On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism

«The literary production of the Kabbalists, more intensive in certain periods than in others, has been stored up in an impressive number of books, many of them dating back to the late Middle Ages.» — Scholem describe el corpus del que habla: una producción desigual en el tiempo y guardada en un número considerable de libros, muchos de fines de la Edad Media.

«When Israel became an independent state, the Jews of Yemen, a remote and isolated principality in southern Arabia, immigrated almost to a man aboard the ‘magic carpets/ as they called the airliners.» — el caso con que Scholem muestra que ese mundo no se ha extinguido del todo: los judíos del Yemen emigrados casi en bloque al fundarse el Estado de Israel, en los aviones que llamaban alfombras mágicas.

«They were obliged to abandon nearly all their belongings; but one object many had been unwilling to part with was their copy of the Zohar, which they have continued to study to this day.» — y lo que según Scholem no quisieron dejar atrás: su ejemplar del Zohar, que seguían estudiando.

«But this world has been lost to European Jewry. Down to our own generation, students of Jewish history showed little understanding for the documents of the Kabbalah and ignored them almost completely.» — el contraste que Scholem plantea: para el judaísmo europeo ese mundo se perdió, y los historiadores judíos ignoraron los documentos de la cábala casi por completo.

«For in the late eighteenth century, when the Jews of Western Europe turned so resolutely to European culture, one of the first and most important elements of their old heritage to be sacrificed was the Kabbalah.» — la fecha y el motivo que Scholem le adjudica a esa pérdida: al volcarse a la cultura europea a fines del siglo XVIII, lo primero que el judaísmo occidental sacrificó de su herencia fue la cábala.

«Jewish mysticism with its intricate, introverted symbolism was felt to be alien and disturbing» — cómo se la sintió entonces, según Scholem: ajena y perturbadora por su simbolismo intrincado y vuelto hacia dentro.

«The key to the understanding of the Kabbalistic books seemed to have been lost.» — el diagnóstico de Scholem sobre el punto de partida de su propio trabajo: la clave de esos libros parecía perdida.

«Scholars were perplexed and embarrassed by this world, which, instead of offering clear and simple concepts that could be developed, presented symbols of a very special kind, in which the spiritual experience of the mystics was almost inextricably intertwined with the historical experience of the Jewish people.» — y la razón que da del desconcierto: la cábala no ofrece conceptos claros que se puedan desarrollar, sino símbolos donde la experiencia espiritual del místico y la histórica del pueblo judío están entretejidas.

«It is this interweaving of two realms, which in most other religious mysticisms have remained separate, that gave the Kabbalah its specific imprint.» — para Scholem ese entretejido es lo propio de la cábala: en casi todas las demás místicas religiosas los dos planos permanecen separados.

«Small wonder that it seems strange to students of Christian mysticism, since it does not fit into the categories of ‘mysticism’ with which they are familiar.» — consecuencia que Scholem saca de lo anterior: la cábala le resulta extraña a quien estudia mística cristiana porque no cabe en sus categorías.

«The more sordid, pitiful, and cruel the fragment of historical reality allotted to the Jew amid the storms of exile, the deeper and more precise the symbolic meaning it assumed, and the more radiant became the Messianic hope which burst through it and transfigured it.» — la relación inversa que Scholem propone entre desdicha histórica y densidad simbólica: cuanto más dura la realidad del exilio, más preciso el sentido simbólico y más radiante la esperanza mesiánica.

«At the heart of this reality lay a great image of rebirth, the myth of exile and redemption, which assumed such vast dimensions with the Kabbalists and accounts for their prolonged historical influence.» — y el núcleo de esa relación: el mito de exilio y redención como gran imagen de renacimiento, al que Scholem atribuye la larga influencia histórica de los cabalistas.

«For in the books of the Kabbalists the personal element is almost negligible and so veiled in all manner of disguises that we must look very closely to find it.» — una advertencia de lectura: según Scholem, en los libros cabalísticos lo personal es casi nulo y va tan disfrazado que hay que buscarlo de cerca.

«Very rarely did a Kabbalist speak of his own way to God» — de ahí que Scholem declare que el cabalista casi nunca habló de su propio camino hacia Dios.

«And the chief interest of the Kabbalah for us does not lie in such statements, but in the light it throws on the ‘historical psychology’ of the Jews.» — Scholem desplaza el interés del testimonio personal a otra cosa: lo que la cábala alumbra es la psicología histórica de los judíos, y por eso interesa igual al historiador que al psicólogo.

«Research in this field involves an enormous responsibility. In digging up and evaluating the material, a scholar must make every effort to preserve a critical attitude.» — la exigencia que Scholem se pone a sí mismo al desenterrar y evaluar el material: mantener una actitud crítica.

«For long before historians became interested in Jewish mysticism, charlatans and cranks were drawn to it. This was of doubtful benefit to the study of the Kabbalah.» — y por qué la exige: antes que los historiadores llegaron al asunto charlatanes y excéntricos, con beneficio dudoso para el estudio de la cábala.

«We shall start from the assumption that a mystic, insofar as he participates actively in the religious life of a community, does not act in the void.» — el supuesto declarado con que Scholem abre el primer ensayo: el místico que participa de la vida religiosa de una comunidad no obra en el vacío.

«A mystic is a man who has been favored with an immediate, and to him real, experience of the divine, of ultimate reality, or who at least strives to attain such experience.» — la definición que Scholem da de místico, con la puerta abierta a quien solo aspira a esa experiencia.

«No historian can say—nor is it his business to answer such questions— whether a given mystic in the course of his individual religious experience actually found what he was so eagerly looking for.» — y la abstención con que la acompaña: al historiador no le toca decidir si el místico encontró de verdad lo que buscaba.

«From a historical point of view, the mystical quest for the divine takes place almost exclusively within a prescribed tradition—the exceptions seem to be limited» — la restricción histórica que Scholem impone al asunto: la búsqueda mística ocurre casi siempre dentro de una tradición prescrita, con excepciones escasas.

«Where such a tradition prevails, a religious authority, established long before the mystic was born, has been recognized by the community for many generations.» — cómo define Scholem la autoridad religiosa que el místico se encuentra puesta: reconocida por la comunidad desde mucho antes de que él naciera.

«Grounded in the specific experience of the community, this authority has been developed through an interchange between the community and those individuals who have interpreted its fundamental experience and so helped the community to express itself, who in a manner of speaking have made it articulate.» — y de dónde la hace venir: de un intercambio entre la comunidad y quienes interpretaron su experiencia fundante hasta volverla articulada.

«There is then a scale of values that has been taken over from tradition; there is also a group of doctrines and dogmas, which are taken as authentic statements concerning the religious experience of a given community.» — los dos componentes que Scholem le reconoce: una escala de valores heredada y un cuerpo de doctrinas y dogmas tenidos por enunciados auténticos de esa experiencia.

«But let us make no mistake. Inestimable as may be the worth of these mute, anonymous saints, the history of religions is not concerned with them.» — el deslinde con que Scholem excluye de su objeto al santo mudo y anónimo: valga lo que valga, la historia de las religiones no se ocupa de él.

«It is concerned with what happens when men attempt to enter into communication with each other. And it is generally recognized that in the case of mystics such communication presents a problem.» — porque, según Scholem, lo que la historia de las religiones estudia es lo que pasa cuando los hombres intentan comunicarse, y en el místico esa comunicación es problema.

«If not for such attempts it would be impossible to regard mysticism as a historical phenomenon.» — y de ahí la condición que pone: sin esos intentos de comunicar, la mística no sería un fenómeno histórico.

«it is precisely in the course of such attempts that mysticism comes to grips with religious authority. All mysticism has two contradictory or complementary aspects: the one conservative, the other revolutionary. What does this» — la tesis del doble aspecto, enunciada donde Scholem la hace nacer: en el momento en que el místico intenta comunicar y choca con la autoridad religiosa.

«It has been said that mystics are always striving to put new wine into old bottles—just what a famous passage in the Gospels warns us not to do.» — la fórmula ajena que Scholem retoma —vino nuevo en odres viejos— señalando que el Evangelio advierte justamente contra eso.

«The answer is that these mystics seem to rediscover the sources of traditional authority.» — su respuesta a cómo puede un místico ser conservador: le parece que redescubre las fuentes de la autoridad tradicional.

«Perceiving the ancient foundations of this authority, they have no desire to change it.» — y el corolario: al percibir esos fundamentos antiguos, no desea cambiarlos.

«Sometimes this conservative function has been included in the very definition of mysticism—but this strikes me as questionable and one-sided.» — la objeción de Scholem a quienes meten esa función conservadora en la definición misma de mística: le parece cuestionable y unilateral.

«An American author, for example, has defined mysticism as ‘the endeavor to secure consciousness of the presence of the Agency through which (or through Whom) the conservation of socially recognized values is sought.» — el ejemplo con que lo ilustra, sin dar el nombre: una definición que reduce la mística a asegurar la conservación de valores socialmente reconocidos.

«To be sure, there is always some part of it that he cannot adequately and fully express.» — la reserva que Scholem mantiene sobre la comunicación mística: siempre queda una parte que el místico no expresa del todo.

«Because mystical experience as such is formless, there is in principle no limit to the forms it can assume.» — de la ausencia de forma Scholem saca una consecuencia fuerte: en principio no hay límite a las formas que la experiencia puede tomar.

«Only the most universal formal elements are the same in different forms of mysticism.» — y el límite de lo comparable: solo los elementos formales más universales coinciden entre místicas distintas.

«In general, then, the mystic’s experience tends to confirm the religious authority under which he lives; its theology and symbols are projected into his mystical experience, but do not spring from it.» — la regla general que Scholem propone: la teología y los símbolos de la autoridad bajo la que vive el místico se proyectan en su experiencia, no salen de ella.

«He contributes not only to the conservation of the tradition, but also to its development.» — y el otro lado del mismo movimiento: al conservar la tradición el místico también la desarrolla.

«Indeed, a mystic’s understanding and interpretation of his own experience may even lead him to question the religious authority he had hitherto supported.» — hasta el punto, dice Scholem, de que interpretar su propia experiencia puede llevarlo a cuestionar la autoridad que sostenía.

«A mystic may substitute his own opinion for that prescribed by authority, precisely because his opinion seems to stem from the very same authority.» — el mecanismo de la sustitución: su opinión reemplaza a la prescrita justamente porque le parece venir de esa misma autoridad.

«Occasionally a revolutionary mystic has laid claim to a prophetic gift and asserted a prophetic function in his efforts to reform his community.» — Scholem consigna que a veces el místico revolucionario reclama don profético para reformar su comunidad.

«Personally I reject such an identification and am convinced that it can throw no light on our problem.» — y rechaza en primera persona identificar profecía con experiencia mística: no le parece que aclare el problema.

«But prophecy as it was originally understood is something entirely different.» — su razón: la profecía, tal como se entendió originalmente, es otra cosa.

«Cautiously as the authors may express themselves, this theory of prophecy as union with the ‘active intellect’ always suggests something of the unio mystica, though not of the ultimate degree.» — la salvedad con que trata la teoría medieval de la profecía como unión con el intelecto agente: sugiere algo de unio mystica, aunque no en su grado último.

«The most radical of the revolutionary mystics are those who not only reinterpret and transform the religious authority, but aspire to establish a new authority based on their own experience.» — el grado extremo del aspecto revolucionario según Scholem: no reinterpretar la autoridad, sino fundar una nueva sobre la propia experiencia.

«In extreme cases, they may even claim to be above all authority, a law unto themselves.» — y el caso límite: pretenderse por encima de toda autoridad y ley para sí mismos.

«The formlessness of the original experience may even lead to a dissolution of all form, even in interpretation.» — de dónde hace venir Scholem esa posibilidad: de la falta de forma de la experiencia originaria, que puede disolver toda forma, incluso la de la interpretación.

«Here all religious authority is destroyed in the name of authority: here we have the revolutionary aspect of mysticism in its purest form.» — la paradoja que Scholem consigna sin resolver: la autoridad religiosa destruida en nombre de la autoridad, y ahí el aspecto revolucionario en estado puro.

«It is this perspective, destructive, yet not unrelated to the original impulse of the mystic, which enables us to understand the borderline case of the nihilistic mystic as an all too natural product of inner mystical upheavals even if he was rejected with horror by all those about him.» — y su lectura del místico nihilista: producto demasiado natural de trastornos místicos internos, aunque los suyos lo rechazaran con horror.

«The word of God must be infinite, or, to put it in a different way, the absolute word is as such meaningless, but it is pregnant with meaning.» — la fórmula con que Scholem enuncia el supuesto que hace posible la exégesis mística: la palabra absoluta no significa nada por sí y por eso está preñada de sentido.

«The word which claims the highest authority is opened up, as it were, to receive the mystic’s experience.» — cómo describe la operación: la palabra de máxima autoridad se abre para recibir la experiencia del místico.

«Rabbi Pinhas of Koretz, a Hasidic mystic, expressed this with the utmost precision when he translated the formula Rabbi Shim'on patah (‘Rabbi Simeon opened [his lecture] with the verse of Scripture’; it is with these words that Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai’s mystical exegeses and lectures are introduced in the Zohar) literally as ‘Rabbi Simeon opened the verse of Scripture.» — el ejemplo con que Scholem lo muestra: según él, Pinhas de Koretz lee la fórmula del Zohar Rabbi Shim'on patah no como que Simeón ben Yohai abrió su lección con un versículo, sino como que abrió el versículo mismo.

«The key itself may be lost, but an immense desire to look for it remains alive.» — la imagen con que Scholem cierra ese punto: la llave puede estar perdida y quedar viva la voluntad de buscarla.

«In his commentary on the Psalms, Origen quotes a ‘Hebrew’ scholar, presumably a member of the Rabbinic Academy in Caesarea, as saying that the Holy Scriptures are like a large house with many, many rooms, and that outside each door lies a key—but it is not the right one.» — la fuente antigua que aduce: según Scholem, Orígenes atribuye a un docto hebreo —presumiblemente de la academia rabínica de Cesarea— la imagen de la Escritura como casa de muchas puertas, cada una con una llave que no es la suya.

«Authority no longer resides in a single unmistakable ‘meaning’ of the divine communication, but in its infinite capacity for taking on new forms.» — el desplazamiento que Scholem describe: la autoridad deja de estar en un sentido único y pasa a la capacidad infinita de tomar formas nuevas.

«But this mystical approach to Scripture embraces two clearly discernible attitudes, the one conservative, and the other revolutionary.» — y la misma bifurcación aplicada a la lectura de la Escritura: una actitud conservadora y otra revolucionaria.

«One cannot but be fascinated by the unbelievable freedom with which Meister Eckhart, the author of the Zohar, or the great Sufi mystics read their canonical texts, from which their own world seems to construct itself.» — lo que a Scholem le llama la atención en Meister Eckhart, en el autor del Zohar y en los grandes sufíes: la libertad con que leen sus textos canónicos, de los que su propio mundo parece construirse.

«But even where the religious authority of the same sacred book is recognized, a revolutionary attitude is inevitable once the mystic invalidates the literal meaning.» — el punto donde Scholem sitúa la ruptura: reconocido el mismo libro sagrado, declarar inválido el sentido literal ya vuelve inevitable la actitud revolucionaria.

«It is not yet certain whether the Dead Sea scrolls should be regarded as mystical in the strictest sense.» — la abstención de Scholem sobre los rollos del Mar Muerto: no da por resuelto que sean místicos en sentido estricto.

«Our interpretation of these texts, and particularly of the personal element in them, is still so uncertain that the question will probably not be decided for some time to come.» — y la razón que da: la interpretación de esos textos, sobre todo de su elemento personal, sigue siendo incierta.

«But if it should turn out that the leaders of this sect were mystics (and not merely conservative reformers), this literature will provide an excellent example, indeed, the oldest known example, of a conservative attitude towards the sacred text, accompanied by the greatest freedom of exegesis.» — la hipótesis condicional que deja planteada: si los jefes de la secta resultaran místicos, esa literatura sería el ejemplo más antiguo de actitud conservadora ante el texto sagrado con máxima libertad de exégesis.

«There can be no question of an abrogation of the authority; the aim is rather to restore it in all its harshness.» — lo que Scholem lee en ellos por ahora: no derogar la autoridad, sino restaurarla en toda su dureza.

«Paul had a mystical experience which he interpreted in such a way that it shattered the traditional authority.» — el caso contrario que pone al lado: según Scholem, Pablo interpretó su experiencia mística de un modo que quebró la autoridad tradicional.

«He could not keep it intact; but since he did not wish to forgo the authority of the Holy Scriptures as such, he was forced to declare that it was limited in time and hence abrogated.» — y el compromiso al que eso lo obligó: para no renunciar a la autoridad de las Escrituras, declararla limitada en el tiempo y por eso abrogada.

«The new authority that is set up, for which the Pauline Epistles themselves serve as a holy text, is revolutionary in nature.» — el resultado que Scholem le adjudica a esa operación de Pablo: una autoridad nueva, con las propias epístolas por texto santo.

«The literal meaning is preserved but merely as the gate through which the mystic passes, a gate, however, which he opens up to himself over and over again.» — cómo describe Scholem la actitud conservadora ante el texto: el sentido literal se conserva, pero como puerta que el místico se abre una y otra vez.

«Often it is hard to say whether the mystical meaning is actually there or whether he injects it.» — y la duda que Scholem deja abierta al respecto: muchas veces no se puede decir si el sentido místico estaba ahí o lo pone el místico.

«He has grown up within the framework of a recognized religious authority, and even when he begins to look at things independently and to seek his own path, all his thinking and above all his imagination are still permeated with traditional material.» — el argumento de Scholem sobre el peso de la formación: aun cuando el místico busca camino propio, su pensamiento y sobre todo su imaginación siguen empapados de material tradicional.

«This is the case with Rimbaud and more consistently with William Blake. They regard themselves as Luciferian heretics, yet their imagination is shot through with traditional images, either of the official Catho» — los dos casos que Scholem pone de mística secularizada cuya imaginación sigue siendo tradicional: Rimbaud con imágenes de la Iglesia católica y Blake con imágenes herméticas y espiritualistas; el tramo se corta donde el renglón parte la palabra.

«Even in such revolutionaries, who seek their authority essentially in themselves and in a secular interpretation of their visions, tradition asserts its power.» — la conclusión que saca de esos casos: incluso en quienes buscan la autoridad en sí mismos, la tradición impone su fuerza.

«This secular mysticism takes a particularly interesting form in the Anglo-Saxon countries, where, after Blake, we encounter such figures as Walt Whitman, Richard Bucke, and Edward Carpenter, who in their interpretation of their experience recognized no authority whatsoever.» — y dónde sitúa su forma más nítida: en el mundo anglosajón, con Whitman, Richard Bucke y Edward Carpenter, que no reconocieron autoridad alguna.

«The book makes it clear that authentic mystical experience can be interpreted, even by the ‘mystic’ himself, in a purely immanent, naturalistic way, without the slightest reference to religious authority.» — lo que Scholem lee en ese libro: que una experiencia mística auténtica puede interpretarse de modo inmanente y naturalista, sin referencia a autoridad religiosa.

«But even here the scientific and philosophical theories accepted by the author play a determining role, just as the corresponding theories of the Buddhists, Neoplatonists, or Kabbalists shape their interpretations of their experience.» — y la simetría que traza: las teorías científicas del autor cumplen ahí el mismo papel determinante que las de budistas, neoplatónicos o cabalistas en las suyas.

«In line with Darwinian theory, he regarded mystical experience as a stage in the development of human consciousness toward greater universality.» — la interpretación que le atribuye: la experiencia mística como etapa del desarrollo de la conciencia humana hacia mayor universalidad, en línea con la teoría darwiniana.

«Past generations put a religious interpretation on it—a historically understandable error.» — y cómo, según Scholem, ese autor trata la lectura religiosa anterior: un error históricamente comprensible.

«The mystic’s claim to authority is legitimate, but must be interpreted in a different way: it is the authority of those whose consciousness has achieved a new stage of development.» — el reemplazo que propone esa lectura: la autoridad del místico sigue siendo legítima, pero por haber alcanzado su conciencia una etapa nueva.

«Nevertheless, I find them extremely illuminating as one more indication that mystical experience is essentially amorphous and can therefore be interpreted in any number of ways.» — el uso que Scholem hace de ese material, dicho en primera persona: le sirve como indicio de que la experiencia mística es amorfa y admite cualquier número de interpretaciones.

«Most mystics, as we have seen, are strongly influenced by their education, which in a perfectly natural way imbues them with the traditional attitudes and symbols.» — el peso que Scholem le reconoce a la educación: imbuye al místico de actitudes y símbolos tradicionales por vía natural.

«The religious training of the group still leaves room for all manner of spiritual adventures, contrary to the recognized ideas and doctrines and likely to bring about a clash between the mystic and the religious authority» — y el margen que aun así queda: aventuras espirituales contrarias a las ideas reconocidas, capaces de provocar el choque con la autoridad.

«This is no doubt one of the many reasons for the widespread belief that a mystic requires a spiritual guide, or guru, as he is called in India.» — de ahí deriva Scholem la creencia extendida en que el místico necesita un guía espiritual, el gurú de la India.

«the function of the guru is primarily psychological» — y cómo define esa función: ante todo psicológica.

«He prevents the student who sets out to explore the world of mysticism from straying off into dangerous situations.» — la primera tarea que le asigna al guía: impedir que el estudiante se desvíe a situaciones peligrosas.

«For confusion or even madness lurk in wait; the path of the mystic is beset by perils.» — el riesgo que Scholem nombra sin rodeos: confusión y aun locura acechan el camino del místico.

«It borders on abysses of consciousness and demands a sure and measured step.» — la imagen con que lo dice: un borde de abismos de la conciencia que exige paso firme y medido.

«He alone is familiar with the practical applications of the various doctrines, which cannot be learned from books.» — lo que solo el guía tiene, según Scholem: las aplicaciones prácticas de las doctrinas, que no se aprenden en libros.

«He molds the mystic’s interpretation of his experience, guiding it into channels that are acceptable to established authority.» — y la función conservadora que cumple: encauzar la interpretación del discípulo hacia lo aceptable para la autoridad establecida.

«He provides at the outset the traditional coloration which the mystical experience, however amorphous, will assume in the consciousness of the novice.» — hasta el punto de que, según Scholem, el guía da de entrada el color tradicional que la experiencia amorfa tomará en la conciencia del novicio.

«Each of these stages represents a lesser degree of authority than the stage preceding it.» — según Scholem, la tradición judía ordena las revelaciones en escala descendente, y cada peldaño vale menos que el anterior.

«But mystics could still make a place for their experience within the traditional framework, provided they defined it in accordance with this descending scale of values.» — y lo que esa escala permitía: alojar la experiencia mística dentro del marco tradicional, con tal de definirla según ella.

«This was why the Kabbalists claimed no more for themselves than the seemingly so modest rank of receivers of a ‘revelation of the Prophet Elijah.» — de ahí, dice Scholem, la modestia aparente con que los cabalistas se declararon receptores de una revelación del profeta Elías.

«Since the beginnings of Rabbinical Judaism the Prophet Elijah has been a figure profoundly identified with the central preoccupations of Jewry: it is he who carries the divine message from generation to generation, he who at the end of time will reconcile all the conflicting opinions, traditions, and doctrines manifested in Judaism.» — quién es Elías en esa tradición según Scholem: el que lleva el mensaje divino de generación en generación y el que al final de los tiempos conciliará las opiniones en conflicto.

«Thus by its very nature the interpretation of mystical experience as a revelation of the Prophet Elijah tended far more to confirm than to question the traditional authority.» — y el efecto de la fórmula: interpretar la experiencia como revelación de Elías confirmaba la autoridad tradicional mucho más que cuestionarla.

«It is extremely significant that the first Kabbalists said to have attained this rank were Rabbi Abraham of Posquieres and his son Isaac the Blind.» — los primeros a quienes Scholem ve alcanzar ese rango: Abraham de Posquières y su hijo Isaac el Ciego.

«Abraham ben David (d. 1198) was the greatest Rabbinical authority of his generation in southern France, a man deeply rooted in Talmudic learning and culture.» — cómo lo sitúa: la mayor autoridad rabínica de su generación en el sur de Francia, enraizado en la cultura talmúdica.

«But at the same time he was a mystic, who formulated his experience in distinctly conservative terms.» — y a la vez místico, con una formulación de su experiencia que Scholem llama netamente conservadora.

«And when his son, a pure contemplative mystic without any outstanding claim to Rabbinical authority, carried on in his father’s mystical path, the same claim was raised for him.» — cómo pasó el rango al hijo: contemplativo puro y sin autoridad rabínica destacada, se le reclamó lo mismo por seguir la vía del padre.

«The doctrines formulated by him and his school were looked upon as a legitimate completion of Rabbinical doctrine, whose adherents were in no danger of conflict with traditional authority.» — el estatuto que se les dio a esas doctrinas: complemento legítimo de la doctrina rabínica, sin riesgo de conflicto.

«Yet tremendous forces were at work in this mysticism, and the symbols in which the new revelation was communicated disclose an intense and by no means undangerous conflict with traditional authority.» — y la tensión que Scholem señala debajo: los símbolos con que se comunicó la nueva revelación dejan ver un conflicto intenso y nada inofensivo.

«Nevertheless, the ideas he employed in this seemingly conservative task were utterly new and seem doubly daring in their conservative context.» — el juicio de Scholem sobre las ideas de Luria: enteramente nuevas, y doblemente atrevidas dentro de una tarea de apariencia conservadora.

«And yet, for all their glaring novelty, they were not regarded as a break with traditional authority.» — y lo que aun así no ocurrió: pese a su novedad flagrante, no se las tuvo por ruptura con la autoridad tradicional.

«Thus Luria’s source of inspiration became a new authority in its own right.» — el resultado según Scholem: la fuente de inspiración de Luria se volvió autoridad nueva por derecho propio.

«But though defined in traditional categories, this new authority, once accepted, brought about profound changes in Judaism, even when its advocates claimed to be doing nothing of the sort.» — y el efecto que le atribuye: definida en categorías tradicionales, esa autoridad cambió a fondo el judaísmo aunque sus valedores dijeran no cambiar nada.

«The mystical experience that was his source is still as authentic as any, and as high in rank as any earlier phenomenon in the world of Rabbinical Judaism.» — la evaluación que Scholem hace de esa fuente: tan auténtica y de rango tan alto como cualquier fenómeno anterior del judaísmo rabínico.

«Symbols, by their very nature, are a means of expressing an experience that is in itself expressionless.» — la definición operativa de símbolo con que Scholem trabaja: medio de expresar una experiencia que en sí misma no tiene expresión.

«Undoubtedly there have been mystics in whom the dividing fine between conscious and unconscious coincided with the dividing fine between their conservative and revolutionary tendencies. But this should not lead us to oversimplify.» — la simetría entre consciente e inconsciente y las dos tendencias, admitida y acotada de inmediato por Scholem; el facsímil imprime *fine* donde el libro dice line.

«But if they had been free to choose, they would have avoided these conflicts which were not of their seeking.» — su lectura de los místicos en conflicto con la autoridad: de haber podido elegir, lo habrían evitado, porque no lo buscaron.

«This conflict with the Anglican Church was forced upon Wesley, not from within but from without, but then he accepted it with full awareness and fought his battle to a finish.» — el caso de Wesley según Scholem: el conflicto con la Iglesia anglicana le vino de fuera, y solo después lo asumió y lo peleó hasta el final.

«But if they do become mystics, this radical tendency becomes particularly marked, as in the case of George Fox at the inception of the English Quaker movement.» — y el caso contrario, el de George Fox en el arranque del movimiento cuáquero inglés.

«When the conflict was forced upon them, some of them gave free rein to their spiritualist mysticism; but after a time the movement and its Rabbinical adversaries arrived at a compromise, shaky at first but gradually gaining in stability.» — cómo describe Scholem el desenlace del caso hasídico: mística espiritualista desatada por el conflicto y, con el tiempo, compromiso con los adversarios rabínicos.

