Kabbalah
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Kabbalah or Qabalah (
Traditional practitioners believe its earliest origins pre-date world religions, forming the primordial blueprint for Creation's philosophies, religions, sciences, arts, and political systems.
Though innumerable glosses, marginalia, commentaries, precedent works, satellite texts and other minor works contribute to an understanding of the Kabbalah as an evolving tradition, the major texts in the main line of Jewish mysticism that inarguably fall under the heading 'Kabbalah' are the Bahir, Zohar, Pardes Rimonim, and Etz Chayim ('Ein Sof').[11] The early Hekhalot writings are acknowledged as ancestral to the sensibilities of Kabbalah[12][11] and the Sefer Yetzirah—a brief document of only few pages written centuries before the high and late medieval works, detailing an alphanumeric vision of cosmology—may be understood as a kind of prelude to the canon of Kabbalah.[11]
Traditions
According to the
- Peshat (Hebrew: פשט lit. 'simple'): the direct interpretations of meaning.[16]
- Remez (רֶמֶז lit. 'hint[s]'): the allegoric meanings (through allusion).
- Derash (דְרָשׁ from the Hebrew darash: 'inquire' or 'seek'): midrashic (rabbinic) meanings, often with imaginative comparisons with similar words or verses.
- Sod (סוֹד, lit. 'secret' or 'mystery'): the inner, esoteric (metaphysical) meanings, expressed in kabbalah.
Kabbalah is considered by its followers as a necessary part of the study of
Modern academic-historical study of Jewish mysticism reserves the term kabbalah to designate the particular, distinctive doctrines that textually emerged fully expressed in the Middle Ages, as distinct from the earlier
- The Theosophical or Theosophical-Theurgic tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah (the main focus of the Zohar and Luria) seeks to understand and describe the divine realm using the imaginative and mythic symbols of human psychological experience. As an intuitive conceptual alternative to rationalist Jewish philosophy, particularly Maimonides' Aristotelianism, this speculation became the central stream of Kabbalah, and the usual reference of the term kabbalah. Its theosophy also implies the innate, centrally important theurgic influence of human conduct on redeeming or damaging the spiritual realms, as man is a divine microcosm, and the spiritual realms the divine macrocosm. The purpose of traditional theosophical kabbalah was to give the whole of normative Jewish religiouspractice this mystical metaphysical meaning.
- The Isaac of Acre) strives to achieve a mystical union with God, or nullification of the meditator in God's Active intellect. Abraham Abulafia's "Prophetic Kabbalah" was the supreme example of this, though marginal in Kabbalistic development, and his alternative to the program of theosophical Kabbalah. Abulafian meditation built upon the philosophy of Maimonides, whose following remained the rationalist threatto theosophical Kabbalists.
- The Magico-Talismanic tradition of Practical Kabbalah (in often unpublished manuscripts) endeavours to alter both the Divine realms and the World using practical methods. While theosophical interpretations of worship see its redemptive role as harmonising heavenly forces, Practical Kabbalah properly involved white-magical acts, and was censored by Kabbalists for only those completely pure of intent, as it relates to lower realms where purity and impurity are mixed. Consequently, it formed a separate minor tradition shunned from Kabbalah. Practical Kabbalah was prohibited by the Arizal until the Temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt and the required state of ritual purity is attainable.[20]: 31
According to Kabbalistic belief, early kabbalistic knowledge was transmitted orally by the Patriarchs,
It is hard to clarify with any degree of certainty the exact concepts within kabbalah. There are several different schools of thought with very different outlooks; however, all are accepted as correct.
Jewish and non-Jewish Kabbalah
From the
History of Jewish mysticism
Jewish mysticism |
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Origins
According to the traditional Kabbalistic understanding, Kabbalah dates from
Contemporary scholarship suggests that various schools of Jewish esotericism arose at different periods of Jewish history, each reflecting not only prior forms of mysticism, but also the intellectual and cultural milieu of that historical period. Answers to questions of transmission, lineage, influence, and innovation vary greatly and cannot be easily summarised.
Terms
Originally, Kabbalistic knowledge was believed to be an integral part of the Oral Torah, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai around the 13th century BCE according to its followers; although some believe that Kabbalah began with Adam.[29]
For a few centuries the esoteric knowledge was referred to by its aspect practice—meditation
From the 5th century BCE, when the works of the Tanakh were edited and canonised and the secret knowledge encrypted within the various writings and scrolls ("Megilot"), esoteric knowledge became referred to as Ma'aseh Merkavah (Hebrew: מַעֲשֶׂה מֶרְכָּבָה)[33] and Ma'aseh B'reshit (Hebrew: מַעֲשֶׂה בְּרֵאשִׁית),[34] respectively 'the act of the Chariot' and 'the act of Creation'. Merkabah mysticism alluded to the encrypted knowledge, and meditation methods within the book of the prophet Ezekiel describing his vision of the "Divine Chariot". B'reshit mysticism referred to the first chapter of Genesis (Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית) in the Torah that is believed to contain secrets of the creation of the universe and forces of nature. These terms received their later historical documentation and description in the second chapter of the Talmudic tractate Hagigah from the early centuries CE.
Confidence in new
Mystic elements of the Torah
When read by later generations of Kabbalists, the Torah's description of the creation in the Book of Genesis reveals mysteries about God himself, the true nature of Adam and Eve, the
The Bible provides ample additional material for mythic and mystical speculation.
The
Talmudic era
In early Rabbinic Judaism (the early centuries of the 1st millennium CE), the terms Ma'aseh Bereshit ('Works of Creation') and Ma'aseh Merkabah ('Works of the Divine Throne/Chariot') clearly indicate the Midrashic nature of these speculations; they are really based upon Genesis 1 and Ezekiel 1:4–28, while the names Sitrei Torah ('Hidden aspects of the Torah') (Talmud Hag. 13a) and Razei Torah ('Torah secrets') (Ab. vi. 1) indicate their character as secret lore.
Talmudic doctrine forbade the public teaching of esoteric doctrines and warned of their dangers. In the Mishnah (Hagigah 2:1), rabbis were warned to teach the mystical creation doctrines only to one student at a time.[37][38] To highlight the danger, in one Jewish aggadic ("legendary") anecdote, four prominent rabbis of the Mishnaic period (1st century CE) are said to have visited the Orchard (that is, Paradise, pardes, Hebrew: פרדס lit. 'orchard'):[39]
Four men entered pardes—Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher (Elisha ben Abuyah), and Akiba. Ben Azzai looked and died; Ben Zoma looked and went mad; Acher destroyed the plants; Akiba entered in peace and departed in peace.
In notable readings of this legend, only Rabbi Akiba was fit to handle the study of mystical doctrines. The
In contrast to the Kabbalists, Maimonides interprets pardes as philosophy and not mysticism.[42]
Pre-Kabbalistic schools
Early mystical literature
The mystical methods and doctrines of
Hasidei Ashkenaz
Another, separate influential mystical, theosophical, and pious movement, shortly before the arrival there of Kabbalistic theory, was the "
Medieval emergence of the Kabbalah
Modern scholars have identified several mystical brotherhoods that functioned in Europe starting in the 12th century. Some, such as the "Iyyun Circle" and the "Unique Cherub Circle", were truly esoteric, remaining largely anonymous. The first documented historical emergence of Theosophical Kabbalistic doctrine occurred among Jewish
Rishonim ("Elder Sages") of exoteric Judaism who were deeply involved in Kabbalistic activity, gave the Kabbalah wide scholarly acceptance, including Nahmanides and Bahya ben Asher (Rabbeinu Behaye) (died 1340), whose classic commentaries on the Torah reference Kabbalistic esotericism.
