Kabbalah Ultimate Guide: Key to Your Inner Power (Updated 2023)
Article updated 05-12-2022
The Ultimate Guide to Kabbalah: Unlocking Your Inner Power
Summary:
Kabbalah (also called Kabalah, Cabala, Qabala) is a Jewish tradition that deals with the essence of God.
It is frequently translated as "mysticism" or "occult knowledge." Kabbalists believe that God works in mysterious ways, whether it's through a sacred text, an experience, or the way things work.
Kabbalists, on the other hand, believe that actual knowledge and understanding of that inner, unfathomable process is possible and that this knowledge can lead to the deepest connection with God.
![]() |
Tree of Life |
The Zohar, a compilation of written, mystical interpretations of the Torah, is regarded as Kabbalah's foundation.
The Zohar, written in ancient Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, is meant to lead Kabbalists on their spiritual path, assisting them in achieving greater degrees of communion with God.
Kabbalistic philosophy is frequently regarded as Jewish mysticism. Its adherents prefer to see the Creator and Creation as a unified whole rather than separate entities, and they yearn for closeness to God.
Because of the tremendous mystical sense of connection that Kabbalists believe exists between God and humans, this longing is extremely strong.
Every person's soul has a hidden part of God that is waiting to be unveiled.
Even mystics who hesitate to express such a strong merger of God and man find divinity pervading all of Creation, blurring the lines between God and the universe.
Introduction:
Kabbalah (also called Kabbalah, Cabala,
Qabala) is a Jewish tradition that deals with the essence of God. It
is frequently translated as "mysticism" or "occult
knowledge." Kabbalists believe that God works in mysterious
ways, whether it's through a sacred text, an experience, or the way
things work. Kabbalists, on the other hand, believe that actual
knowledge and understanding of that inner, unfathomable process is
possible, and that this knowledge can lead to the deepest connection
with God. Are you interested in learning Kabbalah training near me?
The Zohar, a compilation of written, mystical interpretations on the Torah, is regarded as Kabbalah's foundation. The Zohar, written in ancient Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, is meant to lead Kabbalists on their spiritual path, assisting them in achieving greater degrees of communion with God. Kabbalistic philosophy is frequently regarded as Jewish mysticism. Its adherents prefer to see the Creator and Creation as a unified whole rather than separate entities, and they yearn for closeness to God. Because of the tremendous mystical sense of connection that Kabbalists believe exists between God and humans, this longing is extremely strong. Every person's soul has a hidden part of God that is waiting to be unveiled. Even mystics who hesitate to express such a strong merger of God and man find divinity pervading all of Creation, blurring the lines between God and the universe. Moses Cordovero, a Kabbalist, writes: “The essence of divinity can be discovered in everything, and nothing exists save It....It exists in each existent.”
History of Kabbalah:
Throughout history, historians of Judaism have identified numerous schools of Jewish esotericism, each with its own set of interests and ideas. The Kabbalah as it was known in the 12th and subsequent centuries. To avoid the pitfalls inherent in mystical experiences, Kabbalah has traditionally been primarily an oral tradition in which entrance into its teachings and rituals is conducted by a personal tutor. Insofar as it claims secret knowledge of the unwritten Torah (divine revelation) that was transmitted by God to Moses and Adam, esoteric Kabbalah is also "tradition." Though the Torah remained the central foundation of Judaism, Kabbalah provided a means of directly addressing God. It therefore provided Judaism a theological dimension, while some saw its mystical approaches to God as dangerously pantheistic and heretical.The origins of Kabbalah can be traced back to Merkava mysticism. The euphoric and mystical contemplation of the heavenly throne, or "chariot" (merkava), seen in a vision by Ezekiel, the prophet, began to grow in Palestine in the first century CE (Ezekiel 1). SeferYetzira ("Book of Creation"), the first known Jewish treatise on magic and cosmology, was written between the third and sixth centuries. It presented creation as a process involving God the Creator's 10 divine numbers (sefirot; see sefira) and the Hebrew alphabet's 22 letters. They were claimed to make up the "32 paths of secret wisdom" when taken together.