«Of course the dialectic of symbolism, of which we have spoken, is always present; but whether it results in open conflict with authority depends on extraneous factors.» — la tesis con que Scholem cierra el punto: la dialéctica del símbolo está siempre presente, pero que estalle en conflicto abierto depende de factores externos.

«To these questions, unfortunately, we have no satisfactory answer» — su abstención expresa ante las preguntas que acaba de plantear.

«But the relationship between religion and historical conditions is constantly changing and cannot be reduced to any simple» — y la razón de la abstención: la relación entre religión y condiciones históricas cambia sin parar y no se reduce a fórmula simple.

«For it was not the doctrines of quietism as originally formulated by its representatives in the Spanish Church that had changed when Madame Guyon was condemned; what had changed was the historical situation.» — el ejemplo con que Scholem sostiene que el conflicto es circunstancial: al condenarse a Madame Guyon no habían cambiado las doctrinas quietistas, sino la situación histórica.

«But the exact same theory had been advanced two hundred years before by a no lesser mystical authority, by Isaac Luria himself in Safed, without arousing the slightest antagonism.» — y su equivalente judío: la misma teoría la había sostenido Isaac Luria en Safed doscientos años antes sin despertar antagonismo.

«They give him no encouragement, and if in the end the obstacles frighten the mystic and bring him back to the old accustomed ways—so much the better from the standpoint of authority.» — cómo describe Scholem la táctica de la autoridad frente al místico: no alentarlo, y darse por bien servida si los obstáculos lo devuelven a los caminos acostumbrados.

«All great institutional religions have shown a marked distaste for lay mystics, that is, the unlearned mystics who, fired by the intensity of their experience, believe they can dispense with the traditional and approved channels of religious life.» — la aversión que Scholem le atribuye a toda religión institucional: la del místico lego, que se cree capaz de prescindir de los canales aprobados.

«The Jewish authorities, for example, tried to avoid conflicts by restricting the right to engage in mystical practice and speculation to fully trained Talmudic scholars.» — la solución judía según Scholem: reservar la práctica y la especulación místicas a los talmudistas formados.

«All Kabbalistic manuals quote Maimonides’ warning: ‘No one is worthy to enter Paradise [the realm of mysticism] who has not first taken his fill of bread and meat/1 i.e., the common fare of sober Rabbinical learning.» — la advertencia de Maimónides que, según Scholem, repiten todos los manuales cabalísticos: nadie entra al Paraíso sin haberse hartado antes de pan y carne, es decir, de aprendizaje rabínico.

«Such warnings, it must be admitted, were none too effective» — y su eficacia, medida por Scholem: escasa.

«The history of the great religions abounds in lay mysticism and in movements growing out of it.» — el hecho que opone a esas advertencias: la historia de las grandes religiones abunda en mística laica y en movimientos salidos de ella.

«In short, he was a pure lay mystic and lay mysticism was a vital factor in the development of the movement he founded.» — así clasifica Scholem al Baal-Shem: místico lego puro, y la mística laica como factor vital del movimiento que fundó.

«Yet this movement (though at the price of a compromise) won the recognition of the traditional authority.» — y el desenlace: ese movimiento obtuvo el reconocimiento de la autoridad tradicional, al precio de un compromiso.

«Other movements, in which lay mysticism played an important part—the Sabbatians, for example—were unable to gain such recognition and were forced into open conflict with Rabbinical authority.» — el contraste que pone al lado: los sabatianos no lo obtuvieron y quedaron en conflicto abierto con la autoridad rabínica.

«In the history of Christianity lay mysticism is exemplified by such movements as the Gnostics, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Spanish Alumbrados, and the Protestant sects of the last four centuries.» — los ejemplos cristianos que enumera: gnósticos, Hermanos del Libre Espíritu, alumbrados españoles y las sectas protestantes de los últimos cuatro siglos.

«The Church, it is true, branded all such movements as heresies» — y cómo los trató la Iglesia, según Scholem.

«In diametrical and irreconcilable opposition to all such attempts to relieve the tension between mysticism and religious authority stands the extreme case of mystical nihilism, in which all authority is rejected in the name of mystical experience or illumination.» — el caso extremo que Scholem sitúa en el polo opuesto: el nihilismo místico, que rechaza toda autoridad en nombre de la experiencia.

«Yet from the standpoint of history, he is the most constrained and unfree of mystics, for historical reality as embodied in the human community prevents him, far more than it does any other mystic, from openly proclaiming his message.» — y la paradoja que le encuentra: es el menos libre de los místicos, porque la comunidad le impide proclamar su mensaje más que a ningún otro.

«This explains, for example, why the nihilistic character of certain mystical doctrines, such as those of the Ismailis and the Druses in particular but also of such groups as the Bektashi order of dervishes, is still a matter of discussion.» — lo que Scholem deriva de ese ocultamiento: que el carácter nihilista de doctrinas como las de los ismailíes, los drusos o los derviches bektashíes siga siendo materia de discusión.

«It goes without saying that from the standpoint of the community and its institutions, such mysticism should have been regarded as demonic possession.» — cómo la comunidad y sus instituciones veían esa mística, según Scholem: como posesión demoníaca.

«It seems to me that a statement which has come down to us from Rabbi Mendel Torum of Rymanov (d. 1814),1 one of the great Hasidic saints, throws a striking light on this whole problem of the relationship between authority and mysticism.» — con qué grado introduce Scholem el testimonio de Mendel Torum de Rymanov: le parece que arroja una luz llamativa sobre el problema entero.

«The revelation given to Israel on Mount Sinai is, as everyone knows, a sharply defined set of doctrines, a summons to the human community; its meaning is perfectly clear, and it is certainly not a mystical formula open to infinite interpretation.» — el punto de partida que Scholem enuncia antes de darle la vuelta: la revelación del Sinaí es un conjunto de doctrinas de sentido claro, no una fórmula mística abierta.

«Moses alone was able to withstand the divine voice» — el punto en que, según Scholem, Mendel de Rymanov quiebra la lectura corriente del Sinaí; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente.

«In Rabbi Mendel’s view not even the first two Commandments were revealed directly to the whole people of Israel.» — la tesis de Mendel de Rymanov según Scholem: ni siquiera los dos primeros mandamientos se revelaron directamente a todo Israel.

«All that Israel heard was the aleph with which in the Hebrew text the first Commandment begins, the aleph of the word atiokhi» — lo único que Israel habría oído: el aleph con que empieza el primer mandamiento; el facsímil imprime *atiokhi* donde el hebreo transliterado es *anokhi*, yo.

«Thus, with his daring statement that the actual revelation to Israel consisted only of the aleph, Rabbi Mendel transformed the revelation on Mount Sinai into a mystical revelation, pregnant with infinite meaning, but without specific meaning.» — qué hace esa tesis con el Sinaí, según Scholem: lo convierte en revelación mística, preñada de sentido infinito y sin sentido específico.

«In order to become a foundation of religious authority, it had to be translated into human language, and that is what Moses did.» — y de dónde saca entonces su autoridad: de la traducción a lengua humana, que es lo que hizo Moisés.

«In this light every statement on which authority is grounded would become a human interpretation, however valid and exalted, of something that transcends it.» — la consecuencia que Scholem extrae: todo enunciado en que se funda la autoridad pasa a ser interpretación humana de algo que la trasciende.

«It is mystical experience which conceives and gives birth to authority.» — la inversión con que cierra el primer ensayo: es la experiencia mística la que concibe y pare la autoridad.

«But this perhaps is to take too rationalistic a view of what goes on in the mind of a mystic.» — la reserva que Scholem se pone a sí mismo: quizá sea una visión demasiado racionalista de lo que pasa en la mente del místico.

«For one thing that can be said with certainty about Kabbalists is this: they are, and do their best to remain, traditionalists, as is indicated by the very word Kabbalah, which is one of the Hebrew words for» — lo único que Scholem da por cierto de los cabalistas: que son y quieren seguir siendo tradicionalistas, cosa que la palabra misma cábala indica.

«It is generally known that allegorical interpretations arise spontaneously whenever a conflict between new ideas and those expressed in a sacred book necessitates some form of compromise.» — cuándo nace la alegoría según Scholem: cuando el choque entre ideas nuevas y un libro sagrado exige un compromiso.

«It is not always easy, in a given case, to determine whether the Biblical text inspired the exegesis or whether the exegesis was a deliberate device, calculated to bridge the gap between the old and the new vision by reading completely new ideas into the text.» — la duda de método que deja abierta: no siempre se puede decidir si el texto inspiró la exégesis o si la exégesis fue recurso deliberado para leerle ideas nuevas.

«What is true of allegorical interpretation is still more applicable to the specifically mystical interpretation of such texts.» — y que lo dicho de la alegoría vale más aún para la interpretación propiamente mística.

«But this parallelism, as far as I can see, does not spring from any historical influence of Philo upon the medieval Kabbalists, although there have been numerous attempts—to my mind all unsuccessful—to demonstrate such a line of filiation.» — el paralelo con Filón, admitido y desactivado a la vez: hasta donde Scholem ve, no viene de influencia histórica, y los intentos de documentar la filiación le parecen fallidos.

«Only recently so outstanding a scholar as Y. F. Baer attempted to demonstrate a profound structural kinship and even identity between the conceptions of Philo and those of the Kabbalists, and to interpret both as perfectly legitimate developments of the strictly Rabbinical conception underlying the Halakhah.» — quién sostiene lo contrario, nombrado: Y. F. Baer, que propone parentesco estructural y aun identidad entre Filón y los cabalistas.

«Insofar as such parallels actually exist, they are based on similarity of purpose.» — y la explicación que Scholem prefiere para esos paralelos: semejanza de propósito.

«I believe that I can demonstrate such an influence in at least one case, in connection with the doctrine of the fourfold meaning of Scripture.» — la única influencia que Scholem dice poder mostrar, con su grado puesto: la de la doctrina del cuádruple sentido de la Escritura.

«But throughout their history it remained the principal content of their vision, and always they spoke of it in the language of symbols, since it is not accessible to the direct perception of the human mind.» — por qué los cabalistas hablan en símbolos, según Scholem: su objeto no es accesible a la percepción directa de la mente humana.

«But this life as such is not separate from, or subordinate to, the Godhead, rather, it is the revelation of the hidden root, concerning which, since it is never manifested, not even in symbols, nothing can be said, and which the Kabbalists called en-sofi the infinite.» — cómo sitúa Scholem la vida divina respecto de la raíz oculta: no separada ni subordinada, sino revelación de aquello de lo que nada puede decirse, que los cabalistas llamaron *en-sof*; el facsímil imprime *en-sofi*.

«When the Kabbalists speak of divine attributes and sefiroth, they are describing the hidden world under ten aspects; when, on the other hand, they speak of divine names and letters, they necessarily operate with the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet, in which the Torah is written, or as they would have said, in which its secret essence was made communicable.» — los dos registros con que, según Scholem, los cabalistas dicen lo mismo: diez aspectos del mundo oculto por el lado de las sefirot, veintidós consonantes hebreas por el lado de los nombres y las letras.

«The Kabbalistic conceptions of the true nature of the Torah are based on three fundamental principles.» — el armazón que Scholem le da al segundo ensayo: tres principios fundamentales sobre la naturaleza verdadera de la Torá.

«They are not necessarily connected, although in our texts they often appear together, but it is not difficult to see how a relation can be established between them.» — y la acotación que pone enseguida: los tres no están necesariamente conectados, aunque los textos los presenten juntos.

«The author of this statement is Eleazar ben Pedath, a teacher of the third century, whose interest in esoteric ideas is also apparent in other utterances;» — a quién atribuye Scholem el dicho aggádico que abre el asunto: Eleazar ben Pedath, maestro del siglo III con interés esotérico atestiguado en otros dichos.

«It is well known that in the Hellenistic period and later the Torah was put to magical use both by Jews and non-Jews: divine names gleaned from the Torah were» — el uso mágico de la Torá que Scholem da por conocido en época helenística, entre judíos y no judíos; el tramo se corta al cambiar de plana.

«Moses went up to heaven to receive the Torah, how he conversed with the angels, and how finally God gave him not only the text of the Torah as we know it, but also the secret combinations of letters which represent another, esoteric aspect of the Torah.» — lo que según Scholem cuenta el Shimmushe Torah: que Moisés recibió además de nuestro texto las combinaciones secretas de letras, el aspecto esotérico de la Torá.

«We possess/ he writes, an authentic tradition showing that the entire Torah consists of the names of God and that the words we read can be divided in a very different way, so as to form [esoteric] names.» — la tesis que Scholem cita de Nahmánides: la Torá entera consiste en nombres de Dios, y las palabras que leemos admiten otra división; el corchete de *esoteric* es del traductor y el facsímil imprime la comilla de apertura como una barra.

«The statement in the Aggadah to the effect that the Torah was originally written with black fire on white fire2 obviously confirms our opinion that the writing was continuous, without division into words, which made it possible to read it either as a sequence of [esoteric] names» — y el apoyo que Nahmánides le da, según Scholem: la Torá escrita con fuego negro sobre fuego blanco, es decir, escritura continua sin división en palabras.

«In view of this esoteric structure of the Torah, says Nahmanides, the Masoretic tradition concerning the writing of the Bible and especially the scrolls of the Torah must be observed with the utmost care.» — la consecuencia práctica que Scholem le lee: si la estructura es ésa, la tradición masorética de escritura del rollo debe guardarse con el mayor cuidado.

«But when I went to Rabbi Ishmael, he asked me: My son, what is your occupation? I answered: I am a scribe [of the Torah]. And he said to me: My son, be careful in your work, for it is the work of God; if you omit a single letter, or write a letter too many, you will destroy the whole world.» — el dicho talmúdico que Scholem aduce sobre el escriba: una letra de más o de menos y se destruye el mundo entero.

«The passage from Nahmanides clearly indicates the influence of the magical tradition, which was of course far older than the Kabbalah.» — la adjudicación de Scholem: en ese pasaje de Nahmánides obra la tradición mágica, mucho más vieja que la cábala.

«From here it was only a short step to the still more radical view that the Torah is not only made up of the names of God but is as a whole the one great Name of God.» — el paso siguiente que Scholem describe: de la Torá hecha de nombres de Dios a la Torá como el único gran Nombre.

«I believe that Nahmanides himself was perfectly familiar with this new idea, but that he was reluctant to express» — y su conjetura sobre quién ya la tenía: cree que Nahmánides conocía la idea y prefirió no formularla.

«To say that the Torah was in essence nothing but the great Name of God was assuredly a daring statement that calls for an explanation.» — Scholem admite lo que la tesis tiene de atrevida antes de explicarla: la Torá como nada más que el gran Nombre de Dios.

«Here the Torah is interpreted as a mystical unity, whose primary purpose is not to convey a specific meaning, but rather to express the immensity of God’s power, which is concentrated in His» — el sentido que le da: unidad mística cuyo fin no es transmitir un significado determinado sino expresar la inmensidad del poder divino concentrado en el Nombre.

«To say that the Torah is a name does not mean that it is a name which might be pronounced as such, nor has it anything to do with any rational conception of the social function of a name.» — y los dos malentendidos que descarta de entrada: ni nombre pronunciable ni nombre en su función social corriente.

«The meaning is, rather, that in the Torah God has expressed His transcendent Being, or at least that part or aspect of His Being which can be revealed to Creation and through Creation.» — lo que sí quiere decir, según Scholem: que en la Torá Dios expresó su ser trascendente, o al menos la parte de él revelable a la Creación.

«Moreover, since even in the ancient Aggadah the Torah was regarded as an instrument of Creation, through which the world came into existence,1 this new conception of the Torah must be regarded as an extension and mystical reinterpretation of the older conception.» — cómo enlaza Scholem lo nuevo con lo viejo: la Torá como instrumento de la Creación ya estaba en la Aggadah antigua, y la idea cabalística es su extensión mística.

«Another early Midrash says that God ‘looked into the Torah and created the world.» — el otro dicho midrásico que aduce: Dios miró la Torá y creó el mundo.

«The author of these words must have thought that the law which governs Creation as such, hence the cosmos and all nature, was already prefigured in the Torah, so that God, looking into the Torah, could see it, although to us this aspect of the Torah remains concealed.» — y lo que Scholem infiere de él: que la ley que rige la Creación ya estaba prefigurada en la Torá, aunque ese aspecto nos quede oculto.

«This conception is actually formulated by Philo, who explains the fact that the Mosaic Law begins with a record of the Creation of the world by saying that ‘Moses wished to set forth the genesis of the great world state [megalopolis], since his own laws were the best possible copy of the structure of all nature.» — el paralelo que sí nombra: Filón explicando por qué la Ley mosaica empieza por el relato de la Creación.

«In the minds of the Kabbalists these ancient notions handed down in the Aggadic tradition fused into a single idea.» — la operación que Scholem le atribuye a los cabalistas: fundir esas nociones aggádicas en una sola idea.

«It goes without saying that such an assertion about the Torah does not refer to the document written in ink on a scroll of parchment, but to the Torah as a pre-existential being, which preceded everything else in the world.» — la precisión que Scholem intercala: la afirmación no habla del documento escrito con tinta en pergamino, sino de la Torá preexistente.

«For the Kabbalists this ‘Creation of the Torah’ was the process by which the divine Name or the divine sefiroth of which we have spoken above emanated from God’s hidden essence.» — y qué entiende por la creación de esa Torá: el proceso por el que el Nombre divino o las sefirot emanaron de la esencia oculta de Dios.

«The Torah, as the Kabbalists conceived it, is consequently not separate from the divine essence, not created in the strict sense of the word; rather, it is something that represents the secret life of God, which the Kabbalistic emanation theory was an attempt to describe.» — de ahí la consecuencia: no está separada de la esencia divina ni es creada en sentido estricto, sino que representa la vida secreta de Dios.

«In other words, the secret life of God is projected into the Torah; its order is the order of the Creation.» — la fórmula corta de esa tesis, en boca de Scholem.

«This most secret aspect of the Torah, or one might say, the Torah in its occult form, is sometimes referred to in the Kabbalistic literature of the thirteenth century as torah kedumah, the primordial Torah, and is sometimes identified with God’s hokhmah (sophia), His ‘wisdom,’ the second emanation and manifestation of the divine power, which sprang from the hidden» — el nombre que la literatura cabalística del siglo XIII le da a ese aspecto, según Scholem: torah kedumah, la Torá primordial, identificada a veces con la hokhmah o sabiduría de Dios.

«Know that the entire Torah is, as it were, an explication of, and commentary on, the tetragrammaton YHWH.» — la tesis de Gikatila que Scholem cita: la Torá entera es explicación y comentario del tetragrámaton.

«In other words, the phrase torath YHWH does not mean the Torah which God gave but the Torah which explains YHWH, the name of God.» — y cómo la traduce Scholem: torath YHWH no es la Torá que Dios dio, sino la Torá que explica a YHWH.

«He writes for example: ‘Behold the miraculous way in which the Torah was woven from God’s wisdom.» — la imagen del tejido con que Gikatila lo dice, en cita de Scholem.

«If Gikatila had been asked exactly how this weaving was done, he would doubtless have answered with his teacher Abraham Abulafia that the basic elements, the name YHWH, the other names of God, and the appellatives, or kinnuyim, or rather, their consonants, went through several sets of permutations and combinations in accordance with the formulas set forth by the Talmudists, until at length they took the form of the Hebrew sentences of the Torah, as we read them now.» — cómo respondería Gikatila al cómo, según la conjetura de Scholem: con su maestro Abraham Abulafia, por permutaciones y combinaciones de las consonantes del Nombre y de los kinnuyim hasta formar las frases hebreas que hoy leemos.

«All these metamorphoses of names have a twofold function.» — la doble función que Scholem le asigna a esas metamorfosis.

«They serve on the one hand to give the Torah its aspect as a communication, a message of God to man, accessible to human understanding.» — la primera: darle a la Torá su lado de mensaje comprensible.

«On the other hand, they point to the secret operation of the divine power, recognizable only by the garment woven from the Holy Names when they serve certain specific purposes in the work of Creation.» — la segunda: apuntar a la operación secreta del poder divino, reconocible solo por la vestidura de Nombres santos.

«In conclusion it should be said that this conception of the Torah as a fabric woven of names provided no contribution to concrete exegesis.» — el balance de Scholem sobre esa concepción: no aporta nada a la exégesis concreta.

«It was, rather, a purely mystical principle and tended to remove the Torah from all human insight into its specific meanings, which are, after all, the sole concern of exegesis.» — porque, dice, aleja la Torá de toda comprensión humana de sus significados, que es lo único que a la exégesis le importa.

«But this did not trouble the Kabbalists» — y a los cabalistas eso no les preocupaba, según Scholem.

«To them the fact that God expressed Himself, even if His utterance is far beyond human insight, is far more important than any specific ‘meaning’ that might be conveyed.» — porque para ellos pesaba más que Dios se hubiera expresado que cualquier significado transmitido.

«So considered, the Torah is an absolute and has primacy over all human interpretations, which, however deep they may penetrate, can only approximate the absolute ‘meaninglessness’ of the divine revelation.» — la formulación extrema del punto: la Torá como absoluto cuya falta de significado ninguna interpretación humana alcanza más que por aproximación.

«Certain Kabbalists, such as Menahem Recanati (c. 1300), went still further.» — quién lleva la tesis más lejos, según Scholem: Menahem Recanati, hacia 1300.

«Starting from an old saying: ‘Before the world was created, only God and His Name existed,’1 they taught that the name here referred to was not only the tetragrammaton YHWH, but the totality of the manifestations of the divine power—this, they said, was the mystical meaning of the true name of God.» — de qué parte y a dónde llega: del dicho de que antes del mundo solo existían Dios y su Nombre, a que el Nombre es la totalidad de las manifestaciones del poder divino.

«From here it was only one more step to saying that God Himself is the Torah, Tor the Torah is not something outside Him, and He is not outside the Torah.» — y el paso final que Scholem consigna: Dios mismo es la Torá, que no está fuera de Él ni Él fuera de ella.

«The principle that the Torah is a living organism falls in with several lines of Kabbalistic thought.» — el segundo de los tres principios que Scholem anunció: la Torá como organismo vivo.

«In his commentary on the Song of Songs, Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona writes that the Torah contains not so much as one superfluous letter or point, ‘because in its divine totality it is an edifice hewn from the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He.» — el primer testimonio que aduce: Ezra ben Solomon de Gerona negando que sobre en la Torá una letra o un punto, porque es un edificio tallado del Nombre.

«He too starts from the assumption that the Torah is the Name of God and that it is a living body with a soul.» — el supuesto compartido que Scholem le atribuye también a Azriel de Gerona: la Torá como Nombre de Dios y como cuerpo vivo con alma.

«Consequently, to omit so much as one letter or point from the Torah is like removing some part of a perfect edifice.» — la consecuencia de ese supuesto: quitar una letra o un punto equivale a retirar una parte de un edificio perfecto.

«Thence it also follows that in respect of its divine character no essential distinction can be drawn between the section of Genesis 36, setting forth the generations of Esau [a seemingly superfluous passage], and the Ten Commandments, for it is all one whole and one edifice.» — y el corolario que Scholem subraya: por su carácter divino no hay distinción esencial entre la genealogía de Esaú y los Diez Mandamientos.

«The only difference is that a common organism includes vital organs and others that are not vital, while in the Torah any such distinction is only apparent,» — la diferencia que sí admite: en un organismo común hay órganos vitales y órganos que no lo son, y en la Torá esa distinción es solo aparente.

«He who labors in the Torah upholds the world and enables each part to perform its function.» — lo que del Zohar levanta Scholem sobre el estudio: quien trabaja en la Torá sostiene el mundo y permite a cada parte cumplir su función.

«For as man’s body consists of members and parts of varying rank, all acting and reacting upon one another so as to form one organism, so is it with the world at large: it consists of a hierarchy of created things, which, when they properly act and react upon each other, together form one organic body.» — la analogía que sostiene esa idea: cuerpo humano y mundo como jerarquías cuyas partes, al actuar unas sobre otras, hacen un solo organismo.

«Another metaphor for the same idea, this time based on the image of the tree, occurs elsewhere in the Zohar3 and is expressed still more strikingly in one of the Hebrew works of Moses de Leon, whom I regard as the author of the main part of the Zohar.» — la metáfora del árbol y, de paso, la adjudicación que Scholem hace en primera persona: tiene a Moisés de León por autor de la parte principal del Zohar.

«And although among the sages of the Talmud one forbids what the other allows, one declares a thing to be ritually clean which another terms impermissible, one says this and another that, nevertheless it is necessary to know that the whole is one unity.» — el pasaje sobre el desacuerdo talmúdico que Scholem cita: uno prohíbe lo que otro permite y aun así hay que saber que el todo es una unidad.

«The mystical organism of the Torah, which embodies the name of God, is thus correlated with the mystical body of the Community of Israel, which the Kabbalists regarded not only as the historical organism of the Jewish people, but also as an esoteric symbol for the Shekhinah, its members being, as it were, the ‘members of the Shekhinah.» — la correlación que Scholem describe: el organismo místico de la Torá con el cuerpo místico de la Comunidad de Israel, símbolo esotérico de la Shekhinah.

«In order to understand the» — la distinción tradicional que Scholem pide tener presente antes de seguir: Torá escrita y Torá oral.

«According to Rabbinical tradition, Moses received both Torahs at once on Mount Sinai, and everything that any subsequent scholar finds in the Torah or legitimately derives from it, was already included in this oral tradition given to Moses.» — cómo la resuelve la tradición rabínica según Scholem: Moisés recibió las dos a la vez en el Sinaí, y todo hallazgo posterior ya estaba incluido en la oral.

«Thus in Rabbinical Judaism the two Torahs are one» — el resultado en el judaísmo rabínico, dicho corto.

«The written Torah was looked upon chiefly as a symbol of the giving sphere of the Godhead, identified primarily with the sefirah Tif’ereth, while the oral Torah was seen as a symbol of the receptive sphere, which is at once that of the Shekhinah and of the ‘Congregation of Israel/ In their active association, these two sefiroth manifest the action of God, and similarly the whole revelation of the Torah is given only in this unity of the written and the oral Torah.» — y qué hizo la cábala con esa pareja, según Scholem: leerla como símbolo de la esfera dadora, Tif’ereth, y de la receptora, la Shekhinah, cuya asociación activa es la revelación entera.

«The forms in which the written and the oral Torah are given here on earth—e.g., the scroll of the Torah and the collections of Talmudic traditions—point back to those deeper spheres from which essentially they arose.» — cómo se ordenan entonces rollo y Talmud: como formas terrenas que remiten a esas esferas más hondas.

«But the most interesting discussion of the relationship between them occurs in a fragment which may be attributable to one of the very first Provencal Kabbalists, namely, Isaac the Blind.» — el texto que a Scholem le parece el más interesante del punto, con su atribución en grado condicional: quizá de Isaac el Ciego.

«Here the Torah seems to burn before God in black fiery letters on white fire, and it is this conception which inspired Rabbi Isaac, probably before Nahmanides, to write the following:» — la imagen que le sirve de base: la Torá ardiendo ante Dios en letras de fuego negro sobre fuego blanco.

«In God’s right hand were engraved all the engravings [innermost forms] that were destined some day to rise from potency to act.» — el pasaje mismo de Isaac el Ciego, con el corchete explicativo del traductor.

«The form of the written Torah is that of the colors of white fire, and the form of the oral Torah has colored forms as of black fire.» — el reparto de los dos fuegos que Scholem cita de Isaac el Ciego: la Torá escrita en el blanco, la oral en el negro.

«And all these engravings and the not yet unfolded Torah existed potentially, perceptible neither to a spiritual nor to a sensory eye, until the will [of God] inspired the idea of activating them by means of primordial wisdom and hidden knowledge.» — el estado previo que ese texto describe: los grabados y la Torá no desplegada existiendo en potencia, invisibles al ojo espiritual y al sensorial.

«The author goes on to relate how from the not yet unfolded Torah, which corresponds to the sefirah of Grace, there sprang the written Torah, which corresponds to the sefirah of Divine Compassion, which is tif’ereth, and the oral Torah, corresponding to the power of divine judgment in malkhuth, the last sefirah.» — cómo Scholem ordena la derivación del pasaje: de la Torá no desplegada, en la sefirá de Gracia, brotan la escrita en tif’ereth y la oral en malkhuth.

