“In Love and War”: The Question of Halakhic Controversy in the Tikune Zohar Literature

Abstract: Jewish thinkers in the Middle Ages have developed various approaches to account for the existence of unresolved controversies in the Mishnah and Talmud: a question that touches on fundamental issues, from the nature of truth to the ways to deal with religious and political dissent within Jewish societies. This article presents a seldom-studied approach to controversy that appears in the Tikune Zohar literature, a collection of kabbalistic compositions dated to the early fourteenth century. The product of a secondary elite, and connected with the influential zoharic movement in kabbalah, these texts present a unique approach to the question of halakhic controversy. The Tikunim ’s approach distinguishes three types of controversy: “lower,” evil controversies that are driven by pride and resentment; “middle” controversies that adorn and protect the divine; and “higher” controversies, where the disputants participate in the sexual dynamic of the sefirot, the divine emanations. These types of controversy are arranged metaphysically and are distinguished not by content but by the disposition of the disputants. The higher type of controversy is depicted as existing even in the ideal, messianic state of the Torah and must remain unresolved, for to resolve it would mean to collapse the godhead itself. The Tikunim ’s unique model of halakhic controversy can also be viewed as part of a larger trend in kabbalah at the turn of the thirteenth century to organize and harmonize various Jewish approaches according to a new (kabbalistic) key.