מגמות תיאורגיות במשנתו הקבלית של ר' שמעון לביא

Ketem Paz, written by R. Simeon Lavi around the year 1571 in North Africa, constitutes an important source for familiarizing ourselves with the Kabbalah as it unfolded in the span of time between the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the spread of the teachings of the Ari. This paper deals with R. Simeon Lavi's views concerning man's influence on the Godhead. Views of this sort are designated in the research literature as theurgy. In Ketem Paz, RShL cites various views, derived from rabbinic and kabbalistic literature, as to the influence man exerts on the Deity. What singles out RShL's thought is the emphatic formulation of the theurgic principle, the prominence given to certain theurgic tendencies as compared to others, and his commentary on the theurgic conceptions he found in his sources. The emphatic formulation of the theurgic principle finds its expression in a parable that compares the world on high to a mirror, in which are reflected the acts performed in the lower world. Among the theurgic models offered in the rabbinic and kabbalistic literature, RShL stresses the hamshakhat ha-shefa, the "attraction of the divine plenitude," as the major model for understanding the influence man exerts on the Deity. He insists that this theurgic power is inherent in man's thought. RShL's tendency to understand theurgy in terms of the attraction of divine plenitude is closely related to his strong reservations about the mythical conceptions underlying the theurgy that stresses human influence on the very dynamics within God Himself. Another feature of the theurgic tendencies in Ketem Paz is found in the closeness established between man's theurgic power and his magic powers. There is a similarity in the way man's physical and mental powers influence the divine powers on the one hand, and the forces of nature and the heavenly bodies on the other hand. The same theurgic model of the attraction of the divine plenitude is introduced also in the RShL's discussions on idolatry and the practice of magic. In contrast to "mythical theurgy", which characterizes other thinkers and currents of thought in the history of the kabbalah, the kabbalistic teaching of RShL tends towards "magic theurgy", which perceives man's impact on the Deity in terms of drawing down the divine plenitude from the sefirotic world on high.