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Kabbalah

Table of contents

1 Origin 2 Antiquity of esoteric mysticism 3 Gnosticism and Kabbalah 4 Kabbalistic Dualism 5 Mystic Doctrines in Talmudic Times 6 Criticisms 7 Kabbalah in Christianity and non-Jewish society 8 Primary Jewish texts 9 Kabbalistic teachings about the human soul 10 Foretelling the future 11 Kabbalah and the Western Esoteric Tradition 12 See also 13 External links and references

Origin

"Kabbalah" refers to an esoteric doctrine concerning God and the universe, asserted to have come down as a revelation to elect saints from a remote past, and preserved only by a privileged few.

Early forms of Jewish mysticism at first consisted only of empirical lore. Much later, under the influence of Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean philosophy, it assumed a speculative character. In the medieval era it greatly developed with the appearance of the mystical text, the Sefer Yetzirah. It became the object of the systematic study of the elect, called "baale ha-kabbalah" (בעלי הקבלה "possessors or masters of the Kabbalah"). Students of Kabbalah later became known as the "maskilim" (משכילים "the enlightened"). From the thirteenth century onward Kabbalah branched out into an extensive literature, alongside of and often in opposition to the Talmud.

Most forms of Kabbalah teach that every letter, word, number, and accent of Scripture contains a hidden sense; and it teaches the methods of interpretation for ascertaining these occult meanings.

Some historians of religion hold that we should limit the use of the term Kabbalah only to the mystical religious systems which appeared after the twelfth century; they use other terms to refer to esoteric Jewish mystical systems before the 12th century. Other historians of religion view this distinction as arbitrary. In this view, post 12th-century Kabbalah is seen as the next phase in a continuous line of development from the same mystical roots and elements. As such, these scholars feel that it is appropriate to use the term "Kabbalah" to refer to Jewish mysticism as early as the first century of the common era. Orthodox Jews disagree with both schools of thought, as they reject the idea that Kabbalah underwent significant historical development and change.

Since the late 19th century, with the emergence of the "Jewish Studies" approach, the Kabbalah has also been studied as a highly rational system of understanding the world, rather than a mystical one. A pioneer of this approach was Lazar Gulkowitsch.

Antiquity of esoteric mysticism

Early forms of esoteric mysticism existed over 2,000 years ago. Ben Sira warns against it in his saying: "You shall have no business with secret things" (Sirach iii. 22; compare Talmud Hagigah 13a; Midrash Genesis Rabbah viii.).

Apocalyptic literature belonging to the second and first pre-Christian centuries contained some elements of later Kabbalah, and as, according to Josephus, such writings were in the possession of the Essenes, and were jealously guarded by them against disclosure, for which they claimed a hoary antiquity (see Philo, "De Vita Contemplativa," iii., and Hippolytus, "Refutation of all Heresies," ix. 27).

That many such books containing secret lore were kept hidden away by the "enlightened" is stated in IV Esdras xiv. 45-46, where Pseudo-Ezra is told to publish the twenty-four books of the canon openly that the worthy and the unworthy may alike read, but to keep the seventy other books hidden in order to "deliver them only to such as be wise" (compare Dan. xii. 10); for in them are the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge.

Instructive for the study of the development of Kabbalah is the Book of Jubilees written under King John Hyrcanus, which refers to the writings of Jared, Cainan, and Noah, and presents Abraham as the renewer, and Levi as the permanent guardian, of these ancient writings. It offers a cosmogony based upon the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and connected with Jewish chronology and Messianology, while at the same time insisting upon the heptad as the holy number rather than upon the decadic system adopted by the later haggadists and the "Sefer Yetzirah". The Pythagorean idea of the creative powers of numbers and letters, upon which the "Sefer Yetzirah" is founded, and which was known in the time of the Mishnah (before 200 CE).

