Da'at

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The tree of life with Da'at

Da'at or Da'as ( Hebrew דעת[ˈDaʕaθ] 'knowledge', 'receiving', 'the inner knowing') in the kabbalistic tree of life is the eleventh Sephira , non-Sephira or also pseudo-Sephira , which does not represent an independent power, but a state in which all divine ten Sephiroth are mystically united. Cosmologically it means that "hidden knowledge" that creates a harmonizing union between the two Sephira Chochmah (male principle) and Binah (female principle), which is a result of the union of cosmic forces. Da'at is therefore also the key to understanding creation .

Influences in occult and esotericism

As occult occult - esoteric teaching with roots in pagan antiquity, the hermetics has taken up terms and concepts of the Kabbalah. This religious revelation and secret doctrine has roots in the Hellenistic syncretism of the Greek god Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth to Hermes Trismegistus , the forefather of alchemy . Hermetics as a synonym for the occidental teachings of alchemy, occultism and esotericism shaped the occidental scientific worldview into the 17th century.

Da'at in the Kabbalistic schools of France and Spain

The Kabbalistic schools of France and Spain understood Da'at to be a three-part Sephiroth power - Binah , Chochmah and Da'at - which symbolized the phases in which all things came into being. Between Hochmah and Binah, Da'at acts as an external aspect of the Sephira Kether . Da'at is also instrumental in the relationship between Tiphereth and Kether. Tiphereth is not a direct emanation from Kether, as Da'at works in the middle column of the Sephiroth above Tiphereth. According to Zohar III 1289b-290a, Chochmah, Binah and Da'at act as three different heads in the emanation process , with Da'at filling the whole chambers of the body with knowledge in the further course (allusion to Prov. 24,4 ). Da'at's position is between Chochmah and Binah and balances the two harmoniously. In relation to Tiphereth, Da'at is called the mouth of the holy king or the extension of Tiphereth. So Da'at was described as belonging to the divine worlds, but was rarely assigned its own Sephira in the system of the Sephiroth. Da'at is the hidden key to the manifestation of the Sephiroth.

Da'at, the mystical goal of Frankism

See Frankism .

Da'at in occidental hermetics

The Christian Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola first combined the occult teaching of hermetics with the Jewish Kabbalah. He is considered to be the first Christian Kabbalist without Jewish descent who endeavored from 1486 to make the Kabbalah usable in a Christian-Western way. He commissioned the Jewish convert Flavius ​​Mithridates to translate Jewish Kabbalah literature into Latin with the aim of bringing the Kabbalah, like all philosophical and religious teachings, together in the Christian world mission .

For people, Da'at is the state in which they - still in the relationship between I and you - encounter God. From the depths of his heart (Tiphereth) man calls to him and from the height of his infinite being (Kether) he answers, touching man in the Da'at. Hence Da'at is the state of contemplation and transfiguration of the heart. Here the mystery of metamorphosis, of death and resurrection, takes place. In ( Mt 6,6  EU ) Jesus speaks of that secret place of the inner elevation of the heart, which people find when they turn all their senses inwards into the quiet chamber of the heart, from there look up to God and communicate with him. Da'at therefore means the state that you feel when you hear your inner voice, receive the inner light and can access your inner knowledge or come to a realization . With the dismantling of the inner images in Yesod, the inner experiences of the human being crystallize in Da'at and take on a form that becomes the foundation of his daily life. In this sense, Da'at is his spiritual self, a body of spiritual synthesis. It coincides with Yesod of Beriah and develops with the increasing purification of Yesod in Nefesh . It replaces the pseudo-ego with a reservoir of cosmic energy, which is available to man as a supporting spiritual substance and which carries him, but in the end, when all Sephiroth merge in their original unity, is itself extinguished; for all the qualities that people accept and develop are ultimately replaced by the qualities of the Supreme I ( YHWH ). These are attributes of God himself as they unfold in YHWH and Masseket Atzilut .

Sex, a way to da'at

On earthly level, Da'at also means the knowledge or reception through the sexual union of man and woman, which manifests itself in ( Genesis 4.1  EU ) with the union of Adam and Eve . So it is possible to get to Da'at through sexual intercourse , since here Chochmah (male principle) and Binah (female principle) merge.

Film adaptations of the Da'at

literature

  • Heinrich Elijah Benedikt: The Kabbalah as a Jewish-Christian initiation path . 2 volumes; Vol. I: Color, tone, number and word as gates to soul and spirit. Hardcover, 398 pp., Ansata-Verlag, 12th edition. 2004; ISBN 3-7626-0279-4 / Bd. II: The tree of life - mirror of the cosmos and man. Hardcover, 604 pp., Ansata-Verlag, 9th edition. 2004; ISBN 3-7626-0280-8
  • Pearl Besserman: The Hidden Garden. Kabbalah as a source of spiritual instruction . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996; ISBN 3-596-13013-1 . Jewish introduction.
  • Joseph Dan: Kabbalah. A very short introduction . Oxford University Press, New York 2006.
  • Christina Gehse: The Kabbalah as a female initiation path . Irdana Verlag, Hamburg 2010; ISBN 978-3-9813609-1-2 . A theoretical and practical introduction from a female perspective.
  • Aryeh Kaplan : Sefer Yezira . The book of creation in theory and practice. Verlag JR Ruther, Grevenbroich 1976, ISBN 3-929588-25-0 .
  • Will Parfitt: The Kabbalah ; Braunschweig: Aurum-Verlag, 1993, ISBN 3-591-08339-9 . Introduction to practical Kabbalah with references to various Kabbalists from the past 100 years.

Web links

Commons : Kabbalah  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Da'at is written out as Da'as in Ashkenazi pronunciation
  2. ^ Words of Mr. Kraushar § 1517, Vol. II, p. 339.
  3. ^ Zohar III 135b.
  4. Davidowicz, Klaus Samuel: Jakob Frank, the messiah from the ghetto. 1998, p. 342.
  5. Chaim Wirszubski: Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1989, p. 64; Walter Andreas Euler: "Pia philosophia" et "docta religio". Theology and religion with Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , Munich 1998, p. 27.
  6. Heinrich Elijah Benedikt: The Kabbalah as a Jewish-Christian initiation path , Vol. 2: The tree of life mirror of the cosmos and the human being. Ansata-Verlag, 9th edition 2004, p. 250.