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ASCENTS TO HEAVENS IN JEWISH MYSTICISM  

        The concept of the heavily ascent does not render itself to an easy investigation, classification or interpretation.  Throughout the centuries, a great number of mystics from various traditions transcended allegedly the earthly realm and attained heavens, the dazzling dimension of the divine glory.  In Jewish mysticism, the heavenly journey took the mesmerized mystic through a variety of spiritual and, according to some sources, literally physical encounters.  It is precisely here where a great amount of controversy begins.  While some Jewish literature describes the mystical travels across heavens with tremendous detail suggesting their physical realism and the literal bodily ascent, other traditions, especially older ones, refer to the mystic experience as that of the mental and intellectual elevation, the ascent of the soul.  This essay will strive to illustrate some of the major trends regarding these matters in the Jewish literature of Hekhalot and Merkabah mysticism as well as in Kabbalah and Hasidism.  It will demonstrate that the concept of the heavenly ascent as well as their interpretations change within these traditions, which in the end makes the task of classifying the phenomenon of the ascent as the literal or the mental experience extremely difficult.

        The discussion of the ascents will begin with the Hekhalot texts.  According to Sholem, the origin of these mystic works dates back to Palestine to the first and second centuries C. E. [1]   Erroneous as this statement may or may not be, the fact remains that the texts are nevertheless ancient.  The main core of the Hekhalot literature combines the themes of the Ezekiel’s merkabah (chariot) vision and the ascents into the seven heavenly hekhalots (palaces). [2]   Despite the fact that the Visions of Ezekiel does not constitute a part of the Hekhalot corpus [3] or that Ezekiel himself never “climbed up” to heavens himself, [4] his vision of the merkabah became the ambitious goal of a great number of Jewish mystics.

        The main parts of the literature referring to the subject of ascents are Hekhalot Rabbati (“The Greter Book of Divine Palaces”), Hekhalot Zutarti (“The Lesser Book of Divine Palaces”), Ma’aseh Merkabah (“The Work of the Chariot”) and the Hebrew Book of Enoch. [5]   As indicated by the titles, all of them deal with the descriptions of heavenly places given by rabbis after their descent (ascent?) to angelic realms as well as with various revelations received by them from higher entities.  In short, Hekhalot literature presents itself as the form of the manual providing any future Yorde Merkabah, [6] the initiate into the visionary tradition, with the set of techniques and principles necessary for the safe and sure attainment of a glorious vision.

        Before the detailed consideration of the ascents begins, one must remember that the traditions of the heavenly realms’ experience began long before the emergence of the Hekhalot texts. [7]   Gruenwald submits that the theme of the divine ascent became almost a cultural trend in the first centuries of this millennium. [8]   Whether these ascents represented a literal form of visiting the heavens or whether they “merely” symbolized a soul’s communion with God remains an unsolvable task for this brief discussion.  However, the fact stays that the visions of the upper realms have penetrated various writings before the Hekhalot tradition.  Visions of Abraham, Moses, or Isaiah, represent only a couple of examples.  Among others one finds New Testament’s Paul who visits the third heaven, [9] John of Biblical Revelations, Enoch from the second century “Ethiopic Book of Enoch” who ascends to God’s throne, Levi in the “Testament of Levi”, [10] as well as many, many others.

        At this point of the discussion one might probably wonder, how is it that the Jewish experiences of the heavenly ascent fall into the category of mysticism.  The very definition of the mystical experience suggests the ineffable grasp of the transcendence where no imagery or the tangible form can be assigned to it.  St. Hildegard of Bingen, a Christian mystic of the medieval times, describes her visions explicitly, “I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by…any combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone.” [11]   Dan summarizes this by saying, “mysticism is that which cannot be expressed in words, period.” [12]   How is it then that the Jewish visionary experiences seem so concrete in form and Hekhalot and Merkabah literature abounds in precise descriptions of the heavenly realms?