«And so the written Torah can take on corporeal form only through the power of the oral Torah, that is to say: without the oral Torah, it cannot be truly understood.» — la dependencia que el mismo texto enuncia: sin la Torá oral, la escrita no toma cuerpo ni se entiende.

«The mystical symbolism of this profoundly meaningful passage conceals the view that, strictly speaking, there is no written Torah here on earth.» — la lectura que Scholem propone del pasaje: hablando con rigor, no hay Torá escrita en la tierra.

«It was, to be sure, revealed to Moses, but what he gave to the world as the written Torah has acquired its present form by passing through the medium of the oral Torah.» — y la razón: lo que Moisés entregó pasó por el medio de la Torá oral para tomar su forma actual.

«The mystical white of the letters on the parchment is the written Torah, but not the black of the letters inscribed in ink.» — dónde queda entonces la Torá escrita según esa lectura: en el blanco místico del pergamino, no en el negro de la tinta.

«There is only an oral Torah: that is the esoteric meaning of these words, and the written Torah is a purely mystical concept.» — la formulación más fuerte del punto, que Scholem entrega como sentido esotérico del pasaje.

«I am referring to the idea of the two levels of meaning—• inward and outward—in the sacred texts.» — el tercer asunto que Scholem abre: los dos niveles de sentido, interno y externo, del texto sagrado.

«It is interesting to note that the terms used by many Jewish philosophers to denote these two levels of meaning (hitson and penirni, outward and inward) never occur in this context in the older Jewish sources, but are literal translations of the corresponding Arabic terms.» — el dato filológico con que lo data: los términos *hitson* y *penirni* —así lo imprime el facsímil, por *penimi*— no aparecen en las fuentes judías viejas y son calcos del árabe.

«Thus it is evident that this terminology originated in Islam, whence it was taken over by the Jewish philosophers, who proceeded to identify the inner meaning with the philosophical interpretation of the text, which was not strictly speaking mystical.» — la procedencia que Scholem le adjudica a esa terminología: el islam, de donde la toman los filósofos judíos para nombrar la interpretación filosófica, que no es mística.

«A mystical interpretation arose only when this terminology was taken over by the Spanish Kabbalists and finally by the author of the Zohar, who translated it into Aramaic.» — y cuándo se vuelve mística: al pasar a los cabalistas españoles y al autor del Zohar, que la vierte al arameo.

«In many passages of the Zohar the principle is developed that the Torah is at once hidden and manifest, esoteric and exoteric, ’oraitha sethim ve-galya.» — el principio zohárico que Scholem cita en arameo: la Torá a la vez oculta y manifiesta.

«The ancient root is undoubtedly Philo of Alexandria, to whom we may ultimately attribute all these distinctions between literal meaning and spiritual meaning, which were taken over by the Church Fathers and the Christian Middle Ages, and also by Islam (which derived them from Oriental Christian sources» — la raíz que Scholem le atribuye a toda esa distinción: Filón de Alejandría, por vía de los Padres y del islam.

«Though it is perfectly possible that such ideas had also been preserved by Jewish groups which we have thus far been unable to identify, their historically visible expression is undoubtedly attributable to Christian and Islamic influence.» — y cómo acota esa atribución: no descarta grupos judíos no identificados, pero la expresión históricamente visible la carga a la influencia cristiana e islámica.

«What Kabbalistic exegesis discovers behind the literal meaning of the Bible or of the Talmudic interpretations of the Bible was something very different.» — el deslinde de Scholem entre alegoría filosófica y exégesis cabalística: lo que ésta encuentra detrás de la letra es otra cosa.

«So outstanding an authority as Nahmanides deliberately avoided the allegorical interpretations of the philosophers in his commentary on the Torah.» — la conducta que Scholem le registra a Nahmánides: evitar deliberadamente las alegorías de los filósofos en su comentario.

«He was well aware of the danger that might accrue to the observance of Jewish ritual from a pure spiritualization of the Torah such as a consistent application of the allegorical method would imply.» — y el motivo que le atribuye: el riesgo que una espiritualización consecuente de la Torá le traería a la observancia del rito.

«The danger, in his opinion, was not present in the mystical interpretation of the Biblical text, where the symbol became meaningful only through the actual enactment of the commandment.» — por qué la interpretación mística no corría ese riesgo, según Nahmánides: ahí el símbolo solo cobra sentido al cumplirse el mandamiento.

«While, for example, Joseph ibn Aqnin, contemporary of Maimonides, speaks, throughout his commentary on the Song of Songs, of three such levels of interpretation—literal, Aggadic, and philosophicoallegorical—the Kabbalists added a fourth, that of the theosophical mystery in the sense defined above.» — el cuarto nivel que Scholem ve añadir a los cabalistas sobre los tres de Joseph ibn Aqnin: el del misterio teosófico. Lectura restituida: el impreso parte *philosophico-allegorical* en el guion de fin de renglón y el extractor lo devuelve unido; el volumen imprime ese compuesto con guion en otra plana (*philosophico-theological*, p. 33).

«This level the Zohar terms ra%a de-mehemanutha—understanding according to the ‘mystery of faith.» — el nombre que el Zohar le da a ese nivel; el facsímil rinde la transliteración aramea con un signo de porcentaje.

«It makes use of no specific term or formula such as was later used to designate the four levels.» — la salvedad cronológica de Scholem sobre el pasaje del Zohar que va a citar: todavía no usa el término ni la fórmula con que después se nombraron los cuatro niveles.

«Haggadah seems to refer to some allegorical or tropic form of interpretation, while by midrash is meant the hermeneutic method by which the halakhists, or legalists, of the Talmud derived their definitions from the Biblical text.» — cómo lee Scholem los dos rótulos viejos: haggadah por interpretación alegórica o trópica, midrash por el método con que los halakhistas derivaban definiciones del texto.

«It was already employed by the German and French Hasidim of the early thirteenth century, especially in connection with the merkahah (chariot) described in Chapter I of Ezekiel.» — quién había usado antes la metáfora de la nuez, según Scholem: los hasidim alemanes y franceses de principios del siglo XIII, a propósito de la merkabah de Ezequiel.

«Moses de Leon uses the metaphor in diverse contexts: for the meaning of the Torah, for the meaning of the merkahah and the dangerous demonic realms surrounding it;» — y en cuántos contextos la usa Moisés de León.

«Verily the Torah lets out a word and emerges a little from her sheath, and then hides herself again.» — el arranque de la parábola zohárica de la doncella que Scholem traduce entera: la Torá suelta una palabra, sale un poco de su vaina y vuelve a esconderse.

«But she does this only for those who know and obey her» — la condición que el mismo texto pone: solo lo hace para quien la conoce y la obedece.

«For the Torah resembles a beautiful and stately damsel, who is hidden in a secluded chamber of her palace and who has a secret lover, unknown to all others.» — la comparación central de la parábola: la Torá como doncella escondida en su cámara, con un amante secreto que nadie más conoce.

«What does she do? She opens the door of her hidden chamber ever so little, and for a moment reveals her face to her lover, but hides it again forthwith.» — lo que la doncella hace: abrir apenas la puerta, mostrar el rostro un instante y volver a ocultarlo.

«Were anyone with her lover, he would see nothing and perceive nothing.» — y lo que un acompañante vería: nada.

«Thus the Torah reveals herself and hides, and goes out in love to her lover and arouses love in him.» — la moraleja que el pasaje saca: la Torá se muestra y se esconde, y sale al encuentro de su amante para despertarle amor.

«When he comes to her, she begins from behind a curtain to speak words in keeping with his understanding, until very slowly insight comes to him, and this is called derashah.» — el segundo grado del cortejo según la parábola: hablar tras una cortina en palabras a la medida del entendimiento, que es lo que se llama derashah.

«Such a man is then termed perfect, a ‘master/ that is to say, a ‘bridegroom of the Torah’ in the strictest sense, the master of the house, to whom she discloses all her secrets, concealing nothing.» — el grado último: el esposo de la Torá, dueño de la casa, a quien ella no le oculta ningún secreto.

«And therefore men should take care to pursue the Torah [that is, study it with great precision], in order to become her lovers as has been related.» — y el precepto con que cierra: estudiarla con precisión para volverse sus amantes; el corchete explicativo es del traductor.

«At this stage the author of the Zohar had not yet conceived of a concise formula in which to sum up the whole conception.» — la datación que Scholem sostiene: en ese punto el autor del Zohar todavía no tenía fórmula que resumiera la concepción.

«We know that before 1290 he wrote a lost work entitled Pardes, which literally means» — el dato que aduce sobre Moisés de León: antes de 1290 escribió una obra perdida llamada Pardes.

«This title is based on a pun, which became widely known and was much used in subsequent Hebrew literature.» — y de qué depende ese título: de un juego de palabras que hizo fortuna en la literatura hebrea posterior.

«The exact meaning of pardes in this passage has long been an object of speculation.» — la abstención de Scholem sobre el sentido del pardes en el relato talmúdico de los cuatro que entraron: lleva mucho tiempo siendo objeto de especulación.

«In any event, Moses de Leon employed this highly suggestive term, so rich in shades of meaning, as a cipher for the four levels of interpretation.» — lo que sí da por firme: que Moisés de León lo empleó como cifra de los cuatro niveles.

«Each consonant of the word PaRDeS denotes one of the levels: P stands for peshat, the literal meaning, R for remedy the allegorical meaning, D for derashdy the Talmudic and Aggadic» — el desglose del acrónimo, tal como lo imprime el facsímil: *peshat* el sentido literal, *remez* el alegórico —el volumen imprime *remedy*—, *derash* el talmúdico y aggádico.

«The pardes into which the four ancient scholars entered thus came to denote speculations concerning the true meaning of the Torah on all four levels.» — el efecto de esa cifra: el pardes en que entraron los cuatro sabios pasó a nombrar la especulación sobre el sentido verdadero de la Torá en los cuatro niveles.

«A few years later, roughly between 1295 and 1305, an anonymous author, probably a student of Moses de Leon or a member of his circle, wrote the latest of the Zoharic books, namely, Ra‘ya Mehemnay ‘The True Shepherd,’ and Tikkune Zohar, a work containing seventy interpretations of the first section of the Torah (Gen. 1-5).» — la datación y la atribución que Scholem da de los últimos libros zohárricos: entre 1295 y 1305, por un anónimo probablemente del círculo de Moisés de León.

«This author took over the term pardes, denoting the four levels of meaning, and it is from this source that all subsequent writers derived it.» — y por dónde pasa la transmisión, según Scholem: de esa fuente lo tomaron todos los autores posteriores.

«In this version one went into the river Pishon, which name is here interpreted as pi shone halakhoth, that is to say, ‘a mouth that learns the exact meaning of the Halakhah.» — cómo alegoriza el Ra‘ya Mehemna los cuatro ríos del Edén, según Scholem: el Pishon leído como la boca que aprende el sentido exacto de la Halakhah.

«Ben Zoma and Ben Azzai arrived only at the shell and inner coverings of the Torah; there they remained and incurred harm in these realms.» — el reparto de los cuatro que entraron al pardes en esa lectura: Ben Zoma y Ben Azzai se quedaron en la cáscara y las envolturas, y ahí sufrieron daño.

«Only Rabbi Akiba penetrated to the marrow of the Torah; he alone entered and emerged safe and sound.» — y el único que, según ese texto, llegó al meollo y salió indemne.

«Like Moses de Leon, he combines this conception with the motif of the nut: ‘The Shekhinah in exile is called pardes [because it is clothed as it were in the four levels of meaning], but itself is the innermost kernel.» — la identificación que ese autor añade, según Scholem: la Shekhinah en el exilio llamada pardes por ir vestida de los cuatro niveles, siendo ella el núcleo.

«He says: Under the title Pardes I have written a book about the mystery of the four ways, which the title in itself denotes, insofar as it refers to the four who entered the pardes, which is nothing other than peshat, reme^ derashah, and sod.» — la declaración de Moisés de León sobre su propio libro perdido, con los cuatro nombres tal como los imprime el facsímil.

«The same fundamental principle of the fourfold interpretation of Scripture is used by Bahya ben Asher throughout his compendious commentary on the Torah, written about 1291 in Saragossa.» — quién más lo aplica y cuándo, según Scholem: Bahya ben Asher en su comentario a la Torá, hacia 1291 en Zaragoza.

«The word pardes, however, was not yet known to him, for though he was familiar with certain sections of the main part of the Zohar, the later parts, in which the term occurs, had not yet been written when he began his commentary.» — la precisión cronológica con que Scholem lo acota: el término pardes todavía no le llegaba, porque las partes del Zohar donde aparece no estaban escritas.

«Not only are the printed pieces attributed to Gikatila, but also the largely unpublished fragments preserved in the Oxford MS, Neubauer, 1911.» — el problema de atribución que Scholem consigna sobre el comentario adjudicado a Gikatila, impresos y fragmentos del manuscrito de Oxford incluidos.

«Undoubtedly the question is deserving of further investigation» — y cómo lo deja: pendiente de investigación.

«He calls these ways or methods perush, be'ur^ pesher, and derash.» — los cuatro nombres alternativos que ese otro autor usa para los mismos caminos.

«One of the speakers is made to say expressly that the popular faith should not be destroyed, but should on the contrary be reinforced.» — la posición que Scholem le registra a ese diálogo sobre la fe popular: no destruirla, sino reforzarla.

«It is found in the late midrash Numbers Rabbah and was cited as early as the twelfth century by Abraham ibn Ezra, the famous Bible commentator, in the introduction to his commentary on the Pentateuch.» — de dónde viene la fórmula de las setenta caras de la Torá según Scholem: del Numbers Rabbah tardío, citada ya en el siglo XII por Abraham ibn Ezra.

«A link between this and the later notion of the seventy aspects appears clearly in a passage of the Alphabet of Rabbi Akiba, a semi-mystical treatise of the early post-Talmudic period, which has never before been considered in this connection.» — el eslabón que Scholem dice aportar: un pasaje del Alphabet of Rabbi Akiba que, según él, nadie había puesto antes en esta relación.

«The crystallization of this idea of the four levels in the hierarchical organism of the Torah was not the only contribution of the Zohar to the question that concerns us here.» — cómo enlaza Scholem con lo que sigue: los cuatro niveles no son la única aportación del Zohar al asunto.

«Abraham bar Hiyya writes: ‘Every letter and every word in every section of the Torah have a deep root in wisdom and contain a mystery from among the mysteries of [divine] understanding, the depths of which we cannot penetrate. God grant that we may know some little of this abundance.» — el testimonio con que Scholem abre el asunto del sentido infinito: Abraham bar Hiyya poniendo en cada letra una raíz honda en la sabiduría y un misterio impenetrable.

«The meaning of the holy text cannot be exhausted in any finite number of lights and interpretations, and the number seventy stands here of course for the inexhaustible totality of the divine word.» — cómo lee Scholem la cifra de setenta: no un número, sino la totalidad inagotable de la palabra divina.

«When God said, ‘Let there be light,’ he meant, as the author of the Midrash ha-Ne'elam puts it,4 the mystery that shines in the Torah.» — la lectura del Midrash ha-Ne'elam que Scholem recoge: el fiat lux entendido como el misterio que brilla en la Torá.

«Rabbi Simeon said: Alas for the man who regards the Torah as a book of mere tales and profane matters.» — la imprecación zohárica contra quien lee la Torá como libro de cuentos, en la traducción del volumen.

«When even the angels come down into the world [to fulfil a mission] they don the garment of this world, and if they did not, they could not survive in this world» — la analogía con que ese pasaje sostiene la doctrina de la vestidura: hasta los ángeles se visten de este mundo para poder subsistir en él.

«If anyone should suppose that the Torah herself is this garment and nothing else, let him give up the ghost.» — y la maldición contra quien confunda la vestidura con la Torá misma.

«But more important than the garment is the body, and more important than the body is the soul.» — la jerarquía de los tres términos: vestidura, cuerpo y alma.

«Those who know more see not only the garment but also the body that is under the garment.» — el grado intermedio de lectores según ese pasaje.

«the truly wise, the servants of the Supreme King, those who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, look only upon the soul, which is the true foundation of the entire Torah, and one day indeed it will be given them to behold the innermost soul of the Torah.» — y el grado último: los que estuvieron al pie del Sinaí y miran solo el alma, con la promesa de ver un día el alma más interior.

«According to the laws of transmigration and the distribution of the sparks into which the soul disintegrates, these 600,000 primordial souls are present in every generation of Israel.» — cómo funciona la cifra de los seiscientos mil según la escuela de Safed que Scholem expone: las almas primordiales presentes en cada generación por transmigración y reparto de chispas.

«Consequently, there are 600,000 aspects and meanings in the Torah» — la consecuencia inmediata de esa doctrina.

«Each individual in Israel possesses a letter in this mystical Torah, to which his soul is attached, and he reads the Torah in the particular way predetermined by this upper root of his in the Torah.» — y su corolario personal: cada uno tiene su letra en la Torá mística y la lee según esa raíz suya.

«All these new developments had their starting point in two questions which came quite naturally to the mind of a pious but speculatively inclined Jew:» — de dónde hace Scholem arrancar los desarrollos siguientes: dos preguntas naturales para un judío piadoso con inclinación especulativa.

«Even if the author of the main body of the Zohar did not himself raise such questions, they assumed central importance in the minds of his younger contemporary,» — la acotación con que Scholem separa las capas del Zohar: aunque el autor del cuerpo principal no se hiciera esas preguntas, para su contemporáneo más joven fueron centrales.

«The torah de-herd ah on the other hand is characterized by the verse from Proverbs (8 : 22): ‘The Lord created me in the beginning of his way.» — el segundo de los tres estados de la Torá que Scholem distingue en el Ra‘ya Mehemna, con el versículo de Proverbios que lo caracteriza; el facsímil imprime la transliteración partida en dos.

«Thus every sinner may be likened to a man who robs the Shekhinah of her garments; but a man who carries out the commandments of the Torah is as one who clothes the Shekhinah in her garments,» — la equivalencia moral que Scholem levanta de ese texto: pecar es desnudar a la Shekhinah, cumplir el mandamiento es vestirla.

«It is stated several times, for example, that the color of her garments after the fall of man, but in particular during the period of exile, is black in token of mourning.» — el color de esas vestiduras en el exilio, según el mismo texto: negro, en señal de luto.

«But in other passages the color black is related to the literal meaning of the Torah, which is the first layer of meaning to be discerned in it.» — y la otra lectura del mismo negro que Scholem consigna sin armonizarlas: el sentido literal de la Torá, su primera capa.

«Thus in a passage in the Ra'ya Mehemna, speaking of the Matrona as the Torah, the author declares that through his good deeds and also of course through his deeper insight, a righteous man illumines the Shekhinah, ‘stripping her of the somber garments of literal meaning and casuistry and adorning her with radiant garments, which are the mysteries of the Torah.» — la operación que ese pasaje le atribuye al justo: despojar a la Shekhinah de las vestiduras sombrías del sentido literal y la casuística, y vestirla de los misterios de la Torá.

«The Tree of Life was identified (even before the Zohar) with the written Torah, while the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil was identified with the oral Torah.» — la identificación que Scholem data antes del Zohar: Árbol de la Vida con Torá escrita, Árbol del Conocimiento con Torá oral.

«For an orthodox Jew—and we must not forget that in their own minds the Kabbalists were orthodox Jews—the written Torah alone, without the tradition, which is the oral Torah, would be open to all sorts of heretical misinterpretation.» — la advertencia con que Scholem recuerda de qué lado se ponían los cabalistas: se tenían por judíos ortodoxos, y sin la tradición oral la Torá escrita quedaría abierta a toda herejía.

«It is the oral Torah that determines a Jew’s actual conduct» — la función práctica que Scholem le reconoce a la Torá oral.

«It is easy to see how the oral Torah came to be identified— as it was by all the early Kabbalists—with the new mystical conception of the Shekhinah, which was regarded as the divine potency that governs the Congregation of Israel and is manifested in it.» — y con qué la identificaron los primeros cabalistas, según Scholem: con la Shekhinah, potencia divina que gobierna la Comunidad de Israel.

«The author of the Raya Mehemna and the Tikkunim, however, gave this symbolism a new turn that was fraught with consequences.» — el giro que Scholem le atribuye al autor del Ra‘ya Mehemna, y que anuncia como cargado de consecuencias.

«Thus the Tree of Knowledge became the tree of restrictions, prohibitions, and delimitations, whereas the Tree of Life was the tree of freedom, symbolic of an age when the dualism of good and evil was not yet (or no longer) conceivable, and everything bore witness to the unity of divine life, as yet untouched by any restrictions, by the power of death, or any of the other negative aspects of life, which made their appearance only after the fall of man.» — en qué consiste el giro: el Árbol del Conocimiento como árbol de restricciones y prohibiciones, y el de la Vida como árbol de libertad, anterior al dualismo de bien y mal.

«It is quite in keeping with this view that the Tree of Life should have come to represent the utopian aspect of the Torah.» — el nombre que Scholem le da a ese polo: el aspecto utópico de la Torá.

«The meaning is clear: the first tablets contained a revelation of the Torah in keeping with the original state of man, when he was governed by the principle embodied in the Tree of Life.» — cómo se reparten las dos tablas en esa doctrina: las primeras revelan la Torá del estado original del hombre.

«When the first tablets were broken, ‘the letters engraved on them flew away/ that is, the purely spiritual element receded; since then it has been visible only to mystics, who can perceive it even beneath the new outer garments in which it appeared on the second tablets.» — y qué pasó al romperse: las letras grabadas volaron, y lo espiritual quedó visible solo para los místicos bajo las vestiduras nuevas.

«On the second tablets the Torah appears in a historical garment and as a historical power.» — la fórmula corta de ese reparto.

«But the shell must not be mistaken for the whole» — la acotación con que Scholem impide leer eso como desprecio de la ley.

«The author is far from wishing to do away with the Talmudic law» — y el deslinde explícito: ese autor no quiere abolir la ley talmúdica.

«But there can be no doubt that the author expected the utopian and purely mystical aspect of the Torah to be made fully manifest» — lo que sí espera, según Scholem: que el aspecto utópico y místico de la Torá se manifieste del todo.

«The exile of the Shekhinah, which began in principle with the fall, took on its full meaning with the historical exile of the Jewish people.» — cómo empalma Scholem el mito con la historia: el exilio de la Shekhinah, iniciado con la caída, toma su sentido pleno con el exilio histórico del pueblo judío.

«Only in the course of a process of materialization do these letters combine in various ways.» — la teoría que Scholem expone de la escuela de Safed: las letras se combinan solo al materializarse.

«The spiritual letters became material when the material character of the world made this change necessary.» — y cuándo ocurre ese cambio, según la misma teoría.

«On the strength of this theory Cordovero found an answer to the two questions» — quién resuelve con ella las dos preguntas que Scholem había planteado: Moses Cordovero.

«And indeed the original combination of letters in the Torah before the fall was not sha‘atne% tsemer u-fishtim» — la aplicación concreta: antes de la caída las consonantes de la prohibición del sha‘atnez no formaban esa palabra; el facsímil rinde la transliteración con un signo de porcentaje.

«but the same consonants in another combination, namely satan- metsar u-tofsim, a warning to Adam not to exchange his original garment of light for the garment of serpent’s skin» — sino, según Cordovero, la advertencia de no cambiar la vestidura de luz por la piel de serpiente.

«It came about because when Adam put on the skin of the serpent his nature became material, so necessitating a Torah that gave material commandments.» — la causa que Cordovero le da al cambio de combinación, según Scholem: al vestir Adán la piel de serpiente su naturaleza se hizo material y exigió mandamientos materiales.

«In regard to the new interpretations of the Torah that God will reveal in the Messianic Age, we may say that the Torah remains eternally the same, but that in the beginning it assumed the form of material combinations of letters which were adapted to the material world.» — cómo concilia esa doctrina lo inmutable con lo nuevo: la Torá sigue siendo la misma y lo que cambia es la combinación material de sus letras.

«But some day men will cast off this material body; they will be transfigured and recover the mystical body that was Adam’s before the fall.» — y qué espera para el fin: el cuerpo material dejado atrás y recobrado el cuerpo místico de Adán antes de la caída.

«And yet in all these stages the Torah will be the same as it was in the beginning; its essence will never change.» — el límite que la misma doctrina se pone: la esencia de la Torá no cambia en ninguna de esas etapas.

«But at the same time, seen in historical perspective, it takes on specific meaning only in relation to the changing state of man in the universe, so that the meaning itself is subject to change.» — la tensión que Scholem deja planteada sin resolver: en perspectiva histórica el sentido sí cambia con el estado del hombre.

«These worlds are not successive but exist simultaneously and form the different stages by which the creative power of God materializes.» — cómo entiende Scholem los cuatro mundos: no sucesivos sino simultáneos, etapas de la materialización del poder creador.

«It is only in the second world that the Torah is manifested as a sequence of holy names of God, which were formed by certain combinations of elements that were present in the world of ’atsiluth.» — en qué mundo aparece la Torá como secuencia de nombres santos, según esa doctrina.

«Only in the fourth and last world could the Torah appear as it does to us.» — y en cuál toma la forma en que la leemos.

«In line with orthodox belief, the Torah remains an essentially unchanging and absolute entity.» — la fidelidad que Scholem le reconoce a esa construcción respecto de la creencia ortodoxa.

«Nowhere, I believe, has this mystical ‘relativization’ of the Torah been expressed in more outspoken terms than in a fragment from a book of Rabbi Eliyahu Kohen Ittamari of Smyrna (d. 1729), the manuscript of which was available to Hayim Joseph David Azulai, who quoted from it.» — el texto que a Scholem le parece la formulación más franca de esa relativización, con su cadena de transmisión: un fragmento de Eliyahu Kohen Ittamari de Esmirna, muerto en 1729, citado por Hayim Joseph David Azulai.

«In this fragment an attempt is made to explain why, according to Rabbinic law, the scroll of the Torah used in the synagogue must be written without vowels and punctuation.» — la pregunta a la que ese fragmento responde: por qué el rollo de la sinagoga se escribe sin vocales ni puntuación.

«Because of Adam’s sin, God arranged the letters before Him into the words describing death and other earthly things, such as levirate marriage.» — la respuesta que da: por el pecado de Adán, Dios ordenó las letras en las palabras que describen la muerte y las cosas terrenas.

«Without sin there would have been no death» — y la premisa que la sostiene.

«That is why the scroll of the Torah contains no vowels, no punctuation, and no accents, as an allusion to the Torah which originally formed a heap of unarranged letters.» — de ahí la explicación del rollo sin vocales: alusión a la Torá que era un montón de letras sin ordenar.

«The divine purpose will be revealed in the Torah at the coming of the Messiah, who will engulf death forever, so that there will be no room in the Torah for anything related» — y qué espera de la llegada del Mesías: que engulla la muerte y no quede en la Torá lugar para lo relativo a ella.

«It would be hard to conceive of a more daring formulation of the principle involved in this theory.» — el juicio de Scholem sobre esa formulación.

«Yet in his protest, curiously enough, he invokes Nahmanides’ doctrine of the original character of the Torah in opposition to the doctrine of Eliyahu Kohen, which, he said, was without foundation in authentic Rabbinical tradition» — la objeción que Scholem registra en contra, y de qué se sirve: se invoca a Nahmánides para negarle a Eliyahu Kohen fundamento en la tradición rabínica.

«It is also interesting to note that the same Azulai who was so indignant over the mystical extremism of Eliyahu Kohen should himself in one of his books have formulated a thesis that is scarcely less radical.» — la contradicción que Scholem consigna sin armonizarla: el mismo Azulai que se indignó formuló en otro libro una tesis apenas menos radical.

«There is an ancient midrash to the effect that anyone who spends the whole day reading the verse» — el midrash que Scholem trae para exponer la tesis de Azulai: la beatitud prometida a quien pase el día entero leyendo un solo versículo del Génesis.

