Mickiewicz & the Zohar

mickiewicz adam z laska mieczkowski 1_4961252.jpg, small, Adam Mickiewicz with a pilgrim's cane, photo: Polona.pl

It has long been known that Mickiewicz had ‘Jewish knowledge’. To use the words of Czesław Miłosz from his cryptic poem in which ‘a chorus of peasants’ sings: ‘This Mickiewicz is too difficult for us. How does your Jewish knowledge relate to us?’…

Adam Mickiewicz did indeed have ‘Jewish knowledge’ but that doesn’t mean that he studied with rabbis, or listened to the preaching of Hasidic sages, or that he spent hours poring over the Kabbalah, the Zohar or other works of Jewish thinkers. Perhaps he read – or maybe he didn’t – the Zohar in its Latin translation, as we know that that translation was widely available in Lithuania and Russia. It’s true that a certain Dresden librarian strongly warned Mickiewicz of dangerous texts and that the mystics taught a philosophia fanatica et barbara. Father Kajsiewicz, who so determinedly fought against Mickiewicz’s heresies, recalled that Adam ‘eagerly interacted with various dreamers, despite pleas and warnings from Witwicki, Bohdan Zaleski and other friends, which shows the fixed attraction of his intellect to interesting and novel ideas’.

‘This is all Jewish stuff’, the Resurrectionist priests ruled about Mickiewicz’s heresy and Towiański’s teaching…

How did Mickiewicz read the mystics?

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Szymon Bogumił Zug, a project of the Evangelist-Augsburg Church in Warsaw, 1777. a part of the MNW collection

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It’s not worth imagining Mickiewicz spending hours in the Tuhanowicze or some other library poring over Jewish texts, over the writings of Saint-Martin or even of Boehme. His knowledge rather came from people, passed on to him through conversation, in utterances and in silences. In this way, it reached and found its way into Mickiewicz’s mind more deeply and strongly. This is visible in the relationship between Adam and Józef Oleszkiewicz, a painter and mystic ‘who only studies the Bible and Kabbalah’, a freemason and Grand Master of the ‘White Eagle’ masonic lodge. As of December 1927, Oleszkiewicz became Mickiewicz’s teacher and Mickiewicz his student. What secrets did this Petersburg eccentric impart to Mickiewicz? How did he do it? He was a mystagogue and Adam was his acolyte.

Polish literary historian Stanisław Pigoń wrote in 1911: ‘Only two people decidedly influenced Mickiewicz, i.e. consciously altered the fundamentals of his life up to that point. Those were Oleszkiewicz and Towiański’. The answer to the question of what exactly Mickiewicz owed to Oleszkiewicz is similar to the answer to the question of what Mickiewicz owed to Towiański: we don’t know what it was exactly, but we know that it was a great deal indeed. Mickiewicz had two ‘gurus’ during his life. Or perhaps one in two incarnations. So said Wiktor Weintraub, but he didn’t tell everything he knew: ‘Mickiewicz considered Oleszkiewicz his master and initiator into the mystic world and he honoured his memory with a deeply felt homage. This is obvious and doesn’t require any proof’.

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Mickiewicz, Boehme & the Zohar

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18th-century illustration by Dionysius Andreas Freher for the book 'The Works of Jacob Behmen', photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Jakob Boehme was the most important to Mickiewicz. Saint-Martin, Franz von Baader and Anioł Ślązak were students and interpreters of the Zgorzelec shoemaker, fascinated by him and his metaphors, just like hundreds of other philosophers and poets from Hegel to Novalis. They were fascinated by the power, acumen and – I would say – the obviousness of his mystical visions. Mickiewicz borrowed The Aurora from the Tuhanowicze library – if we are to believe art historian Zdzisław Kępiński and there is no reason to doubt him. Mickiewicz already knew Boehme’s De Signatura Rerum, Of Regeneration and Mysterium Magnum: the Dresden version of Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve) is filled with allusions to them. It’s also known that he read mystical works during his writing of Pan Tadeusz and, in his work residence in the Arsenal in November 1853, he dictated to Armand Levy, from memory over several sessions, an extended dissertation on Boehme’s theosophy.

Unde malum? Whence cometh evil? Boehme’s answer to that most important and most difficult question – for Mickiewicz as well – can be sensed in the poet’s writings and actions from philomath times and until his death. The question of the origins of evil is tantamount to the question of the presence of God. Boehme’s answer takes a special place in the history of mysticism, as in his visions and lectures he came to an unanticipated, elsewhere unencountered and mysterious symbiosis between Christianity and Judaism and between mystical Protestant theology and kabbalistic tradition stemming from the Book of Zohar.

The Resurrectionist Fathers and lay Catholics, accusing Towiański and Mickiewicz of a judaising heresy, were not necessarily wrong, though they didn’t realise the import of what they were saying. They couldn’t act otherwise, so they spoke out in the role of defenders of the doctrine, rather than as ‘theologians’ seeking to renew Christianity. They didn’t have enough knowledge in the fields of history of religion, above all knowledge about messianism in three – or at least in two – of the great monotheistic religions, so they didn’t anticipate that Judaism and Christianity, viewed from a messianic or messianising point of view, are linked by a web of connections. Differences, but also mutual influences, not entirely conscious, mysterious, but historically experienced and genuine.

