Why are there so many people studying Kabbalah around the world? What are they looking for? Why do they follow that path?
Maybe because they feel that their lives do not make sense. Maybe because they are tired of consumerism. Maybe because they have everything but nothing.
It could be a global spiritual crisis that affects not only the people who have everything, but also the one who has nothing and asks: why do I live in this miserable world, suffering so much pain, hunger and violence?
The traditional churches are losing strength, their parishioners are not satisfied with simple rules and commandments, with dogmas that they have to believe and follow authoritatively, without asking what is beyond them, behind, beneath.
Thus, many people, since the sixties, have embarked on a spiritual journey towards the East, towards Buddhism, Taoism, Hindu meditation, shamanism, as ways to face a crisis that Western philosophy and the great religions cannot help them to solve.
However, for about two decades, searches have focused on Kabbalah, and this wisdom, which was thought to be exclusive to Jewish rabbis and to the mekubalim, has become exponentially popular.
Nowadays, anyone can study Kabbalah on the Internet, in centers located in Israel, the United States, Spain, Argentina, available online for free throughout the world.
But such promotion has generated confusion, and many people who do not know Kabbalah associate it with divination and chance, they perceive it as a tool to win in the lottery, they see it as a "Stop suffering" type of church franchise, to whom you pay a juicy tithe and they make miracles for you using red bracelets and meditations with the Hebrew letters.
Even worst, people associate it with rituals of black magic, with hypothetical sects such as the Illuminati, which would secretly rule the world together with some supposed "Black Kabbalists."
Thus, few know exactly what Kabbalah is, so it would be good to explain them what it is about.
Most scholars agree that it is a thousand-year-old wisdom that allows us to connect with the upper lights of the higher worlds, reach fulfillment, peace, love of neighbor and contact with the Divine.
Kabbalah comes from the world "le-kabel", which in Hebrew means to receive.
What is received? Whose is it received? Who can receive and where is that wisdom encrypted?
In Inner Space Introduction to Kabbalah Meditation and Prophecy, Aryeh Kaplan notes:
The Mishnah says that "Moses kibe/-received Torah on Sinai and [subsequently] transmitted it to Joshua. Joshua transmitted it to the Elders. The Elders transmitted it to the Prophets. The Prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly."
Moses was the master of all prophets. He understood the Torah completely. In this sense his prophetic vision was on the level of an open vessel that could always receive more. Perhaps the secret of Moses' receiving was, the more he transmitted, the more he was able to receive. The Mishnah thus says, "Moses kibel Torah" because he was the paradigm of complete and total kabbalah-receptivity to the prophetic experience. (1)
A knowledge that is received from God, and that is encrypted in the Bible, in the Torah, to be transmitted to the elders, to the prophets, to the members of the Assembly, to the Jewish people and subsequently to all Humanity, must be something very powerful, from its denomination of origin, something capable of guiding a life and changing the world.
A kabbalistic tradition points out that in the Torah is enclosed, codified, the entire plan of Creation, so that this would be the knowledge that is received, that of the meaning of Creation, namely, what God intended when he created the world.
This would be so because the creation of the world was done by the Divine through invocations of the "let there be light" type. That is, through words, which remain encoded in the Hebrew letters that compose the Torah.
Kabbalists, for centuries, would have devoted themselves to analyzing these "traces" of creation in the words and letters of the Bible as modern forensic detectives. With an unexpected dramatic turn: when looking for those traces, when scrutinizing those letters, when meditating those words, a strange phenomenon happened to them, because their perception of the world changed. It was as if the spark of light emanating at the moment of creation was repeated within them here and now, in this life.
They perceived lights and phenomena that rationality could not explain.
Perplexed, they dedicated themselves to write books about that experience, the Séfer Raziel, the Séfer Yetzira, the Bahir, the Zohár. For some, the experience would have been so powerful, so high, that they could not even write it, like Isaac Luria, the ARI.
That is why many consider that Kabbalah IS the Jewish mysticism.
