Inside your body breathes a persona soul.

Inside the body of Jewish practice

breathes an inner wisdomthe soul of Judaism. We often call it Kabbalah, meaning
receiving. Just as Jewish practice is received through an unbroken, ancient tradition
from the revelation at Sinai, so is its soul.
Kabbalah, then, is the received wisdom, the native theology and cosmology of Judaism.

Another name for Kabbalahone much more revealingis Torat ha-Sod. Commonly,
that is mistranslated as the secret teaching. The proper translation, however, contains
the opposite meaning: the teaching of the secret.
Kabbalah is not a secret teaching. It is the teaching of a secret.
The secret teaching means that we are trying to hide something from you.
The teaching of the secret means that we are trying to teach something to you, to
open up and reveal something hidden.
Now, you might point out, if the secret is taught, it is no longer a secret. A revealed
secret, it would seem, is an oxymoron.
That would be so if we were discussing an artificial secret, one that is secret only
because it is shrouded in secrecy, because others dont want you to find out. True
secrets, even once taught, explained, illustrated, analyzed and integrated into your
consciousness, remain just as mysterious as before. Novastly more mysterious, for
as the island of knowledge expands, so too its beach upon the infinite sea of the
unknowable.
Life teems with such mysteries: What is love? What is mind? What is life? What is
existence? How do they come to be? From where do they emerge? What is your soul,
the person within your body? You experience all these at every moment. They are you.
And yet, the more you gaze upon the depths of their mysteries, the deeper their waters
become.

The deepest of all secrets are those best known to all, that which we learn as small
children, take for granted the rest of our lives, live with dailyand yet never manage to
unravel or grasp with our cognitive mind.
There is. Things are. I exist. I am alive. Life is not death. Darkness is not light. There is
that which is bigger than me.
Kabbalah plunges into these secrets and pulls their depths into the open. It provides
metaphor, parable, understanding. It shines light and opens our eyes. It inspires and
guides us to use this wisdom for healing and growth in everyday life. That is why the
experience of learning Kabbalah is one of Yes! I knew that truth all along! My heart
knew, but my mouth was unable to speak it! The truths of the Kabbalah belong to every
sentient being.
Yet, most of all, Kabbalah provides a sense of the beyond; the knowledge of that which
cannot be known, the wisdom of mystery, the understanding that we do not understand.
Kabbalah is the knowledge of wonder.
Why Is Kabbalah So Secret?

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Teaching a secret is fraught with danger. The student is in danger, for he may believe he
truly understands. A mystery can never be presented without the wrappings of metaphor

and parable. Perhaps the student will grasp the wrappings but fail to unravel its
contents, as one who chews the husk and discards the fruit inside.
The teacher is in danger, for how can he know if he is truly understood? He will teach
many students, his ideas will become popularized, their essence will be lost and their
meaning will be twisted into the opposite of his intent.
The Kabbalah itself is in danger, for once it has lost its integrity, immediately it is no
longer the received wisdom. It may be wise, it may be beautiful, but it is no longer
Kabbalah.
That is why, for most of time, Kabbalah was transmitted from teacher to select and
trusted student, in utmost confidence. When it was written, the writings were purposely
cryptic and arcane, in whispered riddles, parables and darkened allusions. At times,
restrictions had to be reaffirmed to censure all but a select few from studying Kabbalah.
Only in the past few hundred years have master teachers begun to reveal these truths
openly. The chassidic masters uncovered a light and provided a set of metaphors that
allow all to approach that light, bringing the Kabbalah into the domain of even the
simplest soul.
Yet still, a guide is indispensable, and great care must be taken to preserve the purity of
the teachings.
The waters of this spring must be kept pure; they must remain living waters.
Who is that guide? How do you know that you are receiving pure waters, straight from
the original spring?
For one thing, pure water reflects clearly. If the teachers life does not reflect his
teachings, his waters are impure.
Next, know that until Moshiach comes, the path within is never without struggle. If the
teaching comes easily, it is not the inner teaching.

