She’elat Halom, ancient kabbalistic practice

Rainy Monday at home in upstate New York, a good day for writing and crafts

Today I wanna share this mysterious PDF I found: ON SHE'ELAT HALOM IN HASIDEI ASKENAZ: SOURCES AND INFLUENCES

In a recent talk from the rabbi about Tomer Devorah he casually mentioned the practice of She’elat Halom (dream questions) where a practitioner fasts and meditates for a long period of time over a question and an answer is revealed on their dreamI went to search more about the practice and found very little about it, specifically wasn't able to find the instructions online. Will continue researching more. In this article I'm sharing some ideas from the PDF and the practice in general

I found this PDF and downloaded right away and the next day when I was looking for it again the link was down, this is enough for me to call it mysterious. It is a scan, so there's gotta be some physical copies somewhere

This particular research focuses on Ashkenazi communities, which are not usually known for their kabalah practices, specially not practical applications. Usually the accepted books deal with middot (behavior), but from the information available we can learn about this practice, and the hassids in general

Introduction: Mysticism and Dreams

Mysticism deals with the search for a direct contact of man and God or other spiritual entities either initiated by supernal beings in the form of inducing an unexpected feeling of a numinous presence, or the result of a human initiative to establish such a contact, those experiences of contact presuppose the transport of man on another level of experience, a change in his state of consciousness, a disclosure of spiritual realms of being which may have transformative effects. Mysticism is therefore breathing in a type of religious mentality, where the channel between man and God was conceived of as still open, notwithstanding some eventual obstacle to materialize this contact. Such an open channel was conceived of as still available even in those circles in the Rabbinic culture which proclaimed that prophecy ceased

Dream was conceived of, explicitly, as such a channel

Induced Dreams with Visual Revelations

The attainment of the dream experience was conceived of as a very high one, described as "a prophetic vision". In preparation for it, the aspirant is requested to fast, to be in a pure place and then pray and recite some verses. The precise nature of these verses, and that of the "letters by numbers" has not been specified

The earlier comments we can find are by Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, who mentions in the two versions of his commentary in Exodus that he found in an ancient book, named either Sefer ha-Razim (book of hints) or Sefer Raziel that She'elat halom is achieved by means of the name of seventy-two letters, which he relates to the first verse of the first chapter of the book of Ezequiel. Thus, this book, dealing with magic, and apparently predating the elders mentioned by Hai Gaon, presupposes, in addition to the corporeal preparations, also the recitations of the name of seventy-two letters

Another mention can be found in the teachings of Eleazar of Worms. He mentions in the Talmudic  discussion of Shimeon bar Yohai that he has seen those who are the sons of the 'aliyyah, who are few. Commenting on this statement, Eleazar writes: He has seen either by [means of] Seheelat Halom or as Nehuniyah ben ha-Qanah [did]. Therefore, the vision of someone's status in the world to come may be achieved may means of a dream question

This form of awareness is conceived of as both reliable and attainable by human initiative

Oral Revelations

In several manuscripts attributed to Yehuda Ha Hasid is found:

Sheelat Hahalom from the mouth of the Hasid the Rabbi Yehudah: He should fast for one day, in the manner of Yom Kippur, let him have a [ritual] bath and purify himself from any impurity, and in the evening when he will go to bed, he should dress himself with white clothes and write the following names on the palm of his left hand: 'Apnt, Mashpeldz, Yail, Pinpat Tire' and he should not erase them till they will pass away by themselves. Then he I should say: I so and so, invoke you, the angels of the dreams, 'Apnt, Mashpelah Yail, Pinpat Tile', that you will announce so and so. And let him ask what I he wants; and he should not touch a woman three days before doing it'. And this is tested and experimented.".

Here we have the technique of a dream question, with some more details than in the earlier cases, but on the other hand, the nature of the aims is not specified as in some of the above cases, when a more mystical attainment has been mentioned

Angels come not in order to reveal themselves, namely their rnorphe or splendor for example, but mostly in order to deliver a message. From this point of view, the last recipe is much more in line with the hundreds of recipes dealing with dream questions, which deal with disclosure of answers to various quandaries, most of them explained in a vocal manner, often by referring to a biblical verse as the clue for the answer

Abraham Abulajia: Revelations and the Name of the Seventy-Two Letters

Stemming from the school of Sefer ha Temunah there is good reason to assume that a version of Sefer Raziel was known to Abraham Abulafia, as we learn from an instance in one of his epistle, where he refers to a gematria which was found in this book. However, it is precisely the divine name of seventy-two letters that had an impressive impact on the further development of mystical techniques, as we witness from the most important handbook of ecstatic Kabbalah

In the context of a quote apparently belonging to ecstatic Kabbalah, the 16th century Safedian kabhalist Moises Cordovero mentions that the combination and transmutation of the 72-letter holy name, after great hitbodedut (meditation), the righteous man, who is worthy and enlightened in such matters, will have a portion of the Divine Voice revealed

This message has many forms: it is an enigma, a parable, a deep matter or a dream. Therefore, the dream, like the other possible forms of the intellectual efflux, is a coded message, obtained by using divine names, among them the name of seventy-two letters, and these names are imagined in a visual manner. These names are the source[s] of the dream

Conclussions

If our short reconstruction of the history of one of the many roles played by the name of seventy-two letters in the development of Jewish mysticism is correct, then the Askenazi Hasidism should understand it as an important, perhaps even crucial, link between the Eastern traditions, magical and mystical altogether

A fine example of the intersections, overlappings and interconnections between the various forms of Jewish mystical and magical literatures. The ashkenazi Hasidim, with their taste for eclectic compilation and appropriation, exemplified by their treatment of Hekalot literature, philosophy, magic and theosophical traditions, is a blueprint for many eclectic, and highly influential forms of writings in Jewish mysticism

Is it a mere accident that the first recourse to the term Kabbalah as esotericism related to divine names occurs in the testimonies of an author that is aware of the use of one of those divine names as part of a mystical technique? Is it an accident that this use of the term Kabbalah recurs among the Ashkenazi Hasidism, who preserved also a view of the name of seventy-two letters in the context of revelatory experiences? Is it an accident that a version of Sefer ha-Razim and Sefer Raziel relates this divine name and the She'elat halom?

Did the nexus between She'elat halom and the recitation of the divine names become an integral part of Department of Jewish Thought? the answer to this question is positive

SUMMARY The article examines the relationship between the divine names and techniques of inducing dreams in Hasidei ABkenaz, R. Yehudab he-Hasid and Eleazar of Worms, as part of a divination process. Of remarkable importance was the so-called name of seventy-two letters; the study considers its occurrences in the first medieval sources. The article also explores the plausible sources of those masters in earlier speculations, in particular Abraham ibn Ezra, and the impact of these techniques on the development of the ecstatic Qabbalah of Abraham Abulafia. KEYWORDS: Divine names; Dreams in Haside ASkenaz; Ecstatic Kabbalah

AUTHOR Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Though, Department of Jewish Thought, Kabbalah. Hebrew University, Jerusalem

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