Gnosticism and Kabbalah

Gnostic literature testifies to the antiquity of the Cabala. Gnosticism — that is, the cabalistic "Chochmah" (חכמה "wisdom") - seems to have been the first attempt on the part of Jewish sages to give the empirical mystic lore, with the help of Platonic and Pythagorean or Stoic ideas, a speculative turn. This led to the danger of heresy from which the Jewish rabbinic figures Akiva and Ben Zoma strove to extricate themselves.

Kabbalistic Dualism

The dualistic system of good and of evil powers, which goes back to Zoroastrianism, can be traced through Gnosticism; having influenced the cosmology of the ancient Kabbalah before it reached the medieval one.

There are mainly two different ways to describe why there is evil in the world, acording to the Kabbalah. Both makes use of the kabbalistic Tree of Life:

• The kabbalistic tree, which consists of ten Sephiroths, the ten "emanations" of God, consists of three pillars. The left side of the tree, the female side, is considered to be more destructive than the right side, the male side. Geburah (גבורה), for example, stands for strength and discipline, while her male counterpart, Chesed (חסד), stands for love and mercy. The center pillar of the tree does not have any polarity, and no gender is given to them.
• In the medieval, old ideas from Babylon gained new strength. The Qliphoth, or Kelippots (קליפות the primeval "husks" of impurity), was blamed for all the evil in the world. Qliphoths is the evil twins of the Sephiroths. The tree of Qliphoths is usually called the kabbalistic Tree of Death, and sometimes the Qliphoths are called the Deathangels, or Angels of Death. The Qliphoths are found in the old Babylonian incantations, and that were used as evidence in favor of the antiquity of most of the cabalistic material.
  • There is yet another teaching, based on the previous one, that has reached some popularity among some modern magic movements: God is not good at all, but in fact evil. Proponents for this idea claims that the bible and torah clearly shows that God is cruel and sadistic. The Qliphoths are thought as rebels that fight against God and his cruelty. The magic order Dragon Rouge follows this idea.

In dwelling upon the nature of God and the universe, the mystics of the Talmudic period asserted, in contrast to Biblical transcendentalism, that "God is the dwelling-place of the universe; but the universe is not the dwelling-place of God". Possibly the designation ("place") for God, so frequently found in Talmudic-Midrashic literature, is due to this conception, just as Philo, in commenting on Gen. xxviii. 11 says, "God is called 'ha makom' (המקום "the place") because God encloses the universe, but is Himself not enclosed by anything" ("De Somniis," i. 11).

Spinoza may have had this passage in mind when he said that the ancient Jews did not separate God from the world. This conception of God may be pantheistic or panentheistic. It also postulates the union of man with God; both these ideas were further developed in the later Kabbalah.

Even in very early times Palestinian as well as Alexandrian theology recognized the two attributes of God, "middat hadin," the attribute of justice, and "middat ha-rahamim," the attribute of mercy (Midrash Sifre, Deut. 27); and so is the contrast between justice and mercy a fundamental doctrine of the Cabala. Other hypostasizations are represented by the ten agencies through which God created the world; namely, wisdom, insight, cognition, strength, power, inexorableness, justice, right, love, and mercy. While the Sefirot are based on these ten creative potentialities, it is especially the personification of wisdom which, in Philo, represents the totality of these primal ideas; and the Targ. Yer. i., agreeing with him, translates the first verse of the Bible as follows: "By wisdom God created the heaven and the earth."

So, also, the figure of Metatron passed into Kabbalah from the Talmud, where it played the rôle of the demiurgos (see Gnosticism), being expressly mentioned as God. Mention may also be made of the seven preexisting things enumerated in an old Baraita; namely, the Torah, repentance, paradise and hell, the throne of God, the Heavenly Temple, and the name of the Messiah (Talmud Pes. 54a). Although the origin of this doctrine must be sought probably in certain mythological ideas, the Platonic doctrine of preexistence has modified the older, simpler conception, and the preexistence of the seven must therefore be understood as an "ideal" preexistence, a conception that was later more fully developed in the Kabbalah.

The attempts of the mystics to bridge the gulf between God and the world are especially evident in the doctrine of the preexistence of the soul and of its close relation to God before it enters the human body — a doctrine taught by the Hellenistic sages (Wisdom viii. 19) as well as by the Palestinian rabbis.

