Secret of
the Kabbalistic Shemitot
by R. Ariel B. Tzadok
Copyright © 2000, 2019 by Ariel Bar Tzadok.
All rights reserved.
"
For six years you shall plow your fields, but the seventh year shall be holy to YHWH, in that year you shall do no work."
Lev. 25:3-4
One of the most controversial teachings among Kabbalists is the doctrine of the Shemita(ot), the cosmic Sabbatical epochs of pre-Adamic times.
According to many of the great Rabbis, Adam was not the first human to have walked the earth. These Rabbis teach that there were full pre-Adamic human civilizations that had arisen, and were eventually destroyed.
Among the earlier generations of Kabbalists, prior to the Ari'zal (R. Yitzhak Luria of Safed, d. 1572), the doctrine of the Shemita was written about by all Kabbalists, including the Ari'zal's Kabbalistic teacher, Rabbi David Ibn Zimra.
These Kabbalists taught that not only is the source for doctrine of the Shemita to be found in the Oral tradition, they went directly into the simple and plain words of the Torah text to show that the history of time is not fully told in the Bible.
In the very beginning it is written,
"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth" (Gen. 1:1). Immediately, the following verse states, "
And the Earth was without form and empty" (Gen. 1:2).
The Kabbalists have noticed that the prophet Isaiah has written (45:18) that
"the Earth was not created empty," revealing an apparent contradiction between Genesis, and Isaiah. Yet, as it is known to every faithful believer of Torah, there can be no contradictions between what Genesis says, and what Isaiah says.
Something, however, is definitely missing. For when God created the Earth it was not empty upon its creation, as per Isaiah. How then did the Earth become empty, as related in Gen.1:2?
This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that something is missing; not that part of the text is missing, but rather something has been intentionally left out of the narrative. This is glaringly obvious to any student of the Bible.
I have even spoken to one ex-Christian minister, (now an Orthodox Jew) who, upon learning about this anomaly, had mentioned that he had heard of this before from reading Christian Biblical commentaries. Therefore, it seems that we have a mystery, the secret solution of which, of course, is known to the Rabbis and Kabbalists.
In the Midrash (Gen. R. 3:7), a question is posed as to what was God occupied with, prior to His creation of our world? The Midrash relates that God was busy building, and destroying other worlds.
It is written in Leviticus that,
"for six years you shall plow your fields, but the seventh year shall be holy to YHWH, in that year you shall do no work." It is also taught by our Sages in the Talmud (San. 98A),
"six thousand years shall the world last, then for one thousand years shall it remain desolate."
Our Sages have learned from the secret meaning of the verse in Leviticus that the days of our world, meaning our civilization, will be measured in the same way, as is the Biblical Sabbatical year. Six years shall we labor, and in the seventh shall we rest.
So, our civilization will grow for six thousand years, and then for a thousand years shall it
"remain desolate" which means to be left alone to rest. After this time, it is said that God renews his creation.
The Bible proceeds to speak about the Jubilee year. We are instructed to count seven times seven years, and then to proclaim a Jubilee, a year of complete release.
The Kabbalists have revealed that just as our civilization will last for the Sabbatical period of six thousand years, and one thousand years of desolation, so will there be seven cycles similar to this, corresponding to a cosmic cycle of Sabbaticals, and Jubilee.
Therefore, according to this calculation, human civilization will rise and fall seven times, each for a period of six thousand years, with a rest period of a thousand years between.
Now arises the question, which Sabbatical are we in today? Many Kabbalists look back to the verse in Genesis, and notice the discrepancy. They answer the problem of the emptiness of the land (Gen. 1:2), when this was not the way it was created (Is. 45:18), by saying that we are not in the first Shemita.
The earth was indeed created full. It only became empty as a result of the previous civilization. They are the ones who left the land
"empty and desolate." According to many of the Kabbalists, therefore, we are in the second Shemita.
Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, author of the authoritative commentary to the Mishna, Tiferet Yisrael, addresses the topic of pre-Adamic life in the introduction to the eleventh chapter of Tractate Sanhedrin. Drawing upon what was the scientific discoveries of his day, and the Darwinian conflict between creationism and evolution, Lifshitz points out that the Torah does acknowledge the existence of dinosaurs. These were the creations of the prior Shemita, he says.
Not only this, but Rabbi Lifshitz goes further to say that Adam was not really the first human being, but that there were countless people before him, which he calls pre-Adamites. This controversial view of Rabbi Lifshitz has placed his commentary, and other written works, on the taboo list in certain Jewish circles, who considered his revelations not in accordance with the spirit of Judaism. Needless to say, nothing could be further from the truth.
The Talmud, in Hagigah 13B, speaks of there being 974 pre-Adamic generations. One of the early Kabbalistic classics, the Ma'arekhet Elokut, states specifically that these generations refer to the pre-Adamic Shemita cycles.
