Chapter 1 (PDF) - Stanford University Press

are little children, youngsters, as is written: Make two cherubim of gold
These
25:18).'' 25
(Exodus
El'azaropened, ``Lift your eyes
Rabbi
high and see: Who created these?
on
40:26). Lift your eyes on high.
(Isaiah
which site? The site toward which all eyes gaze. Which is that? Opening of
To
eyes. 26 There you will discover that this concealed ancient one, susceptible
the
questioning, created these. Who is that? Who. 27
The one called End of
to
above, 28 whose domain extends overeverything. Since it can be questioned,
Heaven
yet remains concealed and unrevealed, it is called Who. Beyond, there is
Make two cherubim . . . In BT Sukkah
25.
5b, Rabbi Abbahu interprets the word
a child.'' The plump childlike angels
``like
Christian art derive either from this tra-
of
or from the Greco-Roman Erotes,
dition
Here Rabbi Shim'on relates the
``loves.''
cherubim to the golden wreaths of
golden
Song of Songs, concluding that both
the
The phrase originates in Genesis
einayim).
where it means ``the entrance to Ei-
38:14,
a village where Tamar seduced her
nayim,''
Judah. The midrash on Gen-
father-in-law,
(Bereshit Rabbah 85:7) discovers a deepermeaningesis
``Rabbi [Yehudah the Prince]
`We have searched through the entire
said,
and have not found a place called Pe-
Bible
Einayim. WhatisPetaḥ Einayim? Thisindicatetaḥ
that she [Tamar] gazed at the open-
toward which all eyes gaze and said,
ing
it be the divine will that I not leave
`May
house empty.''' In the Zohar, this opening
this
is identified with Shekhinah, gateway to
divine. See 3:71b±72a.
the
Who P K (Mi). Binah, the Divine
27.
is called Who. A spiritual seeker
Mother,
inquire about Her, but such questions
may
not yield ordinary answers. The identity
do
the divine is discovered only in a realm
of
words. The mystical name Who becomes
beyond
a focus of meditation, as question
into quest. See Shim'on Lavi, KP,
turns
``Concerning everything that cannot
1:91a:
grasped, its question constitutes its
be
answer.''
Zohar 1:29b±30a, 45b, 85b±86a, 237b;
See
138a, 139b, 226a, 231b.
2:126b±127a,
End of Heaven above See Deuteronomy
28.
4:32: For ask now of primal days,
were before you: from the day that
which
created humankind on earth, and from
God
end of heaven to the other. InBTḤagigah
one
11b, this verse is interpreted as imposing
limit on cosmological speculation: ``You
a
inquire concerning from one end of hea-
may
to the other, but you may not inquire
ven
what is above, what is below,
concerning
came before, what will come after.''
what
M Ḥagigah 2:1; Bereshit Rabbah 1:10.
See
restrictions on cosmological speculation
These
recall the Gnostic striving after ``the
of who we were, what we have
knowledge
where we were, where we have
become,
thrown, where we hasten, from what
been
are redeemed, what birth is and what
we
(Clement of Alexandria, Excerpts
rebirth''
Theodotus 78:2). See Zohar 1:30a; Moses
from
LeoÂn, Sheqel ha-Qodesh, 31; idem, Sefer
de
20, 375; idem, Sod Eser Sefirot
ha-Rimmon,
Haqdamat Sefer ha-Zohar
[1:1b]
\ (Be-reshit), In the beginning.
K[BZC
no question. 29
C (keruv), ``cherub,'' as M KCZ B
GZM
(ke-ravya),
5
images allude to children.
(Petaḥ
Opening of the eyes V I\ KRKT O
26.
371.
Belimah,
Beyond... The realms beyond Bi-
29.
namely, Ḥokhmah, Keter, and Ein Sof,
nah,
so unknowable that no question con-
are
cerning them can even be formulated.