Kabbalah
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For specific Kabbalistic traditions see Christian Cabala, Hermetic Qabalah, and Practical Kabbalah. For other traditions with some similarities see Cabala.
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Kabbalah (Hebrew: קַבָּלָה, literally "receiving/tradition"[1]) is an esoteric method, discipline, and school of thought that originated in Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist in Judaism is called a Mekubbal (Hebrew: מְקוּבָּל).
Kabbalah's definition varies according to the tradition and aims of those following it,[2] from its religious origin as an integral part of Judaism, to its later Christian, New Age, and Occultist syncretic adaptations. Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal, and mysterious Ein Sof (infinity)[3] and the mortal and finite universe (God's creation). While it is heavily used by some denominations, it is not a religious denomination in itself. It forms the foundations of mystical religious interpretation. Kabbalah seeks to define the nature of the universe and the human being, the nature and purpose of existence, and various other ontological questions. It also presents methods to aid understanding of the concepts and thereby attain spiritual realisation.
Kabbalah originally developed within the realm of Jewish thought, and kabbalists often use classical Jewish sources to explain and demonstrate its esoteric teachings. These teachings are held by followers in Judaism to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional Rabbinic literature and their formerly concealed transmitted dimension, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances.[4]
Traditional practitioners believe its earliest origins pre-date world religions, forming the primordial blueprint for Creation's philosophies, religions, sciences, arts, and political systems.[5] Historically, Kabbalah emerged, after earlier forms of Jewish mysticism, in 12th- to 13th-century Southern France and Spain, becoming reinterpreted in the Jewish mystical renaissance of 16th-century Ottoman Palestine. It was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards. Twentieth-century interest in Kabbalah has inspired cross-denominational Jewish renewal and contributed to wider non-Jewish contemporary spirituality, as well as engaging its flourishing emergence and historical re-emphasis through newly established academic investigation.
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
1.1 Difference between Jewish and non-Jewish Kabbalah
2 History of Jewish mysticism
2.1 Origins of Judaic mysticism
2.1.1 Origins of terms
2.1.2 Mystic elements of the Torah
2.2 Mystical doctrines in the Talmudic era
2.3 Pre-Kabbalistic schools
2.4 Medieval emergence of the Kabbalah
2.5 Early modern era: Lurianic Kabbalah
2.5.1 Ban on studying Kabbalah
2.5.2 Sefardi and Mizrahi
2.5.3 Maharal
2.5.4 Sabbatian mysticism
2.5.5 Frankism
2.5.6 Modern-era traditional Kabbalah
2.5.7 Hasidic Judaism
2.5.8 20th-century influence
3 Concepts
3.1 Concealed and Revealed God
3.2 Sefirot and the Divine Feminine
3.2.1 Ten Sefirot as process of Creation
3.2.2 Ten Sefirot as process of ethics
3.3 Descending spiritual Worlds
3.4 Origin of evil
3.5 Role of Man
3.6 Levels of the soul
3.7 Reincarnation
3.8 Tzimtzum, Shevirah and Tikkun
3.9 Linguistic mysticism of Hebrew
4 Primary texts
5 Scholarship
5.1 Claims for authority
6 Criticism
6.1 Dualistic cosmology
6.2 Distinction between Jews and non-Jews
6.3 Medieval views
6.4 Orthodox Judaism
6.5 Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism
7 Contemporary study
7.1 Universalist Jewish organisations
7.2 Neo-Hasidic
7.3 Hasidic
7.4 Rav Kook
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links
Overview[edit]
According to the Zohar, a foundational text for kabbalistic thought, Torah study can proceed along four levels of interpretation (exegesis).[6][7] These four levels are called pardes from their initial letters (PRDS Hebrew: פרדס, orchard).
Peshat (Hebrew: פשט lit. "simple"): the direct interpretations of meaning.
Remez (Hebrew: רמז lit. "hint[s]"): the allegoric meanings (through allusion).
Derash (Hebrew: דרש from Heb. darash: "inquire" or "seek"): midrashic (Rabbinic) meanings, often with imaginative comparisons with similar words or verses.
