Hi, Steemit. I hope you are well. Today I will continue with the second part of the introduction on Kabbalah, so it is convenient to extend this series and explain it step by step. (first part of this series: What is Kabbalah? ← click)
Today's question about philosophy is: Does Kabbalah have any connection with Judaism?, Is it belonging to the Hebrew? Well, we have your answer.
Enjoy the post!
Let's start with what seems most appropriate, for a precision of concept and vocabulary. "Kabbalah" is the common designation since the 12th century AD. to refer to the doctrines of "Jewish esotericism and mysticism". It seems that it began to be used that way, restrictively (before it meant only "tradition" of oral law), in the days of a rabbi named Isaac the blind, in the German esoteric Jewish school of those times. Kabbalah is the noun of the Hebrew verb qabal, which means "to receive" (by tradition). The noun qabbalah designates the mystical doctrine regarding God and the universe received by revelation from a remote past and reserved for a chosen few.
At the beginning the Kabbalah was speculation that affected mainly the field of the purely mystical, but under the influence of philosophical notions taken from Neoplatonism and Neopitagorism it acquired a speculative and theosophical tone.
There are also other names to designate the Kabbalah and especially the Kabbalists. They are the following: "Those who know the grace", "The children of the royal palace", "The knowers of the measures", or the "knowers" without more and "owners of knowledge", etc. Kabbalah was called in Spain and in Provence in the twelfth century "inner wisdom" (hokhmáh penimit), and Kabbalists were the "wise" or "knowers" (maskhilim) of inner things. From the fifteenth century all these names or periphrases were out of use and the Kabbalah noun and the Kabbalistic adjective were imposed.
Although Kabbalistic works are shown as a unit, Kabbalah can be divided for convenience into theoretical or theosophical Kabbalah (iyyunit), "science of divinity", and practical or theuric cabal (maasit), that is, the one that puts at the service of the men the supernatural forces. Therefore, we should not do without the Kabbalah = mystical equation.
Origin of the kabbalah for the Jews
For the Jews the Kabbalah has very ancient origins and is a "tradition that comes from the Fathers", that is, from the ancient Biblical Patriarchs. For others, the Kabbalah and its knowledge have a later origin, from Moses on Mount Sinai, who received it directly from God as well as the "Oral Law" and continues in the line of the prophets. According to the apocryphal Book IV Ezra 14: 5-6, Moses at Sinai received the Law (22 or 24 books) and some 50 books of occult teachings. Here is the text:
I revealed myself openly about the bush, and spoke with Moses when my people were slaves in Egypt. 4And I sent him and brought my people out of Egypt, and brought him to Mount Sinai, and kept him with me many days, 5and I showed him many wonders, and I told him the secrets of the times, and the end of times, and I commanded him saying: 6these words you will make public and you will hide. 7And now I say to you, 8The signs that I showed you and the dreams you saw, and the interpretations you heard, place them in your heart, 9because you will be led away from men and dwell in the future with my Son and your fellows, until the times are consumed.
Thus, according to the text Yhvh ordered Moses that the first (works) were made public, but the second had to keep them hidden. Other Kabbalists even thought that the secret doctrines of Kabbalah had been revealed to Adam, and that from the first man they had been transmitted without alteration in a chain of perfect tradition.
This idea, which denies any history or evolution to the cabal, is naturally absurd. The Kabbalah logically has a long history of beginning, evolution, diversity of doctrines, expression of a more or less "orthodox" group (which we would call the cabal by antonomasia) and its moments of decline and death.
The beginnings of the Kabbalah are certainly ancient. Tracks that within certain Jewish circles began before the Christian era to speculate on the more or less mystical subjects that would later be cabalistic afterwards is the warning of Ben Sira (Ecclesiastic): "You will not have to do with hidden things" ( 3.22). From this it can be deduced that in apocalyptic circles (from the third century BC) and in the secret doctrines of the Essenes, secrets began to be jealously guarded both on the divinity and cosmological or on the future world.
The Kabbalah corresponds to what we call "gnosis" from a sociological point of view, that is, religious doctrines that a visionary claims to have received from the deity and that then de facto - and also most of the time in theory - reserves for a group. In addition, the cabal belongs in general to Western gnosis because it has a substratum of Neoplatonic philosophy above all, and also because "as we will see" the doctrines of gnosis are transparent after the ideas of the Kabbalah.
The non-Jewish Kabbalah
Since the Renaissance the texts of the Jewish Kabbalah were introduced into non-Jewish culture, where they were studied and translated by Christian Hebraists and Hermetic occultists. Both freely adapted the Jewish concepts uniting them with other theologies, religious traditions or magical associations. With the decline of the Christian Kabbalah in the Age of Enlightenment, the Hermetic cabal continued as a clandestine tradition in Western esotericism. Hence, non-Jewish associations with magic, Alchemy and fortune-tellers and kabbalah acquired hidden connotations, forbidden by Judaism, remaining as a minor tradition restricted to a small elite. Currently many of the publications on the Kabbalah belong to the New Age that has nothing to do with Judaism and is also used in versions of the occult. However, there is an academic and traditional movement that translates and studies the Jewish Kabbalah to make it known to a wider and more select public.
Kabbalah is inserted into the psychophysical Naturopathy and in society it is known as natural therapy or alternative therapy. It is a tool used to study the spiritual world and to study our inner world.
Conclusion
From a different perspective, dislodging it from the material world. The kabbalah tries not to demonstrate any religion, giving free will (of course, I do not try to justify how Judaism came to intern it in a more timely concept in their favor) and improving the need of the spiritual soul.
I firmly believe that this philosophy goes beyond a concept made by the monkey (human) so much so that even the same alchemy (as already mentioned above) I try to add it to its elements.
Thank you for reading.
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