«When a man utters words of the Torah, he never ceases to create spiritual potencies and new lights, which issue like medicines from ever new combinations of the elements and consonants.» — la explicación de Azulai según Scholem: pronunciar la Torá crea sin cesar potencias espirituales y luces nuevas, como medicinas de combinaciones siempre nuevas.

«If therefore he spends the whole day reading just this one verse, he attains eternal beatitude, for at all times, indeed, in every moment, the composition [of the inner linguistic elements] changes in accordance with the condition and rank of this moment, and in accordance with the names that flare up within him at this moment.» — y por qué eso resuelve la paradoja del midrash: la composición cambia en cada instante según el rango del momento; el corchete es del traductor.

«All in all, this is perhaps the only way in which the idea of a revealed word of God can be taken seriously.» — el juicio propio de Scholem sobre esa doctrina, con su grado puesto.

«Indeed it is true that the holy Torah was originally created as an incoherent jumble of letters.» — la tesis que Scholem atribuye a Israel Baal-Shem: la Torá creada como un revoltijo incoherente de letras.

«Thus all the letters of the Torah were indeed jumbled, and only when a certain event occurred in the world did the letters combine to form the words in which the event is related.» — y cuándo se ordenan, según esa misma tesis: cuando ocurre en el mundo el suceso que las palabras relatan.

«The Greek word stoicheion has the meanings: letter and element, or atom.» — el paralelo antiguo que Scholem trae: la doble acepción de stoicheion, letra y elemento o átomo.

«Aristotle’s succinct formulation: ‘Tragedy and comedy come from the same letters,’2 not only amplified Democritus’ idea but stated a principle which recurs in the Kabbalistic theory of the Torah;» — y la fórmula aristotélica que, según Scholem, reaparece en la teoría cabalística de la Torá.

«We have spoken of the principle of relativization according to which the manifestations of the absolute Torah vary with the historical period, and we have observed the different readings corresponding to the different states of man, in Paradise, in the world of sin and exile, and in the age of Messianic redemption and transfiguration.» — el recuento con que Scholem resume el principio de relativización antes de ampliarlo.

«This same principle found a different and still wider application in another Kabbalistic doctrine.» — y hacia dónde lo lleva: la doctrina de los shemittot.

«Thus in every shemittah the absolute essence of the Torah is relativized.» — la fórmula de esa doctrina en boca de Scholem.

«In other words: in every shemittah men will read something entirely different in the Torah, because in each one the divine wisdom of the primordial Torah appears under a different aspect.» — y su consecuencia: en cada shemittah se lee en la Torá algo enteramente distinto.

«The author of the Book Temunah was interested chiefly in the three first shemittoth, governed by the attributes of grace, of severity or judgment, and of mercy.» — qué le interesaba al autor del Book Temunah, según Scholem: los tres primeros shemittot, regidos por la gracia, el rigor y la misericordia.

«The preceding one was ruled by the law of grace, the infinite stream of divine love, which knew no restrictions or negations.» — cómo describe ese texto el ciclo anterior al nuestro.

«Read differently than now, it contained no prohibitions, but only affirmations of the beatific bond between the creature and his Creator.» — y qué Torá le correspondía: sin prohibiciones, solo afirmaciones del vínculo dichoso entre criatura y Creador.

«Since there was no evil desire and no serpent, the Torah made no mention of these things.» — el razonamiento que lo sostiene.

«It is clear that this conception very largely, though in a different form, anticipated the idea conceived fifty years later by the author of the Ra'ya Mehemna concerning the rule of the Torah in its Tree-of-Life aspect.» — la relación cronológica que Scholem propone: esa concepción anticipa en cincuenta años la del Ra‘ya Mehemna sobre la Torá como Árbol de la Vida.

«For the Creation of this world of ours, characterized by divine severity, by restriction and judgment, knows evil desires and temptation.» — cómo queda nuestro propio eón en esa doctrina: bajo el rigor divino, con deseo y tentación.

«Indeed, the author goes so far as to say that the letters of the Torah had originally refused to enter into this particular combination and to submit to use—or abuse—by the creatures that would inhabit this aeon.» — el extremo al que llega el Book Temunah según Scholem: las letras se resistieron a entrar en esta combinación y a ser usadas por los habitantes de este eón.

«And along the same lines, he stresses the utopian element, representing a return to the purer forms of the preceding shemittah, that will prevail in the third and next cycle.» — y el elemento utópico que subraya: el retorno a las formas más puras del ciclo anterior en el tercer shemittah.

«Thus this work combines the strict traditionalist view that not one letter of the Torah as given on Mount Sinai may be changed, with the conception that in other aeons this same Torah, without modifying its essence, will show another face.» — la combinación que Scholem señala en esa obra: ni una letra del Sinaí puede cambiar, y aun así la misma Torá mostrará otra cara en otros eones.

«The original divine alphabet and hence the complete Torah contained 23 letters, one of which has become invisible to us and will again be made manifest only in the next shemittah.» — la primera de las dos ideas que Scholem consigna del Book Temunah: veintitrés letras en el alfabeto divino original, una de ellas hoy invisible.

«Every negative aspect is connected with this missing letter of the original alphabet.» — y lo que esa letra faltante explica en esa doctrina.

«The second idea is based on a passage in the Talmud3 to the effect that the complete Torah contained seven books.» — la segunda idea y su base talmúdica: la Torá completa tenía siete libros.

«The Kabbalists related each of the books to one of the seven sefiroth which govern the seven cycles or aeons.» — cómo la enlazan los cabalistas con los shemittot.

«Only in the present shemittah did this Heptateuch become a Pentateuch (in this calculation the fourth book of Moses, Numbers, is held to consist of three books).» — y cómo cuadra la cuenta: el Heptateuco vuelto Pentateuco al contar Números como tres libros.

«The second of these three books has shrunk to two verses (Num. 10 : 35, 36) which are the only sign of its existence.» — el vestigio que queda del libro perdido según esa cuenta: dos versículos de Números.

«Joshua ibn Shu‘eib, a well-known Spanish rabbi and Kabbalist of the fourteenth century, was able to reconcile this thesis with his otherwise orthodox views.» — quién concilia esa tesis con la ortodoxia, según Scholem: Joshua ibn Shu‘eib, rabino y cabalista español del siglo XIV.

«According to him, the power inherent in the Torah will expand in a future aeon and we shall perceive seven books.» — y cómo la concilia: el poder de la Torá se expandirá en un eón futuro y se percibirán los siete libros.

«He also says that the first chapter of Genesis, the third verse of which contains a reference to a shemittah that consisted wholly of light without darkness, is a vestige of a more complete Torah which was revealed to the shemittah of grace but denied to ours.» — el otro vestigio que el Book Temunah señala, según Scholem: el primer capítulo del Génesis como resto de una Torá más completa, la del shemittah de gracia.

«This notion of invisible parts of the Torah which will one day be made manifest endured for centuries in a number of variants and was taken into the Hasidic tradition.» — la duración que Scholem le reconoce a esa noción: siglos de variantes, hasta entrar en la tradición hasídica.

«But the truth is that also the white, the spaces in the scroll of the Torah, consist of letters, only that we are not able to read them as we read the black letters.» — la variante hasídica que Scholem cita: también el blanco del rollo son letras, solo que no sabemos leerlas.

«But in the Messianic Age God will also reveal to us the white of the Torah, whose letters have become invisible to us, and that is what is meant by the statement about the» — y qué promete: que en la era mesiánica se revele ese blanco, y eso es lo que se llama la Torá nueva.

«Once it was supposed that a revelation of new letters or books could change the whole outward manifestation of the Torah without touching its true essence, almost anything was possible!» — la puerta que Scholem ve abrirse con esa doctrina.

«Nevertheless, these Kabbalists stressed the absolute authority of the Torah, as we read it in this present shemittah, and did not envisage the possibility that such a change might occur without a cosmic cataclysm that would usher in a new shemittah.» — y el freno que él mismo señala: esos cabalistas insistían en la autoridad absoluta de la Torá actual y no imaginaban el cambio sin cataclismo cósmico.

«Thus the antinomian utopia was relegated to a sphere of history entirely outside of our own.» — cómo queda entonces la utopía antinómica, según Scholem: fuera de nuestra historia.

«The one step that could lend actuality to such virtual antinomianism would be taken when the passage from one sefirah or one shemittah to the next would be situated within historical time instead of being postponed to the ensuing aeon.» — el paso que la volvería actual: situar el cambio de shemittah dentro del tiempo histórico.

«It is curious to note that such a step was seriously considered by a Kabbalist of strictly conservative bent.» — y quién lo consideró en serio, según Scholem: un cabalista de corte estrictamente conservador.

«the present shemittab actually began at the time of the revelation on Mount Sinai, and the generations which lived before this event belonged to the preceding shemittah of grace.» — la tesis de ese cabalista: el shemittah presente empezó en el Sinaí; el facsímil imprime *shemittab*.

«No new creation of heaven and earth was necessary to bring about this change of aeon.» — y lo que esa tesis no exige.

«If this view could be put forward in the sixteenth century without giving offence to anyone, we need not be surprised that similar ideas of a more radical, in fact of a definitely revolutionary character, should have made their appearance in the course of the great Messianic outburst in the seventeenth century.» — la consecuencia histórica que Scholem saca: si eso no ofendía en el siglo XVI, no sorprende lo que apareció en el estallido mesiánico del XVII.

«Sabbatai Zevi, the pseudo-Messiah, and his followers also thought it possible that a new shemittah might set in with the redemption, that the Torah which would govern this new aeon might indeed be revealed by the Messiah, and that this Torah would be a radical departure from the old law.» — lo que según Scholem creyeron Sabbatai Zevi y los suyos: que con la redención empezaría un shemittah nuevo y el Mesías revelaría una Torá apartada de la ley vieja.

«They believed, for example, that the angels had received their understanding of the Torah from the tor ah de-atsiluth and had transmitted it to Moses with all its secret implications when he went up to heaven to receive the Torah.» — la vía de transmisión que esa doctrina imagina: los ángeles reciben la torah de-atsiluth y se la pasan a Moisés con sus implicaciones secretas.

«Joachim believed that in this Evangelium Aeternum the mystical meaning of the Book would be revealed in a new spiritual age and would take the place of the literal meaning.» — el paralelo cristiano que Scholem pone al lado: Joaquín y su Evangelium Aeternum, con el sentido místico ocupando el lugar del literal en una edad nueva.

«But some of the Franciscan followers of Joachim identified their master’s writings with the ‘Eternal Gospel/ which they regarded as a new revelation of the Holy Ghost.» — y lo que hicieron con eso algunos franciscanos, según Scholem: identificar los escritos del maestro con ese Evangelio Eterno.

«Sabbatai Zevi, it was believed, had brought this new Torah into the world to abrogate the old torah de-beri’ah, which they identified with the Torah of the pre-Messianic period.» — el papel que la creencia sabatiana le dio a Sabbatai Zevi: traer la Torá nueva para abrogar la torah de-beri’ah.

«In fact, it came into conflict with them: the fulfilment of the new spiritual Torah implied the abrogation of the torah de-beri’ah, which was taken to represent a lower state of being and identified purely and simply with Rabbinical Judaism.» — el conflicto que Scholem consigna: cumplir la Torá espiritual nueva implicaba abrogar la que se identificaba lisa y llanamente con el judaísmo rabínico.

«Antinomianism led to a mystical nihilism which preached the transvaluation of all hitherto existing values and adopted the slogan: bittulah shel torah %ehu kiyumah, ‘the annulment of the Torah is its fulfilment.» — y el lema al que llegó ese antinomianismo, que Scholem cita en hebreo transliterado y traducido.

«In the shemittah in which we live, the commandments of the Torah are a divine necessity.» — la posición contraria dentro del mismo esquema: en nuestro shemittah los mandamientos son necesidad divina.

«Tishby, who in his analysis of this work was first to recognize the ambiguous nature of this theory, rightly pointed out3 that though the Book Temunah speaks of processes which will set in at the end of the present shemittah, processes connected with the extinction of mankind and nature, it contains no trace of the doctrine here attributed to it.» — el desmentido de atribución que Scholem recoge de Tishby y hace suyo: el Book Temunah no contiene la doctrina que se le atribuye.

«Of course the heretical Kabbalists among the Sabbatians might justifiably have cited the authority of Cordovero and other authors» — y la fuente que, según Scholem, sí podían invocar con razón los sabatianos heréticos: Cordovero y otros autores.

«We may indeed say that Kabbalistic speculation paved the way, and laid the conceptual groundwork for such a conception, even if the Kabbalists may have been unaware of the potential antinomianism inherent in their theories.» — el balance con que Scholem cierra el segundo ensayo, y su acotación: la especulación cabalística preparó el terreno del antinomianismo aunque sus autores no lo advirtieran.

«One is amazed at the energy and consistency with which these conceptions were formulated and developed.» — y lo que dice admirar en ellas.

«A body of thought that cannot be constructed from question and answer— that is indeed a strange phenomenon among Jews» — la anécdota con que Scholem abre el tercer ensayo, en boca de su interlocutor: un pensamiento que no se construye por pregunta y respuesta resulta extraño entre judíos.

«Here perhaps we have a first oblique reference to the special character, preserved even in its latest forms, of this thinking which expounds but has ceased to inquire» — y qué lee Scholem en ese reproche: el carácter de un pensar que expone y ha dejado de preguntar.

«Such an approach will help to elucidate the specific paradox which makes the thinking of the Jewish Kabbalists so attractive, but at the same time so disturbing to the thoughtful observer.» — la paradoja que Scholem se propone elucidar: lo que hace atractivo y a la vez perturbador el pensamiento de los cabalistas.

«The original religious impulse in Judaism, which found its valid expression in the ethical monotheism of the Prophets of Israel and its conceptual formulation in the Jewish philosophy of religion of the Middle Ages, has always been characterized as a reaction to mythology.» — cómo se ha caracterizado el impulso religioso judío, según Scholem: como reacción contra la mitología, del monoteísmo ético profético a la filosofía medieval.

«The philosophers and theologians were concerned first and foremost with the purity of the concept of God and determined to divest it of all mythical and anthropomorphic elements.» — y qué buscaban filósofos y teólogos en esa línea.

«But this determination to defend the transcendent God against all admixture with myth, to reinterpret the recklessly anthropomorphic statements of the Biblical text and the popular forms of religious expression in terms of a purified theology, tended to empty the concept of God.» — el precio que Scholem le atribuye a esa depuración: vaciar el concepto de Dios.

«In any case, the tendency of the classical Jewish tradition to liquidate myth as a central spiritual power is not diminished by such quasi-mythical vestiges transformed into metaphors.» — la tendencia que Scholem da por firme pese a los restos cuasi-míticos vueltos metáfora.

«The more the philosophers and theologians strove to formulate a unity which negates and eliminates all symbols, the greater became the danger of a counterattack in favor of the living God, who, like all living forces, speaks in symbols.» — la contrapartida que anuncia: cuanto más se eliminan los símbolos, mayor el peligro de un contraataque en favor del Dios vivo, que habla en símbolos.

«And it is this counterattack, this ‘reaction,’ which has given so much dramatic tension to the history of Judaism in the last 2,000 years.» — y a qué le adjudica la tensión dramática de dos mil años de historia judía.

«The Kabbalah was not, as is still sometimes supposed, a unified system of mystical and specifically theosophical thinking.» — la advertencia de Scholem contra una lectura corriente: la cábala no fue un sistema unificado.

«There is no such thing as ‘the doctrine of the Kabbalists.» — y la fórmula con que lo remacha; el facsímil abre la comilla simple y no la cierra.

«No one knows exactly where it came from» — la abstención de Scholem sobre el origen del Bahir, el primer libro cabalístico.

«And we have heard that a book has already been written for them, which they call Bahiry that is, luminous, but no light shines through it.» — la condena que Scholem cita de Meir ben Simeon de Narbona contra el Bahir, con el juego sobre su título: lo llaman luminoso y no le pasa la luz.

«But God save us from inclining to such heretical words, concerning which it would be best to keep silence in Israel.» — y cómo cierra esa carta, según la traducción del volumen.

«It is I who have planted this Tree/ that all the world may delight in it, and with it I have spanned the All and called it All; for on it depends the All, and from it emanates the All, all things need it, and look upon it, and yearn for it, and from it all souls go forth.» — el pasaje del Bahir con que Scholem muestra su simbolismo del árbol del mundo.

«And what is [this] ‘tree,’ of which you have spoken? He said to him: All powers of God are [disposed] in layers and they are like a tree: just» — y la explicación que el mismo libro da del árbol: las potencias de Dios dispuestas en capas; los corchetes son del traductor.

«And what is God’s water? It is hokhmah [wisdom], and that [i.e., the fruit of the tree] is the soul of the righteous men who fly from the ‘source’ to the ‘great channel,’ and it rises up and clings to the tree.» — la continuación del pasaje, con las almas de los justos volando de la fuente al gran canal.

«The symbolism of the tree of the world and of God runs through the whole book, but no attempt is made to relate it to the traditional concepts» — la observación de Scholem sobre ese simbolismo: recorre el libro entero sin ligarse a los conceptos tradicionales.

«It teaches that there is in God a principle that is called ‘Evil,’ and it lies in the north of God, for it is written» — la tesis del Bahir que Scholem destaca: un principio llamado Mal dentro de Dios mismo, situado al norte.

«No less astonishing than this assertion that evil is a principle or quality within God himself is the following exegesis» — y la exégesis que le parece igual de sorprendente.

«None of the notions that occur in this passage is explained in the book; all are taken to be self-evident.» — cómo procede el libro, según Scholem: sin explicar ninguna de sus nociones, dándolas por evidentes.

«This much is certain: the last thing we should expect to find in a work of Jewish piety is the notion that the ‘gates of Zion/ through which, to the Jewish mind, the creative energy of Israel is communicated and in which it is concentrated are» — lo único que Scholem da por cierto de ese pasaje: que las puertas de Sion queden del lado del Mal es lo último que se esperaría en una obra de piedad judía.

«The fundamental views of Kabbalistic theosophy are set forth in a form that is often paradoxical, usually unintelligible to us, and always surprising.» — cómo describe Scholem la forma del Bahir: paradójica, a menudo ininteligible para nosotros y siempre sorprendente.

«It is a difficult text, full of puzzling theses, many of which are ‘explained’ by similes and parables tnat are even more baffling than what they are supposed to clarify and sometimes express far more radically than the theses themselves the mythical nature of the ideas which are not so much developed in this book as flung down in it.» — y su juicio sobre los símiles del libro: más desconcertantes que las tesis que vienen a aclarar; el facsímil imprime *tnat* por that.

«But here I shall break off; for it is not my purpose to embark on an analysis of the rich mythical content of the Bahir.» — el límite que Scholem se pone: no viene a analizar el contenido mítico del Bahir.

«The few quotations I have given may serve to show that in the Bahir we are no longer dealing with mythical vestiges employed poetically or allegorically, but with the reappearance of a stratum of myth within Judaism itself.» — lo que sí quiere mostrar con esas citas: no restos míticos usados como adorno, sino la reaparición de un estrato de mito dentro del judaísmo.

«I have in mind Judah ben Barzilai’s compendious commentary on the Book of Creation, the earliest monument of speculative Jewish thinking.» — el término de comparación que Scholem elige: el comentario de Judah ben Barzilai al Libro de la Creación.

«Not only the Kabbalists but also many of the rationalistic philosophers of the Middle Ages cited it as an authority; strictly speaking, it was not a Kabbalistic work, but there is no doubt that it provided Jewish mysticism with several of its basic concepts and ideas.» — el estatuto que le da al Sefer Yetsirah: no una obra cabalística en rigor, aunque le dio a la mística judía varios conceptos básicos.

«But though he is obviously given to esoteric speculation, his whole emphasis is on allegory.» — y lo que separa a Judah ben Barzilai del Bahir, según Scholem: su énfasis está en la alegoría.

«All the more astonishing is the re-emergence, two generations later, of a very different tradition in the Bahir.» — por eso le resulta tanto más llamativa la reaparición de otra tradición dos generaciones después.

«For the Kabbalists were no longer concerned with the allegorical expression of a cosmology that might have been communicated in other ways.» — el deslinde que Scholem hace: a los cabalistas ya no les interesaba expresar en alegoría una cosmología comunicable de otro modo.

«For what, in Rabbinical Judaism, separated the Law from myth? The answer is clear: the dissociation of the Law from cosmic events.» — la respuesta que Scholem da a su propia pregunta: lo que separó la Ley del mito fue disociarla de los acontecimientos cósmicos.

«Solomon Rubin, a Jewish rationalist of the last century, goes so far as to expose the Kabbalists as polytheists.» — la acusación que Scholem consigna por su nombre: Solomon Rubin denunciando a los cabalistas como politeístas.

«But to the Kabbalist the unity of God is manifested from the first as a living, dynamic unity, rich in content.» — y cómo describe él la unidad divina de los cabalistas: viva, dinámica y llena de contenido.

«For it is evident that the mystical transformation of a religion sets in at the points that are most essential to the content of that religion, and so preserves its character as a specific historical phenomenon within a concrete religion.» — la regla de método que Scholem enuncia: la transformación mística entra por los puntos más esenciales de la religión, y por eso conserva su carácter histórico concreto.

«But also, and almost always concurrently, we find a tendency toward speculative justification and conceptual interpretation of these symbols.» — la contracorriente que Scholem registra dentro de la propia cábala: junto a la imagen mítica, el afán de justificarla especulativamente.

«But they seldom had the courage to commit themselves without reservation to these images that impressed themselves so distinctly on their minds.» — y la reserva con que, según él, los cabalistas trataron sus propias imágenes.

«But we must not forget that it is not always the same Kabbalists who create the mythical images and who timidly restrict their import or try to explain them as daring abbreviations for more or less inoffensive, though sometimes far-reaching, trains of thought.» — la acotación con que Scholem impide leer eso como hipocresía: no siempre son los mismos los que crean la imagen y los que la limitan.

«Some of these symbols show a definite affinity to older material, but it is difficult to say for sure how much was actually borrowed.» — su abstención sobre el préstamo: hay afinidad con material más viejo, pero cuánto se tomó es difícil de decir.

«Here I cannot take up the problem of the historical filiation of the Kabbalah and its possible connection with gnostic traditions; I have elsewhere dealt with these matters at length.» — el límite que se pone sobre la filiación histórica de la cábala y su posible relación con la gnosis.

«Suffice it to say that tenuous as the threads connecting the oldest Kabbalistic tradition with gnostic tradition may be, I am convinced that they existed.» — y lo que sí afirma, con su grado: por tenues que sean los hilos con la tradición gnóstica, está convencido de que existieron.

«In the light of prolonged investigations on the subject, I feel justified in saying that apart from certain basic features whose importance I do not wish to minimize the gnosis of the Kabbalah developed independently from within.» — el límite que le pone a esa convicción: salvo rasgos básicos, la gnosis de la cábala se desarrolló por dentro y de modo independiente.

«This observation, however, carries us still deeper into the problem of the Kabbalah; for gnosticism itself, or at least certain of its basic impulses, was a revolt, partly perhaps of Jewish origin, against anti-mythical Judaism, a late eruption of subterranean forces, which were all the more pregnant with myth for being cloaked in philosophy.» — la tesis con que Scholem sitúa al gnosticismo: revuelta, quizá en parte de origen judío, contra el judaísmo antimítico.

«In the second century of our era, classical Rabbinical Judaism banished this form of heresy, seemingly for good; but in the Kabbalah this gnostic view of the world not only re-emerged as a theosophical interpretation of Jewish monotheism—and this at the height of the medieval Jewish rationalism—but was able to assert itself at the center of Judaism as its most secret mystery.» — y el retorno que describe: expulsada en el siglo II, esa visión gnóstica reaparece en la cábala y se instala en el centro del judaísmo como su misterio más secreto.

«The world from which they came, the strict monotheism of the Law, of the Halakhah, the ancient Judaism in which they knew themselves to be rooted, could not readily accept this eruption of myth at its very center.» — la resistencia que ese retorno encontró, según Scholem.

«The importance of this paradox cannot be over-emphasized» — el peso que Scholem le da a esa paradoja.

«Perhaps there is no other more significant example of this same dialectic than the religion of Jacob Boehme, whose affinity with the world of Kabbalism was noted by his earliest adversaries but, strange to say, has been forgotten by the more recent writers on Boehme.» — el paralelo cristiano que Scholem propone, y el olvido que le reprocha a la crítica reciente: la afinidad de Jacob Boehme con el mundo cabalístico.

«Nothing so sharply distinguishes philosophers and Kabbalists as their attitude toward the problem of evil and the demonic.» — el criterio con que Scholem separa a filósofos y cabalistas.

«By and large, the Jewish philosophers dismissed it as a pseudo-problem, while to the Kabbalists it became one of the chief motives of their thinking.» — y cómo se reparten: pseudoproblema para unos, motor del pensamiento para otros.

«Unlike the philosophical allegorists who looked for metaphysical ideas in the ritual, the Kabbalists, indeed, in their interpretations of the old rites often reconstituted their original meaning, or at least the meaning they had in the minds of the common people.» — lo que Scholem le reconoce a la exégesis cabalística del rito frente a la alegoría filosófica: reconstituir su sentido original, o el que tenía para la gente común.

«It ignored the terrors from which myths are made» — el reproche que Scholem le dirige a la teología racionalista; la frase sigue en el mismo párrafo.

«The demonization of life was assuredly one of the most effective and at the same time most dangerous factors in the development of the Kabbalah» — y su juicio de doble filo sobre lo contrario: la demonización de la vida como factor de los más eficaces y a la vez de los más peligrosos en la cábala.

«It would be hard to find many religious customs and rituals that owed their existence or development to philosophical ideas.» — el argumento con que Scholem sostiene la ventaja del rito sobre la alegoría.

«The dangers with which myth and magic threaten the religious mind are exemplified in the history of Judaism by the development of the Kabbalah, and anyone who concerns himself seriously with the thinking of the great Kabbalists will be torn between feelings of admiration and revulsion.» — la confesión de Scholem que McGinn cita en el prefacio, aquí en su lugar: admiración y repulsión ante los grandes cabalistas.

«The mythical character of Kabbalistic ‘theology’ is most clearly manifested in the doctrine of the ten sefiroth, the potencies and modes of action of the living God.» — dónde ve Scholem el carácter mítico de la teología cabalística: en la doctrina de las diez sefirot.

«What constitutes the special mythical structure of the Kabbalistic complex of symbols is the restriction of the infinitely many aspects under which God can be known to ten fundamental categories, or whatever we may wish to call the conception underlying the notion of the sefiroth.» — y en qué consiste esa estructura, según él: en restringir a diez categorías los infinitos aspectos bajo los que Dios puede conocerse.

«It may be worth mentioning that as far as I know the first author to have called the Kabbalah the ‘mythical theology of the Jews’ is the Protestant theologian J. B. Carpzow, who employs this phrase on p. 39 of his Introductio in Theologiam Judaicam, 1687, printed at the beginning of his edition of Raimundus Martini’s Pugio Fidei.» — el dato de historia del término que Scholem aporta con su grado: hasta donde sabe, el primero en llamar a la cábala teología mítica de los judíos fue el teólogo protestante J. B. Carpzow en 1687.

«The paradoxical way in which the Kabbalah did away with the idea of a creatio ex nihilo by restoring it to the realm of myth strikes me as typical of the whole process with which we are dealing.» — cómo lee Scholem lo que la cábala hizo con la creación de la nada: devolverla al mito, y eso le parece típico del proceso entero.

«This world, it cannot be over-emphasized, is a world of divine being, but it overflows without interruption or new beginning into the secret and visible worlds of Creation, all of which in their structure recapitulate and reflect the intradivine structure.» — la insistencia de Scholem sobre el mundo de las sefirot: es ser divino, y desborda sin interrupción en los mundos de la Creación, que repiten su estructura.

«The totality of these potencies, united in the primordial dekas, forms the world of the sefiroth, of the unfolding divine unity which embraces the archetypes of all being.» — cómo nombra Scholem esa totalidad: la década primordial, el mundo de las sefirot.

