Edom vs Ishmael: From Early Modern Kabbalistic Metaphysics to the Clash of Civilizations
The modern geopolitical doctrine of the "Clash of Civilizations"—which frames contemporary world order around an inevitable, existential confrontation between Western Christendom and Islam—is not an original development of post–Cold War international relations theory. Rather, it represents the secularized political realization of an ancient esoteric template originating in the Kabbalistic mechanics of the kelipot (demonic husks), the cosmological clashing of the Dinim (harsh judgments), and the Zoharic archetype of eschatological warfare between Edom and Ishmael [1], [2], [3]. Classical Kabbalistic, Zoharic, and Sabbatean traditions contain operational doctrines of structural sabotage, geopolitical manipulation, and the deliberate excitation of hostile worldly powers into mutual conflict [1], [2], [3]. Within this esoteric paradigm, exterior religious confessions, political alliances, and conventional moral standards are not permanent commitments, but expendable garments (kelipot) assumed by an initiated elect to advance a hidden cosmic design [2]. From early modern Lurianic theurgy and the Sabbatean-Frankist doctrine of inward dissimulation (das heilig-dunkle Werk), to the interwar political theology of Carl Schmitt, the esoteric philosophy of Leo Strauss, and its late twentieth-century codification by Bernard Lewis and Samuel P. Huntington, an unbroken structural transmission reveals how the metaphysical strategy of setting opposing worldly powers into mutual destruction was translated into the dominant geopolitical blueprint of the twenty-first century [1], [12], [16], [19].
I. The Lurianic Engine: Shevirat Ha-Kelim and the Clashing of the Dinim
The foundational metaphysical doctrine governing the early modern mystical underground was the Lurianic Kabbalah that emerged from Safed following the 1492 expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula [1], [4]. At the center of the Lurianic system, as codified by Rabbi Isaac Luria and recorded by Rabbi Chaim Vital in Etz Chayim (The Tree of Life), is the cosmic catastrophe of Shevirat ha-Kelim (the Shattering of the Vessels) [4], [5].
During the primordial process of emanation, the divine light descending into the lower vessels was too intense for their finite capacity; the vessels fractured, and holy sparks of divine light (nitzotzot) plunged into the abyss of gross matter, where they were seized and imprisoned by the demonic husks or shells (kelipot) [1], [4], [5]. The sacred duty of the initiated adept is Tikkun—the cosmic restoration, liberation, and gathering of these scattered sparks [1], [2].
In the Lurianic anatomy of evil, the realm of the kelipot—termed the Sitra Ahra (the "Other Side")—is not an autonomous, self-sustaining creation; it is an ontological parasite that subsists entirely upon the divine vitality stolen from the trapped sparks [4], [5]. The internal constitution of the kelipot reveals their strategic vulnerability:
The Shattering of the Kings of Edom: Luria explicitly identified the primordial catastrophe of Shevirat ha-Kelim with the death of the proto-historical "Kings of Edom" chronicled in Genesis 36:31 ("These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel") [4], [5]. The kings of Edom represented forces of pure, unmitigated harsh judgment (Din) that refused mutual connection or balance [4], [5].
The World of Separation (Alma de-Peruda): While the divine realm of the Sefirot is defined by unity (Yichud), balance, and mutual integration (Hitkalelut), the demonic domain of the kelipot is defined as the "World of Separation" (Alma de-Peruda) [4], [6]. The husks are governed by unchecked pride and rigid egocentrism, encapsulated in the primordial cry of each fallen vessel: "Ana Emlokh" ("I shall reign alone") [4], [5].
The Inherent Mechanics of Friction: Because the kelipot are composed of unmitigated Din, they are constitutionally incapable of peace, harmony, or true alliance [4], [6]. When two forces of Din come into contact, they do not synthesize; their nature compels them toward friction, mutual conflict, and violent division [1], [4]. Consequently, evil inherently devours evil when provoked [1], [4].
To an adept trained in Lurianic metaphysics, the hostile institutions of the profane world—opposing empires, rival religious bodies, and competing armies—are physical condensations of unmitigated Dinim. To accelerate the collapse of a corrupt order, the initiate does not attempt to convert or pacify it; the initiate feeds the opposing factions, intensifying their inherent friction until the kelipot tear each other apart through the escalation of their own inner judgment [4], [6].
