Dying twice TBShabbat 80

 While discussing the different uses of lime, today’s daf Shabbat 80 recounts a story that warns us how dangerous Jewish mysticism can be. “What is andifa? It is the forehead upon which lime is smeared, not to remove hairs, but to pamper and soften the skin. Thick lime can be used for this purpose. And proof for that is cited from a certain Galilean who happened to come to Babylonia, to whom they said: Stand and teach us the esoteric Act of the Divine Chariot [Ma’aseh Merkava]. He said to them: I will teach it to you as Rabbi Neḥemya taught it to his colleague. And a hornet emerged from the wall and stung him on his forehead [andifi] and he died. Apparently, andifi means forehead. And with regard to the incident itself, they said about him, in a play on words: From his own, that came to him [min dilei da lei]. He was punished for his arrogance in seeking to teach Ma’aseh Merkava publicly.” (Sefaria.org translation)

There has always been strands of Jewish mysticism throughout our history. These strands are different from one another. Too many people inaccurately use the term Kabbalah to designate all forms of Jewish mysticism. Kabbalah is one of the last iterations of Jewish mysticism. Only Kabbalah uses God’s 10 emanations, the sefirot, to understand how God works in this world. Merkava mysticism (whose jumping off point is Ezekiel’s vision of God’s chariot in chapter 1 of his book-gg), the esoteric Act of the Divine Chariot, which lasted about a thousand years can be delineated into “three stages: 1, the anonymous conventicles of the old apocalyptics; 2, the Merkava speculations of Mishnaic teachers who are known to us by name (a group of students of Yochanan ben Zakkai-gg); 3 and the Merkava mysticism of late and post talmudic times, as reflected in the literature which is come down to us.

“One of the chief preoccupations the second and third century gnostics and hermetics: the ascent of the soul from the earth, through the spheres of hostile planet-angels of the cosmos, and its return to his divine home in the ‘fullness’ of God’s light, a return which to the gnostics mind, signified Redemption... Ecstasy there was, in this fundamental experience must have been a source of religious inspiration, but we find no trace of a mystical union between the soul and God. The immense solemnity of their style, the bombast of their magnificent phrases, reflects the fundamental paradox of these hymns (piyutim): the climax of sublimity and solemnity to which the mystic can attain in his attempt to express the magnificence of his vision is also the non plus ultra of vacuousness.” (Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism by Gershom Scholem, page 43-57)

Many of these piyutim have found their way into the traditional High Holiday Machzor as a means to help the davener ascend to God’s Merkava. As the story relates, these esoteric teachings shouldn’t be treated lightly. This Galilean in our story is one of several people to die in conjunction with type mysticism in the Talmud. Many moderns die of boredom during the High Holiday services as many of these piyutim are recited because this type of mysticism no longer resonates because it’s no longer in use. That’s why liberal machzorim have removed them and replaced them with modern readings.