The 12th-century Sefer ha-bahir (“Book of Brightness”), a significant tract of early Kabbalah, had a deep and enduring influence on the development of Jewish esoteric mysticism and on Judaism in general. The Bahir not only understood the sefirot as playing a role in the creation and maintenance of the universe, but he also incorporated concepts like soul transmigration (gilgul) into Judaism and strengthened the foundations of Kabbalah by giving it with a rich mystical symbolism.The Sefer ha-temuna (“Book of the Image”), published in Spain in the following century, established the concept of cosmic cycles, each of which provides a divine attribute-based interpretation of the Torah. As a result, Judaism was portrayed as a religion with changing truths, with a different Torah for each cycle, or eon. Spain also produced the legendary Sefer ha-zohar ("Book of Splendour"), a book with a sanctity rivaling that of the Torah itself in some places. It included mystical theories on evil, salvation, and the soul, as well as the mystery of creation and the roles of the sefirot. After their exile from Spain in 1492, Jews were more interested than ever in messianic expectations and eschatology, and Kabbala gained widespread acceptance.
Lurianic Kabbalah also had a considerable impact on the ideas of modern asidism, a social and theological movement that emerged in the 18th century and continues to thrive in small but substantial Jewish communities today.By the mid-16th century, Safed, Galilee, had established itself as the undisputed center of Kabbala, and it was here that one of the greatest of all Kabbalists, Isaac ben Solomon Luria, spent the last years of his life. Luria's influence was only equaled by that of the Sefer ha-zohar, according to Gershom Gerhard Scholem, a modern Jewish Kabbala scholar.The “withdrawal” (tzimtzum) of divine light, so creating primordial space; the sinking of illuminating particles into matter (qellipot: “shells”); and a “cosmic restoration” (tiqqun) that the Jew achieves via an intensive mystical life and unrelenting combat against evil. Shabbetaianism, a 17th-century Jewish messianic movement, was justified using Lurianic Kabbalism as justification.
The name "Kabbalah" technically refers to literature that first appeared in medieval Spain and southern France in the 13th century. However, outside of academics, the name "Kabbalah" is used to refer to all types of Jewish esotericism.Kabbalah was a popular and widely practiced esoteric knowledge tradition until the start of the modern period, however there were restrictions on the age and relative piety of initiates. It included ancient Talmudic investigations of biblical subjects, stories of ecstatic descents to God's throne, massive creation myths, tremendous messianic zeal, and forms of pietistic ritual and practice that gave rise to groups that still affect Judaism today.Following the haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, many Jews saw the Kabbalah as at best an embarrassing relic of a more credulous era, and it fell into contempt among Europe's increasingly secular Jews. The Kabbalah, on the other hand, has recently witnessed a huge renaissance, with widespread secular and religious interest in it and certain schools reaching out to non-Jews in unprecedented ways. If you like this article share it on Facebook or another social media outlet.
Difference between Kabbalah vs Hermetic Qabalah?
Now lets see what is Hermetic Qabalah it is a type of Kabbalah
Mystic Kabbalah & Esoteric knowledge:
Jewish mysticism is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of
theories about the Godhead, as well as practices and beliefs that go beyond the requirements of traditional Judaism. The term Kabbalah refers to a type of Jewish mysticism that emerged in Provence and Catalonia in the 12th century CE. It was concerned with the inner structure and processes occurring within the divine realms, the metaphysical dynamics of which the Kabbalists attempted to influence.This phenomenon was distinct from the older Ashkenazic mystical traditions, which were primarily concerned with rigorous piety and interpretive techniques applied to official Jewish texts in order to reveal their hidden layers of meaning. It was also distinct from magical traditions, which were primarily concerned with subduing supernatural forces and harnessing them to effect physical change. What these various strands of hidden Jewish traditions have in common is a belief in the supernatural power of language.