Criticisms

Most forms of Kabbalah teach that the Sefirot are not distinct from the Ein-Sof, but are somehow within it. The idea that there are ten divine sefirot could evolve over time into the idea that "God is One being, yet in that One being there are Ten". This would be similar to the Christian belief in the Trinity, which states that while God is One, in that One there are three persons. This interpretation of Kabbalah in fact did occur among some European Jews in the 17th century.

Rabbi Leon Modena, a 17th century Venetian critic of kabbalah, wrote that if we were to accept the Kabbalah, then the Christian trinity would indeed be compatible with Judaism, as the Trinity closely resembles the Kabbalistic doctrine of sefirot. This critique was in response to the fact that some Jews went so far as to address individual sefirot individually in some of their prayers.

Kabbalah had many other opponents, notably Rabbi Yitzchak ben Sheshet Perfet (The Rivash); he stated that Kabbalah was "worse than Christianity", as it made God into 10, not just into three. The critique, however, is considered untenable. Most followers of Kabbalah never believed this interpretation of Kabbalah. The Christian Trinity concept posits that there are three persons existing within the Godhead, one of whom literally became a human being. In contrast, the mainstream understanding of the Kabbalistic sefirot holds that they have no mind or intelligence; further, they are not addressed in prayer, and they can not become a human being. They are conduits for interaction - not persons or beings.

Although it was criticized by a small number of Rabbis, Kabbalah has nevertheless been a fundamental part of most Jewish theology for many centuries, and is particularly influential in Hasidic and Sephardic thought. Gershom Scholem (the most famous scholar and historian of kabbalah in the twentieth century) has written that between 1500 and 1800 "kabbalah was widely considered to be the true Jewish theology,". More recently, however, some Jews in less traditional Orthodox movements have not ascribed to Kabbalah, seeing mysticism as inferior to philosophical rationalism, and Kabbalah has been rejected outright by most Jews in the Conservative and Reform movements. In the 1960s, Rabbi Saul Lieberman of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, who was widely known for his expertise in the Talmud and rabbinic literature, is reputed to have introduced a lecture by Scholem on Kabbalah with a statement that Kabbalah itself was nonsense, but the study of Kabbalah was scholarship. This view has become popular among many Jews, who view the subject as worthy of study, but who do not accept Kabbalah as teaching literal truths.

Kabbalah in Christianity and non-Jewish society

The term "Kabbalah" did not come into use until sometime in the 11th century, and at that time referred to the Jewish school of thought related to esoteric mysticism.

Since this time Kabbalistic works gained a wider audience outside of the Jewish community. As such, Christian versions of Kabbalah began to develop; by the early 18th century kabbalah had passed into widespread use by hermetic philosophers, neo-pagans and other new religious groups. Today this word can be used to describe many Jewish, Christian, or neo-pagan schools of esoteric mysticism. Take note that each of these groups has different sets of books that they hold as part of their chain of tradition, and they reject each other's interpretations.

Primary Jewish texts

The first book on Kabbalah to be written, and still extant today, is the Sefer Yetzirah ("Book of Creation"). The first commentaries on this small book were written in the 10th century, and the text itself is quoted as early as the sixth century. Its historical origins are unclear. It exists today in a number of recensions, up to 2500 words long. Like many Jewish mystical texts, the Sefer Yetzirah was written in such a way as to be meaningless to those who read it without an extensive background in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and Midrash.

The second of the important Jewish mystical works is the Bahir ("illumination"), also known as "The Midrash of Rabbi Nehuniah ben haKana". It is some 12,000 words long. First published in Provence in 1176, many Orthodox Jews believe that the author was Rabbi Nehuniah ben haKana, a Talmudic sage of the first century. Historians have shown that the book was likely written not long before it was published.

