Between Worlds. J. H. Chajes
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works with the phrase from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 7, verse 14: “This opposite that has God made.”59 Both beneficial (often silent) and baneful (often vocal) ‘ibburim exist. The former take up occupancy in a person to do good or to better the host, whereas the latter do so to wreak evil or to catalyze the moral downfall of the host. Thus Vital writes,
The first [type of deleterious ‘ibbur] are those souls of the wicked who, after their death, do not merit to enter Gehinnom. They enter living people’s bodies due to our numerous transgressions, speaking and telling all that happens to them there, as is known, may the Merciful save us. The second are those who impregnate themselves in a person in the secret of ‘ibbur … and cling to him [mitDaBKim bo] in great concealment. Then, if the person sins, this soul impregnated within him will become stronger and bring him to sin [further] and divert him to an evil path in the same way that we have previously explained how the soul of a ẓaddik impregnated in a person aids him to become better.60
According to Vital, souls of the evil dead impregnate bodies of the living because they are unable to enter Gehinnom. Gehinnom, the Jewish precursor-analogue of the Christian purgatory or the Islamic barzakh was the refinery for a “polluted” soul.61 There, after death, it could be purged of the dross accumulated over a lifetime of sin before taking its place in the World to Come. The duration of this cleansing was fixed at twelve months according to rabbinic tradition.62 Without access to Gehinnom, the most the tormented soul could accomplish was a temporary respite from the afflictions associated with its endless limbo state, a respite provided by the shelter of another’s body. The idea that a disembodied being might penetrate someone else’s body was perfectly natural to medievals, who regarded the body as a highly permeable container.63 Saint and sinner alike might expect their physical frames to be pierced, if not utterly commandeered by a foreign guest at any time. As Cordovero’s recollections so vividly illustrated, however, Luria and his disciples clearly inherited and amplified traditions and sensibilities from remote and more immediate predecessors alike; they did not create them themselves.
Spain was the locus for more than the development of reincarnation theory; there it became a practical matter with both everyday and extraordinary dimensions. An acute sense of the practical implications of transmigration underlies the disturbing concern that in the course of an innocent meal, one might actually devour of one’s dear deceased. R. Elazar Azikri (1533–c. 1599) and R. Avraham Galanti, who wrote shortly after Cordovero, tell the following Castilian story: a bull scheduled for a corrida de toros appeared to his “son” in a dream. The father, then incarnated in the bull, asked that he be slaughtered in the kosher manner and fed to poor Torah students, in order to return in his next incarnation as a man. “Many events of this kind took place among the people of Israel,” testifies Azikri.64 Such stories indicate that the sources of an “active” understanding of the doctrine of gilgul were already present in medieval Spanish Kabbalah, notwithstanding the emergence of dybbuk narratives only in the sixteenth century.65
The kabbalists of Safed were particularly interested in food and saw eating as fraught with hazardous, yet potentially redemptive, possibilities. Eating with proper kavvanah (lit. intention)66 and sanctity could bring about the elevation of a good soul incarnated in the food.67 Extreme caution was also advised lest an evil ‘ibbur result from ingesting food in which it resided. Vital, apparently reflecting Luria’s influence, stressed the dangers of eating more than any prior kabbalist. According to Vital, for example, eating the hearts of animals or drinking from a well inhabited by disembodied souls might result in an evil ‘ibbur capable of destroying one’s life: “Thus, God forbid, if a person drinks such water and a soul which has transmigrated into that water enters him, he cannot rectify the situation, for the evil soul will impregnate him and cause him to sin until it has plunged him down to the nethermost pit.”68 For Vital, the unexpected ‘ibbur that may result from everyday eating and drinking explains why good people may suddenly sin. When the AR”I drank, Vital recalls, he “exorcised” the water first:
Now, my master, may his memory be a blessing, as he traveled and drank water from a spring or a well, he would gaze and intend [mekhaven] while drinking so that the power of his intention [kavvanah] would expel and repel from [the water] the spirit or soul who had transmigrated in it. Only then would he drink the water. The spirit would afterwards return to its place.69
Wells were long considered dwelling places for spirits, and rabbinic literature is not without its tales of these water-based creatures.70 In his Ḥesed le-Avraham (Mercy to Abraham), R. Abraham Azulai discusses the problem in light of Lurianic traditions. According to Azulai, individuals who have not washed their hands in the ritually prescribed manner (for example, upon arising and before eating) and those who have neglected to recite blessings before enjoying food, fragrances, and the like (birkhot ha-nehenin) are reincarnated into water as a punishment. As a result,
[k]now that there is no spring, nor well, nor pool of water, nor river which is not infested with countless transmigrants [megulgalim]. Therefore it is not fitting that one place one’s mouth on the stream to drink, but one should rather take [the water] into one’s hand. For it is possible for one of them to transmigrate into him, as is known, and then that evil soul will be impregnated in him. For sometimes through some sin, something evil comes upon a person and then that evil soul impregnates himself in him, and abets him to sin…. Thus through his eating and drinking, numerous types of transmigrants reincarnate through a person at all times. One who is learned and who eats with the proper intention is able to elevate and to fix those transmigrants.71
These attitudes and precautions exemplify the new centrality of reincarnation in sixteenth-century kabbalistic thought. Gilgul stories, like the one from Azikri and Galanti above, were popular, carried pietistic weight, and struck fear in the hearts of their listeners. They may have been even more effective given their undeniable entertainment—and even humoristic—value. Poor sanitation has been considered a primary cause for this suspicious view of food and water, though the personalistic view of reincarnation does not necessarily flow logically from a premodern case of dysentery.72
While seeking to avoid evil ‘ibburim by means of these prophylactic exorcism meditations, Luria, like his disciples, also received (and actively sought) holy ‘ibburim.73 With his disciples, the master discussed methods for inculcating holy ‘ibburim other than the old Spanish techniques of gravesite prostration. Prominent among these was the imitation of the a righteous man (ẓaddik) whose soul one wished to draw down as an ‘ibbur.
Occasionally a person will happen to perform a particular commandment [miẓvah] in an ideal manner [ke-tikna]. Thereupon a certain soul will be called upon him, a righteous man of old who himself ideally performed that commandment. Because of the similarity between them that was established through this commandment, the soul of the righteous man will impregnate him. Moreover, it is also possible for the righteous man to be a contemporary, alive during his lifetime; the soul of this righteous man will become impregnated within his soul for the same reason. For when this man performs any commandment or commandments associated with that righteous man, who, like him, performed them properly, then the soul of that righteous man will impregnate him even while the two are alive simultaneously.74
Here is an incubation theory based entirely on the principle of mimesis, colored in kabbalistic hues. The anthropological presumption is that each individual is spiritually rooted in one of the 613 limbs of Primordial Adam (Adam Kadmon), the Macanthropos. Each limb corresponds to one of the 613 commandments. An individual therefore finds true expression and personal fulfillment through the performance of that special commandment. One’s true relatives are those who share one’s soul root, rather than one’s biological family.75 Building on these concepts, a practical, natural method for attracting a positive ‘ibbur impregnation suggested itself: imitation of the saint who ranks highly in one’s soul family by the fully realized performance of the family commandment. Impregnation would naturally follow, even for one who just “happens” to fulfill the commandment as it should be, for like attracts like. Gary