meditation contained solely in the practitioner’s mind, but ontological measures directed at the very organism of the godhead.
The Secret of the Name as “the Principle of Kabbalah”
The early kabbalists accentuated knowledge of divine names, which they regarded as the essence of their esoteric tradition.Footnote 65 In the Girona circle’s writings, there is a quasi-annotated record of this matter.Footnote 66 Ezra ben Shlomo’s commentary on the Song of Songs presents the kabbalah as a transmitted esoteric wisdom. Referring to the mystery of the Tetragrammaton, he described how the occult knowledge of the name was passed down from one generation to the next:
“And they ask me, ‘What is His name?’—what shall I say to them?” (Ex. 3:13). This will constitute the beginning of the Israelites’ question. And the answer is that it’s the purpose of intention and the foundation of faith.Footnote 67 This is “What is His name?” (ibid.)—they want to know His cause and His name’s link to the primal cause. Under this consecrated status, he received knowledge of the name.… And from that time to the present, there has been a continual transmission of this wisdom, which is the knowledge of the name, as part of the rabbinic oral tradition.Footnote 68
In early kabbalah, theosophical learning facilitated theurgical practice: studying the “mystery” of the name is a prerequisite for its unification, which is the core kabbalistic practice. The Israelites’ formative question—“What is His name?”—is answered via the esoteric lore on the Tetragrammaton (the details of which are beyond the scope of this article). Such brief references to the secret and unification of the name form the basis for the aforementioned thirteenth-century literary genre of theosophical commentaries on YHWH (and other divine names), which were designed to elaborate on the linguistic theosophy and advance theurgical practices.
Towards the end of his remarks, R. Ezra proclaimed that “this wisdom departed from Israel.”Footnote 69 In all likelihood, he was positing that after the second temple’s destruction and the exile, knowledge of the divine name ceased to be widespread. As a result, “Wisdom has been lost, the Torah has been lost with it, and there is no knowledge of its meaning and grammar along with its sermons and the meanings of its commandments.…The interpretation of many portions of the Torah are grounded on this wisdom.”Footnote 70 Put differently, the secret of knowing God as a name is the key to grasping the Torah and its commandments. According to Ezra, some of his contemporary exegetes misinterpreted the Torah because they did not know the name’s essence.Footnote 71 Likewise, people devoid of access to the Tetragrammaton’s secret lore or who possess a false tradition are at a loss to retrieve the true knowledge. For this reason, they erroneously observe the commandments.
The core tradition associated with the mystery of YHWH also informs the hermeneutics behind R. Ezra’s commentary on the Song of Songs. In his eyes, the Tetragrammaton can be broken down into various components—letters, vowels, and perhaps other linguistic elements—that underpin the theosophical interpretation of God’s name. YHWH is the heart of this lore as well as the key to performing commandments-cum-rituals and fathoming the Torah. For this reason, the early kabbalists wrote special commentaries on the divine appellations qua theosophical units. Although most of these works were never printed, this corpus suggests that their author’s intellectual and practical world was animated by an exceedingly nuanced understanding of kabbalistic theosophy and theurgy.
The Kabbalah of the Divine Names
Scholem’s theory on the “emblematic” discourse surrounding the theosophy of YHWH and his highlighting of the “Gnostic” emanations led some readers to conclude that the linguistic components represent the sefirot.Footnote 72 This attitude was strengthened by another possible misreading of a distinction put forth by Moshe Idel: the names underpin the “ecstatic model,” including the version of the medieval ecstatic kabbalah.Footnote 73 This sort of occult knowledge and practice thrived predominantly outside the Iberian Peninsula; it was dubbed by its messianic founder, Abraham Abulafia, as the “kabbalah of the [divine] names.” In so doing, Abulafia contrasted it with the Spanish “kabbalah of the sefirot.”Footnote 74 In Abulafia’s eyes, the Spanish common version lacks knowledge of these appellations and of the linguistic kabbalah that derives from the commentaries on Sefer Yeṣirah.Footnote 75
Idel avers that the deployment of names in the ecstatic kabbalah is of utmost significance and considerably more pronounced than the Tetragrammaton’s role in the nomian practices of the Spanish kabbalah. The ecstatic practices, he adds, not only transform the practitioner’s state of mind but also the very nature of the act itself, giving rise to techniques—appellative or otherwise—that fragmentize the structure of, or override, the traditional rite and its semantic components.Footnote 76 The intensity of its experience and the resultant methods indicate that this religious phenomenon stands apart from that of the divine names in the theurgical practices developed by the exponents of the theosophic-theurgical kabbalah. Continuing along these same lines, Idel contends that:
As Abulafia acknowledges, also the Sefirotic Kabbalists make use of the divine names, in order to point at the divine manifestations, the Sefirot. However, the ecstatic Kabbalist uses them in order to unite the human thought with the divine one. While according to the first Kabbalah, especially as it was systematically exposed by Abulafia’s former student R. Joseph Gikatilla, the divine names are symbols of the divine attributes, hinting at the supernal divine reality and serving as epistemological tools, these names are intended by the ecstatic Kabbalist to bring about an ontic identification between the human and the divine.Footnote 77
In Idel’s typology, following Abulafia, the theosophical kabbalah recruits divine names in order to signify the sefirot. Hence, this role pales in comparison to the significant role of the names in ecstatic kabbalah (and generally, in Jewish ecstatic mysticism). The close and robust association of the names with ecstatic mysticism, especially the kabbalistic sort and its prescribed techniques, along with the emphasis of the sefirot as the ultimate theosophical discourse in Spanish kabbalah, further diminished the role of divine names in the study of theosophical-theurgical lore under review.