And third: Its true that you do not need to be Jewish to imbibe the sweet wine of
Kabbalah or to learn its healing paths. But the soul of Kabbalah is unlike a human soul
never can it be ripped from its body, for the marriage of soul and body is complete.
Jewish practice and Kabbalah are one. If you are told, This has nothing to do with
Judaism, you are being told a lie.
How Can Learning Kabbalah Help Me?

Kabbalah is an aspect of Torah, and Torah means guidance or instructions.

Everything in Kabbalah is meant as an instruction in life. We study Kabbalah not to just
to reach a high, but because we need its inspiration in everyday life, and because it
provides us direction and practical guidance.
Kabbalah provides a cosmic dimension to the issues of everyday human life. Illness is a
reflection of the lovesickness of the divine presence for the Infinite Light. The challenges
in life are the sparks lost in the primal act of creation, coming to you to be repaired and
elevated. Your life is a mission, in which you are directed to the divine sparks that
belong uniquely to your soul, for which your soul has returned many times to this world
until they will all be gathered.
Understanding the cosmic dimension means that nothing in life is trivial. Everything has
meaning. Everything moves toward a single purpose, with a single goal. Understanding
allows you to take on those challenges and to complete the journey of your soul.
How Does Kabbalah Differ from Other Spiritual Teachings?

There are many wise spiritual teachings from peoples in every part of the globe. In their
practice, people find transcendence of the material world, enlightenment and serenity.
To the Kabbalist, the ultimate paradise is here now, because the Infinite Light is
here now.
The focus of Kabbalah is not on serenity. Neither is it on transcendental enlightenment.
It provides those as well, but as a means, not as a goal. The goal of Kabbalah is
inspired action. Whatever wisdom the Kabbalist gains, whatever state of ecstasy or

mystic union to which he or she ascends, the end result will always be an act of beauty
in the physical world.
To turn it the other way around: Many teachers will tell you to do good deeds and acts of
kindness because that is one stone along the path to higher consciousness. The
Kabbalist will tell you that in the moment of that good deed, you are there already. The
act itself is your goal, to which a higher consciousness must lead you.
To the Kabbalist, the ultimate paradise is here now, because the Infinite Light is here
now, and more than any spiritual realm, this is where the Infinite Light yearns to be
discovered. Our job is to peel away the husk to reveal that light within each physical
artifact of our world. To enlighten not only ourselves, but every living being, and even
the inert matter of our world.
When Did Kabbalah Start?

The stories of the forefathers are painted with a palette of mystic visions, divine
revelations and communication with non-physical beings. Yet the Torah, including
Kabbalah, is not defined by those visions. The central event of the Jewish narrative is
the mass revelation at Mount Sinai, when all the people saw the sounds and the
lightning.
The revelation at Sinai was first and foremost an experience of inner truth.
Lets say you lived shortly after the event. Lets say you asked those people who had
been there, Tell me what happened.
What would you they tell you?
We were told not to have other gods.
We were told to honor our parents, to not steal or murder.
I dont think so.
More likely, their response would be something like this:

We saw all the secrets of the cosmos open before us. We saw how each thing is
generated into being at every moment. We saw that there is truly nothing else but the
one Creator, and all else is but articulations of His will.

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The commandments themselvesto have no other gods, to honor parents, to not steal
or murderthese were but the content of that experience. The medium, the experience
this was the core of the message. It was in that mystic experience that our people
were bornthe experience of a world in which from every direction, G-d spoke with
them. They saw all of reality as nothing but the words of a single, unknowable origin of
all things. And they came into communion with that Source.
For about a thousand years after Sinai, the Jewish experience remained defined by
prophecy. Wisdom was known to the people through seers and prophets, men and
women who separated themselves from human lusts and vanities to attain a clear vision
of the inner realms. Yet none of these visions provided a new revelation, adding or
subtracting anything from the Torah. They were simply affirming, clarifying and
sustaining the shared vision of Sinai.
The era of prophecy came to a close at the beginning of the Second Templeperiod, but
divine revelation and mystic vision never departed. Neither did the receivers of that
wisdom sit at the fringe of Jewish tradition. Many, if not most, of the better-known
masters of the soul of Torah were also the established masters over the body of Torah
practice. Rabbi Akiva is often considered the father of the Mishnah, and both
the Talmud and Sefer HaBahir describe his mystic journeys. His student, Rabbi Shimon