Sod (Hebrew: סוד 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 Torah – the study of Torah (the Tanakh and Rabbinic literature) being an inherent duty of observant Jews.[8] Kabbalah teaches doctrines that are accepted by some Jews as the true meaning of Judaism while other Jews have rejected these doctrines as heretical and antithetical to Judaism. After the Medieval Kabbalah, and especially after its 16th-century development and synthesis, Kabbalah replaced Jewish philosophy (hakira) as the mainstream traditional Jewish theology,[citation needed] both in scholarly circles and in the popular imagination. With the arrival of modernity,[9] through the influence of haskalah, this has changed among non-Orthodox Jewish denominations, although its 20th-century academic study and cross-denominational spiritual applications (especially through Neo-Hasidism) has reawakened a following beyond Orthodoxy.
Scholars dispute whether the term "kabbalah" originated with the Jewish philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021–1058) or with the 13th-century Spanish kabbalist Bahya ben Asher. While other terms have been used in many religious documents from the 2nd century up to the present day, the term "kabbalah" has become the main descriptive of Jewish esoteric knowledge and practices.[citation needed] Jewish mystical literature, which served as the basis for the development of kabbalistic thought, developed through a theological tradition inherent in Judaism from Antiquity, as part of wider Rabbinic literature. Its theoretical development can be characterised in alternative schools and successive stages. After the Hebrew Bible experience of prophecy, the first documented schools of specifically mystical theory and method in Judaism are found in the 1st and 2nd centuries, described in the heichalot (supernal "palaces") texts and the earliest existent book on Jewish esotericism, Sefer Yetzirah. Their method, known as Merkabah (contemplation of the Divine "Chariot") mysticism lasted until the 10th century, where it was subsumed by the Medieval doctrinal emergence of the Kabbalah in southwestern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. Its teachings, embodied in the Zohar, became the foundation of later Jewish mysticism, becoming re-interpreted in the early-modern developments of 16th-century Safed in the Galilee, through the new system of Isaac Luria. Lurianic Kabbalah became popularised as a social mysticism for the whole Jewish community through 18th-century Hasidism in eastern Europe, and its new notions of mystical leadership.
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 Merkabah mystical concepts and methods.[10] According to this descriptive categorisation, both versions of Kabbalistic theory, the medieval-Zoharic and the early-modern Lurianic together comprise the theosophical tradition in Kabbalah, while the meditative-ecstatic Kabbalah incorporates a parallel inter-related Medieval tradition. A third tradition, related but more shunned, involves the magical aims of Practical Kabbalah. Moshe Idel, for example, writes that these 3 basic models can be discerned operating and competing throughout the whole history of Jewish mysticism, beyond the particular Kabbalistic background of the Middle Ages.[11] They can be readily distinguished by their basic intent with respect to God:
The Theosophical tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah (the main focus of the Zohar and Luria) seeks to understand and describe the divine realm. As an alternative to rationalist Jewish philosophy, particularly Maimonides' Aristotelianism, this speculation became the central component of Kabbalah
The Ecstatic tradition of Meditative Kabbalah (exemplified by Abulafia and Isaac of Acre) strives to achieve a mystical union with God. 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
The Magico-theurgical tradition of Practical Kabbalah (in often unpublished manuscripts) endeavours to alter both the Divine realms and the World. While some interpretations of prayer see its role as manipulating heavenly forces, Practical Kabbalah properly involved white-magical acts, and was censored by kabbalists for only those completely pure of intent. Consequently, it formed a separate minor tradition shunned from Kabbalah
According to traditional belief, early kabbalistic knowledge was transmitted orally by the Patriarchs, prophets, and sages (hakhamim in Hebrew), eventually to be "interwoven" into Jewish religious writings and culture. According to this view, early kabbalah was, in around the 10th century BC, an open knowledge practiced by over a million people in ancient Israel.[12] Foreign conquests drove the Jewish spiritual leadership of the time (the Sanhedrin) to hide the knowledge and make it secret, fearing that it might be misused if it fell int