«If there were a breach, a nothing, in the earliest beginning, it could only be in the very essence of God.» — el razonamiento que Scholem le atribuye a los cabalistas sobre la nada: si la hubo al principio, solo pudo estar en la esencia misma de Dios.

«This nothing had always been present in God, it was not outside Him, and not called forth by Him.» — y el estatuto que le dan a esa nada.

«It is this abyss within God, coexisting with His infinite fulness, that was overcome in the Creation, and the Kabbalistic doctrine of the God who dwells ‘in the depths of nothingness,’ current since the thirteenth century, expresses this feeling in an image which is all the more remarkable in that it developed from so abstract a concept.» — lo que a Scholem le llama la atención de la fórmula del Dios que mora en las profundidades de la nada: que una imagen tan viva salga de un concepto tan abstracto.

«To be sure, this nothing, which is a transcendent being situated in God himself, is not always mentioned by name in Kabbalistic writings.» — y la salvedad que añade sobre su presencia en los textos.

«Beyond this point nothing is knowable, and that is why it is called reshith, beginning, the first of those creative words by which the universe was created.» — el límite del conocimiento que Scholem lee en esa doctrina, y el nombre que recibe: reshith, principio.

«It should not be supposed that this root resulted from a free act of Creation.» — la advertencia con que Scholem impide leer esa raíz como acto libre de creación.

«The great name of God in His creative unfolding is Adam, as the Kabbalists declared on the strength of a gematria, or numerical equation (isopsephism), which is indeed startling.» — la equivalencia numérica con que los cabalistas identifican ese nombre, que a Scholem le parece sorprendente.

«The ninth sefirah, yesod, is the male potency, described with clearly phallic symbolism, the ‘foundation’ of all life, which guarantees and consummates the hieros gamos, the holy union of male and female powers.» — cómo describe Scholem la novena sefirá: potencia masculina de simbolismo fálico, garante del hieros gamos.

«This notion of feminine potencies in God, which attain their fullest expression in the tenth and last sefirah, represents of course a repristination of myth that seems utterly incongruous in Jewish thinking.» — y lo que esa noción tiene de anómalo en el pensamiento judío, según él: una repristinación del mito.

«Consequently it seems necessary to say a few words about this idea, that is, about the Kabbalistic conception of Shekhinah, which is a radical departure from the old Rabbinical conception.» — el deslinde que Scholem anuncia: la Shekhinah cabalística se aparta radicalmente de la concepción rabínica antigua.

«Nowhere in the older literature is a distinction made between God himself and His Shekhinah\ the Shekbinah is not a special hypostasis distinguished from God as a whole.» — el estado antiguo del término según Scholem: la Shekhinah no era una hipóstasis distinta de Dios; el facsímil transcribe la palabra de dos maneras.

«It is very different in the usage of the Kabbalah, beginning with the Bahir, which already contains most of the essential Kabbalistic ideas on the subject.» — y dónde sitúa el cambio: en el uso cabalístico, ya desde el Bahir.

«Here the Shekbinah becomes an aspect of God, a quasi-independent feminine element within Him.» — en qué consiste el cambio: la Shekhinah pasa a ser un elemento femenino casi independiente dentro de Dios.

«The tenth sefirah, however, no longer represents a particular part of man, but, as complement to the universally human and masculine principle, the feminine, seen at once as mother, as wife, and as daughter, though manifested in different ways in these different aspects.» — cómo describe Scholem la décima sefirá: lo femenino como madre, esposa e hija a la vez, frente al principio masculino.

«Often regarded with the utmost misgiving by strictly Rabbinical, non-Kabbalistic Jews, often distorted into inoffensiveness by embarrassed Kabbalistic apologists, this mythical conception of the feminine principle of the Shekbinah as a providential guide of Creation achieved enormous popularity among the masses of the Jewish people, so showing that here the Kabbalists had uncovered one of the primordial religious impulses still latent in Judaism.» — la recepción encontrada que Scholem le registra a esa concepción: recelo rabínico, apologética avergonzada y enorme popularidad entre la gente.

«Nowhere does the Talmudic literature identify the Shekhinah with the Ecclesia.» — la búsqueda negativa que Scholem declara sobre la literatura talmúdica.

«It is impossible, I believe, to say which was the primary factor: the revival by the earliest Kabbalists of the idea of a feminine element in God, or the exegetic identification of the previously distinct concepts of the Ecclesia and the Shekhinah, the specifically Jewish metamorphosis in which so much of the gnostic substance entered into Jewish tradition.» — su abstención sobre el orden de causas: no puede decir si primero vino el elemento femenino en Dios o la identificación exegética de Ecclesia y Shekhinah.

«Here I cannot distinguish between the psychological and the historical process, the peculiar unity of which constitutes the decisive step taken by Kabbalistic theosophy.» — y una segunda abstención en la misma línea: tampoco separa lo psicológico de lo histórico en ese paso.

«The sphere of the Shekhinah as the dwelling place of the soul— this is an entirely new conception.» — lo que Scholem marca como novedad sin precedente.

«The notion that the soul had its origin in the feminine precinct within God himself was of far-reaching importance for the psychology of the Kabbalah.» — y el alcance que le da para la psicología cabalística.

«But if we are fully to appreciate the mythical character of the Shekhinah, we must look into two further conceptions that are inseparable from it, namely, its ambivalence and its exile.» — las dos nociones que Scholem declara inseparables de la Shekhinah: su ambivalencia y su exilio.

«But here it must be stressed that these almost demonic aspects of the Shekhinah as ‘lower mother’ do not yet appear in the ‘upper mother,’ the third sefirah, which, to be sure, is a demiurge (jotser hereshith), but in a positive sense, free from the pejorative shading attaching to the term in the old gnostic systems.» — el deslinde que hace entre la madre inferior y la superior: la tercera sefirá es demiurgo en sentido positivo, sin la carga peyorativa gnóstica.

«In the Talmud this means only that God’s presence was always with Israel in its exiles.» — qué significaba el exilio de la Shekhinah en el Talmud, según Scholem.

«In the earlier Kabbalah, for the most part, this exile is not described as originating in the first beginning of Creation.» — y cómo lo trata la cábala temprana en su mayor parte.

«The exile of the Shekhinah, or in other words, the separation of the masculine and feminine principles in God, is usually imputed to the destructive action and magical influence of human sin.» — a qué se lo imputa entonces: a la acción destructiva y la influencia mágica del pecado humano.

«Instead of penetrating the vast unity and totality of the sefiroth in his contemplation, Adam, when faced with the choice, took the easier course of contemplating only the last sefirah (since it seemed to represent everything else) separately from the other sefiroth, and of mistaking it for the whole of the Godhead.» — en qué consistió el pecado de Adán según esa doctrina: contemplar la última sefirá por separado y tomarla por la divinidad entera.

«Since then there has been, somewhere deep within, a cleavage between the upper and the lower, the masculine and feminine.» — y la escisión que quedó.

«The reunion of God and His Shekhinah constitutes the meaning of redemption.» — cómo define entonces la redención esa misma doctrina.

«In concluding my discussion of this point, I should simply like to mention the fact that symbolical representations of this myth of the Shekhinah and its exile, so important for the history of the Kabbalah, were discovered in innumerable old rites and a still greater number of new ones.» — cómo cierra Scholem el punto de la Shekhinah: el mito y su exilio quedaron representados simbólicamente en ritos viejos y en muchos más ritos nuevos.

«But interesting as such reinterpretation may be from the standpoint of the history of ideas, it cannot blind us to the psychic substance underlying the myths.» — y la reserva que añade: la reinterpretación exotérica no debe tapar la sustancia psíquica que está debajo.

«Both the orthodox Kabbalah of Luria and the heretical Kabbalah of Nathan of Gaza (1644-80), prophet and theologian of Sabbatai Zevi, the Kabbalistic Messiah, provide amazingly complete examples of gnostic myth formation within or on the fringe of Rabbinical Judaism.» — las dos cábalas que Scholem pone al lado como formaciones míticas gnósticas: la ortodoxa de Luria y la herética de Nathan de Gaza, profeta de Sabbatai Zevi.

«From a historical point of view, Luria’s myth constitutes a response to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, an event which more than any other in Jewish history down to the catastrophe of our time gave urgency to the question: why the exile of the Jews and what is their vocation in the world?» — la lectura histórica que Scholem propone del mito luriánico: respuesta a la expulsión de España y a la pregunta por el sentido del exilio.

«Luria’s new myth is concentrated in three great symbols, the tsimtsum, or self-limitation, of God, the shevirah, or breaking of the vessels, and the tikkun, or harmonious correction and mending of the flaw which came into the world through the shevirah.» — los tres símbolos en que Scholem concentra ese mito: tsimtsum, shevirah y tikkun.

«The tsimtsum does not occur in the Zohar» — la búsqueda negativa que Scholem declara sobre el Zohar.

«The Kabbalists do not say so directly, but it is implicit in their symbolism that this withdrawal of the divine essence into itself is a primordial exile, or self-banishment.» — lo que Scholem lee como implícito en ese simbolismo, marcando que los cabalistas no lo dicen así: el retiro de Dios en sí mismo como exilio primordial.

«Thus the whole ensuing process, in which these powers of judgment are eliminated from, or ‘smelted out’ of, God, is a gradual purification of the divine organism from the elements of evil.» — cómo describe el proceso que sigue: una purificación gradual del organismo divino de los elementos del mal.

«In the Tree of Life, the great work of Luria’s disciple Hayim Vital, the tsimtsum becomes, not a necessary and fundamental crisis in God Himself, but a free act of love, which however, paradoxically enough, first unleashes the powers of stern judgment.» — la variante que Scholem le atribuye a Hayim Vital: el tsimtsum como acto libre de amor y no como crisis necesaria en Dios, con la paradoja de desatar el juicio severo.

«But the central plan of Creation originates in the lights which shine in strange refraction from the eyes of Adam Kadmon.» — dónde sitúa esa doctrina el plan central de la Creación.

«But a being that is not in its proper place is in exile. Thus, since that primordial act, all being has been a being in exile, in need of being led back and redeemed.» — la definición de exilio con que Scholem generaliza el mito a todo ser.

«But what was the reason for this cleavage in God? This question was bound to arise in the Lurianic Kabbalah, though a definitive solution was never arrived at.» — la pregunta que Scholem plantea y declara sin respuesta definitiva dentro de la propia cábala luriánica.

«The esoteric answer, which puts it down as a purification of God himself, a necessary crisis, whose purpose it was to eliminate evil from God, undoubtedly reflects Luria’s own opinion but, as we have seen, it was seldom stated openly—an exception is Joseph ibn Tabul, Luria’s second important disciple.» — la respuesta esotérica que le atribuye a Luria, con la nota de que casi no se enunció en público salvo por Joseph ibn Tabul.

«The powers of judgment are likened to seeds of grain which are sowed in the field of the tehiru and sprout in Creation, but only in the metamorphosis they undergo through the breaking of the vessels and the death of the primordial kings.» — la imagen agrícola con que esa doctrina explica las potencias del juicio.

«Thus the original crisis, which in gnostic thinking is fundamental to an understanding of the drama and secret of the cosmos, becomes an element in the experience of exile.» — el desplazamiento que Scholem señala: la crisis originaria del gnosticismo convertida en elemento de la experiencia del exilio.

«It is an intricate process, for though the powers of evil were cast out in the breaking of the vessels, they were not wholly eliminated.» — y el residuo que queda tras la rotura de los vasos.

«He is the masculine principle, which through the breaking of the vessels has departed from its original unity with the feminine and must now be restored on a new plane and under new aspects.» — cómo queda el principio masculino tras la rotura de los vasos según Luria, en la exposición de Scholem.

«Luria seems to have held that the tenth sefirah of every world, that is, the Shekbinah, functions at once as a mirror and filter, which throws back the substance of the lights pouring into it and lets through, or transmits, only their residue and reflection.» — la doctrina que Scholem le atribuye a Luria con su grado puesto: la Shekhinah como espejo y filtro que devuelve la luz y solo transmite su residuo.

«But, in the present state of things, the world of Making is mixed with the world of demonic powers, or ‘shells,’ kelippoth, which accounts for the crudely material character of its physical manifestation.» — de dónde viene, en esa doctrina, el carácter material del mundo: de la mezcla con las kelippoth.

«In essence —and here we have a pure Neoplatonic conception—the world of nature is purely spiritual.» — y la filiación que Scholem le adjudica a la otra mitad de la tesis: neoplatónica.

«Thus to separate them once more is one of the central aims of all striving for the tikkun.» — el fin práctico que se sigue: separar de nuevo lo mezclado.

«If Adam had fulfilled this mission, the cosmic process would have been completed on the first Sabbath, and the Shekhinah would have been redeemed from exile, from her separation from the masculine» — la ocasión perdida que el mito describe: el proceso cósmico completado el primer sábado y la Shekhinah redimida del exilio.

«His failure is described with the help of various symbols, such as the premature consummation of the union between masculine and feminine, or, in the symbolism of the early Kabbalists, the trampling of the young plants in Paradise and the tearing of the fruit from the tree.» — los símbolos con que se cuenta el fracaso de Adán, según Scholem.

«Adam’s fall corresponds on the anthropological plane to the breaking of the vessels on the theosophical plane.» — la correspondencia entre los dos planos que Scholem traza.

«Thus in the symbolism of Adam’s banishment from Paradise, human history begins with exile.» — y la consecuencia narrativa: la historia humana empieza con el exilio.

«At every stage Biblical history offers an opportunity for redemption, but at the decisive point man always fails to take advantage of it.» — cómo lee esa doctrina la historia bíblica: ocasiones de redención desaprovechadas una tras otra.

«But the essential function of the Law, both of the Noahide law binding on all men and of the Torah imposed specially upon Israel, is to serve as an instrument of the tikkun.» — la función que Luria le da a la Ley, según Scholem: instrumento del tikkun.

«Every man who acts in accordance with this Law brings home the fallen sparks of the Shekhinah and of his own soul as well.» — y qué obra cada acto conforme a ella.

«And so, surprisingly enough, still meaningfully anchored in the center of a profoundly Jewish gnosis, the idea of exile as a mission makes its appearance.» — la idea que Scholem ve aparecer ahí, y que declara sorprendente: el exilio como misión.

«In submitting to the guidance of the Law, Israel works toward the restitution of all things.» — cómo queda Israel en ese esquema.

«Thus fundamentally every man and especially every Jew participates in the process of the tikkun.» — el alcance que Scholem le da al tikkun: todo hombre participa en él.

«For it is not the act of the Messiah as executor of the tikkun, as a person entrusted with the specific function of redemption, that brings Redemption, but your action and mine.» — y el desplazamiento decisivo: no es el acto del Mesías lo que redime, sino el de cada uno.

«To Luria the coming of the Messiah means no more than a signature under a document that we ourselves write; he merely confirms the inception of a condition that he himself has not brought about.» — la imagen con que Scholem resume el papel del Mesías en Luria: una firma al pie de un documento que escribimos nosotros.

«Redemption is no longer looked upon as a catastrophe, in which history itself comes to an end, but as the logical consequence of a process in which we are all participants.» — y qué deja de ser la redención en esa doctrina: catástrofe que termina la historia.

«We can no longer fully perceive, I might say, ‘live/ the symbols of the Kabbalah without a considerable effort, if at all.» — la distancia que Scholem declara en primera persona respecto de esos símbolos, con su grado y su duda final.

«Yet, nearly all these systems are so revolutionary in implication that their conservative character was time and again called into question.» — cómo abre Scholem el cuarto ensayo: los sistemas cabalísticos se presentan como conservadores y sus implicaciones son tan revolucionarias que ese carácter se puso en duda una y otra vez.

«The mystical trend which changes the face of historical tradition while striving to preserve it unchanged, which extends the limits of religious experience while trying to consolidate them, is ambivalent in character; on the one hand it strives forward, while on the other, in delving for new layers of religious experience, it unearths age-old, archaic elements.» — la ambivalencia que le atribuye a la corriente mística: al cavar por capas nuevas de experiencia desentierra elementos arcaicos.

«It is assuredly not the spiritualized, speculative interpretations that have had the most lasting influence.» — y qué tuvo, según él, la influencia más duradera; no lo especulativo.

«If I may be permitted a rather bold figure: the old God whom Kabbalistic gnosis opposed to the God of the philosophers proves, when experienced in all His living richness, to be an even older and archaic one.» — la figura que Scholem se permite con aviso: el viejo Dios que la gnosis cabalística opone al de los filósofos resulta ser uno todavía más arcaico.

«The speculative interpretations, however sublime, that are frequently enough intertwined with mythical images in the Kabbalah produced no new rites, and it is interesting to note that many of those Kabbalists who made a conscious effort to bar mythical images from their thinking showed extreme reserve toward such new rites as those which the Kabbalah brought forth with lavish abundance in Safed.» — la correlación que Scholem observa: lo especulativo no produjo ritos nuevos, y quienes evitaban las imágenes míticas recelaban de los ritos de Safed.

«But such scruples did not prevent the Kabbalah from achieving its widest popularity precisely by providing new rites, and in the following we shall note several striking examples of this intimate connection between the ritual and myths of the Kabbalists.» — y por dónde le llegó a la cábala su popularidad más ancha, según él: por los ritos nuevos.

«Thus the ritual of the Jews in the Diaspora took on its characteristic paradoxical form, in which the natural year is replaced by history.» — cómo describe Scholem la forma paradójica del rito judío en la diáspora: el año natural reemplazado por la historia.

«On the other hand this same ritual is cut off from its roots in, and ties with, the natural world.» — y el corte respecto del mundo natural que ese mismo rito lleva.

«Thus this ritualism par excellence of Rabbinical Judaism is lacking precisely in the ecstatic, orgiastic element that is always somewhere present in mythical rituals.» — lo que a ese ritualismo le falta según Scholem: el elemento extático y orgiástico de los rituales míticos.

«The astonishing part of it is that a ritual which so consciously and emphatically rejected all cosmic implications should have asserted itself for many generations with undiminished force, and even continued to develop.» — lo que a Scholem le resulta asombroso: que un rito así se sostuviera generaciones y siguiera desarrollándose.

«A penetrating phenomenology of Rabbinical Judaism would be needed to determine the nature of the powers of remembrance that made this possible and to decide whether other secret factors may not after all have contributed» — y la abstención con que lo deja: haría falta una fenomenología penetrante del judaísmo rabínico para decidirlo.

«In none of their systems did the Kabbalists fail to stress the interrelation of all worlds and levels of being.» — el rasgo que Scholem da por común a todos los sistemas cabalísticos: la interrelación de todos los mundos.

«Everything is connected with everything else, and this interpenetration of all things is governed by exact though unfathomable laws.» — la fórmula de esa interrelación, con su límite: leyes exactas e insondables.

«Nothing is without its infinite depths, and from every point this infinite depth can be contemplated.» — y su corolario.

«Thus the world of the Godhead, which the Kabbalists conceive as the dynamic world of the sefiroth, containing the infinite unity of divine being, not only in its hidden essence but also in its creative unfolding, must not be interpreted as a world of pure transcendence.» — la advertencia de lectura que Scholem añade: el mundo de las sefirot no debe interpretarse como pura trascendencia.

«Thus though the performance of a concrete, determinate rite seems to be a finite act, it opens up a view of the infinite,» — la tesis que Scholem le atribuye a Isaac el Ciego sobre el mandamiento: acto finito que abre una vista de lo infinito.

«Azriel of Gerona, one of Isaac’s disciples, drawing the logical consequence from this view, attributed to God’s commandments an element of divine being,2 a belief which, largely through the Zohar, was taken up by the Kabbalah as a whole.» — y la consecuencia que saca Azriel de Gerona, según Scholem: atribuirle a los mandamientos un elemento del ser divino.

«The action of a man performing a rite is the finite embodiment of something which is present in mystical substantiality in the pleroma of the sefiroth.» — cómo queda entonces el acto ritual: encarnación finita de algo que está en el pleroma de las sefirot.

«But at the same time they transmit to this transcendent essence (which the later Kabbalists call the ‘upper root’ of ritual action) an influx of energy.» — el efecto que los cabalistas le atribuyen al rito, según Scholem: un aflujo de energía a la raíz superior de la acción.

«Those who perform the ritual, he declares, ‘lend stability, as it were, to a part of God Himself, if it is permissible to speak in this way.» — hasta dónde llega esa idea, con la reserva del propio autor citado: darle estabilidad a una parte de Dios mismo, si cabe decirlo así.

«The bond with an infinitely fruitful stratum, from which feeling draws nourishment, was restored, though at the price of a theological paradox.» — el precio que Scholem le pone a ese logro de reanudar el vínculo con el estrato mítico: una paradoja teológica.

«In one case, the old rites, hallowed by tradition, were interpreted in accordance with the new (or if you will, age-old) conceptions; in the other, new rites were devised, and these new rites, springing precisely from the mythical element in Kabbalistic thinking, lent it a new expression, directly reflecting Kabbalistic feeling and requiring no reinterpretations or exegeses.» — las dos vías que Scholem distingue en la relación de la cábala con el rito: reinterpretar los viejos y crear nuevos.

«Thus the Kabbalah in its conservative function was able to take over almost unchanged the rites of medieval Judaism, those recognized in principle as well as those actually practiced.» — lo que la función conservadora le permitió a la cábala, según Scholem.

«The principle, repeatedly stressed in the Zohar, that all ‘upper happening’—a term of far-reaching implications, as we have seen—required ‘stimulation’ by a ‘lower happening’ shows clearly to what extent ritual had come once again to be regarded as an action of cosmic import.» — el principio zohárico que Scholem destaca: todo suceso de arriba requiere el estímulo de un suceso de abajo.

«The rite itself, says a Lurianic source, is the body, mystical kawanah is its soul, ‘and if anyone performs the sacred action without the right intention, it is like a body without a soul.» — la fórmula luriánica que Scholem cita sobre la kawanah: el rito es cuerpo y la intención su alma.

«Both in theory and in the technique of its practice, kavvanah was accordingly a mystical instrument in the fullest sense of the word, by means of which every ritual action was transformed into a mystery rite performed by the initiate.» — qué hace la kavvanah con el rito, según Scholem: convertir cada acción ritual en rito de misterio; el volumen transcribe el término de dos maneras.

«The existing ritual was not changed. It was taken over more or less intact.» — y el límite de esa operación: el rito existente no cambió.

«First, man himself, who purifies and perfects himself in the sacred action; secondly, the natural world of Creation, which if it were endowed with speech would join man in hymns of praise; thirdly, the ‘upper’ world of the angelic orders; while, fourthly, the tikkun of prayer is none other than that of the ‘Holy Name’ itself, the name of God, in which the sefirotic world is encompassed.» — los cuatro planos que, según Scholem, alcanza el tikkun de la oración.

«Thus one who prays rises from the depths to the world of the Godhead, and in every world he accomplishes something with his words of praise and veneration.» — el ascenso que esa doctrina le atribuye a quien reza.

«He not only acknowledges the greatness of Creation and the Creator; he also puts order in Creation and brings about something which is necessary to its perfect unity and which without his act would remain latent.» — y lo que su acto añade: poner orden en la Creación y realizar algo que sin él quedaría latente.

«The creation of unity is a mystical action in the depths of the Godhead, because, as we have explained above, it stimulates the creative power; but at the same time it is in every sense a mythical action, because it unites heaven and earth, the heights and depths of the cosmos.» — cómo es a la vez mística y mítica esa unificación, según Scholem.

«But finally, it is not only creation but also, and increasingly so as the history of the Kabbalah advanced, restitution, since the original unity, as is made plain above all in the Zohar and the early Kabbalah, was not only shaken but actually destroyed by man.» — y el giro que la historia de la cábala le imprime: de creación a restitución de una unidad destruida por el hombre.

«According to the Lurianic Kabbalah, it is true, the breach did not originate with man, but was inherent in the structure of divine being (and hence to an immeasurably greater degree in the structure of created being), but this had little effect on the aspect of ritual with which we are now concerned.» — la variante luriánica que Scholem consigna sin armonizar: ahí la ruptura no viene del hombre sino de la estructura del ser divino.

«The essential is that in this perspective ritual always has an eschatological implication.» — lo que Scholem retiene de todo eso.

«For a tikkun that is regarded as a restoration of unity from multiplicity is necessarily related in some way to redemption.» — y por qué: un tikkun entendido como restauración de la unidad queda ligado a la redención.

«The Safed Kabbalah expressed this eschatological tension in the life of the Jews with incomparable power.» — dónde ve Scholem esa tensión escatológica expresada con más fuerza.

«Undoubtedly the idea of the microcosm^ and especially its implications for human conduct, played an enormous part in the conceptions of the Kabbalists.» — el peso que Scholem le da a la idea del microcosmos en la cábala; el facsímil imprime un circunflejo tras la palabra.

«Long before the Kabbalah the Talmudists played with the idea of a correspondence between the commandments of the Torah and the structure of man.» — y su antecedente talmúdico, anterior a la cábala.

«Here the 248 positive commandments correspond to the 248 members of man and the 365 prohibitions to the 365 days of the year (or the 365 blood vessels in the body.» — la correspondencia numérica de esa doctrina, con las dos lecturas que Scholem consigna para el 365.

«Berur (literally ‘selection') is the elimination of the negative factors that disturb the right order, that is, the elimination of the powers of the demonic and Satanic, of the ‘other side' (sitra ahra) as the Kabbalists called it.» — el término técnico que Scholem glosa: berur, la eliminación de las potencias demoníacas o sitra ahra.

«Particularly the Lurianic theory of ritual implies that the Torah aims at a progressive repression and elimination of the ‘other side,' which is at present mixed with all things and threatens to destroy them from within.» — el fin que la teoría luriánica del rito le asigna a la Torá, según Scholem.

«This explains why, in interpreting some of the more obscure rites of the Torah, as early a work as the Zohar declares that the ‘other side' has its legitimate place in them, that these rites serve to contain it within the proper limits but not to destroy it, for this is possible only in the Messianic Age.» — y el límite que el propio Zohar le pone, según Scholem: los ritos contienen al otro lado dentro de sus límites, no lo destruyen.

«cannot be wholly defeated except in an eschatological perspective, and in the world as it is such a total defeat is not even desirable.» — la acotación que Scholem añade sobre esa derrota total: fuera de una perspectiva escatológica, ni siquiera es deseable.

«The blowing of the shofar on New Year’s Day, for example, is explicitly associated with the first and fourth purposes.» — el ejemplo concreto que da de esa doctrina de los fines del rito.

«The abundance of ritual forms threatens to stifle the spirit, try as the spirit may to bend them to its purposes and transfigure them with its contemplation.» — el riesgo que Scholem le reconoce a la abundancia de formas rituales.

«From the outset the Kabbalists made every effort to prove that this formula, so all-important in the liturgy, refers to nothing other than to the process in which the ten sefiroth are manifested as the living and effective unity of God.» — qué hicieron los cabalistas con la fórmula del Shemá, según Scholem: referirla al despliegue de las diez sefirot.

«The patriarch Enoch, who according to an old tradition was taken from the earth by God and transformed into the angel Metatron, is said to have been a cobbler.» — el relato que Scholem trae sobre Enoc, zapatero según esa tradición y transformado en el ángel Metatrón.

«At every stitch of his awl he not only joined the upper leather with the sole, but all upper things with all lower things.» — y lo que su oficio significaba en el relato: cada puntada uniendo lo de arriba con lo de abajo.

«It is interesting to note that a very similar legend is to be found in a Tibetan tantric text, the ‘Tales of the Eighty-four Magicians.» — el paralelo tibetano que Scholem señala, sin adjudicarle filiación.

«Here another such mythical Jacob Boehme, the guru Camara (which means shoemaker) receives instruction from a yogi concerning the leather, the awl, the thread, and the shoe considered as the ‘self-created fruit» — cómo describe Scholem al protagonista de ese relato tántrico: otro Jacob Boehme mítico, un zapatero instruido por un yogui sobre el cuero, la lezna, el hilo y el zapato.

«For twelve years he meditates day and night over his shoemaking, until he attains perfect enlightenment and is borne aloft.» — y el desenlace de ese relato.