II. The Zoharic Archetype: The Mutual Annihilation of Edom and Ishmael
The macro-historical application of this metaphysical friction is set forth directly in the foundational text of Jewish mysticism: the Zohar [1], [3]. In classical Kabbalah, the two dominant historical manifestations of the Sitra Ahra governing the protracted exile of Israel are personified as Edom (Rome, Christianity, Western Europe) and Ishmael (the Islamic East) [1], [3].
In Zohar II, 32a (Parashat Va'era), the text articulates an explicit geopolitical blueprint detailing the mechanism required to trigger the messianic era [3]:
The Zohar states that the celestial guardian angel of Ishmael stood before the Divine Presence, demanding reward based upon the physical mark of circumcision, securing temporary dominion over the desolate Holy Land during Israel's exile [3].
The text rejects the premise that redemption will occur through peaceful international diplomacy, moral persuasion, or quietist submission [1], [3]. Instead, at the end of days, the children of Ishmael are destined to be stirred up to wage cataclysmic, total wars against the children of Edom [3].
The Zohar outlines a synchronized global conflagration: wars on land, naval wars across the seas, and a culminating military campaign surrounding the city of Rome, continuing until both civilizational empires exhaust, devastate, and consume one another [3].
It is precisely through the mutual warfare and structural collapse of these two dominant kelipot that the power of the oppressive husks is broken, clearing the cosmic and terrestrial terrain for the emergence of the Messiah and the universal elevation of the liberated sparks [1], [3].
In the Zoharic paradigm, redemption does not require the initiate to reform or preserve gentile empires; it requires that the two primary civilizational shells be brought into violent collision so that they shatter each other [3].
III. The Judicial Theurgy of the Sitra Ahra: The Scapegoat, Azazel, and the Parable of the Dog
Complementing this macro-historical strategy of civilizational clash is a micro-theurgic operational technique: offering a designated portion to the demonic realm to disarm its hostility and redirect its destructive power against external adversaries [1], [7].
1. The Scriptural and Midrashic Foundation
In Leviticus 16:7–10, the biblical liturgy for the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) mandates that the High Priest cast lots over two identical goats: one designated "for the Lord" (la-Adonai) to be sacrificed on the altar, and the other designated "for Azazel" (la-Azazel) to be sent alive into the barren wilderness [8].
In rabbinic and Kabbalistic tradition, "Azazel" is identified not as a physical mountain, but as the demonic archon of the wilderness—Samael (Satan, the primordial serpent, and the patron angel of Esau/Edom) who presides over the Sitra Ahra [6], [9]. The foundational Midrashic source for this mechanic, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (chapter 46), defines this offering explicitly as a judicial bribe:
"Therefore they gave him a present [Hebrew: shochad, bribe] on the Day of Atonement, in order that he should not bring an accusation against the offerings of Israel... When Sammael sees that there is no sin found among them on the Day of Atonement, he says before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of all worlds! Thou hast one people on the earth like the ministering angels in heaven..." [9]
2. The Zoharic Parable of the Ravenous Dog
The Zohar (III, 101b–102a, Parashat Acharei Mot) expands this Midrashic doctrine into a cosmological law through a celebrated parable [3], [6]:
A sovereign king prepares an intimate, joyful banquet exclusively for his beloved son.
Outside the banqueting hall roams a vicious, ravenous watchdog that threatens to burst through the doors, terrorize the son, and disrupt the feast.
Recognizing the danger, the king commands his servants to take an unclean carcass or an expendable meat bone and fling it outside to the dog.
While the beast is entirely consumed with gnawing, tearing, and fighting over the bone that was thrown to it, the king and his son feast inside the royal chambers in absolute peace and tranquility [3], [6].
3. Deconstructing the Judicial Mechanics
The legal and theurgic components of this process operate through five specific stages [3], [6], [9]:
The Initiate: In the Temple liturgy, this is the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) operating within the Holy of Holies; in subsequent Kabbalistic theurgy, this refers to the initiated master who possesses the esoteric science to navigate the spiritual and material worlds without succumbing to the kelipot [3], [6].
The Designated Offering (Shochad): Because the Sitra Ahra is an ontological parasite that cannot generate life, it craves substance from the holy realm [4], [5]. The scapegoat sent to Azazel represents the expendable material tribute deliberately surrendered to the dark realm to sate its appetite [6], [9].