There are a great number of both earlier, and later generation Rabbis, Hasidic masters and Kabbalists who have spoken quite openly about the doctrine of the Shemita. With regards to the Shemitot, Rabbi Shmuel Lifshitz opens his discussion of the matter in his Anafim Shatul Mayim commentary to Sefer HaIkarim by saying,
"[I] open my mouth like a talebearer to reveal hidden secrets."
Not everyone, however, accepted the doctrine of the Shemitot. Rabbi Haim Vital in his Sha'ar Ma'amrei Rashbi (44A) says outright that the doctrine of the Shemitot is Kabbalistically incorrect. Many later Kabbalists (such as R. Yehuda Fatiyah), follow Rabbi Haim's position on this. Nonetheless, many more do not.
In his Beit Lekhem Yehuda (2,66A), Rabbi Yehuda Fatiyah wrote questioning certain aspects of the doctrine of the Shemita. Yet, even Rabbi Fatiyah, in Minhat Yehuda (pg. 222), expounds on a section of the Zohar that speaks of the pre-Adamic parents of Adam. He even states that Adam's parents copulated on the "spiritual plane," that his mother conceived, and gave birth to Adam's body, which was completely non-physical.
Where Adam's parents came from, Rabbi Fatiyah does not say. However, he makes it quite clear that they are individual beings, and not simply a symbolic, metaphorical reference to God.
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan has written on this topic of the Shemitot, and pointed out correctly that Kabbalistic learning does not follow the same line of reasoning, and authority as does Halakhic learning. Whereas in Halakha there is need of an authoritative conclusion to decide proper practice, this is not the case with Kabbalah.
Therefore, although Rabbi Hayim Vital himself did not accept the teachings of the Kabbalistic Shemitot this, in no way, makes his words the final authority, even more so seeing that almost every other master Kabbalist, before him, and after him, disagreed with him on this matter.
Interesting to note is the Sha'at Ratzon commentary on the Tikunei Zohar (36). The author R. Shlomo Kohen is one of the great later generation Kabbalists of the Rabbi Haim Vital/Rashash school. He is also the author of the authoritative commentary to Rabbi Vital's Etz Haim, Yafeh Sha'ah.
In his commentary to the Tikunei Zohar (36), Rabbi Kohen comments on the clear reference made there to the Shemitot, and then mentions Rabbi Vital's objections to this view. Rabbi Kohen then elucidates a brilliant compromise how the view of the ancients, and the view of Rabbi Vital can be synthesized.
Thus, no present-day student of Kabbalah should be so quick to dismiss the doctrine of the Shemitot out of hand based on the comments of Rabbi Haim Vital. For as we see, they are open to various interpretations. Indeed, even the Gaon of Vilna in his commentary to the Tikunei Zohar (36) clearly states that the text is speaking about the pre-Adamic Shemitot.
No one in the Torah faithful, Kabbalistic community today would even consider the idea that R. Hayim Vital would hold a position on a topic that would outright contradict the Zohar.
The entire system of Lurianic Kabbalah, pioneered by none other than R. Vital himself, would thus be compromised. The solution offered by R. Kohen thus becomes an important, and necessary reconciliation.
Those who are not Orthodox Jews may not recognize the following names, yet, it is important to document them. This is only a partial list of those Rabbis and Kabbalists, from the earlier and later generations, which held that the doctrine of the Shemita is correct and true:
1. Sefer HaTemunah,
2. Sefer HaKana,
3. RaMBaN,
4. Rabbeynu Bahya,
5. Rabbi Yitzhak D'Min Acco,
6. Recanati on the Torah,
7. Tziyuni on the Torah,
8. Ma'arekhet Elokut,
9. Shatul Mayim on Sefer HaIkarim,
10. Sefer Livnat HaSapir of Rabbi David ben Yehuda HaHasid (Sefardi),
11. Sefer Shoshan Sodot,
12. Radbaz, Rabbi David Zimra (the Kabbalistic teacher of the Ari'zal),
13. Tekhelet Mordechai,
14. Rabbi Lifshitz's Tiferet Yisrael
15. Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Eichenstein of Zidatchov
in his Ateret Tzvi commentary on the Zohar HaRakia,
16. Rabbi Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna
17. Tikunei Zohar 36
This is only a partial list. Many Orthodox Jewish readers will recognize that these names are giants in the world of Jewish learning, and that they are the pillars upon which our Torah traditions rest.
To say that all these giants of Torah are incorrect, because of the words of one rabbi kabbalist, regardless of that rabbi kabbalists stature, is to both dishonor these Rabbis, and the Torah itself. The legitimacy of the pre-Adamic worlds is firmly established in authoritative Torah literature.
Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Eichenstein, in his commentary Ateret Tzvi (126B) on the book Zohar HaRakia, states that although the Ari'zal himself was silent on this matter, he definitely ascribed to the doctrine of the Shemita and that "God forbid anyone would disagree with the holy Sages of Israel."
As controversial as the idea of pre-Adamic civilization may be to some, we can rest assured that it is a known, and warmly embraced authoritative teaching of our Torah tradition.