        Judging from the early Jewish mystical writings the answer may be that the rabbis’ ascents did not represent the “ordinary” mystical visions of God in the soul but might have reflected what really took place in a literal and a physical manner.  The texts are plentiful of the ascension stories that have been written to appear as if they literally took place and, furthermore, can occur in this very lifetime [13] to anyone who follows the strict procedure:

               You may be aware that…an individual possessing certain…

               qualities, who wishes to look at the merkabah and to peer

               into the palaces…, has ways to achieve this.  He must sit fasting

               for a specified number of days, place his head between his knees,

               and whisper to the earth many prescribed songs and hymns. [14]

        The Hekhalot Rabbati describes the actual (?) journey undertaken by the Rabbi Ishamael to the divine realm in order to inquire about the Roman emperor’s newly set up decree.  He ascends to heavens with a specific goal in his mind and while being there he learns a variety of the divine secrets of the seven palaces he visits.  Angels command Ishamael to teach others, as mystics were often instructed to do, [15] the procedure of the ascension, which became later a personal “ladder at home”. [16]   After Ishamael spends some time in this “heavenly academy”, [17] he transcends seven palaces and gazes into the throne of the “king in his beauty”, God himself. [18]  

        Despite the numerous benefits that the mystic certainly gains exploring the heavens, it does not always appear easy to arrive and remain among higher powers safe if one does not possess the right technique, or the correct “seals”. [19]   “Vengeful angels lie in wait for the practitioner, ready to do him harm if he makes the slightest error”, reveals Halperin. [20]   Talmud describes the fate of the four sages who all enter the “Garden of Delight” and only one, Akiba, remains alive. [21]   Merkabah mysticism elaborates considerably on the motif of the heavenly fire and its burning, destructive power. [22]   The fear of falling from heavens appears frequently as well. [23]   The fact that the danger of entering the divine realms constitutes a serious theme of Jewish mysticism suggests greatly that, whether literal or mental, some form of the experience took place.

        Obviously, the authors of the Hekhalot and Merkabah mysticism did not doubt the authenticity and “physicality” of their visions.  They enthusiastically delve into the lively descriptions of the hekhalots and their residents.  From rabbis’ literature readers can learn the names of the divine entities and their respective positions.  Above all, they can learn the correct techniques for the ascension process they can perform themselves.

        The ascents experienced by the Jewish rabbis described vividly in the Hekhalot and Merkabah literature appear as real journeys.  However, various passages found in these texts gave rise to much confusion as to their genuineness even among early writers themselves [24] , which makes it difficult to categorically classify them as literal travels.  Consider a following section describing the ascension procedure,

               He must…whisper to the earth many prescribed songs and

               hymns.  He thus peers into the inner rooms and chambers

               as if he were seeing the seven palaces with his own eyes, and

               he observes as if he were going from palace to palace and

               seeing what is in them. [25]

        From this passage it emerges that the ascents the mystics undertook might have represented, despite their appearance as the literal experiences, a “merely” mental construct.  Halperin states, “What we are saying is that they [mystics] entered a psychological state in which their fantasies felt so real that they could not distinguish them from experience.” [26]   Other late medieval as well as contemporary writers approach the subject of heavenly ascensions in a similar fashion. [27]   Hai calls the visionary hekhalots a “contemplation of the inner chambers of one’s own consciousness.” [28]   Hoffman presents Merkabah mysticism as a great “meditative system” and compares the terrifying visions of the Jewish mystics to their own “inner fears” and unresolved psychological states. [29]  

        Regardless of the variety of modern as well as medieval interpretations of the ascents as mental states, some mystic texts describe these experiences as bodily ascents [30] and there can be no simple overlooking this fact.  What it suggests is that, as opposed to the later forms of Jewish mysticism such as Kabbalah or Hasidism, the beliefs in literal heavenly ascents did not seem rare.