The Prosecuting Accuser: In Jewish judicial mysticism, Samael/Satan is not an independent rebellious deity, but the heavenly crown prosecutor [5], [9]. His duty is to stand before the Divine Court on the Day of Judgment, present the ledger of sins committed by Israel, and demand the execution of annihilating justice (Din) against the elect [5], [9].
Blinding the Prosecutor: When Samael receives the scapegoat carrying the sins of the community, he is appeased and distracted by the tribute. In the words of the Talmud (Yoma 20a), his eyes are covered by the gift, fulfilling the scriptural maxim: "For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise" (Deuteronomy 16:19) [8], [9]. His legal standing to prosecute the elect is neutralized. Compelled by divine order, the accuser undergoes a radical transformation: he becomes an advocate for the defense, testifying before the Divine Throne that the elect are immaculate and blameless [3], [9].
Redirection Against the Adversary: Samael’s destructive appetite for executing Din is not annihilated; it is merely deflected away from the elect [3], [6]. In Zohar III, 102a, the text explicitly reveals that Samael takes the sins confessed over the scapegoat and transfers their punitive weight onto the nations of the world—specifically the children of Esau/Edom (Christian Rome and the gentile powers) [3], [6]. The cosmic force that was poised to destroy the sacred community is flipped, discharging its destructive fury directly into the societies of the historical oppressors [3], [6].
This judicial dynamic finds its historical archetype in Moses within the House of Pharaoh [3], [7]. Moses does not mount an external frontal attack against the Egyptian state; he is raised within the palace of Pharaoh—the great serpentine kelipah of Egypt [3], [7]. He infiltrates the court, masters its wisdom, and ultimately turns the institutional and magical power of Egypt back upon itself, inducing the magicians to concede their impotence and drowning Pharaoh’s hosts in the Red Sea [3], [7].
IV. The Structural Paradigm of the Theurgic Bribe in Clandestine Statecraft
When translated from liturgical theurgy into the operational tradecraft of clandestine networks, this judicial doctrine provides a functional model for how an initiated minority navigates hostile sovereign environments:
The Tactical Bribe (Shochad): When confronting dominant, hostile state institutions (the ruling kingdoms of Edom, whether imperial, monarchical, or ecclesiastical), the initiated network does not mount an overt frontal confrontation. Instead, it "feeds the dog": surrendering expendable material assets, loans, commercial services, or outward declarations of loyalty to satisfy the appetite of the sovereign authority [3], [6].
Securing the Inner Sanctum: Appeased by these material concessions, the sovereign authorities (the external "prosecutors") grant charters of protection, commercial immunities, and legal residency, effectively blinding their administrative and inquisitorial apparatus to the esoteric activities being conducted behind closed doors [6], [9].
Turning the Hostile Shells Outward: Having neutralized the suspicion of the host authorities toward the initiated core, the network watches as the violent, unmitigated forces of judgment (Din) residing within those profane societies are deflected outward, discharging their destructive energy against external civilizational rivals or competing internal factions [3], [6].
V. The Antinomian Escalation: Sabbateanism, Frankism, and the "Holy Descent"
Following the catastrophic apostasy of Sabbatai Zevi to Islam in September 1666, this Lurianic and Zoharic logic underwent an antinomian escalation under the theological direction of Nathan of Gaza [1], [2].
1. The Trojan Horse in the House of Ishmael
Faced with the apparent humiliation of the Messiah donning the Turkish turban and accepting the name Aziz Mehmed Efendi, Nathan formulated the radical doctrine of the "Holy Descent into the Husks" (Yeridah la-Kelipot) in Derush Ha-Tanninim (Treatise on the Dragons) [1], [10]:
Nathan argued that standard, normative observance of the Torah was capable of liberating only the superficial, easily accessible sparks of light [1], [2].
The deepest, most primordial sparks were trapped in the very foundations of the abyss—the great demonic dragons (Tanninim) residing within the kelipot of Ishmael (Islam) and Edom (Christianity) [1], [10].
Ordinary souls attempting to enter these depths would be spiritually contaminated and destroyed; only the unique soul of the Messiah could descend into the belly of the beast [1], [10].
Sabbatai’s apostasy was not a defeat, but the supreme act of aveirah lishmah ("transgression for the sake of heaven") [1], [2]. By donning the outward garments of Islam, the Messiah entered the dragon's lair under false colors, acting as a theurgic Trojan horse to pry loose the final divine sparks from within the demonic shell [1], [10].