Many Orthodox Jews reject the idea that Kabbalah underwent significant historical development or change such as has been proposed above. After the composition known as the Zohar was presented to the public in the 13th century, the term "Kabbalah" began to refer more specifically to teachings derived from, or related to, the
Ecstatic Kabbalah
Contemporary with the Zoharic efflorescence of Spanish Theosophical-Theurgic Kabbalah, Spanish exilarch
Early modern era
Lurianic Kabbalah
Following the upheavals and dislocations in the Jewish world as a result of
The messianism of the Safed mystics culminated in Kabbalah receiving its biggest transformation in the Jewish world with the explication of its new interpretation from Isaac Luria (The ARI 1534–1572), by his disciples
Influence on non-Jewish society
From the European
Ban on studying Kabbalah
The Rabbinic ban on studying Kabbalah in Jewish society was lifted by the efforts of the 16th-century kabbalist
I have found it written that all that has been decreed Above forbidding open involvement in the Wisdom of Truth [Kabbalah] was [only meant for] the limited time period until the year 5,250 (1490 C.E.). From then on after is called the "Last Generation", and what was forbidden is [now] allowed. And permission is granted to occupy ourselves in the [study of] Zohar. And from the year 5,300 (1540 C.E.) it is most desirable that the masses both those great and small [in Torah], should occupy themselves [in the study of Kabbalah], as it says in the Raya M'hemna [a section of the Zohar]. And because in this merit King Mashiach will come in the future—and not in any other merit—it is not proper to be discouraged [from the study of Kabbalah].[49]
The question, however, is whether the ban ever existed in the first place.[according to whom?] Concerning the above quote by Avraham Azulai, it has found many versions in English, another is this
From the year 1540 and onward, the basic levels of Kabbalah must be taught publicly to everyone, young and old. Only through Kabbalah will we forever eliminate war, destruction, and man's inhumanity to his fellow man.[50]
The lines concerning the year 1490 are also missing from the Hebrew edition of Hesed L'Avraham, the source work that both of these quote from. Furthermore, by Azulai's view the ban was lifted thirty years before his birth, a time that would have corresponded with Haim Vital's publication of the teaching of Isaac Luria. Moshe Isserles understood there to be only a minor restriction, in his words, "One's belly must be full of meat and wine, discerning between the prohibited and the permitted."[51] He is supported by the Bier Hetiv, the Pithei Teshuva as well as the Vilna Gaon. The Vilna Gaon says, "There was never any ban or enactment restricting the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. Any who says there is has never studied Kabbalah, has never seen PaRDeS, and speaks as an ignoramus."[52][unreliable source?]
Sefardi and Mizrahi
The Kabbalah of the
His disciple
The Oriental Kabbalist tradition continues until today among Sephardi and Mizrachi Hakham sages and study circles. Among leading figures were the Yemenite
Maharal
One of the most innovative theologians in early-modern Judaism was
Sabbatian antinomian movements
The spiritual and mystical yearnings of many Jews remained frustrated after the death of Isaac Luria and his disciples and colleagues. No hope was in sight for many following the devastation and mass killings of the pogroms that followed in the wake of the Chmielnicki Uprising (1648–1654), the largest single massacre of Jews until the Holocaust, and it was at this time that a controversial scholar by the name of Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) captured the hearts and minds of the Jewish masses of that time with the promise of a newly minted messianic Millennialism in the form of his own personage.
His charisma, mystical teachings that included repeated pronunciations of the holy Tetragrammaton in public, tied to an unstable personality, and with the help of his greatest enthusiast, Nathan of Gaza, convinced the Jewish masses that the Jewish Messiah had finally come. It seemed that the esoteric teachings of Kabbalah had found their "champion" and had triumphed, but this era of Jewish history unravelled when Zevi became an apostate to Judaism by converting to Islam after he was arrested by the Ottoman Sultan and threatened with execution for attempting a plan to conquer the world and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Unwilling to give up their messianic expectations, a minority of Zevi's Jewish followers converted to Islam along with him.
Many of his followers, known as Sabbatians, continued to worship him in secret, explaining his conversion not as an effort to save his life but to recover the sparks of the holy in each religion, and most leading rabbis were always on guard to root them out. The Dönmeh movement in modern Turkey is a surviving remnant of the Sabbatian schism. Theologies developed by leaders of Sabbatian movements dealt with antinomian redemption of the realm of impurity through sin, based on Lurianic theory. Moderate views reserved this dangerous task for the divine messiah Sabbatai Zevi alone, while his followers remained observant Jews. Radical forms spoke of the messianic transcendence of Torah, and required Sabbatean followers to emulate him, either in private or publicly.
Due to the chaos caused in the Jewish world, the rabbinic prohibition against studying Kabbalah established itself firmly within the Jewish religion. One of the conditions allowing a man to study and engage himself in the Kabbalah was to be at least forty years old. This age requirement came about during this period and is not Talmudic in origin but rabbinic. Many Jews are familiar with this ruling, but are not aware of its origins.[54] Moreover, the prohibition is not halakhic in nature. According to Moses Cordovero, halakhically, one must be of age twenty to engage in the Kabbalah. Many famous kabbalists, including the ARI, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Yehuda Ashlag, were younger than twenty when they began.
The Sabbatian movement was followed by that of the
Modern era
Traditional Kabbalah
In the Oriental tradition of Kabbalah, Shalom Sharabi (1720–1777) from Yemen was a major esoteric clarifier of the works of the Ari. The Beit El Synagogue, "yeshivah of the kabbalists", which he came to head, was one of the few communities to bring Lurianic meditation into communal prayer.[57][58]
In the 20th century, Yehuda Ashlag (1885—1954) in Mandate Palestine became a leading esoteric kabbalist in the traditional mode, who translated the Zohar into Hebrew with a new approach in Lurianic Kabbalah.
Hasidic Judaism
Yisrael ben Eliezer Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760), founder of Hasidism in the area of Ukraine, spread teachings based on Lurianic Kabbalah, but adapted to a different aim of immediate psychological perception of Divine Omnipresence amidst the mundane. The emotional, ecstatic fervour of early Hasidism developed from previous Nistarim circles of mystical activity, but instead sought communal revival of the common folk by reframing Judaism around the central principle of devekut (mystical cleaving to God) for all. This new approach turned formerly esoteric elite kabbalistic theory into a popular social mysticism movement for the first time, with its own doctrines, classic texts, teachings and customs. From the Baal Shem Tov sprang the wide ongoing schools of Hasidic Judaism, each with different approaches and thought. Hasidism instituted a new concept of Tzadik leadership in Jewish mysticism, where the elite scholars of mystical texts now took on a social role as embodiments and intercessors of Divinity for the masses. With the 19th-century consolidation of the movement, leadership became dynastic.
Among later Hasidic schools
The Habad-Lubavitch intellectual school of Hasidism broke away from General-Hasidism's emotional faith orientation, by making the mind central as the route to the internal heart. Its texts combine what they view as rational investigation with explanation of Kabbalah through articulating unity in a common Divine essence. In recent times, the messianic element latent in Hasidism has come to the fore in Habad.
