The concept of the Primordial Man (Adam Kadmon) in jewish mysticism

Abstract

This article discusses one of the most important conceptions in Jewish mysticism, according to which the fi rst manifestation of the incomprehensible God is an anthropomorphic structure of light, termed the Primordial Man (Heb. Adam Kadmon). The article studies the origin of this conception, its parallels to other religious and philosophical traditions, as well as diff erences in its interpretation in various versions of Kabbalistic doctrine. Some kabbalists believed that keeping the commandments (Heb. mitzvoth) is of a theurgic, cosmic signifi cance. According to this understanding, the actions of the earthly man, created as an image of the Higher Man (Heb. Adam haelyon), are endowed with special holiness and, in turn, can aff ect the divine world of Adam Kadmon. The Torah itself, the Jewish scripture given in revelation, is understood as a living divine organism, a “divine structure” that has an anthropomorphic form. Special attention is paid in the article to the interpretation of Adam Kadmon in the late Kabbalistic school of Yitzhak Luria (1534–1572), whose cosmogony was rather elaborate and came to be most infl uential in the Kabbalah of the following centuries and in the doctrine of Hasidism. The article also analyses the conception of the Primordial Man in the philosophical system of Abraham ha-Cohen Herrera (1570–1635), who proposed a specifi c synthesis of Jewish Kabbalah and European philosophical ideas, which made it possible for non-Jewish thinkers to become familiar with the conception in question.

Keywords

• предвечный человек
• адам кадмон
• иудаизм
• мистицизм
• неоплатонизм
• ислам
• филон
• библия
• абсолют
• эманация
• зоѓар
• сфирот