2. The Frankist Variant: Total Nihilism and the "Road to Esau"
In the eighteenth century, Jacob Frank radicalized this Sabbatean tradecraft into an active, militant campaign directed against European Christian civilization [2], [11]:
Frank proclaimed that the traditional Torah of Creation (Torah de-Beriah) was obsolete, replacing it with the antinomian Torah of Emanation (Torah de-Atzilut), which commanded the systematic violation of traditional moral and religious taboos [2], [11].
In The Collection of the Words of the Lord (Divrei Ha-Adon, §130), Frank explicitly defined his antinomian objective: "Only to wipe out all laws, all religions, did I come to Poland, and it is my desire to bring life forth into this world." [11]
Frank commanded his followers to execute a mass outward conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1759, designating this operation as the necessary march into "Esau" or "Edom" [2], [11].
The Catholic Church was treated not as a spiritual home, but as an external fortress (kelipah) to be penetrated [2], [11]. The Frankists maintained an armed, disciplined underground company across Moravia, Bohemia, and Germany, operating beneath the radar of church and state while anticipating the general apocalyptic cataclysm that would cause the European kingdoms to tear one another to pieces [2], [11].
3. Das Heilig-Dunkle Werk: Inward Dissimulation
Out of these crucibles emerged the formalized tradecraft of inward dissimulation (das heilig-dunkle Werk—the holy, dark work) [1], [2]. Initiates were commanded to maintain a bifurcated existence: outwardly assimilating into the dominant religious, military, and aristocratic hierarchies of their host societies—converting to Islam as Dönmeh in the Ottoman Empire, or to Catholicism as Frankists in Central Europe—while preserving their secret doctrines, antinomian theurgy, and compartmentalized cross-border cells in total secrecy [1], [2], [11].
VI. Interwar Political Theology: Carl Schmitt, Kabbalistic Myth, and the Dual Monsters
The structural continuity running from classical Jewish mysticism into twentieth-century political theory becomes concrete in the work of the German jurist and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) [12], [13]. Rather than developing his categories out of secular legal positivism, Schmitt explicitly excavated esoteric and Kabbalistic sources to construct his geopolitical paradigm [12].
1. The Judaic Mythogenesis of Leviathan and Behemoth
In his 1938 monograph The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol, Schmitt analyzed the theological origins of the state as a mortal god [12]. In chapter two, Schmitt deliberately contrasts the traditional Christian patristic interpretation of Leviathan—as the demonic dragon hooked by Christ—with what he terms the "Judaic mythogenesis of the cabalists" [12].
Citing the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Batra 74b–75a) and the biblical commentaries of Rabbi Isaac Abravanel, Schmitt examines the ancient Jewish apocalyptic tradition governing the ultimate battle between the primeval monsters: the sea-beast Leviathan and the land-beast Behemoth [12].
2. The "Feast of Leviathan" as Geopolitical Cannibalism
Schmitt identified what he termed a "surprising political myth" preserved in Kabbalistic literature [12]. In this doctrine, the two elemental beasts represent the hostile gentile nations of the earth, geographically and ontologically divided into terrestrial continental land powers and maritime sea powers [12], [13].
In Schmitt’s direct textual analysis, the Kabbalists envisioned that at the end of time, God would bring these two giant powers into mortal combat: Behemoth attacks Leviathan with its horns, while Leviathan tears Behemoth with its fins [12]. Schmitt documented the eschatological consequence with precision:
"[T]he Jews stand by and watch how the people of the world kill one another. This mutual 'ritual slaughter and massacre' is for them lawful and 'kosher,' and they therefore eat the flesh of the slaughtered peoples and are sustained by it...." [12]
3. The Elemental Struggle of Land und Meer (1942)
Four years later, in his 1942 treatise Land und Meer: Eine weltgeschichtliche Betrachtung (Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation), Schmitt extracted this exact rabbinic-Kabbalistic battle out of its apocalyptic container and converted it into the master key of planetary geopolitics [13].
Schmitt structured the entire sweep of world history around the irreconcilable spatial antagonism between continental terrestrial land powers (Behemoth: Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia, Russia) and maritime thalassocracies (Leviathan: Carthage, the British Empire, the United States) [13]. Schmitt recognized that modern global war was not an ideological accident, but the secular staging of a primeval combat wherein the continental and oceanic empires of the gentiles exhaust and slaughter one another [12], [13].