Haskalah opposition to mysticism
The Jewish
20th-century influence
Jewish mysticism has influenced the thought of some major Jewish theologians, philosophers, writers and thinkers in the 20th century, outside of Kabbalistic or Hasidic traditions. The first Chief Rabbi of Mandate Palestine,
Concepts
Concealed and revealed God
The nature of the divine prompted kabbalists to envision two aspects to God: (a) God in essence, absolutely
As a term describing the Infinite Godhead beyond Creation, Kabbalists viewed the Ein Sof itself as too sublime to be referred to directly in the Torah. It is not a Holy Name in Judaism, as no name could contain a revelation of the Ein Sof. Even terming it "No End" is an inadequate representation of its true nature, the description only bearing its designation in relation to Creation. However, the Torah does narrate God speaking in the first person, most memorably the first word of the Ten Commandments, a reference without any description or name to the simple Divine essence (termed also Atzmus Ein Sof – Essence of the Infinite) beyond even the duality of Infinitude/Finitude. In contrast, the term Ein Sof describes the Godhead as Infinite lifeforce first cause, continuously keeping all Creation in existence. The Zohar reads the first words of Genesis, BeReishit Bara Elohim – In the beginning God created, as "With (the level of) Reishit (Beginning) (the Ein Sof) created Elohim (God's manifestation in creation)":
At the very beginning the King made engravings in the supernal purity. A spark of blackness emerged in the sealed within the sealed, from the mystery of the Ayn Sof, a mist within matter, implanted in a ring, no white, no black, no red, no yellow, no colour at all. When He measured with the standard of measure, He made colours to provide light. Within the spark, in the innermost part, emerged a source, from which the colours are painted below; it is sealed among the sealed things of the mystery of Ayn Sof. It penetrated, yet did not penetrate its air. It was not known at all until, from the pressure of its penetration, a single point shone, sealed, supernal. Beyond this point nothing is known, so it is called reishit (beginning): the first word of all ...[66] "
The structure of emanations has been described in various ways:
Sephirot
The Sephirot (also spelled "sefirot"; singular sefirah) are the ten emanations and attributes of God with which he continually sustains the existence of the universe. The Zohar and other Kabbalistic texts elaborate on the emergence of the sephirot from a state of concealed potential in the Ein Sof until their manifestation in the mundane world. In particular, Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (known as "the Ramak"), describes how God emanated the myriad details of finite reality out of the absolute unity of Divine light via the ten sephirot, or vessels.[20]: 6
Ten Sephirot as process of Creation
According to Lurianic cosmology, the sephirot correspond to various levels of creation (ten sephirot in each of the Four Worlds, and four worlds within each of the larger four worlds, each containing ten sephirot, which themselves contain ten sephirot, to an infinite number of possibilities),[68] and are emanated from the Creator for the purpose of creating the universe. The sephirot are considered revelations of the Creator's will (ratzon),[69] and they should not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different ways the one God reveals his will through the Emanations. It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes.
Ten Sephirot as process of ethics
Divine creation by means of the Ten Sephirot is an ethical process. They represent the different aspects of Morality. Loving-Kindness is a possible moral justification found in Chessed, and Gevurah is the Moral Justification of Justice and both are mediated by Mercy which is Rachamim. However, these pillars of morality become immoral once they become extremes. When Loving-Kindness becomes extreme it can lead to sexual depravity and lack of Justice to the wicked. When Justice becomes extreme, it can lead to torture and the Murder of innocents and unfair punishment.
"Righteous" humans (tzadikim plural of
Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, wrote Tomer Devorah (Palm Tree of Deborah), in which he presents an ethical teaching of Judaism in the kabbalistic context of the ten sephirot. Tomer Devorah has become also a foundational Musar text.[70]
Partzufim
The most esoteric
Descending spiritual worlds
Medieval Kabbalists believed that all things are linked to God through these
Hasidic thought extends the divine immanence of Kabbalah by holding that God is all that really exists, all else being completely undifferentiated from God's perspective. This view can be defined as acosmic monistic panentheism. According to this philosophy, God's existence is higher than anything that this world can express, yet he includes all things of this world within his divine reality in perfect unity, so that the creation effected no change in him at all. This paradox as seen from dual human and divine perspectives is dealt with at length in Chabad texts.[72]
Origin of evil
Among problems considered in the Hebrew Kabbalah is the theological issue of the nature and origin of evil. In the views of some Kabbalists this conceives "evil" as a "quality of God", asserting that negativity enters into the essence of the Absolute. In this view it is conceived that the Absolute needs evil to "be what it is", i.e., to exist.[74] Foundational texts of Medieval Kabbalism conceived evil as a demonic parallel to the holy, called the Sitra Achra (the "Other Side"), and the qlippoth (the "shells/husks") that cover and conceal the holy, are nurtured from it, and yet also protect it by limiting its revelation. Scholem termed this element of the Spanish Kabbalah a "Jewish gnostic" motif, in the sense of dual powers in the divine realm of manifestation. In a radical notion, the root of evil is found within the 10 holy Sephirot, through an imbalance of Gevurah, the power of "Strength/Judgement/Severity".[citation needed]
Gevurah is necessary for Creation to exist as it counterposes
Role of Man
Kabbalistic doctrine gives man the central role in Creation, as his soul and body correspond to the supernal divine manifestations. In the Christian Kabbalah this scheme was universalised to describe harmonia mundi, the harmony of Creation within man.
Medieval kabbalah elaborates particular reasons for each Biblical
Levels of the soul
The Kabbalah 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 can be developed 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:[citation needed]
- Nefesh (נֶפֶשׁ): the lower part, or "animal part", of the soul. It is linked to instincts and bodily cravings. This part of the soul is provided at birth.
- Ruach (רוּחַ): the middle soul, the "spirit". It contains the moral virtues and the ability to distinguish between good and evil.
- Neshamah (נְשָׁמָה): the higher soul, or "super-soul". This separates man from all other life-forms. It is related to the intellect and allows man to enjoy and benefit from the afterlife. It allows one to have some awareness of the existence and presence of God.
- Chayyah (חיה): The part of the soul that allows one to have an awareness of the divine life force itself.
- Yehidah (יחידה): The highest plane of the soul, in which one can achieve as full a union with God as is possible.
Reincarnation
Reincarnation, the transmigration of the soul after death, was introduced into Judaism as a central esoteric tenet of Kabbalah from the Medieval period onwards, called Gilgul neshamot ("cycles of the soul"). The concept does not appear overtly in the Hebrew Bible or classic rabbinic literature, and was rejected by various Medieval Jewish philosophers. However, the Kabbalists explained a number of scriptural passages in reference to Gilgulim. The concept became central to the later Kabbalah of Isaac Luria, who systemised it as the personal parallel to the cosmic process of rectification. Through Lurianic Kabbalah and Hasidic Judaism, reincarnation entered popular Jewish culture as a literary motif.[80]
Tzimtzum, Shevirah and Tikkun
Tzimtzum (Constriction/Concentration) is the primordial cosmic act whereby God "contracted" His infinite light, leaving a "void" into which the light of existence was poured. This allowed the emergence of independent existence that would not become nullified by the pristine Infinite Light, reconciling the unity of the Ein Sof with the plurality of creation. This changed the first creative act into one of withdrawal/exile, the antithesis of the ultimate Divine Will. In contrast, a new emanation after the Tzimtzum shone into the vacuum to begin creation, but led to an initial instability called Tohu (Chaos), leading to a new crisis of Shevirah (Shattering) of the sephirot vessels. The shards of the broken vessels fell down into the lower realms, animated by remnants of their divine light, causing primordial exile within the Divine Persona before the creation of man. Exile and enclothement of higher divinity within lower realms throughout existence requires man to complete the Tikkun olam (Rectification) process. Rectification Above corresponds to the reorganization of the independent sephirot into relating Partzufim (Divine Personas), previously referred to obliquely in the Zohar. From the catastrophe stems the possibility of self-aware Creation, and also the Kelipot (Impure Shells) of previous Medieval kabbalah. The metaphorical anthropomorphism of the partzufim accentuates the sexual unifications of the redemption process, while Gilgul reincarnation emerges from the scheme. Uniquely, Lurianism gave formerly private mysticism the urgency of Messianic social involvement.