The Hebrew language has a divine origin, according to Jewish tradition. God creates the world in Genesis by pronouncing his will; thus, language has the ultimate creative potential. From antiquity to the present, this viewpoint has served as the foundation for the majority of Jewish mystical and magical traditions. One of the earliest Jewish mystical texts of Hellenistic provenance, Seferyetsirah, which scholars date between the 2nd and 7th centuries CE, describes the process of creation as taking place through the 22 Hebrew letters and ten cardinal numbers.Early on, SeferYetsirah received magically oriented interpretations that explained how to imagine and possibly repeat the divine process of creation by manipulating the Hebrew alphabet, resulting in the creation of a golem. Giving a golem a name was thought to animate and control its body, while erasing the name was thought to annihilate the creature.
Any name and its designated object are directly linked in Jewish mystical tradition, so the name reflects the nature of its object. Every entity has a linguistic equivalent – a name, and God is no exception. The highest form of knowledge in some medieval Ashkenazic mystical works, as well as in some types of later Kabbalah, concerns the divine realms, with the names of angels and the divine being the most important.
Abulafia's prophetic Kabbalah required extensive physical and mental preparations, as well as years of study by each potential practitioner. Although it required a thorough understanding of the accompanying procedures, the use of names in Jewish magic was far more democratic. Anyone could follow a procedure detailed in multiple manuals or cookbooks, and success was solely dependent on strict adherence to the formulae. As a result, divine, angelic, and even demonic names were used for a variety of purposes. Manuscript sources abound with spells and adjurations demonstrating the widespread popularity of all types of magic among Jews, whether therapeutic (aimed at healing), learned (aiding in knowledge and memory), or even aggressive (used to subdue a person to someone else's will).
While the majority of mystical and Kabbalistic teaching was aimed at understanding and influencing the supernatural realm, magic was thought to provide immediate effects in the physical realm. Interestingly, many medieval and early modern manuscripts contain both Kabbalistic and magical texts, confirming the widely held belief that language was capable of affecting changes on various levels of creation and beyond. Each miscellaneous Kabbalistic manuscript captures a complex web of connections between speculative (elite) Kabbalah and practical (popular) Jewish magic.
The Jewish mystical tradition is rich and diverse, and Jewish mysticism has manifested itself in a variety of ways. Moshe Idel, a scholar, categorizes Jewish mysticism into two broad categories: moderate and intense. Moderate mysticism is philosophical in nature. It is an attempt to comprehend God and God's world, with the ultimate goal of influencing and changing the divine realm. This type of mysticism incorporates many aspects of traditional Judaism, such as Torah study and commandment observance, and imbues these activities with mystical significance. Intensive mysticism, on the other hand, is primarily experiential. In order to communicate with God, intensive mystics engage in nontraditional religious practices such as chanting and meditation.
The first forms of Jewish mysticism appeared in the first millennium's early centuries. The most common early form was Merkavah mysticism. Merkavah mystics sought to comprehend and experience the vision of the divine throne described in the first chapter of Ezekiel's biblical book. Another type of early mysticism was concerned with delving into the mysterious methods by which God created the world. The most important work of creation mysticism, SeferYetzirah, describes the creation of the world through the arrangement of letters and numbers.
Traditional mystical concepts continue to pervade mainstream Jewish thought (for example, the concepts of tikkun ha-olam, or world repair, and tzimtzum, God's self-limitation), and texts of mystical origin have infiltrated Jewish liturgy (including LechaDodi, the Friday night hymn welcoming the Sabbath, and other liturgical poetry). Furthermore, academic study of Jewish mysticism has flourished in recent decades, owing largely to the work of a single scholar, GershomScholem. Scholem discovered and interpreted numerous mystical manuscripts, shedding light on the origins and evolution of Jewish mysticism.
Can Kabbalah used for healing!