In this context, it is worth noting that in the background of, and sometimes in parallel to the ecstatic kabbalah, we find other early kabbalists in Spain, which developed various forms of linguistic theosophies. A few perceived the appellative theosophy as genuinely dynamic and multifaceted,Footnote 78 whereas others, like Abulafia,Footnote 79 considered this system as static and uniform; such approaches often identify YHWH with God’s hidden aspect, while lower ontological levels, like angelic realms and cosmic domains, are characterized as in motion. This motion is generally not portrayed in a mythic-dramatic fashion, but rather according to a fixed order or metaphysical hierarchy, and yet it remains subject to the influence of the enlightened individual.Footnote 80
From our standpoint, while not underestimating the critical role of the names in ecstatic kabbalah, a more balanced perception of their role in Spanish theosophical kabbalah may contribute to a more coherent picture of its different dimensions. Standing at the heart of Jewish liturgy and Toranic learning in many Jewish traditions, the appellations bind theurgy and theosophy in a much more coherent fashion than the sefirot in early kabbalah.Footnote 81 The discourses of the latter and names run parallel. With respect to theurgical practice, the focus often shifts to the linguistic discourse for obvious reasons. The corresponding discussions allow for flexibility in all that concerns the practices associated with the divine name, while the kabbalistic commentaries on the tetragrammaton and the Divine names facilitate such activities.
The centrality of the divine names in various pre-theosophical forms of kabbalah developed by kabbalist such as R. Joseph Gikatilla and R. Moshe De Leon, continued into their later key theosophical writings such as Sha’are Orah and the Zohar.Footnote 82
In this respect, the example furnished by R. Joseph Gikatilla’s Shaʿare Orah demonstrates these dynamics. His book considered a classic introduction to theosophical kabbalah, defines God’s names as the cynosure of theosophy and theurgical practice. For this reason, Shaʿare Orah proceeds from the “lower” to the “higher” names.Footnote 83 Gikatilla’s treatise is a pivotal commentary on the divine appellations, including a separate long theosophical section on YHWH. According to Abulafia’s pupil, the names are not emblematic of the sefirot but comprise the divinity. This is a remarkable example of an entire book that is dedicated to the godhead of the divine names, their ontological configuration, their posture within this unified framework, and how the divine flow is transformed from one name to another. Shaʿare Orah describes the way kabbalists directly influence this ontology via language and assorted names in prayer, blessing, and Torah study. Though Gikatilla intermittently mentioned the sefirot opposite specific names, parallelism should not be confused with symbolism. The names, middot, and sefirot are all corresponding discourses that occupy the same ontological level. Time and again, the kabbalist must simultaneously work on all of them. Gikatilla’s comprehension of the linguistic divine was further explicated by the great sixteenth-century kabbalist Moses Cordovero, who offered the grandest presentation of classic kabbalah (including Gikatilla). In Pardes Rimonim, he expounded on the appellations and letters qua pillars of kabbalistic theosophy. This step, Idel argues, was inspired by Abulafia.Footnote 84 Unlike his ecstatic predecessor, though, Cordovero fused a rich theosophy of names into his presentation of this same body of knowledge. While he hints at the use of the names and letters as instruments of mental concentration leading to revelations,Footnote 85 his extensive detailed expositions of the names and letters are framed as part of an elaborate discussion of kabbalistic theosophy.
Concluding Remarks
The ontological perception of the Tetragrammaton undergirds early kabbalistic theosophy, theurgy, and mysticism. In addition, linguistic facets are included in most of the discussions regarding the godhead in early kabbalah. Unifying the divinity and other theosophical (not symbolic) activities performed on the divine names were pillars of kabbalistic theurgy. Such knowledge was also featured in the refined yet overlooked subgenre of theosophical commentaries on God’s names and in particular the Tetragrammaton. This corpus indeed sheds further light on the centrality of names in early kabbalistic theosophies and its attendant practices. Moreover, these commentaries offer a theosophical roadmap for theurgical action on the divine, especially cleaving to and unifying the Tetragrammaton.
As per these sort of commentaries, YHWH is a four-letter assemblage of the divine system. The corpus’s authors endeavored to demonstrate the link between this appellation and its constituent parts—letters and vowels—or other names, together with the sefirot. In their estimation, the letters combined to form an organic linguistical body that is no less than divine.
Most of the thirteenth-century kabbalistic commentaries on the Tetragrammaton and other names have been preserved in manuscripts, whose relatively wide distribution attests to the substantial interest in these topics from the Middle Ages onward. In some cases, these works delve into the practical matters of kavvanah—the intentional use of YHWH in blessings and prayer. Other authors viewed the topic as more theoretical. More specifically, some expounded on the secrets of the name and ignored practical applications. As a result, these commentaries fall under the heading of the divinity or Torah’s mysteries.
Linguistic speculation is a pillar of the discourse in both the theosophic-theurgical and ecstatic kabbalah. Although there are fundamental differences between the theosophy of names in each of these subgenres, they share a theosophy of divine overflow in which the theosophy of divine names is a manifestation. Essential to the corresponding practices, the theosophy’s linguistic elements fetter attempts to classify this discourse as symbolic. To some extent, this kind of inquiry is pursued by all kabbalists: the Spanish practitioners considered the heterogeneity and dynamism of names and letters, along with the rest of the godhead’s theosophical elements, to be real. As such, the theurgical practices impact this diversity and unify the name with its components. On the other hand, the ecstatic kabbalists deemed the name to be a static and an already united divine flow. Therefore, the name(s) serve as an object of mystical union and as a substrate for techniques designed to permutate letters. For this reason, the ecstatic practices only influence the human consciousness, not the static overflow of the names. In contrast to Abulafia’s renowned stance, all the thirteenth-century schools of kabbalah were, in fact, kabbalah of divine names.
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