The Kabbalah: its doctrines, development, and literatureGinsburg, Christian D. (Christian David)
Religion
The Kabbalah: its doctrines, development, and literature
Ginsburg, Christian D. (Christian David)
Cabala
those poor deluded beings who suffered themselves to be led astray in
this world. These seven infernal halls are subdivided into endless
compartments, so as to afford a separate chamber of torture for every
species of sin. The prince of this region of darkness, who is called
Satan in the Bible, is denominated by the Kabbalah, Samaël (סמאל) =
angel of poison or of death. He is the same evil spirit, Satan, the
serpent, who seduced Eve. [12] He has a wife, called the Harlot or the
Woman of Whoredom (אשת זנוניﬦ), but they are both generally
represented as united in the one name of the Beast (חיוא. Comp.
Sohar, ii, 255–259, with i, 35 b.)
The whole universe, however, was incomplete, and did not receive its
finishing stroke till man was formed, who is the acme of the creation,
and the microcosm uniting in himself the totality of beings. “The
Heavenly Adam (i.e., the ten Sephiroth), who emanated from the highest
primordial obscurity (i.e., the En Soph), created the Earthly Adam.”
(Sohar, ii, 70 b.) “Man is both the import and the highest degree of
creation, for which reason he was formed on the sixth day. As soon as
man was created, everything was complete, including the upper and
nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He unites in himself
all forms.” (Sohar, iii, 48 a.) [13] Man was created with faculties and
features far transcending those of the angels. The bodies of the
protoplasts were not of that gross matter which constitutes our bodies.
Adam and Eve, before the fall, were wrapped in that luminous ethereal
substance in which the celestial spirits are clad, and which is neither
subject to want nor to sensual desires. They were envied by the angels
of the highest rank. The fall, however, changed it all, as we are told
in the following passage—“When Adam dwelled in the garden of Eden, he
was dressed in the celestial garment, which is a garment of heavenly
light. But when he was expelled from the garden of Eden, and became
subject to the wants of this world, what is written? ‘The Lord God made
coats of skins unto Adam and to his wife, and clothed them’ (Gen. iii,
21); for prior to this they had garments of light—light of that light
which was used in the garden of Eden.” (Sohar, ii, 229 b.) The garments
of skin, therefore, mean our present body, which was given to our first
parents in order to adapt them to the changes which the fall
introduced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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