Sharon Brock's Kabbalah, a branch of Jewish mysticism, has regained popularity after a brief surge in the 1970s. But are its tenets relevant to health-care providers? Dr. Tsvi Bar-David, an interfaith chaplain in San Francisco, believes the answer is unequivocally yes. On May 12, he explained to UCSF students how health care providers can use Kabbalah facets to heal. The UCSF Jewish Students Association sponsored the lecture. Kabbalah, which means "to receive" in Hebrew, is a nearly 2,000-year-old belief system about the nature of divinity, the creation of the world, and the role of humans. Kabbalah, as described in the 13th-century book The Zohar, or "Book of Splendor," includes meditative, devotional, mystical, and magical traditions, which is why it is considered an esoteric offshoot of Judaism. Bar-David took a practical approach to Kabbalah in his lecture, explaining how the Ten Sefirots of Light and Darkness can be used for Reiki Kabbalah healing. The Sefirots are three-dimensional conceptual spheres that are specifically arranged in a treelike formation in a theoretical space between heaven and earth.
The other spheres are arranged in this contraction-versus-expansion pattern, implying that happiness is attained by striking a central balance between the two sides. The concept of wisdom - or layer of wisdom - is balanced between Binah, which means orderly intelligence and analysis, and Chochmah, which means boundless knowledge and insight. Waiting is a concept or layer that balances Hod, which means restraint and reflection, with Netzach, which means persistence and steadfastness. On a clinical level, the spheres can be used as diagnostic categories, according to Bar-David.Health care providers can assess where their patients fall on this map and recommend behaviors to mitigate the problem. For example, if a woman shows smothering love to her husband and becomes co-dependent, she is displaying too much Chesed and needs to restore balance by setting boundaries, or Gevurah. "Balance is the key to happiness," says Bar-David. "A significant part of healing occurs when patients have the words to describe their behavior and how they are feeling." This map establishes a common language of communication "According to Kabbalists, this map represents the path that the world took when it was created, beginning with the top layer, EinSof, which is the infinite divine and beyond human comprehension; moving down to the first sphere, Keter, which means the will or desire to be a parent; and continuing to the Yesod, or male sexual energy; and the Schechinah, or female sexual energy. Another basic tenet of Kabbalah is that man was created in the image of God. As a result, when people heal themselves, they are also healing God, every other person on the planet, and the earth itself, according to Bar-David. "When I am able to heal my own wounds,'I'm also helping the world and repairing God,' said Bar-David, adding that "from a Kabbalistic standpoint, the journey of health is a very different journey."
Can practicing Kabbalah bring you closer to God!
Every human action on earth, according
to the Kabbalah, has an impact on the divine realm, either advancing
or impeding the union of the Shechina and the Holy One, blessed be
He. God is not a static
being, but a dynamic becoming. God is incomplete and unrealized without human participation. It is up to us to actualize the divine potential in the world.
God needs us. Be aware that God fashioned everything and is within everything. Flashes of intuition will come and go and you will discover a secret here. If you are deserving, you will understand the mystery of God on your own.In the flow of the holy spirit, one feels the divine life force coursing the pathways of existence, through all desires, all universe, all nations, all creatures. By cleaving in love and full awareness to the source of life, the soul shines from the supernal light, and all feelings, thoughts and actions are refined. The essence of faith is an awareness of the vastness of Infinity. Are you interested in learning Kabbalah training in Ohio?
Conclusion:
According to Kabballah Not transcending the body, but bringing body and spirit together is the highest spiritual achievement. To do so, however, you must let go of the beliefs that erect barriers around the Infinite and recognize the body as a source of holiness in and of itself. Kabballah is basically a holy process of connecting with God and finding out ones inner self and connection with magical power that one has on himself. It is a spiritual connection that can heal you physical and mental health by connecting with God. That finds the God who is inside everyone of us. And it creates the believes on oneself and the connectivity between God and us. And makes you believe that God is within us and we can interact with him whenever we want we just need to focus and find it out in our inner self. In the comments tell us what do you think about the think about mystical kabbalah?
Check out our other article on Spirituality:
Reiki Kabbalah Center Provides Outreach to (Help Community Suffering from Mental Health) 2021
Comments
Post a Comment