The Kabbalist (28 page)

He paused for a second
to make sure he was understood. “To summarize,
 contains references
to Sefirot 2 and 3, representing Father and Son, which are
 –
six
Sefirot apart
from Sefirah 10, which represents the Holy Spirit.” He looked at them
triumphantly. “Here, we have a straight line connecting the first word in the
Torah with the Holy Trinity!”

Luria looked
unconvinced.

“Here is another
example for you.” Bennet pressed on enthusiastically. “In the beginning of the
fifth chapter of the book of modesty (Zohar, Part 2, Page 178, 72) it says:

meaning: “
In the
beginning God created – ‘in the beginning’ - a
word
, ‘created’ – half a
word
,
father and son.
”

Luria and Jeanne
appeared baffled, and Bennet hurried to explain. “I already pointed out that in
Hebrew the word
 
is made up of the first three
letters, or
half
of the word
, so the first
part of the sentence above can be read like a mathematical equation:
 
is equivalent to a
'word
'
, and
 is
equivalent to half a
word
!”

Luria was lost. “Sorry,
Professor, what does
‘word’
mean in this context?”

Bennet looked at him
amused. “An excellent question,” he declared. “Any idea, Jeanne?” Jeanne shook
her head, bewildered.

“Strangely enough, the
answer is hidden, of all places, in the New Testament,” stated Bennet
majestically.

He stood up, walked
over to one of the shelves and pulled out a book. Leafing through it, he found
the page he was looking for and then laid the open book on the table, for both
of them to see. It was a copy of the New Testament in both English and Hebrew.

“Now, look at the
beginning of the first chapter of John:
‘In the beginning was the
Word
,
and the
Word
was with God, and the
Word
was God’
. A few
verses later (verse 14) it says:
‘and the
Word
was made flesh, and
dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of
the Father), full of grace and truth’
. Now, replace
‘
Word’
with
‘
Son’
and see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together!
‘
Word’
is just a code for none other than Jesus Christ - the Son and the bearer of the
‘Word’
– the
message
!”

He looked at them
victoriously. “I have just demonstrated to you that the Book of Zohar has the
Father and Son involved in the Creation story, and that the Zohar uses words, which
can make sense only in the context of a Christian gospel! Furthermore, the
beginning of John is strikingly similar to the excerpt from the Zohar we have discussed,
and both Kabbalah and Gospel references are, in fact, interpretations of the
opening verse of Genesis! The interpretations they supply complement each other
to explain this verse as a reference to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Do I
need to give you more examples to prove my point?”

“Please pardon me for a
moment.” Luria could no longer contain himself. “It may sound simplistic, but
all these interpretations are merely word play. It seems to me someone here
lost the distinction between word games and the real world.”

The professor’s response
surprised him. Bennet’s face got red and he burst into a rolling laughter.
Tears came to his eyes, and he slapped his thighs jubilantly. It took him some
time to calm down.

“F
orgive me,” said
Bennet eventually and turned to Luria. “I was by no means making fun of you, my
young friend. Your question is excellent and puts the issues we have been
discussing here in true perspective. I wish every scholar would ask this
question once in a while. Now, do you know what ‘
Derash’
means?”

“Yes,” replied Luria.
“It means a hidden interpretation of the scriptures. Professor Orlev explained
that to us.”

“Very good. Then your
question represents a critical approach to the Jewish
Derash
as a whole,
and to major parts of any theological literature, for that matter.”

Jeanne looked
perplexed.

“The point is that much
of Kabbalah literature might be described exactly as you said – as word games,
so to speak. Now, have you heard about
‘Sefer Yetzira’
– The Book of Creation?”

“Professor Orlev
mentioned it to us,” said Luria. “He told us that, attributed to the Patriarch
Abraham, it is believed to be the first Kabbalistic text, older even than the
Torah.”

Bennet smiled. “You
make a very good student.
’Sefer Yetzira’
is a short text comprising
just a few pages. Legend indeed attributes it to Abraham, but research places
its origin most probably in the first-century AD. Did Yeshayahu explain its
contents to you?”

“No.”

Bennet rose again and
approached one of his numerous bookshelves. He came back with a small booklet
in an improvised binding, on which the Hebrew words
 were
manually scribbled. He sank in his seat and opened the leaflet. “
‘Sefer
Yetzira’
deals with the structure of the universe. It uses much of the Kabbalistic
terminology found in the Book of Zohar and in other Kabbalistic compositions.
Let me read to you its first verse.” He read from the leaflet in Hebrew with a
slight American accent and then translated it for Jeanne.
“With thirty two
wondrous paths of wisdom engraved Yah, the Lord of Hosts, his world in three
books, with book, with number, and with story.”