According to interpretations of Luria, the catastrophe stemmed from the "unwillingness" of the residue imprint after the Tzimtzum to relate to the new vitality that began creation. The process was arranged to shed and harmonise the Divine Infinity with the latent potential of evil.[81] The creation of Adam would have redeemed existence, but his sin caused new shevirah of Divine vitality, requiring the Giving of the Torah to begin Messianic rectification. Historical and individual history becomes the narrative of reclaiming exiled Divine sparks.
Linguistic mysticism and the mystical Torah
Kabbalistic thought extended
The reapers of the Field are the Comrades, masters of this wisdom, because Malkhut is called the Apple Field, and She grows sprouts of secrets and new meanings of Torah. Those who constantly create new interpretations of Torah are the ones who reap Her.[82]
As early as the 1st century BCE Jews believed that the Torah and other canonical texts contained encoded messages and hidden meanings. Gematria is one method for discovering its hidden meanings. In this system, each Hebrew letter also represents a number. By converting letters to numbers, Kabbalists were able to find a hidden meaning in each word. This method of interpretation was used extensively by various schools.
In contemporary interpretation of kabbalah, Sanford Drob makes cognitive sense of this linguistic mythos by relating it to postmodern philosophical concepts described by Jacques Derrida and others, where all reality embodies narrative texts with infinite plurality of meanings brought by the reader. In this dialogue, kabbalah survives the nihilism of Deconstruction by incorporating its own Lurianic Shevirah, and by the dialectical paradox where man and God imply each other.[83]
Cognition, mysticism, or values
Kabbalists as mystics
The founder of the academic study of Jewish mysticism,
Paradoxical coincidence of opposites
In bringing Theosophical Kabbalah into contemporary intellectual understanding, using the tools of modern and postmodern
Metaphysics or axiology
By expressing itself using
Primary texts
Like the rest of the rabbinic literature, the texts of kabbalah were once part of an ongoing oral tradition, though, over the centuries, much of the oral tradition has been written down.
Jewish forms of esotericism existed over 2,000 years ago. Ben Sira (born c. 170 BCE) warns against it, saying: "You shall have no business with secret things".[88] Nonetheless, mystical studies were undertaken and resulted in mystical literature, the first being the Apocalyptic literature of the second and first pre-Christian centuries and which contained elements that carried over to later kabbalah.
Throughout the centuries since, many texts have been produced, among them the ancient descriptions of Sefer Yetzirah, the Heichalot mystical ascent literature, the Bahir,
Scholarship
The first modern-academic historians of Judaism, the "Wissenschaft des Judentums" school of the 19th century, framed Judaism in solely rational terms in the emancipatory Haskalah spirit of their age. They opposed kabbalah and restricted its significance from Jewish historiography. In the mid-20th century, it was left to Gershom Scholem to overturn their stance, establishing the flourishing present-day academic investigation of Jewish mysticism, and making Heichalot, Kabbalistic and Hasidic texts the objects of scholarly critical-historical study. In Scholem's opinion, the mythical and mystical components of Judaism were at least as important as the rational ones, and he thought that they, rather than the exoteric Halakha or intellectualist Jewish philosophy, were the living subterranean stream in historical Jewish development that periodically broke out to renew the Jewish spirit and social life of the community. Scholem's magisterial Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) among his seminal works, though representing scholarship and interpretations that have subsequently been challenged and revised within the field,[91] remains the only academic survey studying all main historical periods of Jewish mysticism[92]
The
.Moshe Idel has opened up research on the Ecstatic Kabbalah alongside the theosophical, and has called for new multi-disciplinary approaches, beyond the philological and historical that have dominated until now, to include
Claims for authority
Historians have noted that most claims for the authority of kabbalah involve an argument of the antiquity of authority.
As well as ascribing ancient origins to texts, and reception of
Criticism
This article is of a series on |
Criticism of religion |
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Distinction between Jews and non-Jews
One point of view is represented by the Hasidic work Tanya (1797), in order to argue that Jews have a different character of soul: while a non-Jew, according to the author Shneur Zalman of Liadi (born 1745), can achieve a high level of spirituality, similar to an angel, his soul is still fundamentally different in character, from a Jewish one.[98] A similar view is found in Kuzari, an early medieval philosophical book by Yehuda Halevi (1075–1141 CE).[99]
Another prominent Habad rabbi, Abraham Yehudah Khein (born 1878), believed that spiritually elevated Gentiles have essentially Jewish souls, "who just lack the formal conversion to Judaism", and that unspiritual Jews are "Jewish merely by their birth documents".[100] The great 20th-century Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag viewed the terms "Jews" and "Gentile" as different levels of perception, available to every human soul.
David Halperin
However, a number of renowned Kabbalists claimed the exact opposite, stressing universality of all human souls and providing universal interpretations of the Kabbalistic tradition, including its Lurianic version. In their view, Kabbalah transcends the borders of Judaism and can serve as a basis of inter-religious theosophy and a universal religion.[citation needed] Pinchas Elijah Hurwitz, a prominent Lithuanian-Galician Kabbalist of the 18th century and a moderate proponent of the Haskalah, called for brotherly love and solidarity between all nations, and believed that Kabbalah can empower everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike, with prophetic abilities.[102]
The works of
A prime representative of this humanist stream in Kabbalah was Elijah Benamozegh, who explicitly praised Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, as well as a whole range of ancient pagan mystical systems. He believed that Kabbalah can reconcile the differences between the world religions, which represent different facets and stages of the universal human spirituality. In his writings, Benamozegh interprets the New Testament, Hadith, Vedas, Avesta and pagan mysteries according to the Kabbalistic theosophy.[103]
E. R. Wolfson[104] provides numerous examples from the 17th to the 20th centuries, which would challenge the view of Halperin as well as the notion that "modern Judaism" has rejected or dismissed this "outdated aspect" of the religion and, he argues, there are still Kabbalists today who harbor this view. He argues that, while it is accurate to say that many Jews do and would find this distinction offensive, it is inaccurate to say that the idea has been totally rejected in all circles. As Wolfson has argued, it is an ethical demand on the part of scholars to continue to be vigilant with regard to this matter and in this way the tradition can be refined from within.
Medieval views
The idea that there are ten divine
The pre-Kabbalistic Saadia Gaon wrote that Jews who believe in reincarnation have adopted a non-Jewish belief.[105]
The Kabbalist medieval rabbinic sage Nachmanides (13th century), classic debater against Maimonidean rationalism, provides background to many kabbalistic ideas. An entire book entitled Gevuras Aryeh was authored by Yaakov Yehuda Aryeh Leib Frenkel and originally published in 1915, specifically to explain and elaborate on the kabbalistic concepts addressed by Nachmanides in his classic commentary to the Five books of Moses.
Around the 1230s, Rabbi Meir ben Simon of Narbonne wrote an epistle (included in his Milḥemet Mitzvah) against his contemporaries, the early Kabbalists, characterizing them as blasphemers who even approach heresy. He particularly singled out the Sefer Bahir, rejecting the attribution of its authorship to the tanna R. Neḥunya ben ha-Kanah and describing some of its content as truly heretical.
