Concepts of Scripture in Jewish Mysticism 165the opposite direction. Th e lower entity, the Torah, refl ects a higher one,
and thus it paves the way to an understanding of the divine through com-
prehension of the structure of the text. Th is understanding is based on the
identity of form between portions of the Torah and the limbs of the di-
vine body (which, in turn, is conceived as sharing its shape with a human
body). However, for R. Joseph, this symbolic function does not operate on
the Torah’s overt or narrative level by introducing a divine myth paralleled
by and refl ected in mundane events. Rather, what counts is the shape of the
portion of the canonical text, not its content.
As in Th e Book of [Divine] Unity, Hamadan assumes that God and
the Bible are identical or at least isomorphic — that is, they share a simi-
lar or identical structure. However, what is fascinating in the material just
quoted from Hamadan’s Commentary on the Rationales of the Command-
ments is not the avowal of this isomorphism but the attempt to correlate
specifi c sections of the biblical text with specifi c limbs of the supernal Man
(i.e., the divine body). Th e signifi cance of this relationship is captured in
this passage:
Happy is the man who knows how to relate a limb to another [i.e., a hu-
man limb to a divine limb] and a form to another [form], which are found
in the Holy and Pure Chain, blessed be His Name, because the Torah is
His form, blessed be He. He commanded us to study Torah in order to
know the likeness of the Supernal Form; as some kabbalists said, [quoting
Deuteronomy 27:26,] “Cursed is whoever will not keep this Torah up.” Can
the Torah fall? Th is [verse should be taken as] a warning for the cantor to
[lift the Torah scroll up and thus to] show the written form of the Torah
scroll to the community for them to see the likeness of the Supernal Form.
Moreover, the study of the Torah brings someone close to seeing supernal
secrets and the Glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, for real. 20Th is passage discusses knowledge of the structural affi nity between human
limbs and forms and the divine ones. Th e cognitive movement is expressly
upward. Th e form of the letters in the Torah is assumed to play the same
role as in the human body; the latter is an icon enabling the contemplation
of the supernal form. Th is explains the custom of showing the open scroll
of the Torah to the members of the community aft er the reading of the
weekly portion in synagogue. However, the formal correspondences be-
tween the lower and higher limbs should be understood in a broader sense.
Th e expression “limb to limb” is reminiscent of another recurrent phrase