VII. Leo Strauss, Gershom Scholem, and the Secularization of Esotericism
The intellectual transmission belt connecting Carl Schmitt’s political theology to post-war American strategic statecraft runs directly through his profound interlocutor: Leo Strauss (1899–1973) [14], [15].
1. The Schmitt-Strauss Dialogue (1932)
In 1932, Leo Strauss published his seminal critique of Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political (Der Begriff des Politischen) [14]. Strauss established that Schmitt had penetrated to the core of the political: namely, that liberal universalism’s attempt to eradicate conflict, war, and theological antagonism through commerce and technology was an illusion [14].
Strauss demonstrated that politics is founded upon the existential distinction between friend and enemy (Freund und Feind), and that human society requires an enemy to maintain its moral seriousness and internal cohesion [14]. Schmitt was so impressed by Strauss’s critique that he intervened with the Rockefeller Foundation to secure the traveling fellowship that enabled Strauss to leave Germany for Paris and the United States [15]. As Heinrich Meier established in Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, their debate was not an academic disagreement over constitutional law, but a confrontation over the nature of political theology and the rule of the initiated elect [15].
2. Strauss's Immersion in Jewish Esotericism and Gershom Scholem
Strauss was not merely a classical philosopher; he was deeply versed in Jewish esoteric traditions [16], [17]. During his formative Weimar years in Berlin, Strauss was an intimate friend and continuous correspondent of Gershom Scholem, the scholar who single-handedly resurrected the study of Kabbalah and Sabbateanism [17].
While Scholem applied his philological method to unearthing the antinomian underground of Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank, Strauss applied an identical esoteric methodology to medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy—specifically Maimonides and Al-Farabi [16], [17]. Their lifelong private correspondence demonstrates that both men were consumed by the identical structural problem: the irreconcilable conflict between the exoteric law governing the masses and the dangerous esoteric truth reserved for the elect [16], [17].
3. The Straussian Art of Dissimulation (Persecution and the Art of Writing)
In 1952, Strauss codified this methodology in Persecution and the Art of Writing [16]. Strauss argued that great thinkers throughout history, living under despotic regimes or dogmatic orthodoxies, practiced a systematic, double-layered art of writing:
The Exoteric Surface: Addressed to the unthinking masses, magistrates, and ecclesiastical censors. This surface text utilizes pious platitudes, conventional moral homilies, and orthodox terminology to calm public anxiety and ensure the safety of the philosopher [16].
The Esoteric Core: Written strictly "between the lines" using deliberate contradictions, mathematical arrangements, obscure allusions, and meaningful omissions. This core contains the radical, potentially devastating truth intended exclusively for the initiated few [16].
Leo Strauss’s political philosophy represents the secularized, academic transposition of das heilig-dunkle Werk (inward dissimulation) [2], [16]. Strauss instructed generations of American academic and political elites that liberal democracy is merely an external garment (kelipah)—a necessary public myth to mobilize the democratic multitude—while the initiated elite must govern covertly through statecraft, political mythmaking, and the cultivation of external existential enemies [14], [15], [16].
VIII. The Modern Strategic Culmination: Bernard Lewis, Samuel Huntington, and the Clash of Civilizations
The operationalization of this Schmittian-Straussian paradigm within post–Cold War American foreign policy gave birth to the "Clash of Civilizations" doctrine [18], [19].
1. The Coinage by Bernard Lewis (1990)
The precise formulation "clash of civilizations" was coined by the British-American orientalist Bernard Lewis in his September 1990 essay in The Atlantic Monthly, titled "The Roots of Muslim Rage" [18]. Lewis, a senior advisor to the Straussian and neoconservative network in Washington (including figures such as Paul Wolfowitz, a student of Strauss’s disciple Allan Bloom), dismissed economic, territorial, and post-colonial explanations for anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world [18]. Instead, Lewis framed the conflict as an ancient, irreconcilable theological war:
"This is no less than a clash of civilizations—the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both." [18]
2. Samuel P. Huntington's Structural Thesis (1993/1996)
In 1993, the Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington adopted Lewis’s thesis in his Foreign Affairs article "The Clash of Civilizations?", subsequently expanded in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order [19].
Huntington formulated his thesis in direct opposition to Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay "The End of History?" [19]. Fukuyama had argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the ultimate, universal triumph of Western liberal democracy and the total depoliticization of human existence [19].