«But only a perfect Zaddik can accomplish this meditation, for he alone is worthy to descend and make a selection from among the kelippoth, the realms of the “other side,” even against their will.» — la restricción que Scholem cita sobre el descenso a las kelippoth: solo el zaddik perfecto puede hacerlo.

«Undoubtedly these rites, for which we can find no rational explanation, had their origin in myth, and it was to the mythical sphere that the Kabbalists once again related them.» — el origen que Scholem le adjudica a los ritos sin explicación racional, y lo que hicieron con ellos los cabalistas.

«According to this doctrine, prayer is nothing other than a sacrifice in which a man offers up himself.» — la equivalencia que esa doctrina enuncia entre oración y sacrificio.

«But in this it was aided far less by the obscure gnostic explanations of the old rites, which the people practiced regardless of how they interpreted them, than by the propagation of new rites which met with immediate understanding because they expressed those mythical aspects of the Kabbalah that appealed most strongly to the popular mind.» — de qué dependió, según Scholem, la difusión popular de la cábala: no de sus explicaciones gnósticas sino de los ritos nuevos.

«Many of these new rites recommended by the Zohar, which attributed them to Simeon ben Yohai and his circle, were practiced for the first time in Safed.» — la atribución que el Zohar hace de esos ritos y dónde se practicaron por primera vez, según Scholem.

«Many of the Kabbalistic rites, needless to say, were strictly esoteric in character and could only be performed by groups of initiates.» — la parte reservada del repertorio, según Scholem.

«A rite of initiation in the strictest sense is that concerned with the transmission of the name of God from master to pupil.» — cuál es para él el rito de iniciación en sentido estricto.

«The name is transmitted only to the reserved—this word can also be translated as ‘the initiate’—who are not prone to anger, who are humble and God-fearing, and carry out the commandments of their Creator.» — las condiciones que la fuente pone para recibir el Nombre; el guion largo y la glosa entre ellos son del texto.

«And it is transmitted only over water. Before the master teaches it to his pupil, they must both immerse themselves and bathe in forty measures of flowing water, then put on white garments and fast on the day of instruction.» — y el procedimiento: sobre el agua, con inmersión en cuarenta medidas de agua corriente, vestiduras blancas y ayuno.

«This magic significance of water as the only appropriate medium for such initiation—a conception widespread among non-Jews, e.g., baptism—does not occur in Talmudic literature or in any other Jewish traditions.» — la búsqueda negativa que Scholem declara: ese valor mágico del agua no está en la literatura talmúdica ni en otras tradiciones judías.

«A theurgic ritual that has come down to us from the same school gives instructions for ‘putting on the Name’—a purely magical procedure.» — cómo clasifica Scholem el rito de ponerse el Nombre.

«It seems to me that the oldest instructions for making a golem must be regarded as a theurgic ritual, in which the adept becomes aware of wielding a certain creative power.» — la tesis con que Scholem enlaza el cuarto ensayo con el quinto, y su grado: le parece que las instrucciones más viejas para hacer un golem son un ritual teúrgico.

«It was from this rite as described in authentic sources that the popular mind developed a legend.» — y el orden que propone entre rito y leyenda.

«What took place in this hieros gamos iwuga kadisha, as the Zohar calls it) was primarily the union of the two sefiroth, tif'ereth and malkhuth, the male and female aspects of God, the king and his consort, who is nothing other than the Shekhinah and the mystical Ecclesia of Israel.» — qué unía el matrimonio sagrado según el Zohar, en la exposición de Scholem: tif’ereth y malkhuth, el rey y su consorte.

«The wide range of meaning contained in the symbol of the Shekhinah thus enabled the masses of the people to identify this sacred marriage with the marriage between God and Israel, which for the Kabbalists was merely the outward aspect of a process that takes place within the secret inwardness of God himself.» — cómo funcionó ese símbolo entre la gente, según Scholem: permitió identificar la boda sagrada con la de Dios e Israel, que para los cabalistas era solo la cara externa.

«No holiday could more appropriately be interpreted as a sacred marriage feast in this sense than the Feast of Weeks on the fiftieth day after Passover.» — qué fiesta se prestaba mejor a esa lectura.

«From covenant to marriage was only a short step for the Kabbalists» — el paso que Scholem describe entre pacto y boda.

«For in this night the bride makes ready for marriage with the bridegroom, and it was thought fitting that all those ‘belonging to the palace of the bride’ (i.e., the mystics and students of the Torah) should keep her company and partake, through a festive ritual, in the preparations for her marriage.» — qué hacen esa noche los del palacio de la novia, es decir los místicos y estudiosos de la Torá.

«But according to the Zohar, these twenty-four items are the twenty-four books of the Bible.» — la equivalencia zohárica entre los veinticuatro adornos de la novia y los libros de la Biblia.

«Consequently, anyone who in this night recites selections from all twenty-four books and adds mystical interpretations of their secrets adorns the bride in the right way and rejoices with her all through the night.» — y el rito que se sigue de esa equivalencia.

«Indeed, the conception of a marriage was carried so far that on the following morning, at the lifting up of the Torah in the synagogue and before the reading of the Ten Commandments, certain Kabbalists were in the habit of reading a formal contract, stating the terms of marriage between ‘Bridegroom God’ and the ‘Virgin Israel/1 Israel Najara, the poet of the Safed circle, wrote a poetic marriage contract, probably the first of its kind—a lyrical, mystical paraphrase of the marriage document prescribed by Jewish law.» — hasta dónde llegó esa concepción, según Scholem: contratos matrimoniales leídos en la sinagoga, y el que compuso en verso Israel Najara, del círculo de Safed.

«But it is the ritual of the Sabbath, and especially of the eve of the Sabbath, that underwent the most noteworthy transformation in connection with this idea of the sacred marriage.» — dónde ve Scholem la transformación más notable por obra de esa idea.

«It would be no exaggeration to call the Sabbath the day of the Kabbalah.» — la fórmula con que lo resume.

«The first tells us that on the eve of the Sabbath certain rabbis used to wrap themselves in their cloaks and cry out: Come let us go to meet Queen Sabbath.» — el primero de los tres pasajes talmúdicos sobre los que se levantó el rito.

«The second passage relates that on Friday evening Simeon ben Yohai and his son saw an old man hurrying through the dusk with two bundles of myrtle.» — el segundo.

«The third passage tells us that Torah scholars used to perform marital intercourse precisely on Friday night.» — y el tercero.

«These disparate reports are interpreted in the Kabbalistic books of ritual as indications that the Sabbath is indeed a marriage festival.» — cómo los reúnen los libros cabalísticos de ritual, según Scholem, que los llama dispares.

«During the night before the Sabbath the King is joined with the Sabbath-Bride; the holy field is fertilized, and from their sacred union the souls of the righteous are produced.» — el contenido mítico de esa noche según el Zohar.

«On the basis of these conceptions, which are set forth at length in the Zohar, the Safed Kabbalists, beginning in the middle of the sixteenth century, developed a solemn and highly impressive ritual which is not mentioned in earlier sources.» — la datación que Scholem da del rito de Safed, y su ausencia en fuentes anteriores.

«On Friday afternoon, some time before the» — cómo describe Scholem el rito: salir al campo vestidos de blanco, ni de negro ni de rojo, para no evocar las potencias del juicio severo.

«In this hymn, which is still sung in the synagogue, mystical symbolism is explicitly combined with Messianic hopes for the redemption of the Shekhinah from exile.» — qué combina el himno de ese rito, que Scholem dice todavía en uso.

«It is recorded that Luria, standing on a hill near Safed, beheld in a vision the throngs bf Sabbath-souls coming with the Sabbath-Bride.» — la visión que se le atribuye a Luria en ese rito; el facsímil imprime *bf* por of.

«A number of our sources tell us that the Sabbath Psalms were sung with closed eyes, for as the Kabbalists explained, the Shekhinah is designated in the Zohar as ‘the beautiful virgin who has no eyes,’ that is to say, who has lost her eyes from weeping in exile.» — y por qué se cantaban los salmos con los ojos cerrados, según la explicación cabalística que Scholem recoge.

«According to Isaac Luria, it was highly commendable and ‘rich in mystical significance’ to kiss one’s mother’s hands on entering the house.» — una prescripción menuda que Scholem le atribuye a Luria, con la fórmula del texto sobre su significación mística.

«They read like the,hymns of a mystery religion.» — cómo suenan a Scholem los himnos de Luria para las comidas del sábado; el facsímil imprime una coma dentro de la palabra.

«In the eyes of the Kabbalists, this hymn was in a class apart.» — el lugar aparte que los cabalistas le dieron a ese himno.

«Unlike other table songs for the eve of the Sabbath, which could be sung or not, as one pleased, it was an indispensable part of the ritual.» — y en qué se distinguía de las demás canciones de mesa.

«In Luria’s hymn new meaning was not injected into an old prayer by means of mystical exegesis or kawanah\ rather, an esoteric conception creates its own liturgical language and form.» — la novedad que Scholem le reconoce: no exégesis mística de una oración vieja, sino una concepción esotérica creando su propia lengua litúrgica.

«I shall not go into all the other Sabbath rites of the Kabbalists.» — el límite que Scholem se pone en la exposición del sábado cabalístico.

«so some Kabbalists attached great importance to a fourth Sabbath meal (mentioned very briefly in the Talmud as the custom of a single individual) which takes place after the havdalah, the prayer of division between Sabbath and weekday, and extends far into the night.» — la cuarta comida del sábado que algunos cabalistas realzaron, apenas mencionada en el Talmud como costumbre de un solo individuo.

«Whereas the three official Sabbath meals were associated with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, this one was identified with David, the Lord’s anointed, the Messiah.» — con quién se identificó esa cuarta comida, frente a las tres oficiales.

«But according to the Zohar, these forefathers are the ‘feet of the divine throne,’ or merkabah.» — y qué son los patriarcas según el Zohar.

«His father, Sherira Gaon, calls it a pious usage to rise at midnight and sing hymns and songs.» — el antecedente que Scholem aduce para la vigilia de medianoche.

«It was among the Kabbalists in Gerona, roughly in the year 1260 (if, as I presume, the text to which we owe our information2 originated in Spain at this time), that a rite» — la datación que Scholem propone del rito, con su condicional a la vista: si el texto que lo informa es español de esa época.

«At midnight God enters Paradise to rejoice with the righteous.» — el motivo zohárico que sostiene la vigilia.

«His cry awakens all the cocks at midnight» — y el canto del gallo como su señal.

«Then it is time for the pious to arise, as King David did in his time, and study the Torah until dawn, or, according to others,5 intone songs to the Shekbinah.» — lo que toca hacer entonces, con las dos versiones que Scholem consigna sin arbitrar.

«At midnight God remembers ‘the hind that lies in the dust’3 and sheds two tears ‘which burn more than all the fire in the world’ and fall into the great sea.» — el motivo zohárico de las dos lágrimas de Dios a medianoche.

«From all these rich conceptions, however, the Zohar does not develop a true rite of lamentation.» — el límite que Scholem le marca al Zohar: de todo eso no sale todavía un rito de lamentación.

«And though among the generations following the Zohar (1285-90) we sometimes hear of pious vigils in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple,8 we still learn nothing of a set ritual relating specifically to the midnight hour.» — y su búsqueda negativa en las generaciones siguientes: ninguna noticia de un ritual fijo de medianoche.

«The strange part of it is that these ‘rites of exile’ should have arisen in Palestine and not in the countries of the Diaspora.» — lo que a Scholem le resulta extraño de los ritos del exilio: que nacieran en Palestina y no en la diáspora.

«The Kabbalists who in the middle of the sixteenth century came to Safed from all over the world, in the intention of founding a ‘community of holy men,’ carried with them this acute consciousness of exile and gave it perfect ritual expression in the very place where they expected the process of Messianic redemption to begin.» — y cómo lo explica: los que llegaron a Safed llevaban esa conciencia aguda del exilio y le dieron forma justo donde esperaban que empezara la redención.

«Concerning Abraham Halevi Berukhim, one of the most active members of this group, we read that ‘always at the midnight hour he ran through the streets of Safed, weeping and crying out: Arise in God’s name, for the Shekhinah is in exile, the house of our sanctuary is burned, and Israel is in great distress.» — el testimonio que Scholem cita sobre Abraham Halevi Berukhim corriendo por las calles de Safed a medianoche.

«In Isaac Luria’s group this observance was given set forms.» — quién le dio forma fija a esa práctica, según Scholem.

«For according to this Kabbalah, Rachel and Leah are two aspects of the Shekhinah, the one exiled from God and lamenting, the other in her perpetually repeated reunion with her Lord.» — el fundamento simbólico de los dos ritos nocturnos: Raquel y Lía como dos aspectos de la Shekhinah.

«In observing it, men ‘participate in the suffering of the Shekhinah’ and bewail not their own afflictions, but the one affliction that really counts in the world, namely, the exile of the Shekhinah.» — y de qué se lamenta el rito, según los cabalistas: no de las aflicciones propias sino del exilio de la Shekhinah.

«Weeping, he should then take ashes from the hearth and lay them on his forehead, on the spot where in the morning the tefillin, the phylacteries, are applied.» — el gesto con que empieza el rito de Raquel.

«is performed; here the emphasis is no longer on exile but on the promise of redemption.» — y qué cambia en el rito de Lía, según Scholem.

«In this hymn, written by Hayim Kohen of Aleppo, a student of Vital, the Shekhinah complains about her exile, and God paints the prospect of redemption in glowing colors.» — el autor y el contenido del himno de ese segundo rito.

«Even the unlearned, the Kabbalists held, should perform this rite, for the ‘time from midnight to morning is a time of grace, and a ray of this grace falls upon him even in the daytime.» — por qué debía practicarlo también el iletrado, según los cabalistas.

«After the great Messianic outbursts of 1665-6 this rite became a subject of dispute between the Sabbatians and their adversaries.» — cuándo se volvió disputa ese rito, según Scholem.

«The Sabbatians declared, though with varying degrees of radicalism, that the rite for Rachel had become obsolete now that the Shekhinah was on her way home from exile.» — la posición sabatiana, con la gradación que Scholem le reconoce: el rito de Raquel había caducado porque la Shekhinah volvía del exilio.

«Certain pious men, who had grave reservations about the Sabbatian movement and could not accept the omission of the lament, performed this rite, but remained standing or seated in their customary place inside the room, instead of sitting by the door.» — y la posición intermedia que registra: recelosos del movimiento y sin renunciar al lamento, cambiaron solo el lugar donde sentarse.

«Orthodox Kabbalists continued to insist on careful observance of the ritual of lamentation.» — el tercer bando de esa disputa.

«Our second example of this ritual dramatizing the exile of the Shekhinah is the ritual ofyom kippur katan, or Lesser Day of Atonement, as the KabbaHsts called the day before the new moon, that was to be devoted to fasting and repentance.» — el segundo rito del exilio que Scholem expone: el yom kippur katan, la víspera de luna nueva; el facsímil imprime *KabbaHsts*.

«According to an old and deep-rooted tradition, the actual day of the new moon, when the moon is reborn, is a day of rejoicing on which fasting is expressly prohibited; otherwise the Kabbalists would doubtless have chosen the new moon itself as a day of fasting and atonement, devoted to recollection of the cosmic event of exile.» — por qué el ayuno no cae en la luna nueva misma, según Scholem: ese día prohíbe expresamente ayunar.

«In the ritual blessing for the new moon, the Talmudists (Sanhedrin 42a) still found an express parallel between the renewal of the moon and Messianic redemption: ‘He speaks to the moon that it be renewed, a wondrous crown for those who were borne by me from the belly and will one day like it grow young again and glorify their maker.» — el paralelo talmúdico entre renovación de la luna y redención mesiánica.

«But the shift of accent to the lessening of the moon, its changing phases, goes back to other conceptions.» — y el desplazamiento que Scholem señala: el acento pasa a la mengua.

«In a Talmudic explanation2 we learn that God reduced the moon, whose light was originally equal to that of the sun.» — la explicación talmúdica de esa mengua.

«In answer to the moon’s repeated complaints, God said: Offer up an atonement for Me, because I reduced the size of the moon.» — y el pasaje que hace de la ofrenda de luna nueva una expiación de Dios mismo.

«lessening of the moon’ was interpreted by the Kabbalists as a symbol of the Shekhinah's exile.» — cómo leyeron los cabalistas esa mengua, según Scholem.

«The Shekhinah itself is the ‘holy moon,’ which has fallen from its high rank, been robbed of its light and sent into cosmic exile.» — la identificación que sostiene ese rito.

«And since the total disappearance of the moon symbolizes the ultimate darkness and horror of exile, certain Kabbalists believed this to be the ideal moment for ‘meditation on the Messianic secret.» — el momento que ciertos cabalistas tomaron por ideal para meditar el secreto mesiánico, según Scholem: la desaparición total de la luna.

«The extremely detailed ritual for this day, developed in the Hemdath Yamim, is one of the most characteristic documents of the Sabbatian Kabbalah, whose strict asceticism derived from an awareness that the Messiah’s reign had already begun, but that he was engaged in a tragic mission to the impurest depths of exile.» — cómo caracteriza Scholem el ritual del Hemdath Yamim: documento de la cábala sabatiana, con un ascetismo que parte de creer ya empezado el reinado del Mesías.

«The hope of redemption, then, was to be confirmed precisely at its most difficult and paradoxical turning point, namely, the exile of the redeemer himself.» — y la paradoja de esa posición: la redención confirmada justo en el exilio del propio redentor.

«The two categories of rite that I have just been discussing are related in substance.» — cómo agrupa Scholem los dos ritos que acaba de exponer.

«The custom I shall now describe is rather extreme in character, but I believe that it illustrates the process by which such antidemonic’ rites—which later gained almost universal acceptance—developed among the Kabbalists.» — el aviso con que Scholem introduce el rito siguiente y lo que quiere mostrar con él.

«According to Talmudic tradition, demons are spirits made in the Friday evening twilight, who, because the Sabbath has intervened, have received no bodies.» — la definición talmúdica de demonio que Scholem recoge: espíritus hechos en el crepúsculo del viernes y dejados sin cuerpo.

«As far as I know, it has not yet been established whether Jews or Christians first developed» — una abstención de prioridad histórica declarada en primera persona.

«Abuse of a man’s generative powers was held to be a destructive act, through which not the holy, but the ‘other side,’ obtains progeny.» — el supuesto que sostiene el tikkun shovavim, según Scholem.

«They firmly believe that if a man’s seed escapes him, it gives rise, with the help of mahlath [a female demon] and Lilith, to evil spirits, which however die when the time comes.» — la creencia que Scholem cita de una fuente sobre Lilith y los espíritus engendrados así; el corchete que glosa a mahlath es del traductor.

«When a man dies and his children begin to weep and lament, these shedim, or evil spirits, come too, wishing, along with the other children, to have their part in the deceased as their father;» — y la consecuencia funeraria que se le sigue.

«Most important of all, the Kabbalists strictly forbade the children, and especially the sons, of the deceased from escorting him to his last resting place.» — la prohibición que Scholem destaca de ese complejo de creencias.

«It is known to me that Jews in their lifetime sternly ordered their children not to make the slightest plaint or weep until the dead body in the cemetery had been purified by washing, cleansing, and the cutting of the finger- and toenails,» — el testimonio en primera persona que Scholem cita sobre esa práctica.

«Especially in a leap year, the Kabbalists fasted on Monday and Thursday of certain weeks in the wintertime, in order to ‘correct,’ by special prayers and acts of penance, the taint which» — el calendario del rito penitencial que corregía esa mancha.

«But it is not only in unlawful sexual practices that Lilith takes a hand.» — el alcance que Scholem le reconoce a la figura de Lilith más allá de lo sexual.

«Accordingly, we find widespread observance of a rite recommended by the Zohar, the purpose of which was to keep Lilith away from the marriage bed:» — y el rito zohárico que se le opone.

«They embody the darker aspects of Kabbalistic ritual, reflecting man’s fears and other emotional states.» — cómo cierra Scholem el cuarto ensayo: esos ritos encarnan el lado oscuro del ritual cabalístico y reflejan los miedos del hombre.

«Behind the fa£ade of an exotic and futuristic Prague ghetto Indian rather than Jewish ideas of redemption are expounded.» — el juicio de Scholem sobre la novela de Meyrink: tras la fachada del gueto de Praga se exponen ideas de redención más indias que judías; el facsímil imprime *fa£ade*.

«The alleged Kabbalah that pervades the book suffers from an overdose of Madame Blavatsky’s turbid theosophy.» — y de qué le viene la cábala supuesta de ese libro, según Scholem: de la teosofía de Madame Blavatsky.

«Meyrink’s Golem has an inimitable atmosphere, compounded of unverifiable depth, a rare gift for mystical charlatanism, and an overpowering urge to epater le bourgeois.» — la mezcla que Scholem le atribuye a esa atmósfera, sin quitarle lo inimitable.

«This literary figure, which has achieved considerable fame, owes very little to the Jewish tradition even in its corrupt, legendary form.» — el deslinde con que Scholem separa la figura literaria de la tradición judía.

«By way of defining the climate of this investigation, I should like first of all to present the legend in its late Jewish form, as vividly described in 1808 by Jakob Grimm in the romantic Journal for Hermits» — por dónde decide empezar: la versión tardía de la leyenda que Jakob Grimm publicó en 1808.

«After saying certain prayers and observing certain fast days, the Polish Jews make the figure of a man from clay or mud, and when they pronounce the miraculous Shemhamphoras [the name of God] over him, he must come to life.» — el procedimiento tal como lo cuenta Grimm, en la traducción del volumen; el corchete que glosa el Shemhamphoras es del traductor.

«They call him golem and use him as a servant to do all sorts of housework.» — y el oficio que le da esa versión.

«On his forehead is written ’emeth [truth]; every day he gains weight and becomes somewhat larger and stronger than all the others in the house, regardless of how little he was to begin with.» — la inscripción de la frente y el crecimiento que el relato le atribuye.

«For fear of him, they therefore erase the first letter, so that nothing remains but meth [he is dead], whereupon he collapses and turns to clay again.» — el modo de deshacerlo, por la letra que se borra.

«But one man’s golem once grew so tall, and he heedlessly let him keep on growing so long that he could no longer reach his forehead. In terror he ordered the servant to take off his boots, thinking that when he bent down he could reach his forehead. So it happened, and the first letter was successfully erased, but the whole heap of clay fell on the Jew and crushed him.» — y el desenlace del relato que Grimm recoge.

«In investigating the golem as a man created by magical art, we must go back to certain Jewish conceptions concerning Adam, the first man.» — el camino que Scholem elige para la investigación: volver a las concepciones judías sobre Adán.

«For obviously a man who creates a golem is in some sense competing with God’s creation of Adam; in such an act the creative power of man enters into a relationship, whether of emulation or antagonism, with the creative power of God.» — la razón que da: quien hace un golem compite en algún sentido con la creación de Adán.

«Philo wrote: ‘It is conceivable that God wished to create his man-like form with the greatest care and that for this reason he did not take dust from the first piece of earth that came to hand, but that from the whole earth he separated the best, from pure primal matter the purest and finest parts, best suited for his making» — el testimonio de Filón que Scholem aduce sobre la materia de que Dios hizo al hombre.

«Just as according to the Torah a portion of dough is removed from the rest to serve as the priest’s share, so is Adam the best share that is taken from the dough of the earth, that is, from the center of the world on Mount Zion, from the place where the altar would stand, of which it is said: ‘An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me» — la versión aggádica de lo mismo, con Adán como la porción mejor tomada del centro del mundo.

«In the philosophical literature of the Middle Ages it is used as a Hebrew term for matter, formless hyle, and this more suggestive significance will appear in the following discussion.» — el sentido técnico que golem tiene en la filosofía medieval, según Scholem: materia informe, hyle.

«In this sense, Adam was said to be ‘golem’ before the breath of God had touched him.» — y cómo se aplicó ese sentido a Adán antes del soplo divino.

«In the hour when God created the first Adam, He created him as a golem, and he was stretched out from one end of the world to the other, as it is written in Psalm [139: 16]: ‘Thine eyes did see my golem» — el midrash con que Scholem abre el asunto del golem: Adán creado como golem y extendido de un extremo a otro del mundo.

«Rabbi Judah bar Simeon said: While Adam still lay as a golem before Him who spoke and the world came into being, He showed him all the generations and their wise men, all the generations and their judges, all the generations and their leaders.» — la visión que ese estado le permite tener a Adán, según Judah bar Simeon.

«It would seem as though, while Adam was in this state, some tellurian power had flowed into him out of the earth from which he was taken, and that it was this power which enabled him to receive such a vision.» — la conjetura de Scholem sobre esa visión, con su grado a la vista: como si una potencia telúrica de la tierra hubiera fluido en él.

«According to the Aggadah, it was only after the fall that Adam’s enormous size, which filled the universe, was reduced to human, though still gigantic, proportions.» — cuándo se reduce el tamaño de Adán en la Aggadah.

«In the one, Adam is the vast primordial being of cosmogonic myth; in the other, his size would seem to signify, in spatial terms, that the power of the whole universe is concentrated in him.» — las dos lecturas de ese tamaño que Scholem distingue sin arbitrar.

«When He prepared to cast a soul into him, He said: If I set him down now, it will be said that he was my companion in the work of Creation; so I will leave him as a golem [in a crude, unfinished state], until I have created everything else.» — el motivo que otro midrash le atribuye a Dios para dejar a Adán en estado de golem; el corchete que glosa el término es del traductor.

«Then He cast the soul into him and set him down and concentrated the whole world in him.» — y el desenlace de ese relato.

«One is amazed at the audacity with which the Aggadic exegete departs from the Biblical version and begins Creation with the material making of man as a golem in whom the force of the whole universe is contained, but who receives his soul only at the end of Creation.» — lo que a Scholem le asombra de esa exégesis: empezar la Creación por la hechura material del hombre y darle el alma al final.

«And whereas in the previous version earth for him was gathered from the whole world, here the whole world is concentrated in him.» — la inversión que señala entre las dos versiones.

«Whereas in Genesis it is only when God breathes life into him that Adam becomes nefesh hay ah, a living soul (Gen. 2 : 7), the old Jewish tradition contains several references to a tellurian earth-spirit, dwelling in Adam.» — la desviación respecto del Génesis que a Scholem le importa: un espíritu telúrico habitando en Adán.

«According to a midrash1 which, to be sure, is not quoted in this form before the ninth or tenth century, a woman was first made for Adam from the earth (and not from his flank or rib).» — el relato de la mujer anterior a Eva, con la datación cauta que Scholem le pone.

«She argued: We [Adam and I] are equal, because we both come from the earth.» — el argumento que ese relato le pone en boca.

«In the third century this story seems to have been known in a somewhat different form, without the demonic Lilith.» — la variante más antigua que Scholem reconstruye, sin Lilith.

«This version speaks of a ‘first Eve,’ created independently of Adam and hence no relation of Cain and Abel, who quarreled for possession of her, whereupon God turned her back into dust.» — y qué pasa en ella con esa primera Eva.

«I feel certain that this conception is related to gnostic ideas, which, though taken over by heretics, were originally Jewish—a fact that has often, oddly enough, been denied or disregarded.» — la adjudicación que Scholem hace con su grado y con su reproche: cree cierto el parentesco gnóstico, y que su origen judío se haya negado o desatendido.

«According to this Justinus there were three original principles: the good God; Elohim, as father of all created things (the function assigned to God in Genesis); and Edem, called also Israel and Earth, who was half virgin and half snake.» — los tres principios del gnóstico Justino que Scholem expone.

«The name Edem seems to spring from a confusion, by Jewish heretics who had forgotten their Hebrew, between the words ’adamah, Earth, and ‘Eden (written Edem in the Septuagint).» — la etimología que Scholem propone para ese nombre, con su grado.

«Here, just as in the contemporaneous tradition of the above-quoted midrash, Adam’s soul, unlike the neshamah, or pneuma, of the Bible, which is breathed into Adam by God, comes from the virgin Earth or Edem3—and again as in the midrash Adam is made from the best parts of the earth.» — el paralelo que traza entre ese texto gnóstico y el midrash: el alma de Adán viniendo de la Tierra virgen.