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Jakub & Konrad

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'Great Improvisation'. Gustaw Holoubek (Konrad) surrounded by Devils. Adam Mickiewicz's 'Forefathers' Eve' directed by Kazimierz Dejmek, National Theatre in Warsaw, premiere: 25 November 1967, photo: Franciszek Myszkowski

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Wielka Improwizacja. Gustaw Holoubek (Konrad) otoczony Diabłami. "Dziady" Adama Mickiewicza w układzie tekstu i reżyserii Kazimierza Dejmka, Teatr Narodowy w Warszawie, premiera: 25 listopada 1967 roku, fot. Franciszek Myszkowski

The action of the third part of Dziady plays out near Ostra Brama. Christian kabbalists pointed out many times the connection between the Shechina [God’s Presence] and the Virgin Mary: ‘The tenth sefirah, Kingship, the congregation of Israel, the beloved, the queen of heaven, the virgin of Israel, the gateway to God. The Redeemer of the world, the son of Joseph, the son of David, born of a virgin, the queen of heaven, the gateway to heaven, the sublime path of access to the King’. An association between the Virgin Mary and the Shechina, between the gateway to heaven and the narrow gateway (ostra brama), was made in many contexts over the centuries. It took frightening, disturbing and extreme form in the activities of Jacob Frank when he was detained at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, the most sacred of sites for Polish Catholics.

In a passage of the Zohar regarding Jacob the Patriarch, we read (following on Stuart Goldberg’s reading):

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Jacob went through this gate to faith. Maintaining that faith, he had to undergo a trial in the same place in which his forefathers were tested, entering in peace and emerging in peace.

Konrad must also go through an initiation trial. This trial was requested of God – so it is granted with divine sanction. Whosoever fails to obey God’s command is lost, condemned unto eternity. Had Jacob and Konrad not obeyed God’s command, what would have become of us sinners?

In the Zohar, the patriarchs were put to a test from the sinister, demonic side – the sitra achra [Aramaic: ‘the other side’] – Isaac and Jacob (and other tested patriarchs) are tempted by a demon that manifests itself in two forms: as Samael and as his lover Lilith, also known as the Serpent:

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She ornamented herself with every kind of jewel like a hideous harlot who loiters on the street corner, hoping to seduce men. She grabs and kisses the fool who comes too close, pours him clouded wine, gives him serpent’s venom to drink. As soon as he drinks, he desires her. […] The fool follows her every step, drinks from her chalice, lies with her and has unnatural relations with her. What does she do? She leaves him sleeping in the bed. She ascends [to heaven], denounces him, receives permission to act and descends. The fool awakens and plans for further intrigues – as before. But she discards her ornaments […] and stands revealed as a mighty warrior prepared to confront him. She provokes dread with her armour, surrounded by flashing flames, overcoming her victim with a trembling of body and soul. […] She kills the fool and sends him off to Hell.

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Józef Duriasz (Ksiądz Piotr). Adam Mickiewicz's 'Forefathers' Eve' directed by Kazimierz Dejmka, National Theatre in Warsaw, premiere: 25 November 1967, photo: Franciszek Myszkowski

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Józef Duriasz (Ksiądz Piotr). "Dziady" Adama Mickiewicza w układzie tekstu i reżyserii Kazimierza Dejmka, Teatr Narodowy w Warszawie, premiera: 25 listopada 1967 roku, fot. Franciszek Myszkowski

In Dziady, the role of the temptress is played by ‘comets with eyes and a blond braid’ spoken of by a ‘spirit from the sinister side’. In the Zohar and in Dziady, the temptresses drag their victims onto ‘the other side’ so that they cannot make their way to the deserted shore. In both cases, the tempted individual falls into a deep slumber from which he awakens suddenly, frightened. The tempting of Konrad in Scene III, like the temptation of the Fool, takes on a decidedly erotic nature. The evil spirit that possesses Konrad mocks Father Piotr:

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O Priest, by my honour, in the name of my lover,
My dark lover who so sighs at me,
And you know the name of my love: Pride.

The equivalent of Samael possessed Konrad in the form of an erotically attractive double named Hubris. Pride, which seduced him, pulled him onto the sinister side and turned him over to Samael, who struck Konrad with epilepsy and nearly sent him off to Hell.

Jacob’s journey and that of Konrad onto ‘the other side’ is necessary so that they can return, changed, so that their destiny can be fulfilled and so that the entire world may be saved along with them. Jacob and Konrad are put to a test on ‘the other side’ to the same extent as they submit to the test of the other side, that is, they must be exposed to the forces of evil in a test of their endurance. This test is an initiation and an experience of the extent of the forces of evil which turn out to be weaker than the power of God, though still tremendous enough to put up a credible fight. The Zohar clearly states in speaking of the duality or rather the two-sidedness of being subjected and tested:

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Jacob, after he adopted his faith, still had to go further and be submitted to a test from the other side. For he who emerges saved from such a trial is the beloved, the chosen of the Holy One, blessed be He. […] Jacob went toward this encounter, he went directly to its location. […] He saw all the ornaments of her house and yet was saved from her. Her partner, Samael, upset, struck from above, declaring war, but he was unable to defeat him, as it is written: ‘And, lo, a man ran with him’ […]

The following verse from the book of Genesis sounds cryptic, but at the same time – from the perspective of being tested and testing – fairly clear: ‘Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the sun is coming up!’. Jacob answered: ‘I won’t release you until you bless me!’. Should the demon have blessed Jacob? Neither the demon nor Jacob nor Konrad could be freed and separated until it ‘pleases God’, because both the demon and Jacob (Adam, Konrad) were being subjected to an initiation rite and they had to carry out their mission in order to achieve a rebirth.

Sins marked Konrad forever in the form of the wound on his forehead, but he was elevated and saved. Jacob, too, was injured in his struggle; the demon displaced his hip. Konrad thought he was struggling with God, but he was struggling with a demon which both the Corporal and Father Piotr knew. Neither of them knew, however, that struggling with the demon (the devil), Konrad was struggling - at God’s command - with the prince of this world so that in effect he was struggling with God who, although Almighty, was unable to influence the outcome as He thus chose to delimit His own power.

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