As we have said in previous articles, Kabbalah originally comes from the study of the Bible, the Torah. It is a wisdom that was transmitted by patriarchs like Abraham and Moses, and then by the wise, the prophets, and the scholars of Israel and Sepharad (Spain).
This has led to great confusion, and many people think that because of its connection with the Bible and Judaism, it is a mysticism, a secret cult, a religious sect that had remained in the shadows for many centuries, and now It finally emerges in the public light.
However, we categorically affirm that Kabbalah is not a religion, but that it is more likely to be a practical science.
I explain myself.
Religions have temples, priests, cults and rules, which are alien to Kabbalah.
An elementary but crucial difference between Kabbalah and religions is what my teacher, Rav Michael Laitman points out:
"Kabbalah differs from religions, beliefs and every possible search for humanity, by raising man above his nature, above the nature of this world, above the ego and beginning to prepare him for the state we imagine that exists after our death.
Kabbalah allows those who live in this world to experience the state of being separated from their selfish “I” from their body, as if they were dying, to make their ego die.
And then he feels free, literally flying in weightlessness. It reveals that state, above the selfish state called life, not in desire, but life in faith; life not in reception, but ‘life in bestowal’. "
I would add that this state, that connection, is achieved through study, with a technique, let's say so, that it has been transmitted from teacher to student, from mouth to ear, from the time of Abraham until our generation of the 21st century.
It is a behavior, a discipline to correct our intention, and with it to change the state of our being and our soul.
Much of that knowledge and that praxis has been written and codified in books such as the Sefer Yetzira or The Zohar.
The work of the Kabbalists, under the light of the candles, in the desert nights, astonished by the stars and the meteors, has been to scrutinize those texts to find the energy that has given rise to the universe, because the embers of creation, of the Bereshit, have been impregnated in the Hebrew letters.
From that tireless, insatiable study, Kabbalists can correct their souls and their daily lives, their transcendence but also the here and now.
Religions speak of superhuman businesses. Kabbalah is a science and discipline tailored to the human being, to correct his life, to guide his existence on all levels, the spiritual, the selfish, even the material.
There is no intermediation of priests, temples, rituals, submissions. It is you, with your decision, with your steps, who decides what degree to reach, and how much to approach or move away from that energy that keeps the cosmos working harmoniously.
The staircase is there and, according to tradition, there are 125 steps until reaching the correction, until crossing the barrier, the machsom.
Shall we continue?
Óscar Reyes-Matute / מתת