Vilna Gaon (1720–1797) held the Zohar and Luria in deep reverence, critically emending classic Judaic texts from historically accumulated errors by his acute acumen and scholarly belief in the perfect unity of Kabbalah revelation and Rabbinic Judaism. Though a Lurianic Kabbalist, his commentaries sometimes chose Zoharic interpretation over Luria when he felt the matter lent itself to a more exoteric view. Although proficient in mathematics and sciences and recommending their necessity for understanding Talmud, he had no use for canonical medieval Jewish philosophy, declaring that Maimonides had been "misled by the accursed philosophy" in denying belief in the external occult matters of demons, incantations and amulets.[108]
Views of Kabbalists regarding
Orthodox Judaism
Pinchas Giller and
In contemporary
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994), an ultra-rationalist Modern Orthodox philosopher, referred to Kabbalah "a collection of "pagan superstitions" and "idol worship" in remarks given in 1990.[123]
Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism
Kabbalah tended to be rejected by most Jews in the Conservative and Reform movements, though its influences were not completely eliminated. While it was generally not studied as a discipline, the Kabbalistic Kabbalat Shabbat service remained part of liberal liturgy, as did the Yedid Nefesh prayer. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, Saul Lieberman of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America is reputed to have introduced a lecture by Scholem on Kabbalah with a statement that Kabbalah itself was "nonsense", but the academic study of Kabbalah was "scholarship". This view became popular among many Jews, who viewed the subject as worthy of study, but who did not accept Kabbalah as teaching literal truths.
According to
Many western Jews insisted that their future and their freedom required shedding what they perceived as parochial orientalism. They fashioned a Judaism that was decorous and strictly rational (according to 19th-century European standards), denigrating Kabbalah as backward, superstitious, and marginal.[124]
However, in the late 20th century and early 21st century there has been a revival in interest in Kabbalah in all branches of liberal Judaism. The Kabbalistic 12th-century prayer
According to Artson:
Ours is an age hungry for meaning, for a sense of belonging, for holiness. In that search, we have returned to the very Kabbalah our predecessors scorned. The stone that the builders rejected has become the head cornerstone (Psalm 118:22)... Kabbalah was the last universal theology adopted by the entire Jewish people, hence faithfulness to our commitment to positive-historical Judaism mandates a reverent receptivity to Kabbalah.[35]
The Reconstructionist movement, under the leadership of Arthur Green in the 1980s and 1990s, and with the influence of Zalman Schachter Shalomi, brought a strong openness to Kabbalah and hasidic elements that then came to play prominent roles in the Kol ha-Neshamah siddur series.
Contemporary study
Teaching of classic esoteric kabbalah texts and practice remained traditional until recent times, passed on in Judaism from master to disciple, or studied by leading rabbinic scholars. This changed in the 20th century, through conscious reform and the secular openness of knowledge. In contemporary times kabbalah is studied in four very different, though sometimes overlapping, ways.
The traditional method, employed among Jews since the 16th century, continues in learned study circles. Its prerequisite is to either be born Jewish or be a convert and to join a group of kabbalists under the tutelage of a rabbi, since the 18th century more likely a Hasidic one, though others exist among Sephardi-Mizrachi, and Lithuanian rabbinic scholars. Beyond elite, historical esoteric kabbalah, the public-communally studied texts of Hasidic thought explain kabbalistic concepts for wide spiritual application, through their own concern with popular psychological perception of Divine Panentheism.
A second, new universalist form, is the method of modern-style Jewish organisations and writers, who seek to disseminate kabbalah to every man, woman and child regardless of race or class, especially since the Western interest in mysticism from the 1960s. These derive from various cross-denominational Jewish interests in kabbalah, and range from considered theology to popularised forms that often adopt New Age terminology and beliefs for wider communication. These groups highlight or interpret kabbalah through non-particularist, universalist aspects.
A third way are non-Jewish organisations, mystery schools, initiation bodies, fraternities and secret societies, the most popular of which are Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and the Golden Dawn, although hundreds of similar societies claim a kabbalistic lineage. These derive from syncretic combinations of Jewish kabbalah with Christian, occultist or contemporary New Age spirituality. As a separate spiritual tradition in Western esotericism since the Renaissance, with different aims from its Jewish origin, the non-Jewish traditions differ significantly and do not give an accurate representation of the Jewish spiritual understanding (or vice versa).[125]
Fourthly, since the mid-20th century, historical-critical scholarly investigation of all eras of Jewish mysticism has flourished into an established department of university Jewish studies. Where the first academic historians of Judaism in the 19th century opposed and marginalised kabbalah, Gershom Scholem and his successors repositioned the historiography of Jewish mysticism as a central, vital component of Judaic renewal through history. Cross-disciplinary academic revisions of Scholem's and others' theories are regularly published for wide readership.
Universalist Jewish organisations
In recent decades, Kabbalah has seen a resurgence of interest, with several modern groups and individuals exploring its profound teachings. These contemporary interpretations of Kabbalah offer a fresh perspective on this ancient mystical tradition, often bridging the gap between traditional wisdom and modern thought. Some of these interpretations emphasize universalist and philosophical approaches, seeking to enrich secular disciplines through the lens of Kabbalistic insights. Others have gained attention for their unique blends of spirituality and popular culture, attracting followers from diverse backgrounds. These modern expressions of Kabbalah showcase its enduring appeal and relevance in today's world.
Bnei Baruch is a group of Kabbalah students, based in Israel. Study materials are available in over 25 languages for free online or at printing cost. Michael Laitman established Bnei Baruch in 1991, following the passing of his teacher, Ashlag's son Rav Baruch Ashlag. Laitman named his group Bnei Baruch (sons of Baruch) to commemorate the memory of his mentor. The teaching strongly suggests restricting one's studies to 'authentic sources', kabbalists of the direct lineage of master to disciple.[126][127]
The New Kabbalah, website and books by Sanford L. Drob, is a scholarly intellectual investigation of the Lurianic symbolism in the perspective of modern and postmodern intellectual thought. It seeks a "new kabbalah" rooted in the historical tradition through its academic study, but universalised through dialogue with modern philosophy and psychology. This approach seeks to enrich the secular disciplines, while uncovering intellectual insights formerly implicit in kabbalah's essential myth:[130]
By being equipped with the nonlinear concepts of dialectical, psychoanalytic, and deconstructive thought we can begin to make sense of the kabbalistic symbols in our own time. So equipped, we are today probably in a better position to understand the philosophical aspects of the kabbalah than were the kabbalists themselves.[131]
The Kabbalah of Information is described in the 2018 book From Infinity to Man: The Fundamental Ideas of Kabbalah Within the Framework of Information Theory and Quantum Physics written by Ukrainian-born professor and businessman Eduard Shyfrin. The main tenet of the teaching is "In the beginning He created information", rephrasing the famous saying of Nahmanides, "In the beginning He created primordial matter and He didn't create anything else, just shaped it and formed it."[132]
Hasidic
Since the 18th century, Jewish mystical development has continued in Hasidic Judaism, turning kabbalah into a social revival with texts that internalise mystical thought. Among different schools,
Hasidic thought instructs in the predominance of spiritual form over physical matter, the advantage of matter when it is purified, and the advantage of form when integrated with matter. The two are to be unified so one cannot detect where either begins or ends, for "the Divine beginning is implanted in the end and the end in the beginning" (Sefer Yetzira 1:7). The One God created both for one purpose – to reveal the holy light of His hidden power. Only both united complete the perfection desired by the Creator.[133]
Neo-Hasidic