He watched the confused
faces of his guests. “The last three words
‘Sefer’
- book,
‘Sefirah’
-
number or count, and
‘Sippur’
– story, are derived from the same Hebrew
root, so it has a certain ring to it in Hebrew, which is lost in translation.”

His guests did not seem
to make much of this.

“Many interpretations
of this text have been suggested. The most accepted interpretation is that God created
the world out of abstract symbols. It follows that the existence of God is the
only reality, and the rest is but an illusion. In other words, this universe we
are experiencing as reality is but a book or a story, written by God.”

His audience still looked
puzzled.

“What are the
‘thirty
two wondrous paths of wisdom’
?” asked Jeanne.

“The thirty two
components making up the story we are experiencing, of course. These include
the twenty two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the ten Sefirot. To use a
more modern terminology, I would say that what we are daily experiencing is but
a virtual reality, like the one in movies, stories and fairy tales.” He looked
at his mystified listeners. “Think about that movie, ‘The Matrix’ to get a rough
idea. Have you seen it?” Both nodded.

Bennet now addressed
Luria. “Do you see the answer to your question now?”

Luria hesitated. “You
mean that because the building blocks of the world we know are basically
letters and numbers, or Sefirot, then word games are viable tools for dealing
with this world?”

“Bravo!” cried Bennet
and clapped his hands. “An outstanding observation! I could not have worded it
better myself. Now, let me read to you the second verse of
‘Sefer Yetzira’
.
Again, he read a few words in Hebrew and immediately translated them into
English:
‘Ten Sefirot of Nothingness
…’ See? The ten Sefirot are void.
They are just an illusion!”

“Are these the same ten
Sefirot of Kabbalah?” inquired Jeanne.

“The very same!
Actually, this is the first source ever to have mentioned them. The book
recognizes them to be but an illusion, but also as legitimate tools to explain
a world which is itself an illusion.”

Jeanne was thrilled. “This
is fascinating. It reminds me of some eastern philosophies. This image of a
holy spirit, which emanates spiritual signals that make up the world is much
like the Hindu ‘
Maya’
, which literally means ‘Illusion’ in Sanskrit.” She
laughed. “Next you are going to tell us that this book also deals with
meditation techniques.”

Bennet smiled, picked
up the book again and leafed through it. “Well, since you have mentioned it, I
would like you to listen to verse 7”.

He then repeated the
routine of reading in Hebrew and translating to English:
“Bridle your mouth
from speaking and your heart from thinking. And if your mouth runs to speak,
and your heart runs to think, return to the place, as it was written ‘running
and returning’.”

Jeanne’s mouth opened
in amazement but she did not utter a word.

“In fact, some
Kabbalists use breathing and relaxation techniques, which are very much like
meditation,” continued Bennet. “But why go to the east? What about Western
Philosophy? David Hume told us that our only perceptions of the world comprise
impressions and concepts, and that we have no way of knowing whether something
‘real’ exists beyond them. Immanuel Kant, horrified by the implications of
Hume’s philosophy, proposed a world which we perceive through built-in, inner
tools that we utilize to form a partial picture of it. Furthermore, if you go
through the heated discussions between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr about the
meaning of Quantum Theory, you will find the same dilemma – what part of the
universe can we perceive, and is there really an ‘objective’ universe out there?
Philosophers have long been discussing
Ontology
- the nature of reality
vs.
Epistemology
, which is concerned with what it means to
know
anything at all, and trying to understand the relationship between the two.”

Bennet raised his voice.
“I think that both Hume and Bohr would basically agree with the spirit of these
Kabbalistic statements. Though they would never agree with the witch spells of
the so-called Practical Kabbalah,” he added immediately. “And now you can
better understand why the Practical Kabbalists believe that by playing with
words, spells and various names of God, they can influence reality.”

Luria shook his head in
doubt. “I admit this is more sophisticated than I have first realized, yet you
cannot convince me that by analyzing sentences in Hebrew, you can deduce
anything about the structure of the universe.”

“Why not?” retorted
Bennet. “Every philologist will tell you that the structure of language has
very much to do with the way we perceive the world.”

“I can agree with
that,” said Luria. “Yet, Hebrew is but one language. Why would the Hebrew
letters serve as the tool for understanding the world? Why not the Egyptian
hieroglyphs? Or the Chinese characters, for that matter?”

“As a Jew, you must
know the answer to this question,” said Bennet.

Luria looked baffled.