        This brings the discussion to the brief analysis of the manner that Kabbalah and Hasidism approached the theme of ascents.  In contrast to the earlier Hekhalot and Merkabah traditions, the Kabbalists of the medieval ages never regarded the ascents to the divine realm as the physical journeys performed during one’s life.  This does not mean to suggest that they did not share with the earlier mystics the belief in heavenly palaces.  On the contrary, Kabbalah as a cosmological system abounds in vivid descriptions of angelic realms, also seven in number. [31]   However, these constitute places that the part of the soul called Neshamah, the one eternally attached to God, enters after one’s death. [32]

        It must be stated that in Kabbalah, the mental faculty of imagination plays an extraordinary part.  It represents, as Wolfson states, a “vehicle for the contemplative ascent to the spiritual realm, and the ultimate… reunification of the soul and its spiritual root.” [33]   For the Kabbalists the ascent to the “sefirotic pleroma” takes place by means of the imaginary visualization. [34]   The early sixteenth-century kabbalistic mystic Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi describes the pleasures that the soul derives from the “forms engraved upon the heart, until it appears to him as if he were seeing them with his actual eyes.” [35]   Another kabbalist Azikri insists that the “vision of God is surely not physical…the vehicle of vision is the eye of the intellect rather than a physical eye.” [36]   In the kabbalistic tradition the ascent to the Merkabah realm, physical one in particular, simply does not seem to come into the picture. [37]   Instead, it is the inner communion, debhequth, [38] with the sephiroth that makes one’s soul ascend into the highest state, equivalent even to prophecy. [39]

        In Hasidism alike, the eighteenth century Jewish mysticism founded by Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer (Ba al Shem Tov-Besht), [40] the concept of the ascent appears not as the literal journey to heaven but as the elevated state of consciousness, the union of human thought with God.  The tradition of Hasidism describes Besht’s “ascension of the soul” during which he visits heavenly palaces. [41]   Besht himself describes traveling from one realm to another before he enters the final gate, the very throne of the “Holy Name Blessed be He.” [42]   However, as one later finds out, Besht’s experiences his visions in a trance induced by special form of prayers, often in public places. [43] No literal bodily ascent is mentioned. 

        Instead, Hasidism describes a heavenly ascent as the part of the spiritual experience during which a practitioner ascends in consciousness to its divine source in order to channel its energy down to the ordinary state again.  It is a practice of ascending in mind and drawing down God’s energy.  The mystic must ascend mentally in order to descend and bring back the divine force. [44]   A term ‘zaddiq’ in the Hasidic tradition represents those who attain the mystical union of their own mind and God, the mind’s source, and consequently bring down the spiritual flux thus attained. [45]   They represent the masters of the ascension art and become God’s “vessels” or “pipes”, the distributors of the divine essence to the entire world. [46]  

        Short as the analysis of the heavenly ascents had to in this paper be, the vision or interpretation of them that nonetheless emerges is such that no consistent vision or interpretation actually exists.  The Jewish Hehkalot and Merkabah mystics experienced their “flights” in a variety of ways and no one should claim to know precisely how they occurred.  Their literature abounds in expressive descriptions of heavenly territories that make one feel that the mystics genuinely believed in the actual journeys they allegedly endured.  On the other hand, different sources suggest that the divine visions occurred solely in the mystics’ own consciousness by means of inner, spiritual ascension.  This seemed to represent a definite case for Kabbalists who officially accepted their tradition as the contemplative one.  Hasidism approached a motif of ascents in a similar manner.  Eighteenth century Hasidic mystics, by means of specially designed prayers, entered a realm of the higher mental state and attained thus a vision of God.  No single concept of a heavenly ascent seems to exist.

        Perhaps, then, the unifying element that finds its way throughout all these traditions is the uncomplicated fact that, physical or mental, the vision that mystics aspired to is that of the higher reality; the glorious dimension of the Divine.  The aspect that unites them all, mystics of the Hekhalot period, or later Hasidism, is their excruciating yearning to stand in the presence of their God, or His celestial attributes.  It is the mystics’ calling to rise above the ordinary level of their existence and taste the godliness of their own souls that makes them long for the heavenly realms, be it seven, eleven or seventy seven.  It is this very fact and this very desire that remains valid in all their encounters and it is that which remains true after everything else in their experiences gets stripped away.  The soul’s yearning after its spiritual existence and its divine roots has never vanished.  It never has since the very roots have never vanished and never will.  As long as they keep reminding humans’ souls of their existence, humans will always strive to longingly pursue them.  Hopefully, their journeys will eventually bring them all home.

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