From the early 20th century, Neo-Hasidism expressed a modernist or non-Orthodox Jewish interest in Jewish mysticism, becoming influential among Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionalist Jewish denominations from the 1960s, and organised through the Jewish Renewal and Chavurah movements. The writings and teachings of Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Arthur Green, Lawrence Kushner, Herbert Weiner and others, has sought a critically selective, non-fundamentalist neo- Kabbalistic and Hasidic study and mystical spirituality among modernist Jews. The contemporary proliferation of scholarship by Jewish mysticism academia has contributed to critical adaptions of Jewish mysticism. Arthur Green's translations from the religious writings of Hillel Zeitlin conceive the latter to be a precursor of contemporary Neo-Hasidism. Reform rabbi Herbert Weiner's Nine and a Half Mystics: The Kabbala Today (1969), a travelogue among Kabbalists and Hasidim, brought perceptive insights into Jewish mysticism to many Reform Jews. Leading Reform philosopher Eugene Borowitz described the Orthodox Hasidic Adin Steinsaltz (The Thirteen Petalled Rose) and Aryeh Kaplan as major presenters of Kabbalistic spirituality for modernists today.[134]
Rav Kook
The writings of Abraham Isaac Kook (1864–1935), first chief rabbi of Mandate Palestine and visionary, incorporate kabbalistic themes through his own poetic language and concern with human and divine unity. His influence is in the Religious Zionist community, who follow his aim that the legal and imaginative aspects of Judaism should interfuse:
Due to the alienation from the "secret of God" [i.e. Kabbalah], the higher qualities of the depths of Godly life are reduced to trivia that do not penetrate the depth of the soul. When this happens, the most mighty force is missing from the soul of nation and individual, and Exile finds favor essentially... We should not negate any conception based on rectitude and awe of Heaven of any form—only the aspect of such an approach that desires to negate the mysteries and their great influence on the spirit of the nation. This is a tragedy that we must combat with counsel and understanding, with holiness and courage.[135]
Mandaean parallels
Nathaniel Deutsch writes:
Initially, these interactions [between Mandaeans and Jewish mystics in Babylonia from Late Antiquity to the medieval period] resulted in shared magical and angelological traditions. During this phase the parallels which exist between Mandaeism and Hekhalot mysticism would have developed. At some point, both Mandaeans and Jews living in Babylonia began to develop similar cosmogonic and theosophic traditions involving an analogous set of terms, concepts, and images. At present it is impossible to say whether these parallels resulted primarily from Jewish influence on Mandaeans, Mandaean influence on Jews, or from cross fertilization. Whatever their original source, these traditions eventually made their way into the priestly – that is, esoteric – Mandaean texts ... and into the Kabbalah.[136]: 222
See also
- Aggadah
- Ayin and Yesh
- English Qaballa
- Gnosticism
- Jewish astrology
- Ka-Bala board game
- List of Jewish Kabbalists
- Mandaeism
- Notarikon
- Temurah (Kabbalah)
- The Four Who Entered Paradise
Citations
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- ^ Bible, nor in rabbinic tradition was there a term which could fulfill the need of the kabbalists in their speculations on the nature of God. "Know that Ein-Sof is not alluded to either in the Pentateuch, the Prophets, or the Hagiographa, nor in the writings of the rabbis. But the mystics had a vague tradition about it" (Sefer Ma'arekhet ha-Elohut). The term Ein-Sof is found in kabbalistic literatureafter 1200.
- ^ "אינסוף". Morfix, מורפיקס. Melingo Ltd. Archived from the original on 27 February 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
- ^ Chasidism. These schools can be categorized further based on individual masters and their disciples.
- Pardes interpretation of Torahand existence. From www.kabbalaonline.org
- ^ "The Freedom | Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) | Kabbalah Library – Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute". Kabbalah.info. Archived from the original on 19 April 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
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- ^ Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, p. 31
- ^ a b c
Ginsburgh, Rabbi Yitzchak (2006). What You Need to Know about Kabbalah. Gal Einai. ISBN 965-7146-119.
- ^ Megillah 14a, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4:22, Ruth Rabbah 1:2, Aryeh Kaplan Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide pp.44–48
- ^ Yehuda Ashlag; Preface to the Wisdom of Truth p.12 section 30 and p.105 bottom section of the left column as preface to the "Talmud Eser HaSfirot"
- ^ See Shem Mashmaon by Shimon Agasi. It is a commentary on Otzrot Haim by Haim Vital. In the introduction he lists five major schools of thought as to how to understand the Haim Vital's understanding of the concept of Tzimtzum.
- ^ See Yechveh Daat Vol 3, section 47 by Ovadiah Yosef
- ^ See Ktavim Hadashim published by Yaakov Hillel of Ahavat Shalom for a sampling of works by Haim Vital attributed to Isaac Luria that deal with other works.
- ^ Wagner, Matthew. "Kabbala goes to yeshiva - Magazine - Jerusalem Post". The Jerusalem Post | Jpost.com. Jpost.com. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
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- ^ a b Artson, Bradley Shavit Archived 2011-07-29 at the Wayback Machine. From the Periphery to the Centre: Kabbalah and the Conservative Movement, United Synagogue Review, Spring 2005, Vol. 57 No. 2
- ^ "Is Lilith Just a Mythical Monster, or Is There Any Biblical Truth?". biblestudytools.com. Archived from the original on 2022-12-19. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
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- ^ "Chagigah 2:1". www.sefaria.org. Archived from the original on 2019-02-19. Retrieved 2019-08-18.
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- ^ A. W. Streane, A Translation of the Treatise Chagigah from the Babylonian Talmud Cambridge University Press, 1891. p. 83.
- Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901–1906.
- ^ Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Torah 4:13
- ^ Aryeh Kaplan, Meditation and the Bible and Meditation and Kabbalah, Samuel Weiser Books
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- Renaissance Studies and Academic study of Western esotericismtoday
- ^ Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) by Gershom Scholem became the foundational text for Judaic Kabbalah academia. Scholem critiques most earlier non-Jewish scholarly presentations of Kabbalah, while dismissing occult and popular interpretations of the Judaic sources
- ^ Rabbi Avraham Azulai quoted in Erdstein, Baruch Emanuel. The Need to Learn Kabbala Archived 2008-02-05 at the Wayback Machine
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- ^ Shulhan Arukh 246:4 S"K 19
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- ^ Joseph Dan, Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, chapter on the Contemporary Era
- ^ Such as the theological novel The Town Beyond The Wall by Elie Wiesel. Norman Lamm gives a Biblical, Midrashic and Kabbalistic exegesis of it in Faith and Doubt: Studies in Traditional Jewish Thought, Ktav pub.
- ^ Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth-Century Thought, Moshe Idel, University of Pennsylvania Press 2009
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- ^ Zohar I, 15a English translation from Jewish Mysticism – An Anthology, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Oneworld pub, p.120-121
- ^ As Zohar I, 15a continues: "Zohar-Radiance, Concealed of the Concealed, struck its aura. The aura touched and did not touch this point."
- ^ See Otzrot Haim: Sha'ar TNT"A for a short explanation. The vast majority of the Lurianic system deals only with the complexities found in the world of Atzilut as is explained in the introductions to both Otzrot Haim and Eitz Haim.
- ^ The Song of the Soul, Yechiel Bar-Lev, p.73
- ^ J.H.Laenen, Jewish Mysticism, p.164
- ^ "Kabbalah: New Kabbalah". Archived from the original on 2020-01-29. Retrieved 2020-02-07.
- ^ Wineberg, chs. 20–21
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- ^ The Tree of Life - Kuntres Eitz HaChayim, A classic chassidic treatise on the mystic core of spiritual vitality. Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, translated by Eliyahu Touger, Sichos in English
- ^ Tanya chapter 29: "In truth there is no substance whatever in the sitra achra, wherefore it is compared to darkness which has no substance whatever and, consequently is banished in the presence of light.....although it possesses abundant vitality, nevertheless has no vitality of its own, G‑d forbid, but derives it from the realm of holiness.... Therefore it is completely nullified in the presence of holiness, as darkness is nullified before physical light, except that in regard to the holiness of the divine soul in man, the Holy One blessed be He, has given the animal soul permission and ability to raise itself in order that man should be challenged to overcome it and to humble it by his abhorring in himself that which is despicable. And "Through the impulse from below comes an impulse from Above", fulfilling "Thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord", depriving it of its dominion and power and withdrawing from it the strength and authority which had been given it to rise up against the light of the holiness of the divine soul"
- ^ "Tanya chapter 26". Archived from the original on 2020-08-02. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
- ^ Joseph Dan, Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, chapter on "Christian Kabbalah"
- ^ (Otzar Eden Ganuz, Oxford Ms. 1580, fols. 163b-164a; see also Hayei Haolam Haba, Oxford 1582, fol. 12a)
- ^ "What Judaism Says About Reincarnation". Archived from the original on 2023-04-17. Retrieved 2018-02-01.