«God demands Adam for a thousand years as a loan from Earth, and gives her a formal receipt for ‘four ells of earth/ which is witnessed by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel» — el detalle del préstamo y el recibo que Scholem levanta de esa tradición.

«The idea that such an act of creation might be repeated by magic or other arts that are not exactly defined had a different origin, namely,» — el giro con que Scholem pasa de Adán al golem hecho por arte.

«Rava said: If the righteous wished, they could create a world, for it is written» — el dicho talmúdico con que Scholem entra al golem hecho por hombres.

«The implication is that if a man is saintly without sins, his creative power is no longer ‘separated’ from that of God.» — y cómo lo lee Scholem: el poder creador del santo sin pecado deja de estar separado del de Dios.

«For Rava created a man and sent him to Rabbi Zera.» — el relato talmúdico del hombre creado por Rava.

«The Aramaic word here rendered by ‘companions’ is ambiguous.» — la ambigüedad textual que Scholem consigna en la respuesta de Rabbi Zera.

«According to some scholars Rabbi Zera’s sentence should be interpreted to mean: ‘You must come from the magicians.» — y la lectura alternativa que recoge de otros estudiosos.

«Rav Hanina and Rav Oshaya busied themselves on the eve of every Sabbath with the Book of Creation» — el otro pasaje talmúdico del ternero del sábado.

«The letters of the alphabet—and how much more so those of the divine name or of the entire Torah, which was God’s instrument of Creation—have secret, magical power.» — el supuesto que Scholem pone bajo esos relatos.

«Bezalel, who built the Tabernacle, ‘knew the combinations of letters with which heaven and earth were made» — el caso de Bezalel, que según esa tradición conocía las combinaciones de letras con que se hicieron cielo y tierra.

«No one knows its [right] order, for the sections of the Torah are not given in the right arrangement. If they were, everyone who reads in it might create a world, raise the dead, and perform miracles. Therefore the order of the Torah was hidden and is known to God alone» — el límite que la misma tradición pone: el orden verdadero de la Torá lo sabe solo Dios.

«It is uncertain which reading of the above-mentioned legend about the Sabbath-calf is correct, whether it should really be taken as a reference to the brief but baffling Book Yetsirah,» — una incertidumbre de lectura que Scholem declara sobre la leyenda del ternero.

«We do not know the exact date of this enigmatic text, which sets forth the meaning or function of the 'thirty-two ways of wisdom/ that is, of the ten sefiroth or original numbers, and of the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet.» — su abstención sobre la fecha del Sefer Yetsirah, y de qué trata el libro.

«We can only be sure that it was written by a Jewish Neo-Pythagorean some time between the third and the sixth century.» — y lo único que da por seguro: autor judío neopitagórico, entre los siglos III y VI.

«The idea of the golem is, to be sure, unrelated to the conception of the ten sefiroth as set forth in this book, nor does it owe» — el deslinde que Scholem hace entre el golem y la doctrina de las sefirot de ese libro.

«These letters are the structural elements, the stones from which the edifice of Creation was built.» — el papel que el Sefer Yetsirah le da a las letras, según Scholem.

«Both the context and linguistic usage make it clear that what is meant by this name, from which all things issue, is the name of God and not ‘any group of consonants combined into a name.» — cómo resuelve Scholem qué nombre es ése, contra una lectura más laxa.

«Though the treatise is presented as a theoretical guide to the structure of creation, it may quite conceivably have been intended also as a manual of magical practices, or at least as a statement of general principles, to be supplemented by more detailed instructions—perhaps oral—concerning the application of these principles to other things.» — la hipótesis que Scholem propone con su grado: quizá el tratado fuera también manual de prácticas mágicas, o enunciado de principios a completar oralmente.

«The affinity between the linguistic theory set forth in the book and the fundamental magical belief in the power of letters and words is obvious.» — la afinidad que da por evidente.

«We know from the medieval commentaries on the book, some philosophical, some magico-mystical, that it was interpreted in both ways.» — y el hecho que la sostiene: los comentarios medievales lo leyeron de las dos maneras.

«Whether the tradition of the French and German Jews, who read the book as a manual of magic,1 is in keeping with its original intention may indeed be questioned.» — su abstención sobre si la lectura mágica responde a la intención original.

«But the end of the book seems to point strongly in this direction, and certainly does not argue to the contrary.» — y qué inclina la balanza para él.

«Medieval or modem commentators wishing to disregard the magical tendencies of the book found all manner of edifying reflections with which to explain away this conclusion.» — lo que Scholem le reprocha a los comentaristas que quisieron desatender esa tendencia; el facsímil imprime *modem*.

«It seems to me that the author of this sentence had in mind a method which enabled Abraham, on the strength of his insight into the system of things and the potencies of letters, to imitate and in a certain sense repeat God’s act of creation.» — su propia lectura de esa conclusión, en primera persona y con su grado.

«This view is supported by the fact that the old manuscripts of the Book of Creation not only bore the title Hilkboth Yetsirah (suggested by the above-mentioned reading of the Talmud passage about the Sabbath-calf, unless it is the other way around and the Talmud refers to this title) but also bear at the beginning and end the additional title: ‘Alphabet of Our Father Abraham,’ ’Othioth de-Abraham Avinu.» — el dato manuscrito que la apoya: el título alternativo de Alfabeto de nuestro padre Abraham.

«Thus it seems to me that the German Hasidim who commented on the book in the thirteenth century were not too far from the literal meaning of the text when they said that Abraham had created beings by a magical process described, or at least suggested, in the Book Yetsirah.» — y a quiénes le da la razón con esa lectura: a los hasidim alemanes del siglo XIII.

«If this exegesis of Genesis 12:5 is an old one, the polemical question of the midrash—‘Are we to believe that Abraham could make souls?’—may quite possibly have been directed against its currency in esoteric circles.» — la conjetura de Scholem, con su condicional, sobre la pregunta polémica del midrash acerca de si Abraham podía hacer almas.

«But those who favored the thaumaturgic interpretation of the Book Yetsirah, and believed that a man or golem could be created with its help, interpreted Genesis 12:5 (in which nefesh, ‘souls,’ can also mean persons or, as in the Book Yetsirah, even ‘human organisms’) as the outcome of Abraham’s study of the book.» — cómo leían ese versículo quienes tomaban el Sefer Yetsirah por manual taumatúrgico.

«I regard this latter explanation as more plausible than any other.» — el grado con que Scholem se queda con esa explicación.

«If Jewish esoterics as early as the third century—in case the Book Yetsirah really comes from this period—believed Abraham to be capable of such miraculous creation on the strength of his insight into the hilkhothyetsirah, we shall be justified in drawing a parallel between these views and certain others held at roughly the same time.» — el paralelo que propone, con su condición delante: si el libro es del siglo III.

«Graetz was the first to assume, on the basis of cosmogonic parallels, that the orthodox Jewish gnosis or esotericism of the Book Yetsirah was in some way connected with certain conceptions recorded in the Pseudo-Clementines.» — a quién le adjudica esa hipótesis: Graetz, que emparentó el Sefer Yetsirah con las Pseudoclementinas.

«Simon Magus is quoted as boasting that he had created a man, not out of the earth, but out of the air by theurgic transformations (theiai tropai) and—exactly as later in the instructions concerning the making of the golem!—reduced him to his element by ‘undoing’ the said transformations.» — el pasaje que sostiene el paralelo: Simón Mago jactándose de haber hecho un hombre del aire por transformaciones teúrgicas y de haberlo deshecho igual.

«in the operation of Simon Magus remind one very much of the creative ‘transformations’ (temuroth) of letters in the Book Yetsirah.» — el parecido verbal que Scholem señala entre las transformaciones de Simón y las temuroth del Sefer Yetsirah.

«According to the early medieval Hebrew (anti-Christian) Toledoth Yeshu, Jesus demonstrated his claim to be the son of God by making birds of clay and uttering the name of God over them, whereupon they lived, stood up, and flew off into the air.» — el relato del Toledoth Yeshu que Scholem trae al caso: Jesús animando pájaros de barro con el nombre de Dios.

«The golem—beginning with the end of the twelfth century the name appears in a number of texts in the sense of a man-like creature, produced by the magical power of man1—starts out as a legendary figure.» — la datación del término golem y el punto de partida de su historia según Scholem.

«Then it is transformed into the object of a mystical ritual of initiation, which seems actually to have been performed, designed to confirm the adept in his mastery over secret knowledge.» — su segunda etapa: objeto de un rito de iniciación que, según Scholem, parece haberse practicado.

«Then in the whisperings of the profane it degenerates once more into a figure of legend, or one might even say, tellurian myth.» — y la tercera, de vuelta a la leyenda.

«The problem might be formulated as follows: does he with this magical power create a purely magical being, or is it a being related to the tellurian origins of man?» — la pregunta con que Scholem organiza el resto del ensayo.

«It seems to me that both of these conflicting possibilities were at work in the development of the medieval golem conceptions.» — y su respuesta, sin arbitrar entre las dos: le parece que ambas obraron a la vez.

«The Hasidim seem to have regarded the magic effected by application of the instructions found in, or read into, the Book Yetsirah as a natural faculty with which man within certain limits is endowed.» — cómo entendían los hasidim esa magia, según Scholem: facultad natural del hombre dentro de ciertos límites.

«Creation itself, in this view, is magical through and through: all things in it live by virtue of the secret names that dwell in them.» — el supuesto cosmológico de esa posición.

«It strikes me as possible that the latest forms of the golem conception, with their accent on danger and destructiveness, on the tellurian aspect of the golem, were in part influenced by these conceptions of Kabbalistic magic, but in the present state of our knowledge we cannot be sure.» — una hipótesis que Scholem formula y no cierra: quizá la magia cabalística influyera en las formas tardías del golem, pero no puede asegurarlo.

«In any event, this conception of magic plays no part in the early history of the golem.» — lo que sí descarta para la etapa temprana.

«It can be demonstrated beyond a doubt that these pages were read at least by Eleazar of Worms, and they were probably known to the whole group of Rhenish Hasidim at the turn of the twelfth century.» — el grado con que Scholem afirma la lectura de esas páginas por Eleazar de Worms, y el más flojo con que la extiende a los hasidim renanos.

«And to this day there is no one who can understand it alone, two scholars [are needed], and even they understand it only after three years» — la condición que la fuente pone para entender el Sefer Yetsirah: dos estudiosos y tres años.

«I believe this passage to be the origin of the Hasidic view that the creation of the golem was a ritual» — la hipótesis de Scholem sobre de dónde sale la idea hasídica del golem como rito, dicha en primera persona.

«Thus it is no longer surprising that the instructions about the making of a golem should originally have appeared as the conclusion of the study of the Book of Creation» — y lo que esa hipótesis explica: que las instrucciones aparezcan como conclusión del estudio del libro.

«The Moroccan philosopher Judah ben Nissim ibn Malka, a kind of freelance Kabbalist, reports in his Arabic commentary on the Book Yetsirah (c. 1365) that students of the book were given a magical manuscript named Sefer Ra^iel and consisting of seals, magical figures, secret names, and incantations.» — el testimonio marroquí que Scholem aduce sobre el manuscrito mágico que se entregaba a los estudiantes del libro.

«When God created His world, He first created the Book of Creation and looked into it and from it created his world.» — la fórmula que hace del Sefer Yetsirah el modelo de la Creación.

«Here then an entirely new motif is developed from the Talmudic form of the legend.» — cómo marca Scholem la novedad respecto de la versión talmúdica.

«The author of this passage seems untroubled by the disproportion between the creation of a calf and the creation of a world.» — lo que a Scholem le llama la atención de ese texto: no le inquieta la desproporción entre crear un ternero y crear un mundo.

«It seems to be based on a regulation in the Mishnah (Hagigah II, i) to the effect that even if all other moral requirements for the study of a secret doctrine are met, a man must not concern himself with creation (that is, with the first chapter of the Bible and by extension with cosmogony in general) in the presence of more than two other persons.» — la regla mishnaica que Scholem propone como base de la exigencia de trabajar de a dos.

«This prohibition seems to have been extended to the Book of Creation.» — y hasta dónde se extendió.

«The end of the last quotation is the oldest reference so far known to us to the creation of a golem by Ben Sira and his father.» — la datación que Scholem da de la referencia más antigua conocida al golem de Ben Sira.

«Ben Sira1 created a man by means of the Book Yetsirah, and on his forehead stood emeth, truth, the name which He had uttered concerning the creature as the culmination of His work.» — el relato mismo, con el emeth en la frente.

«Here it is clear that the golem is a repetition of the creation of Adam, concerning which we learn here for the first time that then too the name ‘truth’ was uttered.» — cómo lee Scholem ese relato: el golem como repetición de la creación de Adán.

«Then a heavenly voice went forth: You cannot make him [such a creature] alone.» — la voz celestial que impone el trabajo de a dos; el corchete es del traductor.

«Then the man they had made said to them: God alone created Adam, and when he wished to let Adam die, he erased the aleph from emeth and he remained meth, dead.» — lo que la criatura misma dice en esa versión.

«That is what you should do with me and not create another man, lest the world succumb to idolatry as in the days of Enosh.» — y la razón que da para pedir su propia destrucción: el riesgo de idolatría.

«The created man said to them: Reverse the combinations of letters [by which he was created] and erase the aleph of the word emeth from my forehead—and immediately he fell into dust.» — el procedimiento inverso que el relato prescribe; el corchete es del traductor.

«The golem is destroyed by the reversal of the magical combination of letters through which he was called into life and at the same time by the destruction, at once real and symbolic, of God’s» — cómo resume Scholem esa destrucción: invertir la combinación y destruir a la vez, real y simbólicamente, el sello de Dios.

«The seal seems to have appeared spontaneously on his forehead in the course of the magical process of creation, and not to have been inscribed by the adepts.» — la precisión que Scholem añade sobre el sello, con su grado: parece aparecer solo, no escrito por los adeptos.

«The prophet Jeremiah busied himself alone with the Book Yetsirah.» — el arranque del relato pseudoepigráfico de Jeremías que Scholem traduce.

«But this newly created man had a knife in his hand, with which he erased the aleph from emeth\ there remained: meth.» — y lo que la criatura hace en esa versión: borrarse ella misma el aleph.

«An architect built many houses, cities, and squares, but no one could copy his art and compete with him in knowledge and skill until two men persuaded him.» — la parábola del arquitecto con que ese texto explica el peligro de repetir la creación.

«But now that you have created a man like Him, people will say: There is no God in the world beside these two!» — y el reproche que la criatura le dirige a sus hacedores.

«Only do not meditate in the sense of building up, but the other way around.» — la instrucción de deshacer que sigue.

«In this Kabbalistic view of golem-making two contradictory motifs meet.» — cómo resume Scholem la tensión de esa tradición, sin armonizarla.

«The hybris of its creator would turn against God» — uno de los dos motivos en juego.

«For Enosh was said to have come to his father Seth and questioned him about his lineage. When Seth said to him that Adam had neither father nor mother but that God had created him out of the earth, Enosh went away and took a clod of earth and made a figure from it.» — el relato de Enós con que Scholem enlaza el golem con el origen de la idolatría.

«So the name of God was desecrated, and idolatry began when the generation of Enosh worshipped this figure.» — y el desenlace que ese relato le da.

«The Jewish traditions concerning idolatry disclose one motif in particular, which is unquestionably connected with certain forms of the golem legend, namely, magical animation by means of the names of God.» — el motivo que Scholem aísla de las tradiciones sobre idolatría.

«We first encounter such a tradition in the Talmud (Sota 47a), where we are told that Gehazi cut one of the names of God into the muzzle of Jeroboam’s bull idol (I Kings 12 : 28), whereupon the idol recited the first words of the Decalogue: T am thy God’ and ‘Thou shalt have no other.» — el primer testimonio que aduce: el ídolo de Jeroboam animado por un nombre de Dios grabado en el hocico.

«The king is said to have awakened it to life by putting on it the High Priest’s diadem, stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem, on which was written the tetragrammaton YHWH.» — el segundo: el ídolo de Nabucodonosor animado con la diadema del sumo sacerdote.

«But Daniel, ostensibly wishing to kiss it, approached and removed the name of God, whereupon it fell lifeless to the ground.» — y cómo se lo desanima en ese relato.

«In these tales the name of God, a sacred power, gives life to the cult images of polytheism.» — la paradoja que Scholem señala en esos relatos.

«A conflicting view is that the devil, or—in anti-Catholic versions— Samael and Lilith had entered into such images.» — la explicación rival que consigna sin arbitrar, y su variante anticatólica.

«The legends recorded by Ahima‘ats of Oria in his eleventh-century family chronicle show that a conception very close to the later forms of the golem legend was dlive among the Italian Jews of the early Middle Ages, from whom the German Hasidim assuredly took many of their traditions.» — la vía de transmisión que Scholem propone: de los judíos italianos a los hasidim alemanes; el facsímil imprime *dlive* por alive.

«It is pointless to take a polemical attitude toward this and similar elucubrations; it suffices to analyze the actual source material.» — el método que Scholem declara frente a las elucubraciones ajenas: no polemizar, analizar las fuentes.

«When the name is removed—in some stories on the pretext of a kiss, as in the legend of Daniel—• the body falls back lifeless.» — el gesto recurrente que Scholem señala en esas historias.

«The anonymous author of the Book of Life contrasts Rava’s method of creating a man with that of the magicians whose creation also, like that of the Book Yetsirah^ employs earth as its basic element:» — el contraste que Scholem levanta de un texto anónimo entre el método de Rava y el de los magos.

«The magicians of Egypt, who made creatures, were acquainted through demons or some other artifice with the order of the merkabah [the heavenly world and God’s throne] and took dust under the feet of the order [suited to their undertaking] and created what they wished.» — el método que ese texto les atribuye a los magos de Egipto; los corchetes son del traductor.

«But the scholars of whom it is said: ‘N. N. made a man, etc.’ knew the secret of the merkabah and took dust from under the feet of the [animal figures] of the merkabah, and spoke the name of God over it, and it was created.» — y el de los estudiosos, que tomaban el polvo de bajo los pies de la merkabah.

«This procedure, if I am not mistaken, was a ritual representing an act of creation by the adept and culminating in ecstasy.» — la tesis de Scholem sobre el rito del golem, con su reserva delante: un acto de creación del adepto que culmina en éxtasis.

«In none of the sources does a golem created in this way enter into real life and perform any actions whatsoever.» — la búsqueda negativa que la sostiene: en ninguna de esas fuentes el golem entra en la vida real ni hace nada.

«The motif of the magical servant or famulus is unknown to any of these texts2 and does not make its appearance until much later when, as we shall see, the golem becomes a figure in Kabbalistic legend.» — y cuándo aparece el criado mágico, según Scholem: mucho después, al volverse el golem figura de leyenda.

«I must withdraw my statement in Eranos-Jahrbuch, XIX, p. 151, Note 29, that this conception is first attested in Pseudo-Saadya.» — una retractación de Scholem sobre una afirmación suya anterior, publicada en el Eranos-Jahrbuch.

«The most precise instructions are given by Eleazar of Worms at the end of his commentary on the Book Yetsirah.» — de dónde saca Scholem las instrucciones más precisas.

«Eleazar’s instructions specify that two or three adepts, joined in the golem ritual, should take some virginal mountain earth,3 knead it in running water, and form a golem from it.» — el procedimiento material: dos o tres adeptos, tierra virgen de monte amasada en agua corriente.

«Over this figure they recite the combinations of the alphabet derived from the ‘gates’ of the Book Yet sir ah, which, in Eleazar’s recension, form not 231 but 221 combinations.» — y la recitación que sigue, con la cifra propia de la recensión de Eleazar.

«The characteristic feature of this procedure is that not the 221 combinations themselves are recited, but combinations of each of their letters with each consonant of the tetragrammaton according to every possible vocalization» — el rasgo que Scholem señala como característico de ese procedimiento.

«It is possible that the procedure was limited to the recitation of all the possible combinations of two (in every conceivable vocalization) between one of the consonants, each of which according to the Book Yetsirab 'governs’ a part of the human organism, and one consonant of the tetragrammaton.» — y la hipótesis con que lo acota, marcándola como posible; el facsímil imprime *Yetsirab*.

«None of these instructions leave room between the act of animation and the act of transformation back into dust, for a pause during which the golem might exist outside the sphere of meditation.» — lo que Scholem lee en el silencio de esas instrucciones: no dejan hueco para que el golem exista fuera de la meditación.

«Frankfurt Kabbalist Naphtali ben Jacob Bacharach had the courage to include this text in a printed edition of one of his Kabbalistic works, though in revised form and accompanied by the prudent explanation that the ‘instructions’ had been left incomplete, lest they be misused by unworthy persons.» — quién imprimió ese texto y con qué precaución, según Scholem.

«These words do not only tell us how God went about his creation, but also teach us how the adept should proceed when he sets out to create a golem.» — cómo lee el Pseudo-Saadya el Sefer Yetsirah, según Scholem: a la vez relato de la creación e instructivo.

«It strikes me as important that the golem is here buried in the earth, from which it rises.» — el detalle que a Scholem le importa de ese rito.

«This might suggest a symbolism of rebirth, which would be perfectly in keeping with the nature of the whole as a ritual of initiation.» — y la lectura que propone en condicional: un simbolismo de renacimiento acorde con un rito de iniciación.

«The prescription that the earth of which the golem is made should be virginal (i.e., untilled) also favors the parallel with Adam, for he too was created of virgin soil.» — el paralelo con Adán que refuerza esa lectura.

«We can gather indirectly from such instructions that the ritual culminates in ecstasy.» — el grado con que Scholem infiere el éxtasis: indirectamente, de las instrucciones.

«But it is forbidden to perform this operation too often» — la prohibición que las fuentes ponen sobre la repetición.

«Its true purpose is: ‘To enter into communion with His great Name.» — y el fin que le asignan.

«It is in keeping with such a conception of the ecstatic nature of this vision of a golem when an important but anonymous Spanish author of the early fourteenth century explains that the process is not corporeal, but a ‘creation of thought,’ yet sir ah mahshavtith.» — la fórmula de un anónimo español del siglo XIV que Scholem alinea con su tesis: creación de pensamiento; el facsímil parte la transliteración.

«He ridicules the ‘folly of those who study the Book Yetsirah in order to make a calf; for those who do so are themselves calves.» — y la burla con que ese autor despacha la lectura literal del Sefer Yetsirah.

«An awareness of the inadequacy of the written instructions is discernible in several records of the later tradition.» — lo que Scholem detecta en la tradición tardía: la conciencia de que las instrucciones escritas no bastan.

«From parallels in the practical Kabbalah and in Abulafia’s writings, one gathers that the omission may have concerned the intonation of the letter combinations, breathing technique, or certain movements of the head and hands that had accompanied the process.» — qué pudo omitirse de las instrucciones, según la conjetura de Scholem por paralelos con Abulafia: entonación, respiración y movimientos de cabeza y manos.

«Hayim Joseph David Azulai, a famous Jerusalem Kabbalist of the eighteenth century, who was well acquainted with the traditions of the seventeenth-century school of Kabbalists in Jerusalem, said to Rabbi Jacob Baruch in Livorno (by word of mouth, it would seem) that in magic the ‘corporeal combinations of letters as they first meet the eye are not sufficient.» — el testimonio de Azulai que Scholem aduce, con la nota de que llegó de viva voz: las combinaciones corpóreas de letras no bastan.

«Those who merely learn the combinations from the book can do nothing with them.» — y lo que se sigue de eso para quien solo aprende del libro.

«First, because of the many corruptions and gaps in the text, and moreover, because everything depends on one’s own spontaneous interpretations.» — las dos razones que da esa fuente.

«All this can be studied; but when one has studied it all well, everything depends on one’s intelligence and piety.» — y de qué depende al final, según ella.

«But even were he to write down the combinations, his companion will be unable to do anything with them unless, through his own insight, he achieves the necessary concentration of thought.» — el límite de lo transmisible por escrito según la misma tradición.

«Here again the golem, no sooner created, is dissolved again into dust: with the initiation of the Talmudist it has served its purpose, which is purely psychic.» — el uso que Scholem le encuentra a esos golems: iniciar al talmudista, con un fin puramente psíquico.

«I have heard that Ibn Ezra made such a creature in the presence of Rabbenu Tam, and said: See what [power] God put into the holy letters, and he said [to Rabbenu Tam]: Go backward;1 and it returned to its former state [as lifeless earth].» — la anécdota que Scholem cita sobre Ibn Ezra ante Rabbenu Tam; los corchetes son del traductor.

«The danger is not that the golem, become autonomous, will develop overwhelming powers; it lies in the tension which the creative process arouses in the creator himself.» — dónde está el peligro en las fuentes tempranas, según Scholem: no en el golem autónomo sino en la tensión del creador.

«Mistakes in carrying out the directions do not impair the golem; they destroy its creator.» — la fórmula corta de ese peligro.

«The dangerous golem of later legends represents a profound transformation of the original conception, in which, as we have seen, a parallel with Adam was clearly present, but in which this tellurian element was not regarded as a source of danger.» — y la transformación que Scholem data entre unas fuentes y otras.

«There is another question to which we obtain no conclusive answer, namely: could golems speak? The Talmudist Rava was unable to confer speech on his artificial man.» — una pregunta que Scholem declara sin respuesta concluyente: si los golems podían hablar.

«But even in the later ritual, muteness is not as essential as has often been supposed.» — y la corrección que hace a la creencia corriente sobre su mudez.

«We do not know where the notion of a golem endowed with speech, as in the story about Ben Sira, first made its appearance.» — otra abstención expresa, sobre el origen del golem parlante.

«It is Pseudo-Saadya who puts golems on the highest plane. He says that recitation of the alphabets of the Book Yetsirah has the God-given power to produce such a creature and to give it vitality, hiyyuth, and soul, neshamah.» — quién le da al golem el rango más alto, según Scholem: el Pseudo-Saadya, que le concede vitalidad y alma.

«According to this passage, sinless beings would be able to transmit the soul of life, which includes the power of speech, even to a golem.» — la condición que ese texto pone para dotar de habla al golem.

«Thus the golem is not mute by nature, but only because the souls of the righteous are no longer pure.» — y la consecuencia que Scholem extrae: la mudez del golem no es de naturaleza.

«Isaac the Blind (c. 1200) contents himself with observing that the golem was speechless because Rava could give him no ruah.» — la explicación más sobria que Scholem le atribuye a Isaac el Ciego.

«Elaborating the statement of Eleazar of Worms, a Kabbalist at the turn of the fourteenth century goes so far as to say that although a golem has an animated form, he is still dead, because his creator can give him no knowledge of God or speech.» — la posición más dura de un cabalista de hacia 1300: forma animada y muerto igualmente.

«Thus Bahya ben Asher (1291) says of Rava: ‘He was able to give his creature a motor soul, but not the rational soul which is the source of speech.» — el reparto de almas con que Bahya ben Asher lo explica.

«For it is possible for a man, with the help of mighty forces, to make a man who speaks, but not one who can procreate or has reason.» — y la posición contraria que Scholem consigna sin armonizarla: un golem que habla y no razona ni procrea.

«Here then, contrary to the opinion put forward by Bahya and so many others, the golem has speech, but neither language nor sexual urge.» — cómo marca Scholem esa discrepancia entre las fuentes.

«For if he had had this urge, even after the manner of animals in which it is far weaker than in man, we would have had a great deal of trouble with him, because no woman would have been able to defend herself against him.» — y la razón que esa fuente da para negarle el impulso sexual.

«Upon these elements there shines a light appropriate to their specific rank in the scale of the elements; it is not nefesh nor ruah nor neshamah, but a pure naked vitality which, because of the nature of the elements here joined, is above the animal level and comes closer to the source of light than does an animal.» — la doctrina de Cordovero sobre la vitalidad del golem, en la exposición de Scholem.

«On the other hand, a golem does not die in the strict sense, as an animal dies, but simply returns to its element, the earth.» — y qué le pasa al golem en lugar de morir.

«Here then we have a truly tellurian creature, which, though animated by magic, remains within the realm of elemental forces.» — cómo clasifica Scholem esa criatura.

