Qabbalah

Qabbalah, May 1933. The term Qabbalah in Hebrew does not mean anything other than 'tra-dition' in the most general sense; although it most usually designates the esoteric or initiatic tradition, when it is used less specifically, it some-times also happens that it applies to the exoteric tradition as well.^[319] This term in itself is therefore capable of designating any tradition; but, as it belongs to the Hebrew language, it is normal when using another lan-guage to reserve it to the Hebraic tradition alone, as we have already pointed out on other occasions, or if we wish to speak more precisely, to the specifically Hebrew form of tradition. If we insist on this, it is because we have seen in some people, a tendency to attribute another meaning to this word, to denominate it as a special kind of traditional knowledge, wherever it may be, because they believe that they have discovered in this word all sorts of extraordinary things that are not really there. We do not intend to waste our time on all these fanciful interpretations; it is more useful to specify the true original meaning of the word, which is enough to reduce their interpretations to nothing, and that is all we pro-pose to do here. The root Q B L, in Hebrew and Arabic, ^[320] essentially means the ratio of two things that are placed opposite each other; from there come all the different meanings of the words which are derived from them, as, for example, those of encounters and even oppositions. From this link also results the idea of a passage from one to the other, from which ideas such as receiving, hosting, accepting, are expressed in both languages by the verb qabal; and qabalah directly derives from this, which it to say 'what is received' or transmitted (in Latin traditum) from one to the other. Here we see, with this idea of transmission, that of a succession; it must be noted that the primary meaning of the root indicates a relation which can be simultaneous as well as successive, both spatial and temporal. This explains the dual meaning of the preposition qabal in Hebrew and qabl in Arabic, meaning both 'in front of (which is to say 'in the face' of space) and 'before' (in time); the close relationship of these two words 'in front of' and 'before,' even in French, shows that a certain analogy is always established between these two different modes, one in simultane- ity and one in succession. This also permits us to resolve an apparent contradiction: although the most common idea in respect to temporal re- lations is that of anteriority and therefore relating to the past, it also hap- pens that derivatives of the same root designate the future (in Arabic mustaqbal, which is literally to say that towards which one goes, from istiqbal, 'to go toward'); do we not also say in French that the past is before us and that the future is in front of us? In sum, it suffices in all cases that one of these two terms are considered as 'before' or 'in front' of the other, whether it is a spatial relationship or a temporal relation- ship.

All these remarks can be further confirmed by the examination of an- other root, also common to Hebrew and Arabic, which has very similar meaning, one could say for the most part, they are identical, although the point of departure is distinctly different, where the derived meanings manage to rejoin. It is the root Q D M, which expresses firstly the idea of 'to precede' (qadam), whence all that refers, not only to a temporal ante- riority, but to a priority of any order. Thus, we find, for the words origi- nating in this root, besides the meaning of origin and antiquity (qedem in Hebrew, qidm or qidam in Arabic), that of primacy or precedence, and even that of walking, advancing, or progression (taqaddum in Arabic);^[321] here again, the preposition qadam in Hebrew and qoddām in Arabic has the dual meaning of 'in front of' and 'before.' But the principal meaning here is what is primary, either hierarchically or chronologically; hence the most frequently expressed idea is that of origin or primordiality, and, by extension, of antiquity when it comes to the temporal order: thus, qadmon in Hebrew, qadīm in Arabic, signify 'ancient' in common usage, but when referred to the field of principles must be translated as 'primor- dial.'^[322]

It is also necessary with regards to these same words to point out other considerations which are not without interest: in Hebrew, the de- rivatives of the root Q D M also server to designate the Orient, that is to say the side of ‘origin,' in that it is where the rising sun appears (orians, from oriri, from which origo in Latin also comes), the starting point of the diurnal march of the sun; at the same time, it is also the point one has in front of oneself when one ‘orientates' while turning towards the sun at its rising.^[323] Thus, qedem also means ‘Orient,' and qadmon, ‘orien- tal;' but we should not wish to see in these designations the affirmation of a primordiality of the Orient from the point of view of earthly human- ity, since, as we have often had occasion to say, the origin of the tradition is Nordic, 'polar' even, and not Oriental or Occidental. The explanation which we have just indicated seems to us entirely sufficient. We will add in this connection, that questions of ‘orientation' have, in a general way, a rather great importance in traditional symbolism and in the rites which are based on this symbolism; they are more complex than one may think and may give rise to some misunderstandings, since in various tradi- tional forms there are several different modes of orientation. When we turn to the rising sun as we have just said, the South is designated as the 'side of the right' (yamīn or yaman, cf. the Sanskrit dakshina which has the same meaning), and the North as the 'side of the left' (shemol in He- brew, shimāl in Arabic); but it also happens that the orientation is taken by turning to the sun at the meridian, and then the point we have before us is no longer the East, but the South: this is how in Arabic, the southern side still has, among other denominations, that of qiblāh, and the adjec- tive qibli means 'southern.' These last terms bring us back to the root Q B L; we know that the same word qiblāh also designates in Islam the ritual orientation; it is, in all cases, the direction one has in front of one- self. What is still curious is that the spelling of this word qiblah is the same as that of the Hebrew qabbalah. Now, one can ask this question: why is tradition in Hebrew desig- nated by a word coming from the root Q B L, and not from the root Q D M? One might be tempted to say in this regard, that, since the Hebrew tradition is only a secondary and derived from, a denomination evoking the idea of origin or primordiality cannot suit it; but this reason does not seem to us essential, because, directly or not, every tradition is connected with the origins and proceeds from the primordial tradition, and we have even seen elsewhere that every sacred language, including Hebrew itself and Arabic, is considered to represent in some way the primordial lan- guage. The true reason, it seems, is that the idea that must be highlighted here is that of a regular and uninterrupted transmission, an idea which is what the very word 'tradition' itself expresses properly, as we indi- cated at the beginning. This transmission constitutes the 'chain' (shelsheleth in Hebrew, silsilah in Arabic) which unites the present to the past and must continue from the present to the future: it is the 'chain of tradition' (shelsheleth ha-qabbalah), or the initiatic 'chain' of which we had occasion to speak of recently. It is also the determination of a 'direc- tion' (here we find the meaning of the Arabic qiblāh) which, through the succession of time, directs the cycle towards its end and rejoins it at its origin, and which, even extending beyond these two extreme bridges by the fact that its principal source is timeless and 'non-human,' linking it harmoniously with other cycles, helping to form with them a larger 'chain,' the one that some Oriental traditions call the ‘chain of worlds,' where the order of the universal manifestation is integrated step by step.