two comments regarding the plurality of worlds in jewish sources

Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Two Comments regarding the Plurality of Worlds in Jewish SourcesAuthor(s): H. A. WolfsonSource: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jan., 1966), pp. 245-247Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1453707 .

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TWO COMMENTS REGARDING THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS IN JEWISH SOURCES

ON P. 2I3, N. 23, OF HIS PAPER in JQR for January, I965, Dr. Lamm refers to Berakot 32b as containing a statement about the existence of a plurality of worlds. This is incorrect. The statement does not deal with the existence of a plurality of worlds. It deals with the existence of a plurality of stars in the signs of the zodiac which are in the heaven called raii Ca, that is, the second of the seven heavens (cf. Hagigah I 2b),

in this world of ours. On p. 2I5, a statement in Saadia's Commentary on Sefer Yesirah

is reproduced by him to read as follows: "Those who do accept the idea of many worlds believe that the talmudic statement refers to successive worlds, the present one being the i8,oooth." On the basis of this reading of the statement, he concludes that none of those who accepted the idea of many worlds interpreted the talmudic passage as referring to simultaneous i8,ooo worlds and, in conformity with this conclusion of his, he analyzes the entire passage in Saadia.

All this is incorrect. The statement does not say that "those" who accept the idea of

many worlds take the talmudic i8,ooo worlds to mean successive worlds; what it says is that "some of those" who agree with the talmudic saying take its i8,ooo worlds to mean successive worlds (cf. Arabic text, p. 6, II. 3-4, and French translation, p. 20, II. 2-5, in Lambert's edition of the work). The statement thus quite evidently implies that others who agreed with the same talmudic saying took its i8,ooo worlds to mean not successive worlds but rather simultaneous worlds.

A correct analysis of the entire passage, of which the foregoing statement is the conclusion, is as follows:

I. Restatement of the view of a third groups of Platonized Atomists who believed in the simultaneous existence of innumerable worlds, all of them having been created out of preexistent eternal atoms (p. 5, 11. 8-9). For the identification of these three groups with a view combining Atomism with Plato, see discussion in my paper "The Kalam Problem of Nonexistence and Saadia's Second Theory of Creation" in this Quartely, N. S., 36 (I946), pp. 385-387.

2. Remark about someone who might think that the talmudic saying about the existence of i8,ooo worlds is similar to the saying of the third group of Platonized Atomists about the simultaneous



246 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

existence of innumerable worlds followed by Saadia's comment that the talmudic saying differs from the saying of that group of the Platonized Atomists in that "he who gave utternace to this saying about the i8,ooo worlds maintained that every one of these worlds was created by God out of nothing" (p. 5, 11. I0-I4).

3. Reference to some unnamed philosophers who believed in the simultaneous existence of a plurality of worlds equal in number to the number of stars in this world (p. 5, 11. I4-I9).

4. Repetition of the talmudic saying about i8,ooo worlds with the addition of a scriptural proof-text, upon which Saadia comments as follows: "Our people are not of one mind with regard to this saying [of the Talmud] and so, having reported [and explained] that saying, we let it go and passed on to our next statement. But some of those who agree with this saying [of the Talmud] believe that it refers to one world after another, this world in which we are being the i8,oooth" (p* 5, 1- I 9-p* 6, 1. 4) .

In this last quotation, the statement "our people are not of one mind with regard to this saying" refers to oral discussions among contemporaries of Saadia about the i8,ooo worlds of the talmudic saying. References to oral discussions among his contemporaries about various topics are similarly to be found in his Emunot ve-De'ot. Among those contemporaries of his who discissed that talmudic saying about the i8,ooo worlds, some did not agree with it, believing as they did, like Saadia himself, in one world; others, however, agreed with it, but of these, some interpreted its i8,ooo worlds, like Saadia, as referring to simultaneous worlds, each of them created out of nothing, whereas others interpreted them as referring to successive worlds, each of them, again, created out of nothing. All this is in line with what I tried to show in Philo that, while Philo himself has laid down the belief in the unity of the world as a fundamental scriptural doctrine, none of the subsequent religious philosophers, whether Jewish or Christian and, I may add, also Muslim, followed him on this point. As a rule, like Philo, they followed the Platonico-Aristotelian conception of one world; still they did not make it a mandatory religious belief, but allowed one to believe in many worlds, whether simultaneous or successive, provided only that each of the worlds was believed to have been created by God according to what was considered as the right conception of creation. This is exactly the position of Saadia.

Evidence that among Arabic-speaking Jews close to the time of Saadia (d. 942) there were those who took the talmudic statement to mean i8, ooo simultaneous worlds is to be found in the use made of it, quite evidently under Jewish influence, by some Muslim commen-



PLURALITY OF WORLDS-WOLFSON 247

tators on the Koran. As reported by Baghdadd (d. I037) in his Usil al-Din (ed. Istambul, I346/I928), p. 34, 11. 4-5, some commentators, on the basis of the plural al- cdlamina used in the Koran (i: i and passim), say that "God has i8,ooo worlds, every one of them being like the perceptible world."

Harvard University H. A. WOLFSON

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA

In my paper "Joseph Ibn Saddik on Divine Attributes" in JQR for April, I965, p. 277, line 4 of n. 3, after "immaterial" add: (p. 23,

line 24),

Ibid., p. 285, omit "Expecting ... dead," in lines I2-I5; and in line I5, before "he says:," add: Commenting upon it,

In my paper "Maimonides on the Unity and Incorporeality of God" in JQR for October, I965, p. I22, at the end of n. 46, add: This shows that, though the Arabic term tauhkd by itself may mean "profession of the unity of God," it is used here by Maimonides in the simple sense of "unity of God," just as in that simple sense does he quite evidently use its corresponding Hebrew term yihud in Mishneh Torah, Yesode I, 7, and in Moreh Nebukim I, 50.



two comments regarding the plurality of worlds in jewish sources

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