170 Moshe Idel
Th is invocation of the divinity by a phonic talismanics should not be
distinguished from a strong mystical purpose: the sounds of the Torah’s let-
ters also allow the tzaddik to cleave to the immanent God. Th e Great Mag-
gid has already expressed this view in various ways, and only a very few
of them will be discussed here. In a collection of his teachings entitled Or
Ha-Emet, we fi nd what seems to be one of the most magical of the Hasidic
formulations of manipulating God by means of the sacred text, again in the
context of the divine contraction:
It is as if God has contracted Himself into the Torah. When someone calls
a man by his name, he puts all his aff airs aside and answers the person who
called him, because he is compelled by his name. 33 Likewise, God has, as
it were, contracted himself into the Torah, and the Torah is His name, and
when someone reads/calls out 34 the Torah, then they draw God, blessed
be He, downward toward us, because He and His name are one total unity
with us. 35Th e hidden affi nity between God, His Name, and the Torah is a funda-
mental assumption that informed many of the Hasidic views of talismanic
magic. Th ough close affi nities and sometimes even explicit identities be-
tween these three topics recur in many kabbalistic texts since the thir-
teenth century, in Hasidic literature, the talismanic implications of such a
view were explicated in a rather extreme manner: these Hasidic texts as-
sume that God can be compelled by His name to descend. Extreme as this
magical assumption is, the mystical implication is also evident: the ones
who call God’s name will cling to the descending deity, thus attaining a
mystical union.
Similar views can be found in writings of one of the Great Maggid’s
most important students: Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Liady, the founder of
the Habad (or Lubavitch) school of Hasidism, which is one of the most
intellectualistic trends in Hasidism in general. In the following passage,
Shneor Zalman discusses a common Hebrew term for the Bible, miqra.
Th ough this term is oft en translated into English as “scripture,” this transla-
tion is misleading, since the term comes from the Hebrew root qr’, which
means not “write, put down in script” but “call, read aloud.” Consequently,
Shneor Zalman claims that the Bible is called miqra
because one calls [or reads] and [subsequently] draws down the revela-
tion of the light of the Infi nite, by means of letters, even if one does not