In chapter 2 of this study, I sketched the basic contours of Kabbalistic ritual, noting its power to link God and Person. This portrait may be further refined by providing two additional examples of how ritual works. Before proceeding, it is useful to recall my earlier characterization: Kabbalistic ritual may be grasped as symbolically significant activity which is understood to accomplish one or more of the following:

1) to dramatize an event (or myth) in the sacred realm, especially one pertaining to the supernal world;

2) to theurgically affect the supernal world (most prominently, by helping to restore the divine Gestalt); and

3) to transform the life of the devotee, by bringing him in alignment with the divine paradigm (and/or his Paradisical self), thereby ushering him into a higher state of being.

The first category underscores the symbolic valence of ritual life, whereas the other two evince its magical import. The second category is focused on ritual's cosmic efficaciousness while the third suggests its reflexive power or “inner magic. II All three levels of signification will be observed in the two exemplary (and complementary) rites: the first, that most intimate and physical act of marital intercourse; and the second, the cognitive-spiritual act of Torah-study or sacred learning.

In theosophical Kabbalah, the traditional miẓvah of marital intercourse is replete with symbolic and magical significance. It becomes a dramatic representation and realization of divine androgyny: the union of the Holy One and Shekhinah (categories 1 and 2). At the same time, it is a means of transforming the devotee and his wife (category 3): first, by enabling husband and wife to be more perfect symbols of the divine Androgyne and secondly, by affording them a momentary return to the primordial androgyny of Eden. In good Rabbinic fashion, this last notion will be examined first:

Invoking Gen. 5:1-2 and a few Rabbinic sources (e.g., Gen. R 8:1), the Kabbalists taught that Adam and Eve were one entity before the Sin. According to one account, Adam/Eve emerged as an an drogyne, united back to back; when Eve separated from Adam's side, they immediately cleaved to each other and entered into a higher union, one which both symbolized and theurgically completed the divine androgyne.