bar Yochai, was responsible for the classic Kabbalistic work, the Zohar, and his opinions
pervade every section of the Talmud.
At times, and in certain places, philosophical inquiry pushed aside the received tradition
to dominate Jewish thought. Yet it was rarely considered the native theology, but rather
a kind of grafting from alien vines. Philosophy works upward, striving to create a single
vision out of disparate parts. Kabbalah does the converse, beginning with a vivid,
holistic vision and attempting to transmit that vision to others. Nevertheless, especially
after the Spanish expulsion, the rationalism and much of the terminology of the
philosophers became integrated into the holistic wisdom of the Kabbalah. The result
was an unprecedented flowering and popularity of Kabbalistic thought.
Philosophical inquiry was never considered our native theology. Yet the Kabbalah
later benefited through synthesis with it.
In the critical era when halachah was codified and established (from the Spanish
expulsion until the mid-seventeenth century), almost all serious scholars were steeped
in Kabbalah. Rabbi Yosef Caro, author of the standard code of Jewish Law,
the Shulchan Aruch; Rabbi Moshe Isserles, whose glosses made that code acceptable
to Ashkenazi Jewry; as well as most of the standard commentators to that code, penned
Kabbalistic works as well. Even the popular synagogue sermon was often dressed and
garnished with Kabbalistic references.
To most of the Jews of Muslim lands, the Zohar is as sacred as the Book of Psalms.
The Chassidic movement grew directly out of Kabbalah. The original opponents to the
Chassidic movement, such as Rabbi Elijah of Vilna, were masters of the Kabbalah.
Many of the standard commentaries studied today on the Five Books of Moses are
replete with references to Kabbalistic ideas.
Thats why attempting to understand the Jewish experience without an understanding of
Kabbalah is akin to analyzing a persons behavior without knowing what is going on in
his mind. The great Jews of ages past who did not taste of the Kabbalah felt that inner
soul intuitively within the Torah they studied, within their prayers and within their practice
of mitzvot. In all these things, their souls shone vibrantly. Over the centuries, as the
world became a more sterile, materialistic and confusing place, that soul became

wearied and fell dormant. Today, the sure path for a thinking person to sense the soul of
the Jewish experience is to taste of its inner secrets. Today, Judaism stripped of
Kabbalah is a body stripped of its soul.
Study of Kabbalah today is vital for a yet more important reasonas an essential stage
in the final evolution of humankind. Well get to this later.
Can You Be Creative with Kabbalah?

A received wisdom would seem to imply no room for originality or creativity. The Zohar
tells us that one who creates his own ideas and calls them Torah is creating an idol.
The Kabbalist is creative, he may have illuminative visions, yet all he teaches is
but commentary on received tradition.
The comparison is meaningful: as an idol is a false representation of G-d, so this idea is
a false representation of G-ds wisdom, and He and his wisdom are one.
Yet, as with other fields of Torah, Kabbalah bustles with creative thought and originality.
Here is how Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, a leading teacher of the sixteenth-century Tzfat
rationalist-kabbalist school, explained the need and the parameters of originality in
Kabbalah:
The Book of Formation says, Understand with wisdom; be wise with understanding.
Understand with wisdom means to investigate well whatever your teacher has taught
you in the wisdom of the modalities. After all, in these matters we only transmit a bare
outline. From that outline, each person must understand one idea from another.
You can see this in the words of our sages when they said,

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This matter is told only to a sage who understands with his own mind. From this, you see that
a person must use his own mind to compare one thing to another, and thereby extract one idea
from within the other. That way he will have a procreative mind and not a barren one.
Yet then it says, be wise with understanding. This means that when you originate and
analyze with your intellect so that you may understand, you must take care to conceive
the idea and explain it within the framework of the tradition of the rabbis and their terse
words. The original ideas must be included in that which you have gained, whether
much or little.
Kabbalists may have visions, but they do not found their teachings upon those
revelations. Whatever insights they have, they view these as mere illuminations of the
sacred texts and teachings they have already received. In this way, the Kabbalah
remains a tree of life, with deep roots holding it firmly in place, while bearing sweet new
fruits at all seasons.
What Are Some Basic Ideas of Kabbalah?