- ^ Joseph Dan, Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction, tentative analysis of Gershom Scholem and Isaiah Tishby of Luria's scheme
- ^ Moshe Cordovero, Or Ha-Hammah on Zohar III, 106a
- ^ [3] Archived 2012-07-17 at the Wayback Machine www.newkabbalah.com, Kabbalah and Postmodernism: A Dialogue, Sanford L. Drob, Peter Lang Publishing, 2009
- ^ Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, Princeton University Press 1994, Chapter 6 Visionary Gnosis and the Role of the Imagination in Theosophic Kabbalah
- ^ In Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, First lecture: General Characteristics of Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem discusses the difference between symbolism used by Kabbalah, and allegory used by Philosophy. Allegory dispenses with the analogue once grasped. Symbolism, akin to mystical experience, retains the symbol as the best way to express an inexpressible truth beyond itself
- ^ "Kabbalah: The New Kabbalah" Archived 2012-07-17 at the Wayback Machine. Symbols of the Kabbalah: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Jason Aronson 2000, the first comprehensive interpretation of the entirety of the theosophical Kabbalah from a contemporary philosophical and psychological point of view, and the first effort to articulate a comprehensive modern kabbalistic theology
- ^ a b "Kabbalah: New Kabbalah" Archived 2020-01-29 at the Wayback Machine. Kabbalah and Postmodernism: A Dialogue, Sanford Drob, Peter Lang publishers 2009. "Examines the convergence between Jewish mystical ideas and the thought of Jacques Derrida, the founder of deconstruction, and puts this convergence in the service of a theology that not only survives the challenges of atheism, cultural relativism, and anti-foundationalism, but welcomes and includes these ideas. Challenges certain long-held philosophical and theological beliefs, including the assumptions that the insights of mystical experience are unavailable to human reason and inexpressible in linguistic terms, that the God of traditional theology either does or does not exist, that systematic theology must provide a univocal account of God, man, and the world, that truth is absolute and not continually subject to radical revision, and that the truth of propositions in philosophy and theology excludes the truth of their opposites and contradictions."
- ^ Sirach iii. 22; compare Talmud, Hagigah, 13a; Midrash Genesis Rabbah, viii.
- ^ "Overview of Chassidut (Chassidus) |". Inner.org. 2014-02-12. Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- ^ The Founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, cautioned against the layman learning Kabbalah without its Hasidic explanation. He saw this as the cause of the contemporary mystical heresies of Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank. Cited in The Great Maggid by Jacob Immanuel Schochet, quoting Derech Mitzvosecha by Menachem Mendel Schneersohn
- ^ Important revisionism includes: Kabbalah: New Perspectives, Moshe Idel, Yale University Press 1990. An overview of contemporary scholarship: Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: New Insights and Scholarship (Jewish Studies in the Twenty-First Century), edited by Frederick E. Greenspahn, NYU Press 2011
- ^ "As the Zohar is the canonical text of the Kabbalah, so, in a sense, is Scholem's Major Trends the canonical modern work on the nature and history of Jewish mysticism. For a sophisticated understanding,...Major Trends is a major port of entry through which one must pass" Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Columbia University, book review cited on back cover of Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
- ^ [4] Archived September 21, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Daniel Matt". www.srhe.ucsb.edu. Archived from the original on 2012-08-28.
- ^ Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, p.28
- ^ See, e.g., Joseph Dan's discussion in his Circle of the Unique Cherub
- ^ A Guide to the Zohar, Arthur Green, Stanford University Press 2003, Chapter 17 The Question of Authorship
- ^ סידור הרב, שער אכילת מצה
- ^ "Sefer Kuzari". www.sefaria.org. Archived from the original on 2018-02-10. Retrieved 2018-02-09.
- ^ ר' אברהם חן, ביהדות התורה
- ^ David Halperin, The Seductiveness of Jewish Myth
- ^ Love of one's Neighbour in Pinhas Hurwitz's Sefer ha-Berit, Resianne Fontaine, Studies in Hebrew Language and Jewish Culture, Presented to Albert van der Heide on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, p.244-268.
- ^ Israel and Humanity, Elijah Benamozegh, Paulist Press, 1995
- ^ Wolfson, E. R. Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism, Oxford University Press, 2006, ch. 1.
- Emunot v'Deot6:8
- ^ Maimonides' responsa siman (117 (Blau) Archived 2021-04-20 at the Wayback Machine / 373 (Freimann) Archived 2021-04-20 at the Wayback Machine), translated by Yosef Qafih and reprinted in his Collected Papers, Volume 1, footnote 1 on pages 475-476; see also pages 477–478 where a booklet found in Maimonides' Genizah with the text of Shi'ur Qomah appears with an annotation, possibly by Maimonides, cursing believers of Shi'ur Qomah (Hebrew: ארור המאמינו) and praying that God be elevated exceedingly beyond that which the heretics say (Judeo-Arabic: תע' ת'ם תע' עמא יקולון אלכאפרון; Hebrew: יתעלה לעילא לעילא ממה שאומרים הכופרים).
- ^ a b The Jewish Religion - A Companion, Louis Jacobs, Oxford University Press 1995, entry: Emden, Jacob
- ^ The Jewish Religion - A Companion, Louis Jacobs, Oxford University Press 1995, entry: Elijah, Gaon of Vilna
- ^ Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem, Schocken 1995, p 24
- ^ The Jewish Religion: A Companion, Louis Jacobs, Oxford University Press 1995, entry: Cordovero, Moses - especially in Cordovero's view that the truth of Kabbalistic symbols, once grasped, must then be rejected for falsely literal anthropomorphism
- ^ Kabbalah - A Guide for the Perplexed, Pinchas Giller, Continuum 2011, p 1-7
- ^ Nine and a Half Mystics: The Kabbala Today, Herbert Weiner, Simon and Schuster new edition 1992/1997, Afterword: Mysticism in the Jewish Tradition by Adin Steinsaltz. On the Road with Rabbi Steinsaltz, Arthur Kurzweil, Jossey-Bass 2006, Chapter: "Kabbalah is the Official Theology of the Jewish People"
- ^ In Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism 1941, Gershom Scholem took a historical view of popular Jewish imagination, interacting with national traumas to internalise and develop new Kabbalistic theologies
- ^ Kabbalah - A Guide for the Perplexed, Pinchas Giller, Continuum 2011, Chapter 3 Kabbalistic Metaphysics versus Chapter 4 Lurianic Kabbalah
- ^ e.g., Ovadia Yosef, who ruled that it is "impossible" to consider followers of the Dor De'ah movement as heretics: לגבי הדרדעים "אי אפשר לדונם ככופרים"
(מעין אומר סימן צג עמ' עדר) available at hydepark.hevre.co.il - Marc Shapiro in Milin Havivin Volume 5[2011], Is there an obligation to believe that Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai wrote the Zohar?, p. יב [PDF page 133]):
"I approached Rav A [Aryeh Carmell] with some of the questions on the Zohar, and he responded to me—'and what about nikud? Nikud is also mentioned in the Zohar despite the fact that it [is] from Geonic times!' he said. I later found this comment in the Mitpachas Seforim. I would just add that not only is nikud mentioned, but only the Tiberian Nikkud—the norm in Europe of the middle ages—is mentioned and not the Yerushalmi nikud or the Babylonian one — which was used then in the Middle East, and is still used by Yemenites today. Also the Taamay Hamikrah - the trop - are referred to in the Zohar—only by their Sefardi Names. Rav A told me a remarkable piece of testimony: 'My rebbe (this is how he generally refers to Rav E [Elijah Dessler]) accepted the possibility that the Zohar was written sometime in the 13th century.'"
