Front Matter (PDF) - Stanford University Press

mystics of both Spain and Ashkenaz, were much concerned with establishingthe
the
precise proper wordingof each prayer. The text of the prayer book had
mostly ®xed by compendia datingfrom the tenth century; in the Middle
been
however, it became the object of commentaries, many of which sought to
Ages,
their authors' own theologies re¯ected in these venerated and widely
®nd
texts by the ancient rabbis. This is especially true of the kabbalists,
known
devoted much attention to the kavvanah, or inward meaning, of liturgical
who
prayer.
fourth strand of earlier tradition is that of Merkavah mysticism. Merkavah
The
designates a form of visionary mystical praxis that reaches back into the
era but was still alive as late as tenth-century Babylonia. Its roots lie
Hellenistic
to Apocalyptic literature, except that here the voyager taken up into the
close
is usually offered a private encounter with the divine glory, one that
heavens
not involve metahistorical predications. Those who ``went down into the
does
sought visions that took them before the throne of God, allowing
merkavah''
to travel through the divine ``palaces'' (heikhalot), realms replete with
them
and, at the height of ecstasy, to participate in or even lead the angelic
angels
The term merkavah (chariot) links this tradition to the openingvision
chorus.
the prophet Ezekiel, which was seen as the great paradigm for all such
of
experiences and accounts. It is also connected to the qedushah for-
visionary
(``Holy, holy, holy is YHVH of hosts; the whole earth is ®lled with His
mula
of Isaiah 6, since it is this refrain that most Merkavah voyagers recount
glory!'')
angels singas they stand with them in the heavenly heights.
hearingthe
Merkavah tradition was known to the medievals in two ways. Treatises
The
those who had practiced this form of mysticism, often preserved in fragmentary
by
and inchoate form, were copied and brought from the Near East to
Europe, as we shall see below. But just as important were the references
western
to Merkavah practice in the Talmudic literature itself, a fact that lent
to the fascination that latter-day mystics clearly felt for this material.
legitimacy
great Talmudic sages as Rabbi Akiva and Rabban Yoḥanan son of Zakkai
Such
associated with Merkavah traditions. Akiva, considered in some aggadic
were
to be a sort of second Moses, is the subject of the most famous of all
sources
accounts of such mystical voyages. He alone, unlike the other three of
rabbinic
``four who entered the orchard,'' was able to ``enter in peace and leave in
the
While some modern scholars question the historicity of associatingthe
peace.''
rabbinic sages with Merkavah praxis, in the Middle Ages the Talmudic
early
were quite suf®cient to sustain this link. It was the philosophic questioners
sources
of the Merkavah traditions, rather than their mystical supporters, who
hard-pressed to defend their views. Merkavah traditions also had considerable
were
in¯uence on the rabbinic liturgy, and this association too raised their
in medieval eyes.
esteem
®fth and ®nal element of this ancient legacy is the hardest to de®ne,
The
Introduction
xxxii
partly because it hangs on the thread of a slim body of text, but also because it