Although all extends from a single, unified vision, the subjects with which Kabbalah
deals are vast and varied. Here are some major themes:
Infinite Light:

A metaphor for G-d. G-d is unknowable and without form, yet all forms extend
from Him. The idea of unbounded light helps to communicate this idea. Yet the
essence of G-d is beyond even the infinite. And G-d is found in darkness as He is
found in light.
See: Is G-d an It, an I, or Nothing?
Light and Vessels:
Similar to the modern idea of energy and matter. The act of creation is sustained
through a dynamic of infinite light compressed into defined states of being called
vessels, which then project the light to create a myriad of beings.
See: Kabbalah of Marriage
Ten Sefirot:
The chasm between the Infinite Light and a finite creation should be
insurmountable, and yet here we are, decidedly finite projections of that Infinite
Light. This is the mystery of the ten sefirot: how the Infinite interacts with the
worlds it has generated through the medium of ten luminous modalities. The
order of the sefirot moves from the intellectual domain through emotion and down
to the domain of dominionthe sphere of actually getting something done. This
is the divine image in which the human being is created. By knowing ourselves
as human beings, therefore, we are able to discover the divine. And by
understanding the divine, we are better able to heal and nurture the human
being.
See: Sefirot, The (seven, ten)Jewish Knowledge Base
The Mystery of the Hebrew Alphabet:
In Hebrew, there are no things, only words. The Hebrew name of each being
contains its essential life-force. The infinite power of the Creator is found within
each instance and object of the creation; nothing is outside of that light and

nothing is void of it. The twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet express the
specific articulations of that creative force. One who masters their mystery holds
the key to understanding the nature of each thing.
See:

KabAlefBet!

Letters of Light

Opening Up the Letters

Union of Opposites:
The entire universe is a dynamic of male and female union. The life-soul of the
universe, known as the Shechinah, and the Infinite Light yearn to reunite with
one another, as does the human soul yearn to reunite with its origin within G-d.
The study of Torah and performance of mitzvot brings about these unions,
thereby allowing new, transcendental light to penetrate the cosmos.
See:

Holy Conjugations

The Kabbalah of Man and Woman

Tikun:
The greatest of the Kabbalists, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, known as the Ari (the
lion), was able to explain many arcane passages of the Zohar through a doctrine
of tikun, meaning repair. Reversing the standard paradigm, the Ari explained
that the world was created in a broken state, and the human being was placed
within it to gather the shattered pieces and repair its wholeness. The eventual
result is the union of finite existence with the Infinite Light, beyond even that
which was at the outset of creation.

See:

Tohu & TikkunJewish Knowledge Base

Fallen Sparks

How Does Kabbalah fit Into the Modern World?

In the past hundred years, science has laid bare the intricacy and sheer vastness of the
physical world in a way previously inconceivable. Weve uncovered an amazing
harmony by which the entire physical universe is seen as a singularity, every particle
integrally related to every other particle, a harmony by which even matter and energy
themselves are essentially a single dynamic.
Kabbalah has the potential to heal the rift between the cold outer world we
observe and the warm, inner world of the observer.
Technology has provided us means to share and examine this knowledge that were
unimaginable even a generation ago. Programming our own virtual environments
enriches us with metaphor by which we can imagine what it means to create a world
and sustain its existence at each moment.
Humanity should be swept away in awe and wonder, yet instead we have been left out
in the cold. Ironically, in our search for the unity of physical law, we have severed
ourselves from that unity, digging a sweeping chasm between the hard, material world
that surrounds us and the soft, human world that burns within. In brokering that divorce,
we have rendered ourselves the orphans.