Huntington, applying the pure Schmittian premise that politics cannot exist without an existential enemy, countered that Fukuyama's vision was a liberal fantasy [14], [19]. Huntington asserted that the post–Cold War world would not dissolve into cosmopolitan harmony; rather, the ideological curtain had merely parted to reveal the permanent, primeval tectonic plates of human identity: civilizations defined by ancestral religion [19].
3. The Central Axis of Conflagration: Edom versus Ishmael
While Huntington mapped eight civilizational blocs, the operational engine of his entire doctrine was the confrontation between Western Christendom and Islam [19]. In his 1993 Foreign Affairs article (p. 35), Huntington famously declared that "Islam has bloody borders," later expanding in his 1996 book (p. 258) that "Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards," predicting that the primary military conflicts of the twenty-first century would unfold along the civilizational fault lines dividing the Western powers from the Muslim world [19].
In the language of political science, Huntington restored the ancient Zoharic polarity: Western civilization—the historical heir of Rome and Christian Europe (Edom)—locked in an existential death-struggle with the Islamic world (Ishmael) [3], [19].
IX. Forensic Synthesis: The Operational Lineage of Eschatological Warfare
When these intellectual and historical developments are aligned, an unbroken line of structural transmission emerges, showing how the Kabbalistic doctrine of eschatological warfare was transformed into the dominant geopolitical blueprint of the twenty-first century:
1. The Three Tiers of Structural Transmission
The operational continuity spans three primary historical and conceptual transitions:
The Ancient Metaphysical Template (Zohar II, 32a): The cosmos is governed by the confrontation between the two primary kelipot of the Sitra Ahra—Ishmael (the Islamic East) and Edom (Christian Rome/the West) [3]. Divine redemption cannot occur through quietist peace or political reform, but requires an eschatological war wherein these two civilizational husks mutually exhaust, slaughter, and collapse one another, liberating the trapped sparks of divine light for the initiated elect [1], [3].
The Interwar Political Theology (Carl Schmitt, 1938–1942): The secularization of the Kabbalistic myth of Behemoth (the continental land-beast) versus Leviathan (the maritime sea-beast) [12], [13]. Schmitt articulates the esoteric doctrine that the great empires of the world are driven by their spatial natures into a mutual, slaughtering combat, while an initiated observer class looks on as the beasts disembowel each other [12], [13]. Through Strauss's intervention, this Schmittian imperative of the existential enemy and the esoteric art of political dissimulation (Persecution and the Art of Writing) is transplanted into the foundations of American strategic theory [14], [15], [16].
The Modern Strategic Doctrine (Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, 1990–1996): The formal codification of the "Clash of Civilizations" [18], [19]. The post–Cold War geopolitical landscape is organized around the metaphysical inevitability of civilizational warfare between the Judeo-Christian West (Edom) and the Islamic nations (Ishmael), rejecting diplomatic compromise in favor of an unavoidable clash of ancestral paradigms [18], [19].
2. The Mechanics of Mutual Destruction in Modern Warfare
The post-9/11 "Global War on Terror" and the subsequent military interventions across the Middle East operated as the real-world execution of this Zoharic-Schmittian dynamic:
The Provocation of the Clashing Kelipot: By framing international relations not as sovereign states negotiating territorial interests, but as an existential, civilizational clash between "Western democracy" and "Islamic fundamentalism," modern strategic architects engineered the identical friction governing the Lurianic Dinim [4], [19]. The opposing civilizational bodies were deliberately cast as irreconcilable adversaries who could not peacefully coexist [18], [19].
The Mutual War of Exhaustion: In accordance with the Schmittian myth of the two monsters tearing each other to pieces, the Western powers (Leviathan) deployed their military force into the territorial heartland of the Islamic world (Behemoth) [12], [13]. The strategic consequence was catastrophic attrition: the expenditure of trillions of dollars in liquid treasure, the destabilization of entire nations into sectarian slaughter, the destruction of historical infrastructures, and the simultaneous erosion of domestic civil liberties and legal protections across the Western democracies themselves [13], [19].
The Dissolution of the Sovereign Nation-State: Exactly as envisioned in the doctrine of the kelipot, the mutual collision of these two civilizational giants has systematically ground the traditional Westphalian nation-state to dust [4], [13]. Both the Islamic states of the Levant and the constitutional democracies of the West have been fractured, hollowed out by emergency powers, sovereign debt, mass refugee dislocations, and internal societal paralysis [13], [19].
