Before Kabbalah

We are speaking of messianism. We are exploring the development of messianism in Jewish history.

We saw it come out of the biblical roots and explode onto the fore in 2nd Temple Judaism and Early Christianity.

It was then engaged with, incorporated institutionally, or normalized in Rabbinic Literature of late antiquity / early medieval times. 

When we remind ourselves as we speculate broadly over Jewish history, the two great acute messianic phenomena were: Early Christianity and the Shabbtai Zvi movement of the 17th century.

The sequence above evolved around and through the case of Early Christianity - biblical roots preceded the messianic Christian movement, and rabbinic engagement followed.

The next sequence, beginning now, will evolve around and through the case of Sabbatianism: Kabbalah precedes the messianic Sabbatian movement, and Hasidism follows...

One of the many new things found in Sabbatianism, what is not found at all in the Rabbinic Literature, not for messianism nor at all, are the rampant Kabbalistic terms and ideas.

But after Sabbatianism, messianism almost always incorporates all sorts of ideas and terms from the world of Kabbalah.

And so, the logical approach is simply to assume that the major developmental chapter preceding Sabbatianism, as far as messianism goes, is Kabbala, where is the roots of these terms and phrases come from. 

We may call this the kabbalization of messianism - because Kabbalah conecpts really infiltrate and take over messianism in Judaism between the middle ages and modernity.

Difficult to Trace

Remember Scholem? The great professor of Jewish mysticism in the 20th century, made Jewish mysticism famous and popular in academic circles and beyond. 

The 2 monuments of his monumental academic career in religious historical and textual studies, were 1) Jewish mysticism at large, and specifically 2) the Sabbatian movement. 

[His ideas, moderated and refined, are still the basis for what most historians consider as the history of these concepts, though some are friendly-critical, while other scholars are vehemently critical.]

Somehow, Scholem is always the place to start when approaching these themes. So here are a few guidelines from the school of Scholem: One can loosely look for Jewish mysticism before and after Kabbalah. We can talk about Jewish mysticisms or ancient Jewish mysticism, which is before Kabbalah, or there is Kabbalah;

One can loosely identify 2 forms of mysticism - experiential, practical, or ecstatic forms of mysticism, vs. theosophic forms, which is more a matter of thinking, ideas, writing, wisdom, theology, and knowledge, often secret or at least esoteric - though there is overlap, these are useful theoretical distinctions.

He asserted that Jewish mysticism is not connected to or dependent on mysticism of other religions, namely Christianity, but also Islam, and so you can and should study Judaism and Mysticism on their own;

And he asserted that messianism and mysticism in Judaism were not traditionally tied together, but rather these were two separate parallel threads, that eventually converged in many cases...

That last point is really interesting for us. Because it's true. And we want to trace how and when Jewish mysticism / Kabbalah gets mixed up with messianism.