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Kabbalah heals that wound. It describes the world about us in the language of our own
psyche. It puts us in touch with a world composed not of dumb matter but of fathomless
mind.
The scientist describes the universe within the dimensions of time and space, in terms
that he can count and measure. Yet not everything that counts can be counted. One of
the most ancient works of the Kabbalah, the Book of Formation, describes yet another
dimension: that of life, consciousness and soul. Whatever exists in time and space, we
are told, is first found deep within that inner dimension.
It is a dimension with which we are intimately familiar.
The artist looks at a tree and sees not a cellular structure of carbon, but beauty, life and
magnificence. The music lover hears in a string quartet not the vibrations of nylon
strings and their overtone series, but the struggle for resolution within the composers
soul. The literary critic reads within the novels words the thoughts of the author, within
the thoughts the attitudes, within the attitudes the perception of the world that generates
such attitudes, and within that perception the persona of the author himself.
So too, the Kabbalist sees within each instance of reality not its palpable, defined
presence, but a divine energy sustaining all existence, ever new as the water of the
rapids is renewed each moment, generating and regenerating each detail out of the
absolute void, imbuing each thing with its particular properties and life, each instance of
existence in its own particular way. And within that dynamic of creation, the Kabbalist
sees G-d Himself.
As it turns out, we have an affinity with this universe about us. Just as we perceive
within ourselves layer upon layer of personality, deeper and yet deeper strata of
consciousness, and yet within all this an indefinable core essence of being, so we can
perceive deep within the universe a sentience infinitely greater than our own, and an
essence that transcends knowledge and knowing altogether.

Indeed, we are the children of that unknowable essence, our minds a faint reflection of
its light within the muddy waters of the material world, our souls its very breath within
these corporeal bounds.
Why Do We Need Kabbalah Now?

The open study of Kabbalah today is not just because we need the inspiration it
provides, but because this is a vital stage in the evolution of the world.
Spreading the teachings of Kabbalah in a form that the mind can digest prepares
the world for the messianic era.
The ultimate phase of this world is a messianic era in which the occupation of the entire
world will be only to know G-d. That doesnt mean simply knowing that there is one
G-d, but knowing His universe as He knows it, and the wisdom behind it as that wisdom
is one with Him. The preparation for that time has already begun, and we are in it.
The principal work of the Kabbalah, the Zohar, describes an age which will mirror the
flood of Noahthis time with a world inundated with wisdom rather than water:
In the six-hundredth year of the life of Noah . . . all wellsprings of the great deep burst
open, and the windows of heaven were opened . . .
Genesis 7:11
On this, the Zohar states:
In the sixth century of the sixth millennium, the gates of supernal wisdom will be
opened, as will the springs of earthly wisdom, preparing the world to be elevated in the
seventh millennium.
The sixth century of the sixth millennium on the Jewish calendar corresponds to the
period from 17401840, indeed a period of explosive advances in technology and
science. At the same time, the gates of supernal wisdom were opened through the
chassidic masters of the Kabbalah.

Now is the time to partake of both wisdoms, the earthly and the heavenly, to merge
them as one and flood the world until the promise of the prophet is fulfilled:
The earth will be filled with consciousness of G-d as water covers the ocean floor.
Isaiah 11:9
For more about the state of consciousness that will be attained at that time,
read Getting to G-dliness and watch Who Needs a Temple?
Where Can I Learn Authentic Kabbalah?

Speak with your local Chabad rabbi. He may be giving a class in Kabbalah, or a class
on some topic from a Kabbalistic perspective. He may be able to set up one-on-one
study for you. Or he might direct you to someone who can.
JNet.org is a service that sets up one-on-one study by phone or video-chat, at the time
of your choice.
Chabad.org and KabbalahOnLine.org are both constantly expanding their already
extensive libraries of articles, audio, video and animation on many topics of Kabbalah.

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