Spheres of Power, Spheres of Freedom: Practical Lessons from Jewish Neoplatonism

C. Wesley DeMarco, Clark University

Embroidering on the Neoplatonic notion of emanation, the Kabbalistic tradition developed the idea of sefirot, understood to be discernible facets of the emanations of the Divine. These facets are found wherever and whenever the emanations are; that is, everywhere, everywhen. However, they are not evident on the surface of the realities we ordinarily meet, so the trick is to learn how to read the realities so that their hidden dimensions become legible and intelligible. Notoriously, Kabbalistic practices of deciphering led to vexatious excesses. I believe that some features of this esoteric tradition are worth recovering, however. We should have no more qualms about ferreting out viable features of this tradition than we do about teasing Isaac Newton’s physics away from the astrological speculations with which they were often entangled. For over a half a millennium the main of Jewish philosophy was Kabbala; that is reason enough to suppose that there are a few gems there, lying in wait for mining by critical recovery.