In some contemporary circles, you may hear Kabbalah advertised as a source of great power. Yes, there are secrets of the Divine, and ways in which to experience It, but the essence of the Kabbalah, according to some, is that it is a technology for tapping into the hidden currents of power within the universe. Know the code, and you can operate your life more effectively. Such statements are not new; they are part of…
The meditative techniques created by Abraham Abulafia and his followers are unusual in several respects. First, they are some of the clearest meditative techniques in all of the Kabbalah, and come with directions that even a beginner may understand. Second, unlike most classical writers on meditation, Abulafia generally explains precisely why the techniques work, based on his particular synthesis of Kabbalah and Maimonidean philosophy. Third, and unlike most of the Kabbalah, Abulafia’s practices are clearly…
There’s a cute, and false, urban legend that Eskimos have over twenty words for snow. While, as it happens, many of the words describe other forms of precipitation (for which we, too, have other words), the idea behind the legend is still useful: the more familiar we are with something, the closer we get to it, and the finer the distinctions we are able to perceive. What’s more, if we suppose a hypothetical Inuit who…
Abraham Abulafia (1240-1291) is the most important figure in the prophetic Kabbalah, and among the most fascinating Kabbalists in our historical record. From what we know of his biography — based on his own accounts, and those of outside sources — he lived a very unusual life for a Kabbalist. Most of the important Kabbalists led relatively conventional lives: they had families, and roots in their respective communities. Some, such as Rabbi Joseph Caro, were…
The insights of theosophical Kabbalah can be quite transformative: on the ultimate level, “you” do not exist as a separate self; all is God; the structure of our experience mirrors the structure of the world’s composition. But, as you may have noticed yourself, they aren’t always very practical. There isn’t a how-to guide — how do I experience union with, or adhesion to, God? How do I “get there”? These are the concerns of the prophetic Kabbalah, kabbalah…
The Zohar is the masterpiece of Kabbalah, a vast compendium of myth, Biblical interpretation, mystical narrative, and cosmology. It is unlike any other book I know, dense with allusions and ripe for free interpretation. According to Kabbalistic tradition, the legendary Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is the author and protagonist of the Zohar, the masterpiece of Kabbalah. As such, he is revered among traditional Jews as the kabbalist par excellence, the incarnation of a holy soul…
Kabbalah is not really a system. It evolved, over centuries, from many strands of oral tradition, and, as a result, often has multiple opinions on core issues. Questions of God’s essence and manifestation, of the origin of evil, of what happens to the soul after death — in truly systematic theologies, these sorts of issues are debated, and, usually, one view wins out over others. Within the Kabbalistic literature, multiple answers to these questions, and…
The notion that the universe is comprised of four “worlds,” or levels of reality, first occurs in 13th century Kabbalistic texts, but became more popular in Lurianic Kabbalah and then in 19th century Hasidism, and is especially resonant today. For contemporary seekers, it reflects the understanding that existence is multi-layered, and in a state of dynamic flux. Classically, these “worlds” represent stages between undifferentiation and differentiation, not unlike the neoplatonic levels of emanation. In Hasidism,…
There is no more fundamental binarism than yesh and ayin, something and nothing. Yesh means, simply, everything that there is. Ayin is Nothing. God is both. To approach the Divine in yesh, we yearn for God’s love. Like the Sufis, we pine for the Friend; like the Hindus, we envision God in manifold mythologies and forms. To approach the Divine in ayin, we learn to allow thought to cease, and simply open ourselves to the…
The problem of evil may be religion’s fundamental challenge. The presence of suffering — which in mythical, theological and philosophical discourse becomes aligned with evil — is arguably the reason why religion exists in the first place. Possibly even reflective thought at all; Franz Rosenzweig, the great Jewish philosopher of the last century, argues that philosophy is born from the reality of death, and from the fear of death. Coming to know the finitude of…