“Jews are the chosen
people,” declared Bennet. “They are the people who received the Ten
Commandments from Moses.” He paused for a second. “The Commandments were
written by God, and in Hebrew.” He folded his arms across his chest, looking like
a chess master who has just delivered the ultimate checkmate.

Luria was taken aback.
Until that moment, Bennet had somehow been making sense, but this sudden switch
to the irrational was unacceptable to a professional investigator and a born
skeptic like Luria. He remembered Orlev’s words about Bennet:
“
When I found out that his beliefs were biasing his
academic judgment, I broke off all academic contact with him
.” Luria was
beginning to see Orlev's point.

Bennet pressed on.
“Now, let’s go back to the issue of Christian influence on Kabbalah. Just consider
the idea of miracles. With a few exceptions, you do not find miracle makers in
Judaism after Moses and before Jesus. The Kabbalists, on the other hand,
believe in their capacity to heal the sick, chase away evil spirits and
influence the heavens by using various names of God and all kinds of spells,
charms and psalms. These ideas made their way into today’s Hassidism, with its
miracle-performing spiritual master
Tzadik
, who has an ongoing dialog
with God and angels, and who is, like the Pope, infallible. Here is a clear
Christian fingerprint for you. I have many more.”

Silence fell over the
room as both Luria and Jeanne were contemplating these ideas.

“All right,” said Luria
eventually. “We certainly have learned a lot today, but let us return to our
original question. What could this document, rumored to have disappeared in
Safed, be? We can assume it was a Kabbalistic or Christian text, and that it
played a part in Templar history. What would you suggest?”

Bennet thought this out
for a while. “The evidence for the existence of the Templar secret treasure or
document is purely circumstantial. Let me go through it briefly. The order was
founded in 1119 by nine French knights, led by Hugues de Payens, who asked
permission from Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, to protect Christian pilgrims on
their way from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The king gave them as headquarters the site
of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, which is where the Jewish Temple
used to be. The knights called themselves
‘The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of
Christ and of the Temple of Solomon’
or Templars in short, and relied on
charity. Within a span of ten years, they were given unprecedented privileges
by the Pope, and then the order grew meteorically. They became a military and
economic power which held for 180 years. This phenomenal development
facilitated the theory that the nine founders blackmailed the Church by using
an artifact they had found among the ruins of the Temple.” He paused for a
breath. “A lot of populist notions have been suggested for such an artifact but
nobody really knows the truth.”

“Could this artifact
have been the Kabbalistic or Christian text we are looking for,” said Jeanne.

Bennet considered this
for a while and then his eyes lit up. “Perhaps it could be both.”

The two looked at each
other. “I do not understand,” said Luria.

Bennet smiled. “My
friend, you are a private investigator. We both make a living by picking up
facts and coming up with theories to explain them. Now, the facts are,” he
raised one finger, “the de Charney letter specifically mentions old scrolls.” He
raised a second finger. “We have the Templar/Christian connection, and,” a
third finger, “we have a source hinting at a Kabbalistic text lost in this
context. OK so far?”

Luria nodded.

“Now we need a
hypothesis to link these three pieces of information. Here is an option which
has just occurred to me.” He sorted out his thoughts. “Suppose the text is a
bridge between early Christianity and Kabbalah, a text which substantiates all
that I have told you this evening, and perhaps even solves some more riddles.” Excitement
was audible in his voice.

“So you do believe that
such a document exists, don’t you?” asked Jeanne.

Bennet did not answer.
His eyes were fixed in alarm on the window facing the garden behind his guests.
Luria turned around instinctively to look through the window behind him, but
saw nothing. It was already dark outside.

“Sorry, Madam, can you
repeat your question?” said Bennet, but Luria noticed that the man had lost his
former enthusiasm.

“I asked whether you
believe that such a document really existed,” repeated Jeanne.

“Not necessarily,” interjected
Bennet hurriedly. “I would be very glad if it did, of course, so I could
substantiate my theories. Nevertheless, I have to disappoint you. I do not
believe such a document will be found. I am sorry.” He looked at his watch.
“Unfortunately, we have to finish here. I have to leave for another meeting. I have
enjoyed our conversation very much.” He stood up.

Jeanne and Luria rose
too, somewhat nonplussed. The three shook hands. Bennet walked them to the door
where they exchanged some hurried greetings and parted.

A light drizzle was
falling, and the two walked in silence to the car which was parked nearby.
Luria felt Jeanne’s inquisitive look but ignored it and said nothing. He opened
the car doors, and the two climbed in and sat inside. He started the engine.

“What was that?” Jeanne
could not contain herself anymore.

“What do you mean?”

“He virtually threw us
out. Something happened to him. I am sure you noticed it as well as I did.”