The Transnational Directorate as the Initiated Beneficiary: Rising above the wreckage of these exhausted civilizational shells is the modern equivalent of the initiated elect: a transnational, unelected security, financial, and digital surveillance directorate [15], [16]. Operating beyond public accountability and immune to parliamentary oversight, this elite manages global chaos through the very arts of inward dissimulation, political mythmaking, and theurgic statecraft that Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt, and the early modern Kabbalists excavated from the ancient world [1], [12], [16].
Notes and Bibliography
[1] Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626–1676, trans. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), chap. 1 ("Kabbalah and Messianism"), 1–102, and chap. 6 ("Apostasy and Aftermath"), 687–791.
[2] Gershom Scholem, "Redemption Through Sin," in The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 78–141.
[3] The Zohar, Pritzker Edition, trans. Daniel C. Matt, 12 vols. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004–2017), vol. 4, 125–130 [commentary on Zohar II, 32a, Parashat Va'era, detailing the eschatological war between Edom and Ishmael]; and vol. 8, 150–156 [commentary on Zohar III, 101b–102a, Parashat Acharei Mot, detailing the parable of the king's feast and the scapegoat to Azazel].
[4] Chaim Vital, Sefer Etz Chayim (The Tree of Life), ed. Yehuda Zvi Brandwein (Jerusalem: Yeshivat Kol Yehuda, 1988), Heichal Nekudim, Sha'ar Shevirat Ha-Kelim, 112–145 [documenting the clashing of the Dinim, the World of Separation, and the death of the Kings of Edom].
[5] Isaiah Tishby, The Doctrine of Evil and the 'Kelippah' in Lurianic Kabbalism [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1942), 25–68.
[6] Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar: An Anthology of Texts, trans. David Goldstein, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), vol. 1, 271–308; vol. 2, 447–510; and vol. 3, 890–905 [analyzing Azazel, the bribe to Samael, and the deflection of sin onto the nations of the world].
[7] Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), chap. 3 ("Crossing the Boundaries: Inward Dissimulation and Antinomian Theurgy"), 186–242.
[8] The Holy Scriptures: Hebrew and English, trans. Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia: JPS, 1917), Leviticus 16:7–10, 21–22; Deuteronomy 16:19.
[9] Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, trans. Gerald Friedlander (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1916), chap. 46 ("The Day of Atonement and the Scapegoat"), 358–365; and Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 20a [discussing the gematria of ha-Satan and the silencing of the prosecutor].
[10] Nathan of Gaza, Derush Ha-Tanninim (Treatise on the Dragons), in Gershom Scholem, Be-Ikvot Mashiach (Jerusalem: Tarshish Books, 1944), 1–35.
[11] Jacob Frank, The Collection of the Words of the Lord [Divrei Ha-Adon], trans. and ed. Harris Lenowitz (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2004), § 130, § 890; and Paweł Maciejko, The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755–1816 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 68–95, 132–171.
[12] Carl Schmitt, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol, trans. George Schwab and Erna Hilfstein (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), chap. 1–2, 8–10, 60–65 [documenting Schmitt's explicit citations of the Kabbalistic myth of Leviathan, Behemoth, and the Jewish messianic banquet].
[13] Carl Schmitt, Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation, trans. Simona Draghici (Washington, DC: Plutarch Press, 1997), 1–15, 35–45.
[14] Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 19–37, 58–79; including Leo Strauss, "Notes on Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political" (1932), 81–107.
[15] Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, trans. J. Harvey Lomax (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 11–68.
[16] Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1952), chap. 2 ("Persecution and the Art of Writing"), 22–37, and chap. 3 ("The Literary Character of the Guide for the Perplexed"), 38–94.
[17] Leo Strauss and Gershom Scholem, Briefwechsel Leo Strauss – Gershom Scholem, in Leo Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, Band 3: Hobbes’ politische Wissenschaft und zugehörige Schriften – Briefe, ed. Heinrich Meier (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2001), 693–764.
[18] Bernard Lewis, "The Roots of Muslim Rage," The Atlantic Monthly 266, no. 3 (September 1990): 47–60, specifically 60.
[19] Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 22–49, specifically 35; and Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), chap. 1 ("The New Era in World Politics"), 19–39, and chap. 9 ("The Global Politics of Civilizations"), 209–245, specifically 258.