By Rebecca Esterson, PhD candidate at Boston University and Scholar-in-Training at the Center for Swedenborgian Studies of the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley)
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Many readers of Swedenborgโs biblical commentaries and theological works, from Immanuel Kant to Moshe Idel, have drawn a connection to kabbalah based solely on similarity of content. And the comparisons are indeed compelling. Lists of similarities between Swedenborg and kabbalah most often cite: (1) the tradition of uncovering multiple layers of meaning in the biblical text, found, for example, in Swedenborgโs Secrets of Heaven; (2) Swedenborgโs interest in the mystical significance of individual Hebrew letters; (3) the connection between earth and heaven mediated by the flow of influx; (4) the marriage relationship within the Godhead, or the uniting of โmaleโ and โfemaleโ divine attributes; and finally and most frequently (5)ย Adam Kadmon of kabbalah and Swedenborgโs Maximus Homo: that the realm of the Divine takes the shape of a human body.
To this list, I would add sets of similarities depending on which kind of kabbalah is in question. The early modern Christian kabbalah of Johan Kemper and Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont similarly allegorize the life of Christ as it relates to individual spiritual progression. Macroprosopus and Microprosopus of theย Kabbalah Denudataย compare nicely with Swedenborgโs interpretation of the Divineย Esseย andย Existere.ย Another overlap with Christian kabbalah is in what Elliot Wolfson terms โhypernomianismโ: that biblical laws, such as those concerning dietary restrictions or ritual sacrifice, possess โan enduring spiritual value but that their practical application is limited to a specific time in history.โ[1]ย Hasidic kabbalah is strikingly similar in a number of ways: its interpretation of biblical themes and figures as symbols for elements in the individualโs internal, psychological world; the language of microcosm and macrocosm to explain the relationship between human and divine worlds; the idea ofย avodah be-gashmiyut, or worship through mundane activity; and the concept that the angels are directly affected by the rituals and text study of earthly humans.
To these sets of similarities, we can add curious details, such as the fact that in both theย Zoharย and in Swedenborgโsย Arcana, priests are symbols for divine love; or that Swedenborgโsย reliquae, or remnants of holiness buried in the souls of individuals, are represented in the Bible by the number ten, recalling the tenย Sephirotย and theย nitzutzim,ย or sparks of divinity buried and hidden in earthly vessels, from Lurianic Kabbalah.
With any such comparison, the differences are as significant as the similarities, and for all of the points listed above we could elaborate important distinctions. For example, the Christian kabbalah of Kemper, while alike in allegorizing the life of Christ, differs in its pervasive reliance on Trinitarian theology (Swedenborg consistently denounced the orthodox doctrine of a Trinity of three divine persons). Hasidic commentaries are alike for their internalizing hermeneutic but differ in their regular reliance on word play and skilled manipulation of the Hebrew language for doing this, which is something Swedenborgโs limited knowledge of the language prevented him from doing even though he venerated Hebrew as a most holy language, closest to that of the angels.
Comparison is seductive, as the more sober proprietors of theory and methodology would remind us, and the recognition of patterns is not to be trusted as evidence of contiguity. Wouter Hanegraaff and Friedemann Stengel are two contemporary scholars who firmly downplay such similarities in their discussions of Swedenborgโs possible relationship to kabbalah, insisting that other explanations can nearly always be found.[2]ย Swedenborgโsย Maximus Homo, for instance, can be explained by his dedicated and lengthy study of human anatomy. That the organizing structure of the heavens is in the image of a human body suggests that his religious imagination simply borrowed from his intricate knowledge of the bodyโs organs and systems. The Zoharโs โPrimordial Man,โ according to this argument, is not the same figure. To take similarity as evidence of influence is what Jonathan Z. Smith calls the confusion of homeopathic and contagious magic.[3]
While comparison is not reliable proof of influence, for the reasons stated above, it does reveal elements of the shared hermeneutical horizon of these deeply spiritual and deeply textual traditions. For this reason, those interested in Swedenborg and in other forms of Jewish and Christian mysticism continue to find studies based on comparison useful.
A second research path for assessing whether Swedenborg studied kabbalah is historical evidence of contact with kabbalistic sources. Part two of this blog will consider what forms of contact we know of and will reflect on Swedenborgโs place in the troubled history of Jewish/Christian relations in light of the evidence.
Continue reading in part two >
Notes
[1]ย Elliot Wolfson, โMessianism in the Christian Kabbalah of Johann Kemper,โ inย Millenarianism and Messianism in the Early Modern European Culture: Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World, edited by M. D. Goldish and R. H. Popkin (New York: Springer, 2001), 145.
[2] Wouter Hanegraaff, โSwedenborg, the Jews, and Jewish Traditions,โ inย Reuchlin und Sein Erben: Forscher, Denker, Ideologen und Spinnerย (Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2005) and Friedemann Stengel,ย Aufklรคrung bis zum Himmel: Emanuel Swedenborg im Kontext der Theologie und Philosophie des 18. Jahrhundertsย (Tรผbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011).
[3]ย Jonathan Z. Smith,ย Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestownย (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 21.
Further Reading
ร kerman-Hjern, Susanna. โDe sapientia Salomonis: Emanuel Swedenborg and Kabbalah.โ Paper presented at the annual academic symposium of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism,ย The Visual and the Symbolic in Western Esotericism. Szeged, Hungary: July 9, 2011.
Coudert, Allison P. โLeibniz, Locke, Newton and the kabbalah.โ Inย The Christian kabbalah: Jewish Mystical Books and Their Christian Interpreters, edited by Joseph Dan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard College Library, 1997.
Hanegraaff, Wouter. โSwedenborg, the Jews, and Jewish Traditions.โ Inย Reuchlin und Sein Erben: Forscher, Denker, Ideologen und Spinner, 135-154.ย Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2005.
Schoeps, Hans Joachim. โPhilosemitism in the Seventeenth Century.โ Translated by George F. Dole.ย Studia Swedenborgianaย 7:2 (December 1990): 5โ11.
Swedenborg, Emanuel.ย Secrets of Heaven. Translated by Lisa Hyatt Cooper and introduced by Wouter Hanegraaff. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2008โ2016.
Wolfson, Elliot. โMessianism in the Christian Kabbalah of Johann Kemper.โ Inย Millenarianism andย Messianism in the Early Modern European Culture: Jewish Messianism in theย Early Modern World, edited by M. D. Goldish and R. H. Popkin, 139-187 New York: Springer, 2001.