The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah

Revisiting Leo Schaya

More than thirty years ago, I became interested in Jewish mysticism and read in some traditional Jewish sources as well as in the books by Gershom Scholem and this book, "The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah" by Leo Schaya. Much of this reading, Schaya's book in particular, has escaped me with the passage of time. I have gone on to read other religious and philosophical books but haven't revisited Jewish mysticism for many years. Schaya's book came to my attention again through a perceptive review by a fellow reviewer, and I found the slim volume still patiently awaiting attention on my bookshelf. I read Schaya's book as part of my observance of the recently-concluded High Holidays. The book was translated from the French by Nancy Pearson. My old edition of this book in the "Penguin Metaphysical Library" features an introduction by the American philosopher Jacob Needleman, a thinker I have read and admired over the years. I have particularly enjoyed Needleman's exploration of the spiritual roots of American democracy in his book "The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders" which I have also reviewed and which has a great deal of current relevance.

Born in Switzerland and raised as a traditional Jew, Leo Schaya (1916 -- 1985) wrote works about many of the world's mystical traditions. He became associated with a movement called the Traditionalist School which also included distinguished scholars from many different religions and which remains alive today. Broadly, the Traditionalist School holds that there is an underlying, shared religious reality underlying all the world's religious traditions, as each tradition teaches its followers about the unity of being and about return to the One. It has highly Neoplatonic elements. As I understand it, the Traditionalists hold that each particular religion, Judaism, Buddhism, Sufism, teaches its followers in its own way how to unite with the Divine and with reality. The movement is conservative in that it defends traditionalistic religious paths in each tradition. Each way is specific and unique but the underlying goals in terms of finding God and the One, under whatever term, is universal and shared.

The assumption and goal of Schaya's study thus is stated in the title of his book. The work gives a detailed exposition of Jewish mystical doctrines with virtually no comparison of these doctrines with the mystical teachings of other religions. Still, while expounding the particulars of Jewish mysticism, Schaya has a broader, universal goal. He argues that Jewish mysticism exemplifies a universal, mystical philosophical tradition showing the unity of all being and of the efforts of human beings to return to God. This is a sweeping claim, of course, and remains controversial both among believers in particular traditions and among secular people.

This book is short and difficult. It consists of Needleman's Foreword followed by Schaya's own Preface which sets out his assumptions and goals. Schaya writes:

"The idea of the transcendent unity of religions, of the unity manifested at the beginning of time and in the presence of a humanity still united by a single primordial tradition, has been expounded in the works of Rene Guenon and Frihjof Schuon and also of Ananda Comaswamy. They have shown that the essential principles of the various orthodox revelations are identical, a fact which can be discovered by metaphysical penetration of dogmas and symbols; these expressions vary from one religion to another, but in the light of supraformal and universal truth they cease to appear contradictory and blend essentially into the One."

Each tradition still must be approached on its own terms from its own sources without superficial attempts and synthesizing different doctrines.

Schaya also takes a strongly intuitionist approach. He argues that the tools of logic and of formal reasoning on subject and object are insufficient to understand religious truth because reason, logic and subject-object dualism apply only to the world of phenomena and not to spiritual ultimates. Religious mysticism seeks to go beyond subject-object dualism to essential unity of all being. This is itself a difficult, obscure teaching but it is critical to going forward with the book. Schaya writes" As we are taught by the Kabbalah - and also,in the most direct way possible, by Neo-Platonism and the Vedanta -- the spirit, while transcending the soul, resides in its depths. The soul and all formal or separate manifestations, whether internal or external, proceed from it, but the spirit itself is formless and without distinction: in it, the subject and the object of knowledge are one; the spirit knows itself completely, it is total knowledge and all that is knowable in itself and things."

Following the Preface, the remainder of this book consists of a discussion of Jewish mysticism based upon the Bible and the mystical Jewish commentaries, particularly the Zohar. The heart of the book discusses monotheism and the Jewish mystical doctrine of the ten Sefiroth. The Sefiroth are emanations of God and yet, as Schaya discusses are consistent with the unity and non-divisible character of God. The Kabbalistic God is inclusive of all, the "One without a second" including physical reality. Finite human beings have fallen away from understanding their unity in God, and the path of meaning and wisdom lies in reuniting with God through repentance and through following Jewish law. Subsequent chapters of the book become increasingly difficult to follow and explore Kabbalistic understanding of the heavens, of the creation of the earth, the place of human beings in the divine scheme, how wisdom lies in the Return to the One, the metaphysical meanings of the various names of God, and concluding observations about the unity of Being and returning to God in Jewish mysticism.

The exposition of Kabbalism is difficult and dizzying and requires sympathetic intuition and understanding. By no means is this a logical system. There is a great deal of value in this study, both in its exposition of Kabbalism and in its efforts to unite Kabbalism with the world's other great mystical traditions. I read this work as a non-practicing Jew of many years and was moved as I had been when I first studied Jewish mysticism by the spirituality of this book and by the meaning it found in Jewish and other religious practice. As I read this book, American politics was in more than its usual turmoil. I thought of how, in my view, much of religion had become overly immanent in its preoccupations with adherents fighting bitterly over ultimately ephemeral and partisan issues. Schaya's book and Needleman's introduction in fact notice this unfortunate reduction of the Transcendent from religious practice. Schaya's book describes the underlying goal of Kabbalism and of the mystical traditions of all religions as the return of the soul to God through repentance and study. For all the obscurities of the Kabbalah, that approach still is profound and has much to commend it and to teach.

Robin Friedman