The most important work of Jewish mysticism is the Zohar (זהר "Splendor"). It is an esoteric mystical commentary on the Torah, written in Aramaic. Orthodox Jewish tradition maintains that it was written by Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai in the 2nd century. In the 13th century, a Spanish Jew by the name of Moshe de Leon claimed to discover the text of the Zohar, and the text was subsequently published and distributed throughout the Jewish world. Famed historian and scholar of Kabbalah Gershom Scholem has shown that de Leon himself was the author of the Zohar. Among his proofs was the text used 12th century Spanish grammar and word phrasings, and that the author did not have a correct knowledge of the land of Israel. The Zohar contains and elaborates upon much of the material found in Sefer Yetzirah and Sefer Bahir, and without question is the Kabbalistic work par excellance.

Kabbalistic teachings about the human soul

The Zohar posits that the human soul has three elements, the nefesh, ru'ach, and neshamah. The nefesh is found in all humans, and enters the physical body at birth. It is the source of one's physical and psychological nature. The next two parts of the soul are not implanted at birth, but are slowly created over time; their development depends on the actions and beliefs of the individual. They are said to only fully exist in people awakened spiritually. A common way of explaining the three parts of the soul is as follows:

• Nefesh (נפש) - the lower part, or animal part, of the soul. Is linked to instincts and bodily cravings.
• Ruach (רוח) - the middle soul, the spirit. It contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish between good and evil.
• Neshamah (נשמה) - the higher soul, or super-soul. This separates man from all other lifeforms. It is related to the intellect, and allows man to enjoy and benefit from the afterlife. This part of the soul is provided both to Jew and non-Jew alike at birth. It allows one to have some awareness of the existence and presence of God.

• Ruach HaKodesh (רוח הקודש) - a state of the soul that makes prophecy possible. Since the age of classical prophecy passed, no one receives the soul of prophesy any longer.
• Neshamah Yeseira - The supplemental soul that a Jew experience on Shabbat. It makes possible an enhanced spiritual enjoyment of the day. This exists only when one is observing Shabbat; it can be lost and gained depending on one's observance.
• Neshoma Kedosha - Provided to Jews at the age of majority (13 for boys, 12 for girls), and is related to the study and fulfillment of the Torah commandments. It exists only when one studies and follows Torah; it can be lost and gained depending on one's study and observance.

Following that, the word cabal came to mean a secret association of a few individuals who seek by cunning practices to obtain office and power.

Other terms which originally described religious associations but have come to refer in some way to dangerous or suspicious behavior include zealot, assassin, and thug.

Kabbalah and the Western Esoteric Tradition

The Western Esoteric (or Hermetic) Tradition, a major precursor to both the neo-Pagan and New Age movements which is also extant in various forms today, is heavily intertwined with various aspects of Kabbalah. Much of this has been changed from its Jewish roots due to the common esoteric practice of syncretism, but the core of the tradition is very recognizably present.

"Hermetic" Kabbalah, as it is sometimes called, probably reached its peak in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a 19th-century organization that was arguably the pinnacle of ceremonial magic (or, depending upon one's position, its ultimate descent into decadence). Within the Golden Dawn, Kabbalistic principles such as the ten Sephiroth were fused with Greek and Egyptian deities, the Enochian system of angelic magic of John Dee, and certain Eastern (particularly Hindu and Buddhist) concepts within the structure of a Masonic- or Rosicrucian-style esoteric order. Many of the Golden Dawn's rituals were exposed by the legendary occultist Aleister Crowley and were eventually compiled into book form by Israel Regardie, an author of some note.

Crowley made his mark on the use of Kabbalah with several of his writings; of these, perhaps the most illustrative is Liber 777. This book is quite simply a set of tables relating various parts of ceremonial magic and Eastern and Western religion to thirty-two numbers representing the ten spheres and twenty-two paths of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The attitude of syncretism displayed by Hermetic Kabbalists is plainly evident here, as one may simply check the table to see that Chesed (חסד "Mercy") corresponds to Jupiter, Isis, the color blue (on the Queen Scale), Poseidon, Brahma, and amethysts--none of which, certainly, the original Jewish Kabbalists had in mind!

See also