The Mystical Body

16. Adam Kadmon

The sefirot

The Kabbalistic tradition — codified chiefly from the 13th century onward, with great further development in the 16th — describes ten sefirot: emanations or channels through which the infinite relates to the world.

And they are arranged in a human shape — the Adam Kadmon, the “primordial human”:

And the critical correction

The scheme does not say the divine has a body.

It says the reverse: that the human body is structured by analogy to the structure of the emanation.

The direction of the analogy is from above downward — and the Kabbalists emphasise this repeatedly, precisely because the opposite would be theologically unacceptable.

And the practical consequence

From this comes the position that makes the system important for this text:

Human actions have an effect “above”.

Every mitzvah performed with the body affects the flow among the sefirot. The execution of the commandment is not only obedience; it is an action on the system.

And from this comes the concept of tikkun — repair: that the human repairs something through his actions.

And so the human body is the instrument of a cosmic function.

It is, however much the frame differs, the strongest possible justification for bodily action that this tradition produces.

The honest note

This is not early. It is not in the biblical texts and is not Talmudic in this form.

It is a medieval and early modern development, with its famous codification in Safed in the 16th century.

And it was controversial: significant rabbinic voices treated it with reserve, and there were restrictions on who was allowed to study it — traditionally, only mature men with full Talmudic training.

And today it circulates widely in de-contextualised form, disconnected from the legal practice that, in the tradition itself, is considered a necessary precondition.

17. Abulafia

The only fully technical bodily system of this tradition — and the most controversial.

The man

Abraham Abulafia (1240 – after 1291), Catalan, traveller, and author of an extensive work.

He developed what he called “prophetic Kabbalah” — in distinction from the theosophical Kabbalah of the sefirot (chapter 16), which he considered inferior.

The technique

And it is, in contrast to almost everything else in this tradition, bodily detailed:

1. Isolation (hitbodedut) — a solitary room, night, with light.

2. Preparation — bath, white clothes, clean space.

3. Writing, utterance, visualisation of letters — with permutations and combinations (tzeruf): the letters of the divine name are combined systematically, in long sequences.

4. Coordination with breath — each combination is connected with inhalation or exhalation, with a defined rhythm.

5. And — the most unusual — defined movements of the head corresponding to the vowels: the head moves up, down, right, left, straight, in a circle, depending on the vowel uttered.

6. And movements of the hands.

The result, as he describes it

He describes intense bodily phenomena: sensation of heat, shivering, trembling, sensation of anointment on the head, light, and states he calls prophetic.

And he warns explicitly that the practice is dangerous without preparation and without a teacher, and that it can lead to madness.

And the reaction

It was fierce.

Abulafia travelled to Rome with the intention of meeting the Pope — and was saved from the consequences only because the Pope died.

And he was attacked by the leading rabbinic authority of the era, Shlomo ibn Adret, who publicly denounced him as a false prophet and rendered his work suspect.

The result: his line never became central. It survived in manuscripts, influenced particular circles, and was fully recognised only in the 20th century by academic research.

Why the chapter deserves to be here

Because it is the exception that defines the rule.

In a tradition that does everything with the body — what you wear, what you eat, when you stop, what you tie on yourself — there is almost no technique of internal bodily work. Abulafia is the great exception, and he was rejected.

This says something about the kind of system: holiness lies in action in the world, not in internal state.

18. Devekut and shokeling

Devekut

devekut — from a root meaning “to cleave, to attach”. Attachment to the divine; the state of continuous awareness of presence.

It is a concept that exists earlier, but becomes central in Hasidism, from the 18th century.

And Hasidism brings the body back

The movement that began in Eastern Europe around the mid-18th century brought intense bodily practice:

• Dance as a liturgical act
• Melody without words (niggun) — repetitive, often for long periods
• Loud, vocal prayer
• Gestures and movement
• And immersion in the mikveh as a daily male practice

And there is the explicit teaching of avodah b’gashmiyut — “worship through materiality”: that food, drink, work and conjugal relations can themselves be worship, when done with the right intention.

And this was controversial. The opponents of the movement — the mitnagdim — considered it dangerous laxity, and the conflict of the two was among the fiercest of the recent history of the tradition.

Shokeling

And the most characteristic bodily habit: shokeling (Yiddish: “shaking”) — the rhythmic oscillation of the body during prayer and study.

Back and forth, or side to side, with great variety of rhythm and intensity.

The explanations

And there are many, and none is official:

• That it corresponds to a passage that says “all my bones shall say“
• That it imitates the flame of a candle
• That it aids concentration
• That it arose practically, when books were few and many bent in turn over the same text

And there is disagreement about whether it is desirable: there are classical voices for and others that consider it unnecessary or disturbing.

The structural observation

Whatever its origin, the phenomenon is real: a tradition in which study and prayer are spontaneously rhythmic and kinetic, not still.

And it is, I think, the clearest indication that even where there is no technique of bodily work (chapter 17), there is a body in motion — simply never made an object of theory.