«Adam-golem, as we have seen, was endowed not with reason but with a certain elemental power of vision, and man has a similar power to endow his golem with elemental forces, or, as Cordovero says, ‘lights that shine into the elements.» — el paralelo que cierra el punto: como Adán-golem, el golem del adepto recibe fuerzas elementales, no razón.

«The Safed Kabbalists of the sixteenth century speak of golems as of a phenomenon situated in the remote past; their discussion of the matter is purely theoretical.» — cómo trataban el asunto los cabalistas de Safed, según Scholem.

«Occasionally a set of instructions for golem-making made its appearance among them; the readers were explicitly forbidden to experiment along these lines, but nowhere do we find any direct reference to such activities among them.» — y la búsqueda negativa que lo respalda: ninguna referencia directa a que lo practicaran.

«But even here it is stressed at the outset: ‘No one should imagine that anyone still has the power to achieve practical results with this book.» — la advertencia que abre el apéndice del comentario de Cordovero.

«For it is not the case; the magical sources are stopped up and the Kabbalah on the matter has vanished.» — y la razón que da: las fuentes mágicas están tapadas y la cábala del asunto se perdió.

«Another characteristic statement is that of Joseph Ashkenazi, who came to Safed from Prague and Posen.» — otro testimonio que Scholem alinea, con su procedencia.

«He uses the term ‘golem’ current among the German Jews: ‘We find [in the old text] that man can make a golem, who receives the animal soul by the power of his [i.e., his master’s] word, but to give him a real soul, neshamah, is not in the power of man, for it comes from the word of God.» — y el límite que ese autor le pone al poder del hombre; los corchetes son del traductor.

«Among the German and Polish Jews, however, the conception of the golem reverted to the realm of living legend.» — el camino contrario que Scholem describe entre judíos alemanes y polacos.

«When the common people took up the old stories and descriptions of the ritual, the nature of the golem underwent a metamorphosis.» — y qué le pasó al golem en manos de la gente común.

«In reference to the Talmudic passage about Rava, Nissim Girondi in Barcelona writes: ‘The scholars in Germany who busy themselves almost daily with demonology take this passage as their foundation.» — el testimonio de Nissim Girondi que Scholem trae sobre los estudiosos alemanes ocupados en demonología.

«They insist that this [i.e., the production of such a man] must take place in a vessel/1 2 But there is no mention of a vessel in any of the accounts of golem-making that have come down to us,» — el detalle del vaso que ese testimonio añade, y la búsqueda negativa de Scholem: no aparece en ningún relato conservado; los corchetes son del traductor.

«This, however, strikes me as unjustified. In my opinion the ‘vessel’ employed by the German golem makers should be taken as a retort.» — su propia lectura de ese vaso, en primera persona: una retorta.

«Nissim Girondi was in contact with prominent scholars from Germany, and he is a cool-headed, reliable witness.» — por qué Scholem le da crédito a ese testigo.

«His testimony proves that such stories were told about certain German Hasidim.» — y qué alcance le concede: que esas historias se contaban.

«Golems continued to be made of earth and water, and even in the later reports only clay or mud are mentioned.» — el límite que Scholem pone al paralelo alquímico: la materia sigue siendo barro.

«It was only long after Paracelsus that the practice was attributed to earlier authorities, such as the physician, mystic, and reputed magician Arnaldus of Villanova; and such attributions appear to be legendary.» — la adjudicación tardía del homúnculo a Arnaldo de Vilanova, que a Scholem le parece legendaria.

«I am far from certain that the interpretations of the homunculus as a symbol of rebirth after death or as an embryonic form of the philosopher’s stone, as recently advanced by Ronald Gray, are correct.» — la reserva que Scholem pone a las lecturas del homúnculo propuestas por Ronald Gray.

«But if they are, they suggest a profound connection with the symbolism of the golem, which, in one of the prescriptions recorded above, is buried in the earth as materiaprima and rises up out of it.» — y lo que se seguiría si fueran correctas: una conexión honda con el simbolismo del golem enterrado como materia prima.

«Paracelsus, it is true, also gave the name of homunculi to the golem-like figures of wax, clay, or pitch employed in black magic to inflict injury on enemies.» — el otro uso del término que Scholem le registra a Paracelso.

«By a combination of these two meanings, the homunculus became in legend the demonic servant, who seems to have made his first appearance in certain traditions of the seventeenth century.» — y en qué se convirtió el homúnculo al cruzarse los dos sentidos.

«It is also related of Solomon ibn Gabirol [the famous poet and philosopher of the eleventh century] that he created a woman who waited on him.» — la leyenda que Scholem recoge sobre Ibn Gabirol; los corchetes son del traductor.

«When he was denounced to the government [evidently for magic], he proved that she was not a real, whole creature, but consisted only of pieces of wood and hinges, and reduced her to her original components.» — y cómo se defendió en ese relato.

«The breaking down of the golem into its separate components clearly suggests a mechanical golem, a notion that appears nowhere else in the tradition.» — lo que Scholem lee en ese detalle: un golem mecánico, sin paralelo en el resto de la tradición.

«Along the same lines, we read in a report published in 1614 by Samuel Friedrich Brenz that the Jews had a magical device ‘which is called Hamor Golim (!); they make an image of mud resembling a man, and whisper or mumble certain spells in his ears, which make the image walk» — el testimonio externo de 1614 que Scholem cita, con el signo de admiración que él pone sobre la grafía del término.

«This is a far cry from the golem ritual discussed in the preceding section.» — la distancia que marca entre esas historias y el rito de iniciación.

«On the forehead of the image, they write: emeth, that is, truth.» — el detalle de la inscripción en la versión popular.

«Rabbi Elijah summoned up courage and tore the piece of parchment with the name of God on it from his forehead.» — el desenlace del golem del rabí Elías, en la versión que Scholem traduce.

«Then he collapsed like a clod of earth, but in falling damaged his master and scratched his face.» — y el daño que le hace al caer.

«It is interesting to note that in Paracelsus it takes forty days for the sperm, once enclosed in the retort, to develop into a homunculus.» — el paralelo numérico que Scholem señala entre el homúnculo de Paracelso y el plazo de cuarenta días del golem.

«Unless this tellurian force in held in check by the divine name, it rises up in blind and destructive fury.» — la ley que rige el golem tardío según Scholem; el facsímil imprime *in* por is.

«Whereas Adam began as a gigantic cosmic golem and was reduced to the normal size of a man, this golem seems to strive, in response to the tellurian force that governs him, to regain the original stature of Adam.» — y la inversión que le encuentra: el golem crece hacia la estatura original de Adán.

«Of course the Prague legend may have grown up independently, but this strikes me as very unlikely.» — su juicio sobre la independencia de la leyenda de Praga, con el grado a la vista.

«But because all creatures rest on the Sabbath, Rabbi Loew turned his golem back into clay every Friday evening, by taking away the name of God.» — la práctica que la leyenda le atribuye al Maharal cada víspera de sábado.

«The rabbi never brought the golem back to life, but buried his remains in the attic of the ancient synagogue, where they lie to this day.» — y el desenlace de esa leyenda.

«Often they border on literary dilettantism, and in any case they have no bearing on the present study.» — el juicio de Scholem sobre las elaboraciones literarias posteriores y por qué las deja fuera.

«Still, it is interesting to recall that Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon (i.e., the genius) of Vilna (d. 1797), the outstanding Rabbinical authority among the Lithuanian Jews, owned to his student Rabbi Hayim, founder of the famous Talmudic academy of Volozhin, that as a boy, not yet thirteen, he had actually undertaken to make a golem.» — el testimonio que sí retiene: el Gaón de Vilna confesándole a su discípulo que de muchacho intentó hacer un golem.

«But the historian’s task ends where the psychologist’s begins.» — la frase con que Scholem cierra el libro, y el límite que se pone.

«this relationship between Kabbalistic theory and the similar Christian conception was already noticed by Pico della Mirandola, the first Christian humanist to take a deep interest in the» — en nota, Scholem le adjudica a Pico della Mirandola el primer registro del parecido entre la teoría cabalística de los cuatro niveles y la concepción cristiana, y lo llama el primer humanista cristiano con interés hondo en la cábala.

«Hebrew terms are exactly the same as those employed by Bahya ben Asher, whose work must consequently have been used by Pico.» — y la filiación que traza en la misma nota: Pico habría usado la obra de Bahya ben Asher.

«The erroneous identification of midrash with allegory and of sekhel, which in Bahya actually means allegory, with tropology, shows that Pico’s knowledge of these sources was very limited.» — junto con el límite que le pone: la confusión de midrash con alegoría muestra, según Scholem, un conocimiento muy corto de esas fuentes.

«The same mistake is repeated, in a more pronounced form, in the Apology for Pico, written by the Franciscan» — y quién repite el error de forma más marcada, según la misma nota: el franciscano Arcángel de Borgonuovo en su apología de Pico.

«light, and the Hebrew word ra%, mystery, have the same numerical value, 207.» — la equivalencia numérica que Scholem recoge entre luz y misterio; el facsímil rinde la transliteración con un signo de porcentaje.

«One of the marks of the importance of Gershom Scholem in twentieth—century thought, however, is how he invites all readers to become “insiders” to the world of Jewish mysticism and the questions it raises for the wider investigation of religion.» — Bernard McGinn abre el prefacio de 1996 declarándose ajeno al campo y explicando por qué escribe igual: lo que le reconoce a Scholem es haber vuelto legible la mística judía para quien viene de fuera.

«Scholem himself made no universal claims for Jewish mysticism, never arguing, as did some modern Kabbalists such as the nineteenth—century Italian rabbi Elijah Benamozegh,1 that Kabbalah was the archetype or inner core of other forms of Western mysticism.» — McGinn deslinda a Scholem de la tesis universalista, y nombra a quien sí la sostuvo: el rabino italiano decimonónico Elijah Benamozegh, para quien la cábala era el arquetipo o núcleo de las demás místicas occidentales.

«Although Scholem’s writings cover the whole range of Jewish mysticism from the Merkavah texts of the early centuries C.E. through Hasidism, he was most concerned with the recovery of Kabbalah, the secret traditions about the inner meaning of Jewish life and practice that first emerged in twelfth—century France and Spain and eventually spread throughout the Jewish world.» — el arco que McGinn le adjudica a la obra entera de Scholem, de la Merkavah al hasidismo, con el centro puesto en la cábala surgida en la Francia y la España del siglo XII.

«This is not to deny the critiques and revisions of many of Scholem’s interpretations of the history of Jewish mysticism by subsequent scholars.» — McGinn consigna que hay críticas y revisiones posteriores a las interpretaciones históricas de Scholem, y no las arbitra.

«This is not to overlook such fundamental older studies of Jewish mysticism as those of Adolphe Franck,6 but the standard emphasis was on how well Judaism fit the model of a pure and “enlightened” religion, especially in the realms of law and philosophy.» — según McGinn, la Wissenschaft des Judentums del siglo XIX no ignoraba del todo la mística —cita a Adolphe Franck—, pero medía al judaísmo por su ajuste al modelo de religión ilustrada, es decir por su ley y su filosofía.

«As he put it in the essay on “Kabbalah and Myth” in this collection: “The price of God’s purity is the loss of His living reality.» — la frase de Scholem que McGinn levanta del tercer ensayo de este mismo volumen para explicar qué le faltaba a esa religión depurada.

«Scholem’s turn to mysticism as a clue to the nature of Judaism was exemplary, not only for Wissenschaft des Judentums (if the term is still useful), but also for the modern study of mysticism in general.» — McGinn extiende el alcance del giro de Scholem más allá del judaísmo, al estudio moderno de la mística en general, y de paso pone en duda que el rótulo Wissenschaft des Judentums siga sirviendo.

«Scholem advances a three—stage model of religion. In the first essay in this volume, for example, he claims that religion begins with a mythical foundation stage in which no gap is discerned between the gods and humans. Religion then moves on to a classical phase which destroys this harmony by establishing a polarity between God and human in which God founds institutional “religion” by addressing humans in revelation and demanding their obedience.» — McGinn resume así las dos primeras etapas del modelo que le lee a Scholem en el primer ensayo: la mítica, sin distancia entre dioses y hombres, y la clásica, que instaura la polaridad y funda la religión institucional en la revelación y la obediencia.

«The history of institutional religion, however, shows the possibility of a third, or “romantic” phase, in which mysticism, understood as “direct contact between the individual and God,” seeks to revive the original unity of mythic consciousness.» — la tercera etapa del mismo modelo según McGinn: la mística como contacto directo que busca reponer la unidad de la conciencia mítica.

«It is difficult to know how much stock Scholem put in this evolutionary pattern, considering his resistance to overarching theories.» — McGinn matiza su propia lectura: no sabe cuánto crédito le daba Scholem al esquema evolutivo, dada su resistencia a las teorías totalizadoras.

«Nevertheless, I find his model problematic, at least if understood in a purely sequential way, particularly because the history of many religious traditions demonstrates the ongoing persistence of all three» — la objeción propia de McGinn, dicha en primera persona: leído como secuencia, el modelo no da cuenta de que las tres fases persisten a la vez.

«Scholem’s three-stage theory does introduce us to one of the most important of his insights—the dialectical relation between myth and mysticism on the one hand and institutional religion on the other.» — lo que McGinn sí rescata del esquema, aun objetándolo: la relación dialéctica entre mito y mística, de un lado, e institución, del otro.

«According to Steven Ozment, for example, “medieval [Christian] mysticism was a refined challenge, always in theory if not in daily practice, to the regular, normative way of religious salvation.» — McGinn cita a Steven Ozment como ejemplo de la lectura que hace de la mística medieval un desafío a la vía normativa de salvación; el corchete que acota *Christian* es del propio McGinn.

«Scholem’s insistence that “there is no mysticism as such, but only the mysticism of particular religious systems, Christian, Islamic, and Jewish mysticism, and so on,”10 may seem obvious until one reflects on how much study of mysticism has been conducted on contrary premises.» — McGinn cita la regla de método de Scholem y advierte que su obviedad es aparente: buena parte del estudio de la mística se hizo sobre la premisa contraria.

«Even today, profound disagreements, not always clearly understood and expressed, over the legitimacy of speaking of mysticism as a “thing in itself” divide the scholarly» — McGinn consigna que el desacuerdo sobre si cabe hablar de la mística como cosa en sí sigue abierto entre los estudiosos.

«Like von Hiigel, Scholem believed that only by seeing mysticism as one element in a living religious whole can we begin to understand the possible meaning» — McGinn empareja a Scholem con Friedrich von Hiigel —así lo imprime el facsímil, por von Hügel— en la tesis de que la mística solo se entiende como un elemento dentro de un todo religioso vivo.

«Scholem’s view of this dynamism challenged those who insisted that mysticism was ineluctably radical and revolutionary in the face of organized, institutional religion.» — McGinn sitúa la tesis del doble aspecto contra quienes hacían de la mística algo forzosamente radical frente a la religión organizada.

«Due to the presence of the wild card of ineffability, however, mystical preservation of tradition is never mere repetition, but also allows for creative transformations of the inherited amalgam.» — según McGinn, es la inefabilidad lo que impide que la conservación mística sea mera repetición: al no caber la experiencia en las palabras heredadas, transformarlas se vuelve inevitable.

«While Scholem never denied a creative aspect to the more abstract elements of religion, like law and philosophy, it is obvious that he was drawn to the study of mysticism precisely because he saw in it the deepest resource for dynamic change and development within religion.» — McGinn le adjudica a Scholem un motivo de elección de objeto: la mística como el recurso más hondo de cambio dentro de una religión.

«Change or adaptation, however, always raises the nagging question, “How much is too much» — la pregunta con que McGinn formula el límite del aspecto revolucionario: cuánta transformación tolera una tradición antes de romperse.

«More often, circumstantial conflict between the mystic and religious authority leads to situations within which mystics may be forced to choose between their own truth and the truth of the tradition.» — para McGinn el conflicto suele ser circunstancial, no doctrinal, y solo entonces obliga al místico a elegir entre su verdad y la de la tradición.

«Scholem devoted a major book to the most prominent example of this in the history of Judaism—the career of Sabbatai Sevi.» — McGinn remite al libro de Scholem sobre Sabbatai Sevi como el caso mayor de esa ruptura en la historia judía.

«In Christianity, for example, the concept of orthodoxy enshrined in correct formulas of belief is more powerful than in Judaism, just as the forms of religious leadership and the authority they claim, varied as they have been among the Christian denominations, are different from those found in Judaism.» — el deslinde comparativo de McGinn: la ortodoxia como fórmula de creencia pesa más en el cristianismo que en el judaísmo, y con ella cambia la forma de la autoridad.

«Esoteric teaching and practice have played a significant, one might even say central, role in the history of Jewish mysticism, while Christianity’s struggle with Gnosticism» — McGinn contrasta el lugar central de lo esotérico en la mística judía con el pleito cristiano contra el gnosticismo; la frase sigue en la plana siguiente.

«Traditional Christian mysticism makes frequent use of erotic language, both biblical and extrabiblical, but its commitment to the ideal of virginity has meant that it has nothing like Kabbalah’s incorporation of marital sexuality into the mystical path.» — segundo deslinde de McGinn: el lenguaje erótico es común a las dos místicas, pero solo la cábala incorpora la sexualidad conyugal a la vía.

«Scholem’s general theory of the relationship between mysticism and religious authority remains a significant contribution that serves to correct rigid views of mystical anti-institutionalism that are still widely held.» — el balance de McGinn sobre el primer ensayo del volumen.

«Scholem’s rediscovery of Jewish mysticism was inseparable from his conviction that the revival of the study of Hebrew and its forgotten mystical texts was the only form of religious creativity possible to Jews like himself, his friend Walter Benjamin, and the “heretical Kabbalist” Franz Kafka, whom both men admired so much.» — McGinn liga el proyecto de Scholem a una convicción biográfica, y nombra a Walter Benjamin y a Kafka, a quien llama cabalista herético.

«A language is composed of names. The power of the language is bound up in the name, and its abyss is sealed within the name.» — la frase de Scholem sobre el nombre que McGinn cita para introducir el asunto del lenguaje.

«Scholem sometimes spoke as if the original moment of mystical consciousness was so private and formless that it was totally unrelated to language and all linguistic mediation.» — McGinn señala una oscilación en Scholem: a ratos habla como si el momento originario quedara del todo fuera del lenguaje.

«According to Rabbi Mendel, the revelation made to Israel at Sinai was not in the form of the actual words of the commandments, but only of the aleph that begins the first commandment.» — McGinn adelanta la tesis de Rabbi Mendel de Rymanov que Scholem expone en el segundo ensayo: en el Sinaí solo se oyó el aleph.

«Scholem’s lifelong meditation on Kabbalah enabled him to discern what we might call a primordial language, an inexpressible and potent abyss—“next to nothing”—that is the ground not only of the mystical element in religion, but also, at least as the Kabbalists claimed, the source of the Sinai tradition itself.» — la lectura que McGinn propone del conjunto, con su acotación puesta: eso último lo sostienen los cabalistas, no necesariamente él.

«Scholem even argues for a link between Christian conceptions of the fourfold spiritual interpretation of the Bible and the Kabbalistic notion of the four levels of reading Scripture revealed in the term PaRdeS (p. 61)» — McGinn destaca, con folio impreso, el vínculo que Scholem propone entre el cuádruple sentido cristiano y el PaRdeS cabalístico.

«The following essay on Kabbalah and Myth” explores the symbolic character of Kabbalistic language and argues that Gnosticism was the mediating link between ancient myth and Kabbalistic revival of mythic stuctures: “Gnosis . . . gave the Jewish mystics their language» — McGinn resume el tercer ensayo y cita la fórmula de Scholem sobre la gnosis; el facsímil imprime *stuctures* y abre la comilla del título sin cerrarla.

«The Kabbalists reinvented Jewish ritual through their efforts to “anchor the ritual of Rabbinical Judaism in myth by means of a mystical practice’ (pp. 132—33; his italics)» — así resume McGinn el cuarto ensayo, citando a Scholem y advirtiendo que las cursivas son de él.

«My point here is not to enter into any detailed discussion of Scholem s arguments, but rather to highlight his pioneering role in emphasizing the centrality of the relation between mysticism and language.» — McGinn acota lo que su prefacio hace y lo que no hace.

«Gershom Scholem was no uncridcal student of Jewish mysdcism, especially its central manifestation in Kabbalah.» — McGinn cierra advirtiendo que Scholem no leía la cábala con adhesión; el facsímil imprime *uncridcal* y *mysdcism*.

«He confessed that “anyone who concerns himself seriously with the thinking of the great Kabbalists will be torn between feelings of admiration and revulsion» — la confesión de Scholem que McGinn cita para sostenerlo: admiración y repulsión a la vez.

«This is more than sufficient reason for continuing to read this master of twentieth—century mystical scholarship.» — la frase con que McGinn cierra el prefacio.

«In 1908, the Catholic scholar Friedrich von Hiigel published his massive work, The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends, the fruit of thirty years» — McGinn nombra la obra con que Friedrich von Hiigel —así lo imprime el facsímil, por von Hügel— trató la mística como un elemento del todo religioso: su estudio de Catalina de Génova, de 1908.

«the very boldness of this gnostic paradox—exile as an element in God Himself—that accounted in large part for the enormous influence of these ideas on the Jews.» — en su nota 14, McGinn cita el pasaje de Kabbalah and Myth sobre por qué la paradoja gnóstica del exilio dentro de Dios mismo pesó tanto entre los judíos; la nota remite al folio impreso 113. El mismo texto vuelve en la voz de Scholem en la p. 137.

«Before the judgment seat of rationalist theology such an idea may not have much to say for itself.» — la concesión que la misma cita reproduce: ante el tribunal de la teología racionalista la idea no se defiende sola.

«But for the human experience of the Jews it was the most powerful and seductively appropriate symbol» — y el contrapeso con que cierra: medida por la experiencia humana de los judíos, era el símbolo más poderoso y seductoramente apropiado; el facsímil imprime la comilla de cierre como apóstrofo.

«Although Goldberg, whose ideas about the Kabbalah are naive and rather grotesque, consistently attacks it in developing his own ideas about the Torah and its ritual, and although he substitutes a modern biologico-political jargon for the old Kabbalistic terminology, the truth of the matter is that what he represents as the exact literal meaning of the Torah chapters he deals with is an essentially Kabbalistic interpretation.» — el juicio de Scholem sobre Goldberg: le llama ingenuas y grotescas sus ideas sobre la cábala, y a la vez sostiene que lo que presenta como sentido literal de la Torá es una interpretación cabalística.

«A highly characteristic example, it seems to me, is the following remark about the patriarch Enoch, cited also by Martin Buber,1 though it might be pointed out that the tale did not originate with Polish eighteenth-century Hasidism, but among the German Hasidim of the thirteenth century.» — la corrección de procedencia que Scholem le hace a Martin Buber sobre el relato de Enoc: no nace del hasidismo polaco del siglo XVIII sino de los hasidim alemanes del XIII.

«The similar remark which occurs in the novelistic version of the legends about the golem of the ‘Great Rabbi Loew’ of Prague is probably connected with this.» — el enlace que Scholem propone, con su grado, entre ese testimonio y la versión novelesca de las leyendas del Maharal de Praga.

«This version, in which the golem takes on the entirely new function of combatting lies about ritual murder, is a free invention, written about 1909, and published in Hebrew by Judah Rosenberg (the author?), supposedly after an apocryphal ‘Manuscript in the Library of Metz,’ under the title: The Miraculous Deeds of Rabbi Loew with the Golem.» — cómo data y adjudica Scholem esa versión: invención libre de hacia 1909 publicada por Judah Rosenberg tras un manuscrito supuesto de Metz, con el signo de interrogación puesto por él sobre la autoría.

«Language and content both show it to be the work of a Hasidic author with a Kabbalistic education and (something unusual in these circles) novelistic leanings, writing after the ritual murder trials of the eighteen-eighties and nineties.» — y qué le hace fecharla ahí: lengua y contenido de un autor hasídico con formación cabalística, posterior a los juicios por crimen ritual.

«Nor is Held’s opinion, that these versions are ‘the only authentic documents to have come down to us' (Gespenst des Golem, p. 95), exactly indicative of critical understanding.» — el juicio de Scholem sobre Held, que tomaba esas versiones por los únicos documentos auténticos.

«He was surely fascinated by the following remark in Bloch’s text (p. 59), which falls in very well with his own interpretation of the golem as man’s double:» — y lo que, según Scholem, le atraía a ese autor del texto de Bloch: cuadraba con su lectura del golem como doble del hombre.

«Held’s suggestion that it was the rabbi’s double, hence the golem himself, is profound but not very plausible.» — cómo despacha Scholem la propuesta de Held sobre el doble del rabino: profunda y poco plausible.

«Important critiques of some aspects of Scholem s views can be found, for example, in Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale, 1988).» — en su nota 3, McGinn remite a Moshe Idel y a su Kabbalah: New Perspectives como el lugar de las críticas a Scholem; Idel no aparece en el cuerpo del libro.

«a view that differs from Scholem on the creation of the Zohar, see Yehuda» — y en la misma nota remite a Yehuda Liebes para una posición distinta sobre la formación del Zohar; el nombre se completa en la plana siguiente.

Sefirot (las diez numeraciones) — Diez aspectos bajo los que se conoce el mundo oculto; Scholem sitúa ahí el carácter mítico de la teología cabalística y llama a su totalidad la década primordial.

Ein Sof (el Infinito) — La raíz oculta que nunca se manifiesta, ni siquiera en símbolos, y de la que nada puede decirse; el volumen la transcribe en la forma que imprime el facsímil.

Tetragrammaton (el Nombre de cuatro letras) — La Torá leída como explicación del Nombre en Gikatila; sus seis permutaciones sellan el universo en el Sefer Yetsirah, y la diadema con el Nombre anima al ídolo de Nabucodonosor.

Gematría (aritmética de las letras) — Luz y misterio con el mismo valor numérico, 207; y el gran nombre de Dios en su despliegue creador identificado con Adán por equivalencia numérica.

Microcosmos (el hombre-mundo) — La correspondencia entre los mandamientos de la Torá y la estructura del hombre, que los talmudistas manejaban antes de la cábala.

Homúnculo (el hombre artificial) — El homúnculo de Paracelso puesto al lado del golem, con la coincidencia de los cuarenta días y el vaso leído como retorta.

Materia prima — El golem enterrado en tierra virgen y salido de ella, que Scholem propone leer, en condicional, como simbolismo de renacimiento.

Iniciación (recepción por grados / metamorfosis del ser) — La transmisión del Nombre de maestro a discípulo sobre el agua, y el rito del golem entendido como iniciación que asienta al adepto en su saber secreto.

Secreto (lo que se jura no fijar por escrito) — El Nombre se transmite solo a los reservados, tras inmersión, vestiduras blancas y ayuno; y las instrucciones escritas se declaran insuficientes sin la parte no escrita.

Cadena de transmisión (quién tomó de quién) — La escala descendente de revelaciones, de Moisés al bath kol y a Elías, y la doctrina rabínica de las dos Torás recibidas a la vez en el Sinaí.

Crítica de fuentes (criterios de inclusión y descarte) — Scholem declara su método —crítica histórica más aptitud fenomenológica—, data el Bahir y los libros zohárricos, recoge de Tishby la negativa de que el Book Temunah contenga la doctrina que se le atribuye, y fecha en 1909 la versión novelesca del golem de Praga.

Gnosis (conocimiento salvífico) — La gnosis como eslabón entre el mito antiguo y la cábala, con su parte judía reivindicada y la independencia interna de la gnosis cabalística acotada en la misma página.

Theurgia (obra divina) — El rito de ponerse el Nombre, clasificado como procedimiento mágico, y el polvo de bajo los pies de la merkabah con que los estudiosos creaban, frente al método de los magos de Egipto.

Daimon (entidad intermedia, ni ángel ni demonio) — Los demonios como espíritus hechos en el crepúsculo del viernes y dejados sin cuerpo, y Lilith apartada del lecho conyugal por un rito del Zohar.