"Rav G [Gedaliah Nadel] told me that he was still unsure as to the origin and status of the Zohar, but told me it was my absolute right to draw any conclusions I saw fit regarding both the Zohar and the Ari." - ^ "Scholars and Friends: Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg and Professor Samuel Atlas" in The Torah U-Madda Journal, Volume 7 (1997), p. 120 n. 5. Hebrew original quoted in Milin Havivin Volume 5 [2011], Is there an obligation to believe that Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai wrote the Zohar?, p. י Archived 2021-09-14 at the Wayback Machine).
- ^ Faith Without Fear: Unresolved Issues in Modern Orthodoxy, Michael J. Harris, Vallentine Mitchell 2015, Chapter 3 Modern Orthodoxy and Jewish Mysticism
- ^ Encyclopedia of Yemenite Sages (Heb. אנציקלופדיה לחכמי תימן), ed. Moshe Gavra, vol. 1, Benei Barak 2001, p. 545, s.v. קאפח, יחיא בן שלמה (Hebrew) שהקים את תנועת... דור דעה (he established the Dor Deah movement).
- JSTOR 27908885.
- ^ "Milhamot Hashem" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-08-18. Retrieved 2021-08-18.
- ^ "halacha - Is one allowed to become a Talmid HaRambam?". Mi Yodeya. 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- ^ Mallin, Shlomo. "Idol Worship is Still Within Us- Yesayahu Leibowitz". Scribd. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- ^ "From the Periphery to the Center: Kabbalah & Conservative Judaism | Spirituality and Theology:God, Torah Revelatio | Judaism @ AJU AJULA American Jewish University formerly University of Judaism". Archived from the original on 2010-04-23. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
- ^ Joseph Dan, Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction, chapters on Christian Kabbalah and the Contemporary Era
- ^ "On Authentic Sources". Laitman.com. 2008-07-08. Archived from the original on 2014-01-02. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- ^ "The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence | Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) | Kabbalah Library - Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute". Kabbalah.info. Archived from the original on 2020-04-24. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- ^ "The Kabbalah Centre - learn transform connect". kabbalah.com. Archived from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
- Daily Telegraph. 2013-09-20. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-01-11. Retrieved 2013-09-21.
- ^ "Kabbalah". New Kabbalah. Archived from the original on 2015-10-21. Retrieved 2015-09-27.
- ^ Sanford Drob, Symbols of the Kabbalah: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Jason Aronson publishers, p.xvi-xvii. Comparisons of the Lurianic scheme to Hegel, Freud and Jung are treated in respective chapters of Sanford Drob, Kabbalistic Metaphors: Jewish Mystical Themes in Ancient and Modern Thought, Aronson. The modern disciplines are explored as particular intellectual/emotional perspectives into the inclusive supra-rational Lurianic symbolism, from which both emerge enriched
- ^ "Kabbalah Book review: The fundamental ideas of Kabbalah". The Jerusalem Post | Jpost.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-20. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
- HaYom Yom, Kehot publications, p. 110
- ^ Choices in Modern Jewish Thought: A Partisan Guide, Eugene Borowitz, Behrman House. After surveying the 6 systemised Jewish philosophical positions of modernity and other theologies, 2nd edition 1995 includes chapters on "The Turn to Mysticism", post-modernism, and Jewish feminist theology
- ^ Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (Orot 2)
- ^ from the original on 2022-06-26. Retrieved 2022-05-06.
- ^ Vinklat, Marek (January 2012). "Jewish Elements in the Mandaic Written Magic". Biernot, D. – Blažek, J. – Veverková, K. (Eds.), "Šalom: Pocta Bedřichu Noskovi K Sedmdesátým Narozeninám" (Deus et Gentes, Vol. 37), Chomutov: L. Marek, 2012. Isbn 978-80-87127-56-8. Archived from the original on 6 May 2022. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- Geonicperiod.
General references
- Bodoff, Lippman; "Jewish Mysticism: Medieval Roots, Contemporary Dangers and Prospective Challenges"; The Edah Journal 2003 3.1
- Dan, Joseph; The Early Jewish Mysticism, Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1993.
- Dan, Joseph; The Heart and the Fountain: An Anthology of Jewish Mystical Experiences, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Dan, Joseph; "Samael, Lilith, and the Concept of Evil in Early Kabbalah", AJS Review, vol. 5, 1980.
- Dan, Joseph; The 'Unique Cherub' Circle, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1999.
- Dan, J. and Kiener, R.; The Early Kabbalah, Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1986.
- Dennis, G.; The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, St. Paul: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2007.
- Fine, Lawrence, ed. Essential Papers in Kabbalah, New York: NYU Press, 1995.
- Fine, Lawrence; Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and his Kabbalistic Fellowship, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
- Fine, Lawrence; Safed Spirituality, Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1989.
- Fine, Lawrence, ed., Judaism in Practice, Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001.
- Green, Arthur; EHYEH: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow. Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2003.
- Grözinger, Karl E., Jüdisches Denken Band 2: Von der mittelalterlichen Kabbala zum Hasidismus, (Campus) Frankfurt /New York, 2005
- Hecker, Joel; Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Kabbalah. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005.
- Levy, Patrick, HaKabbalist, edi. Yael, Tel Aviv 2010.Author's website.
- Idel, Moshe; Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988.
- Idel, Moshe; The Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid, New York: SUNY Press, 1990.
- Idel, Moshe; Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, New York: SUNY Press, 1995.
- Idel, Moshe; Kabbalistic Prayer and Color, Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times, D. Blumenthal, ed., Chicago: Scholar's Press, 1985.
- Idel, Moshe; The Mystica Experience in Abraham Abulafia, New York, SUNY Press, 1988.
- Idel, Moshe; Kabbalah: New Perspectives, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988.
- Idel, Moshe; Magic and Kabbalah in the 'Book of the Responding Entity'; The Solomon Goldman Lectures VI, Chicago: Spertus College of Judaica Press, 1993.
- Idel, Moshe; "The Story of Rabbi Joseph della Reina"; Behayahu, M. Studies and Texts on the History of the Jewish Community in Safed.
- Kaplan, Aryeh; Inner Space: Introduction to Kabbalah, Meditation and Prophecy. Moznaim Publishing Corp 1990.
- McGiney, John W.; 'The Written' as the Vocation of Conceiving Jewishly
- Samuel, Gabriella; "The Kabbalah Handbook: A Concise Encyclopedia of Terms and Concepts in Jewish Mysticism". Penguin Books 2007.
- Scholem, Gershom; Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 1941.
- Scholem, Gershom; Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and the Talmudic Tradition, 1960.
- Scholem, Gershom; Sabbatai Zevi, the Mystical Messiah, 1973.
- Scholem, Gershom; Kabbalah, Jewish Publication Society, 1974.
- Wineberg, Yosef; Lessons in Tanya: The Tanya of R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi (5 volume set). Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, 1998.
- Wirszubski, Chaim; Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, Harvard University Press, 1989.
- Wolfson, Elliot; Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
- Wolfson, Elliot; Language, Eros Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination, New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.
- Wolfson, Elliot; Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
- Wolfson, Elliot; Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
- Wolfson, Elliot; Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings From Zoharic Literature, London: Onworld Publications, 2007.
- The Wisdom of The Zohar: An Anthology of Texts, three volume set, Ed. Isaiah Tishby, translated from the Hebrew by David Goldstein, The Littman Library.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
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