bring peace to the minds of students (laboring under persecution
and trouble), when they read the portion of the Pentateuch on Sabbaths
and festivals, and to attract their hearts by simple explanations and
sweet words." His own enthusiastic and loving temperament speaks in this
part of his commentary. It is true, as Graetz says, that Nachmanides
exercised more influence on his contemporaries and on succeeding ages by
his personality than by his writings. But it must be added that the
writings of Nachmanides are his personality.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NACHMANIDES.

I.H. Weiss, _Study of the Talmud in the Thirteenth Century_,
_J.Q.R._, I, p. 289.

S. Schechter.--_Studies in Judaism_, p. 99 [120].

Graetz.--III, 17; also III, p. 598 [617].

JACOB TAM.

Graetz.--III, p. 375 [385].

TOSSAFISTS.

Graetz.--III, p. 344 [351], 403 [415].

CHAPTER XVII

THE ZOHAR AND LATER MYSTICISM

Kabbala.--The Bahir.--Abulafia.--Moses of Leon.--The
Zohar.--Isaac Lurya.--Isaiah Hurwitz.--Christian
Kabbalists.--The Chassidim.

Mysticism is the name given to the belief in direct, intuitive communion
with God. All true religion has mystical elements, for all true religion
holds that man can commune with God, soul with soul. In the Psalms, God
is the Rock of the heart, the Portion of the cup, the Shepherd and
Light, the Fountain of Life, an exceeding Joy. All this is, in a sense,
_mystical_ language. But mysticism has many dangers. It is apt to
confuse vague emotionalism and even hysteria with communion with God. A
further defect of mysticism is that, in its medieval forms, it tended to
the multiplication of intermediate beings, or angels, which it created
to supply the means for that communion with God which, in theory, the
mystics asserted was direct. Finally, from being a deep-seated,
emotional aspect of religion, mysticism degenerated into intellectual
sport, a play with words and a juggling with symbols.

Jewish mysticism passed through all these stages. Kabbala--as mysticism
was called--really means "Tradition," and the name proves that the
theory had its roots far back in the past. It has just been said that
there is mysticism in the Psalms. So there is in the idea of
inspiration, the prophet's receiving a message direct from God with whom
he spoke face to face. After the prophetic age, Jewish mysticism
displayed itself in intense personal religiousness, as well as in love
for Apocalyptic, or dream, l