1 KARAITES AND POPULAR KABBALAH: CO-OPERATION AND CONFLICT IN POLAND-LITHUANIA Riikka Tuori Introduction Kabbalah is Jewish esoteric and theosophical speculation consisting of a wide variety of literary works, theories on language and soul, and techniques of meditation and magic. 1 As noted by Elior (1992, 285), from the fifteenth-century onwards Kabbalah transformed ‘from elitist-esoteric concern of an elect few, into a popular doctrine readily available to wide circles’. In this article I will briefly outline the Karaite relationship to popular Kabbalah in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The article is based on my study of Karaite documents preserved in Russian and Lithuanian archives. The article also contains an excerpt from a previously unpublished paraliturgical poem reflecting the extent of Kabbalistic influence on contemporary Karaite Hebrew literature. 2 Karaites reject the status of the Mishna and Talmud (the Oral Torah) as authoritative and hold to the Written Torah (Pentateuch) as the foundation of religious authority and open to unlimited, non-rabbinic interpretation. 3 While the myth of Karaites as an austere scriptural movement rejecting Jewish mysticism was busted long ago, 4 many still believe that Karaites categorically shun the Kabbalah. Indeed, early Karaite scholars criticized Jewish mysticism, 5 and in certain Karaite texts the Hebrew noun qabbƗOƗ (‘tradition’) occasionally appears as a negative synonym for the rabbinic Oral Torah. 6 This initial reluctance notwithstanding, the Karaite view on the Kabbalah took a more positive turn 1 As defined by Ginsburg (1989, 2). For the major historical periods of Kabbalah, see Scholem (reprint in 1995); for the phenomenological aspects of Kabbalah, see Idel (1987). This article is based on my lecture ‘Karaites and Kabbalah’ on May 17, 2013 at the University of Helsinki (Public Lectures Organized by the Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient Near East Project). 2 The Karaite stance to the Kabbalah has been discussed most extensively by Lasker (2004), who has studied the Kabbalistic influences in the works of the Crimean Karaite ĝimতa Yiতaq àucki, and by Fenton (1983). The subject is also touched upon in my forth-coming thesis (Tuori 2013). 3 Karaite Judaism emerged in ninth-century Persia and Babylonia as a protest against rabbinic hegemony over the interpretation of central Jewish texts. For the origins and later historical development of Karaite Judaism, see the extensive articles published in Karaite Judaism (Polliack [ed.] 2003). 4 Mann (1931, 684௅685), Fenton (1983), Lasker (2004). 5 Daniel al-Qumisi (9 th c., Persia/Palestine) attacks the Rabbanites in his Pitrǀn shnƝm-ҵƗĞƗr on the subject of sorcery, amulets, and mystical literature (Tirosh-Becker 2012, 18). See also Milۊamǀt ăGǀnay by Salmon ben Yeruতam, the opponent of Saޏadya ha-Ga’on (882–940) (Lasker 2004, 171, n. 2). 6 On the term qabbƗOƗ as a polemical label for Rabbanite ‘traditionalists’ in the Byzantine Empire, see Ankori (1959, 228). On the neutral use of the term baҵale haq-qabbƗOƗ in the language of ĝimতa àucki, see his ƜOǀn mǀre (Akhiezer/Lasker 2006, 30).