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Kabbalah, Walt Whitman, and the
Coincidence of Opposites
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Dialogue from the New Kabbalah
Guest Book, E-mails and Letters to the Author. Email inquiries with my response are subject to editing. I will not post your comments if you do not want me to, so if you are not willing to have your inquiry or comments posted please let me know. The Paradox of
Giving and Receiving (5/04) Dear Dr. Drob, I have just finished your
wonderful, comprehensive book Symbols of the Kabbalah and enjoyed it
so much I have ordered Kabbalistic Metaphors and eagerly look forward
to reading it as well. The breadth and depth of your approach is
truly inspiring. Some of versions of
the Lurianic creation story I have read include an aspect you did not
touch upon in your book and I am wondering if you have any comments on it
from a philosophical or psychological perspective. I ask because it involves
a fascinating paradox and you have such a keen appreciation of the 'coincidence
of opposites.' I'm sure you already are aware of this version
(which I encountered in The Way by Michael Berg and Rav P.S.
Berg's The Essential Zohar; I gather it has come through the teachings
of Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, but I haven't yet read any of his writings). (For simplicity's sake, I will
refer to the Vessel as singular, which is how I first encountered it in these
readings.) According to what I read, there was the original, primordial
creation of the Vessel (ex niliho)
which received the Light of the Creator. They originally existed in perfect
harmony. The perfect giver and the perfect receiver. But, in the same
way a glass will warm up when you pour hot liquid into it, the Vessel
took on the qualities of the Light of the Creator -- of wanting to give, to
create. This caused a paradox within the Vessel: it was designed as the
perfect receiver and yet it now wants, also, to give. To create. In an
attempt to resolve this paradox, the Vessel pulled back against the
Light and this, in turn, caused the Creator to withdraw, to contract.
The vessel immediately realized its "mistake" and the Light came
back in and then the shattering occurred. I find it fascinating, the
notion of tzimtzum taking place in reaction to the Vessel
pushing away in its attempt to resolve a paradox, the paradox of
receiving and giving. Passive and active. Especially, as you
demonstrate in Symbols, the Lurianic Kabbalah is all about coincidentia
oppositorum. Do you know where this version
of creation originates? If you have any comments on it at all,
especially any psychological dimensions, I would be most appreciative.
Psychologically we are taught to build a container in which opposites can
co-exist -- and here it is being shattered in the primordial beginnings. When I first encountered this
story of creation, tzimtzum, the shattering of the vessel(s) (and,
later, the restorative tikkun), it had a profound impact on me; in
addition to thinking about it as a story of something that happened, in the
past tense, at the beginning of creation, I also realized it is
happening, now, in the present tense, deep within my psyche. Paradox
and creation, here and now. That's why it is so great to come across your
writings and your 'rational-mystical' approach which is teaching me a way to
reconcile similar, seemingly opposing tensions within
myself. (I am reminded of Walt Whitman's "Do I contradict
myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain
multitudes!") Your writings help to unite the multitudes. Meanwhile, I hope that your book
on Jung and Kabbalah is finding a publisher! I will be purchasing a
copy. Thank you for your excellent
contribution. I'm so glad I happened upon your website. Respectfully yours, Michael David Hoppe Response: Dear Michael Hoppe: Walt Whitman, New
Kabbalah and the Coincidence of Opposites I found your recent dialog with Michael Hoppe interesting,
especially with reference to his comment on Walt Whitman, and Whitman's
famous line, "Do I contradict myself?...." I am participating
in a poetry discussion group this summer and the first poet we are
considering is Walt Whitman. I thought I would send along a few
comments on Whitman which come to mind in relation to your New Kabbalah, and
the coincidentia oppositorum. Whitman's Leaves of Grass was published in its final form
in 1892, after a lifetime of revision. It might be said that his life
was a creative process which can be seen as a continuing shattering and
restoration of his book, a book which he thought of as a companion and
a person. The process only stopped with his death, but
seemingly would have continued indefinitely, to the end of his
life. Reminds me of your article on the creative writing process
in which many Kabbalistic elements are present. In Song of Myself, Whitman considers the meaning of
grass, "A child said What is the grass? fetching it to
me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know
what it is any more than he." Grass seems to represent the
unknowable. He guesses that "the grass is itself a child...or a
uniform hieroglyphic...Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones..." Grass, to Whitman, seems perhaps to suggest an image of
God, a language underlying everything, and God in a macrocosmic as well as a
microcosmic sense. Later he says, " I believe a leaf of grass is no
less than the journey-work of the stars." Whitman seems to relate to the idea of the unity of the
knower, the known, and the act of knowing in many places, for example, also
in Song of Myself, "To me the converging objects of the universe
perpetually flow, All are written to me, and I must get what the writing
means." Additionally, his attempt to identify much of the
detail of the world within this poem, details he finds within himself, expresses
such unity.
And then about evil in Myself, Whitman says, "I am
not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness
also...Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand
indifferent,..." Perhaps a statement of the coincidentia of
evil and good, and the transformation of evil into good. Then, there is this in which Whitman seems to be considering
himself in an Adamic and Seferotic way, "Divine am I inside and
out...If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my
own body, or any part of it...Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise
would kill me, If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me...We
also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun...With the twirl of my tongue
I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds..." Whitman's mention of his internal
"contradictions," as cited by Michael Hoppe, seems
to be the most direct indication of the coincidentia oppositorum as
central to his person and thought. Then, Whitman's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd,
one might start in many places to show the unity and blending of his
thought. The hermit bird, whose death song is "Sadly
sinking and fainting,...and yet again bursting with joy. So I guess that I would urge any visitors to your website to read the best and powerful poetry of Whitman and note the relationship to the New Kabbalah, and especially the underlying coincidentia oppositorum in many of these poems. Charlie Coon The Lurianic Kabbalah is treated in detail in Sanford Drob's Symbols of the Kabbalah and Kabbalistic Metaphors . If you entered this site via a search
engine, and there are no "flash contents" on the left hand side of
your screen, the site will function better if you click here and go directly
to www.newkabbalah.com and follow
the instructions at the bottom of your screen to either enter the site or
load Flash 4, if you do not already have it. All material on New Kabbalah website (c) .
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