Who receives it? Maybe anyone, he or she, who listens the claim of his soul, who feels an inner light that seeks to connect with the upper light that emanates from those books and goes out (and also inside themselves) to look for the connection. For millennia, only Jewish men, over 40 years old, married, could study kabbalah, but nowadays anyone can do it by Internet.
Is there that inner light? Are there those upper lights? Can we connect with them? How can we connect with them?
If you ask my personal opinion, I think that there is that kind of inner light, which some call "soul."
Also, I believe that there really is a code, a divine DNA, that underlies the world that we perceive, that orders the universe, and that keeps it functioning.
From many angles, through astonishing equations, we try to decipher it, from quantum physics, astrophysics, string theory or the accelerator of CERN.
That has always been a human longing, which we repeated for millennia when we raised our heads, contemplated the stars in the night, and asked ourselves: Where did I come from? What am I doing here? What is all the cosmos that surrounds me?
On the other hand, Kabbalists assure that through study, books, teachers, discipline and detachment, you can live and experience in a personal way that upper reality that orders the cosmos and keeps it functioning, which is alpha and omega of the creation.
If there are traces of the original explosion of the Big Bang that astrophysicists can trace into the microwave background of the universe, likewise in the Torah and Kabbalah books there should be particles of the creation through the Word, strokes of the bereshit light.
Have I lived it? I have to confess that yes, and that my training as a philosopher has not hindered me. The experience has been so strong that today I live it with a happy resignation, as the ineluctable is lived. That's why I have to share it, in order to receive more, to expand my reception vessel, le-kabel, Kabbalah.
Author: Óscar Reyes-Matute
(Samuel Ibn Motot / מתת אבן שמואל)
NOTES:
(1) KAPLAN, Aryeh: Inner Space Introduction to Kabbalah Meditation and Prophecy, Moznaim Publishing Corporation, New York. 2nd printing by Vagshal Ltd. Jerusalem, 1991, p.3.
Digital source
You can see a good introduction at "Kabbalah Revealed" Episode 1 -- A Basic Overview by Tony Kosinec:
Video source
A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit Sefed in Israel, the Jewish mystical town, and was fascinated by the history of kabbala. The orthodox version is nowhere near the new age type popular in Hollywood these days. It’s very intense and difficult to discern, taking a lifetime to learn. Thanks for this interesting post. Resteeming.
Thanks a lot, walkthisway. Although the first schools of Kabbalah appeared in Sepharad (Spain) in the XII Century, after the Jews were expelled in Century XV, some of the most important kabbalists moved to Safed. And there appeared one of the greatest of the History: Isaac Luria, the ARI. His school remained there until now: that’s what you saw in Safed. There is a lineage between him and the two most important schools around the world nowadays. By the lineage master-disciple, his most important disciple in the XX Century was Baal Ha Sulam, among the founders of the State of Israel in the 40’s , and after him, his son Baruch Ashlag (Rabash). Rabahs had two students; Phillipe Berg and Michael Laitman.
Berg founded Kabbalah Centre, the Kabbalah for Hollywood.
Laitman founded Bnei Baruch (The sons of Baruch) a school in Petaj Tikva, Israel, where you can study via Internet. You don’t have to pay, but you can donate whatever you want.
I still study with Laitman, although I red other authors, and practice kabbalistic meditation, which is not allowed to be taught in Bnei Baruch (although they practice it in secret).
Well, if you are interested, you can check Bnei Baruch Channel: http://www.kab.tv/eng
And thanks again for your opinion!
Wow, thanks for the info, it’s fascinating. I remember hearing about Issac Luria now that you mention it. I hope to revisit Israel in the future, best trip of my life.
Well, I haven't visit Israel, so cruel envy! My friends and my study group are there, in Petaj Tikva, but is complicated for us here in Venezuela. If you go again, you are really blessed.
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Thanks a lot, mk40! I appreciate it very much. I'm following you. But I'm so new here that I don't know how to reestim, I have only 4 days in Steemit. When I learn about, I'll do it! My pleasure! Matute ( מתת )
you are exploring some important concepts here. thank you for the article
Thanks a lot littlebird1966, I appreciate very much your comment. Well, I'll continue writting about kabbalah, meditation and spiritual achievment. See U soon! Shalom!