Safran, Soloviev, and the Revival of an Authentic Hebrew Catholic Mystical Synthesis

The Catholic engagement with Jewish mysticism, particularly Kabbalah, has undergone periods of vibrant interest and subsequent neglect. Recent theological movements, however, suggest a renewed appreciation, especially when considered through the thought of figures such as Chief Rabbi Alexandre Safran and the Russian philosopher Vladimir Soloviev. Their insights provide a framework for a modern Hebrew Catholic mystical synthesis rooted in authentic Scriptural tradition and the continuing vocation of Israel.

During the Renaissance, Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) recognized the profound potential of Kabbalistic teachings for deepening the Church’s understanding of her own mysteries. He commissioned Latin translations of major Kabbalistic texts and ordered their study within Catholic theological formation, perceiving in them a key to unlocking deeper insights into the mysteries of the Faith, including the Trinity, Creation, and the Incarnation.¹ Nevertheless, the Enlightenment’s rationalism largely curtailed this engagement, relegating Catholic mysticism to a more marginal, experiential realm rather than an integrated theological pursuit.²

Chief Rabbi Alexandre Safran offers a compelling restoration of the authentic Jewish mystical tradition that resonates powerfully with Catholic mystical theology. In Wisdom of the Kabbalah, Safran describes Kabbalah as both divine revelation and human transmission — Tradition in its deepest sense.³ He emphasizes that the Kabbalistic apprehension of the Torah seeks not merely to understand the commandments through reason but to penetrate their supra-rational depths: to experience the living Word of God as the dynamic Will that simultaneously creates and redeems.⁴

Safran’s theology of the "commandment of God" as a living, supra-rational act corresponds to Pope Benedict XVI’s understanding of the Divine Will manifest in both Creation and Revelation. In Many Religions—One Covenant, Benedict articulates a vision wherein Jews and Christians together bear witness to the unity of God’s creative and revelatory Word.⁵ Thus, the Jewish mystical tradition, properly understood, is not merely a historical curiosity but an essential dimension of the ongoing mission of Israel, now embraced anew within a Hebrew Catholic framework.

The concept of the Divine Will and its expression through the sefirot (Divine Attributes) in Kabbalah mirrors Christian mystical understandings, particularly those expressed by Blessed Raymond Lull, who spoke of the ten reasons and lights.⁶ In both traditions, the mystery of Creation and Redemption is rooted in the dynamic life of God's inner Being — an insight only accessible through a mystical, supra-rational apprehension of Revelation.

Vladimir Soloviev extends this vision by emphasizing the eschatological role of the Jewish people in the reunion of East and West within Christianity. Soloviev foresaw that the Jewish people, as a spiritual-ethnic identity, held a unique mediating role in the healing of Christian schism.⁷ In this, Soloviev anticipated Pope John Paul II's hope for a "new springtime" of unity among Christians and between Jews and Christians.⁸

For Hebrew Catholics, Soloviev’s insight is particularly potent. It suggests that their identity is not merely a bridge between past and present but a prophetic sign pointing toward the eschatological fulfillment of Christian unity — a unity that necessarily includes a restored and fully integrated Israel within the Catholic Church. This resonates with Safran’s view that man’s ultimate vocation is to embrace and reveal the unity of the visible and invisible realms, a mission first symbolized in the Akeidah (Binding of Isaac) and fully realized in the Messianic redemption.⁹

The authentic Jewish mystical tradition, as Safran insists, teaches that reality is a unity of material and spiritual intermingling, with Life (Chai Chaiyim) as its source and goal.¹⁰ In this light, the integration of authentic Kabbalah into Catholic mysticism is not an exotic graft but a restoration of the original unity of Revelation fractured by sin and history. The mission of Hebrew Catholics is to live and embody this unity, revealing through their lives the radiant Presence of the Divine—the Shekhinah—in the visible world, and preparing the way for the final unification of all things in Christ.¹¹

Thus, through the complementary insights of Safran and Soloviev, Hebrew Catholic mysticism can reclaim its authentic vocation: to live at the heart of the Church as both witness and bridge, drawing from the deep wells of Jewish mystical tradition to enrich the universal call to union with God.

Footnotes

1. Brother Gilbert Joseph Blomer LEB, Hebrew Catholic Mysticism, accessed April 27, 2025, https://aronbengilad.blogspot.com/2007/01/hebrew-catholic-mysticism_4178.html.

2. Ibid.

3. Alexandre Safran, Wisdom of the Kabbalah (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1971), 23.

4. Ibid., 24.

5. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Many Religions—One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 86.

6. See Blessed Raymond Lull, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved, trans. E.A. Peers (London: S.P.C.K., 1923).

7. Vladimir Soloviev, Russia and the Universal Church, trans. Herbert Rees (London: Centenary Press, 1948), 112.

8. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte (2001), §17.

9. Aron Ben Gilad, Hebrew Catholic Mysticism.

10. Alexandre Safran, Wisdom of the Kabbalah, 30.

11. Ibid., 45.