The Splendour

As with Christianity and Islam, Scriptural references about the Divine Light are not abundant in Judaism, but are certainly present. The writer of the book of Psalms refers to God as He "who coverest thyself with light as with a garment..." (Ps. 104:2). The book of Daniel tells us that God "knoweth what is in the darkness, and the Light dwelleth with him" (Dan. 2:22). The prophet Ezekiel witnessed a very dramatic vision of God:

And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself and a brightness was about it... And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance or fire round about within it... I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD... (Ezekiel 1:4, 27-28).

Together with this vision were images of various creatures and a man. Fire was also among these creatures, "and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning" (Ez. 1:13-14). The Lord went on to tell the prophet that Israel was a rebellious nation. Because of its wrongdoing before the Lord, the nation was in exile, and captive to other nations. The prophet was to tell Israel to change its ways, to do what was right before God. To aid him in his task, another vision of God appeared, and the spirit of God entered Ezekiel so that God would speak to Israel through the prophet (Ez. 3: 23-27). One day in front of the elders of Judah, the book of Ezekiel tells us that

Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire... as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. And... the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem... (Ez. 8:1-3).

Like other prophets of Israel and Judah, Ezekiel spoke for God to set the nation straight from its errant ways. In Ezekiel's case this was done in one of the most stunning and captivating visions of God and His bright light ever told.

Further references to the Divine Light are found in the writings of Philo. Philo felt that "of all things, light is best," first because it drew mankind's attention upwards to heaven.¹ Even more than that, though, light is "pre-eminently beautiful." This Divine Light is not perceptible to the senses -- i.e. through one's eyes -- but it can be seen through the mind,

for the intelligible as far surpasses the visible in the brilliance of its radiance, as sunlight assuredly surpasses darkness day and night...2

This Light which is accessible to the mind is to Philo the source of all light -- what we see with our eyes is simply varying degrees of dimness away from pure light. Philo would call this pure, brilliant light

'all brightness,' to signify that from which sun and moon, as well as fixed stars and planets draw... for that pure and undiluted radiance is bedimmed so soon as it begins to undergo the change that is entailed from the intelligible to the sensibly discerned for no object of sense is free from dimness.3

To Philo, all that we see is a dim version of the pure light, the light of God. We can never see God with our eyes, though; it would be far too bright. Only through the mind can we "see" God, whom Philo identifies with this brilliant radiance, the purest of all light:

... for He Himself is His own light. For the eye of the Absolute Existent needs no other light to effect perception, but He Himself is the archetypal essence of which myriads of rays are the effluence, none visible to sense, all to mind.4

So how does the mind go about finding God's light? Philo tells us that to see this, we must practice virtue and pursue the truth. "Life," says Philo, "has no clearer light than truth."⁵ The lover of virtue is "set on fire by the brilliant appearance of the beautiful...."⁶ At this point, longing to see the Great King Himself, "pure and untempered rays of concentrated light stream forth like a torrent, so that by its gleams the eye of the understanding is dazzled."⁷ Finally one reaches "that most brilliant and truly divine light of virtue."⁸

For Philo, this place of brilliant light and perfect virtue is Eden. Eden is a place of "profound content (sic) and joy."⁹ This is the consummate end for the perfectly righteous person; Philo tells us that "the soul's feast is the joy and gladness which the perfect virtues bring, and by perfect is meant virtues unspotted by all the tainting evils to which the human race is liable."¹⁰

As a Jew living in Alexandria, Philo was certainly influenced by Hellenistic (Greek) culture. The ideas of the Stoics and Plato are unmistakable. And so, very clearly, was he influenced by his own religious heritage: the entire discourse we have seen so far was a commentary on Hebrew Scripture. Not so culture-bound, however, was Philo's description of the Divine Light. Once again we find an account of someone who has "seen" this super-brilliant light -- an experience which is accompanied by unsurpassed joy.

Beyond Philo, the Rabbinic literature also makes reference to this brilliant, Divine Light. David Shapiro tells us that "we read in the Sifra that, while man cannot see the glory of God during his lifetime, he can see it at the time of his death.... Hence, we have such expressions as the righteous envisioning 'the brilliance of the Divine presence' in the afterlife. There are also Talmudic reports of a pillar of light which precedes the bier of the righteous."¹¹

By far the most numerous references to the Divine Light, however, comes with Jewish mysticism -- the Kabbalah. In the Zohar (meaning "splendour"), we find once again the mystic yearning to get closer to God, to see His Light, and feel the joy that so often accompanies that contact. As we might expect, the Zohar interprets the experience with the Divine in a uniquely Jewish way. The similarities between the Jewish encounter with the Light and the accounts from other cultures, however, is unmistakable.

The Zohar tells a story of Rabbi Isaac, who, when

he opened his mouth to expound the Torah, a pillar of cloud reaching from heaven to earth appeared and stood before us, and in it a great light shone.12

Rabbi Abba, travelling with him, said that he, too, was "privileged to see that light," which he identified "certainly" as having seen God (I, 29). God, according to the Zohar, designates Himself Ein-Sof -- "Limitless" -- who, as the Cause of causes, called his crown the "Source," an "inexhaustible fount of light" (III, 131). This is a light "which illumines the supreme heaven, a light never ceasing..." (IV, 224). This is "the supernal primordial light.... When this light shone on what was below, its radiance spread from one end of the world to the other..." (I, 116). Compared to this Supreme Cause, "all lights are dark in its presence" (I, 94).

According to the Zohar, "God wrought the light as the medium for the creation of the world.... For all the generations of heaven and earth were produced by the energy of that treasured-up Light..." (IV, 252). It was not until "He unfolded Himself in a covering of a supernal radiance of thought" that he created therefrom a world" (I, 111). God "summoned to issue forth from [His] complete Light which was in the centre of a certain radiance which is the foundation of the world" (I, 70). The Zohar's place in all this "is that from which were created all the creative utterances through the extension of the point of this mysterious brightness" (I, 63).

The Zohar illustrates this place of light poetically:

The secret Garden In worlds of light hidden... Its splendour sends forth To the ends of Creation, In the fullness of glory Is revealed in its beauty To the eyes made seeing -- The garden of Eden (III, 10-11).

When God said, "Let there be light, and there was light," and "let us make man in our image, after our likeness," the Zohar gives us an indication of the nature of humanity. "'In our image' corresponds to light, 'after our likeness,' to darkness, which is a vestment to light in the same way that a body is a vestment to the soul..." (I, 92). Thus, man's spirit emanates "from the realm of holiness, to which his body is a vestment, as we read, "Thou clothest me in skin and flesh" (Job X, 11). Other animals such as ox, sheep, goat, deer, etc. are simply formed from another vestment (I, 86). This also explains why we cannot see God with our bodily eye: we can only perceive the vestment of darkness around God's light.

The soul, however, can see the Divine Light. We read in the Zohar that

The essence of man is his soul; the skin, flesh, bones and sinews are but an outward covering, the mere garments, but they are not the man. When man departs from this world, he divests himself of all these garments... skins are a garment which protects a garment, viz, the extension of the heavens which is the outer garment [of the Divine] (III, 230).

The mystical book goes on to tell us that "before a man dies he beholds a Divine Presence, towards which the soul goes out in great yearning..." (V, 106). The soul then leaves the dead person, "and the body returns to the earth." The "spirit returns to God who gave it (Eccl. XII, 7)," reads the Zohar, "both thus returning to their original source" (I, 21).