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THE KABALAH

Temple Worship. Like every other great religion that of the Jews was originally hierurgic, i.e. they had a priesthood and a more or less complicated ritual. However unlike most peoples, they had a highly centralized cult, for the full enactment of the aforesaid ritual could only be carried out in a single place of worship. This, as we have seen, was at first the movable tabernacle, and later the fixed temple at Jerusalem, which was thrice erected and thrice destroyed, under the vicissitudes of history. This does not rule out smaller places of worship, such as were present in early times either on hills or under trees,’ more especially in early times.

Like other great religions the Jewish involved a belief in spirits of various kinds, some of which were angels. The holy men of the Old Testament had to engage in encounters with evil magicians. Moses and Aaron had to engage in contests with the magicians of the pharaoh, during which the rod of Aaron turned into a serpent, which eventually swallowed up those produced by the rivals. Under the command of the Lord they placed ten plagues on the Egyptians in a miraculous fashion. Elias (Elijah) contends in a successful manner with the priests of Baal, being able to set fire to a sacrifice in a supernatural manner, whilst they cannot. Balaam is a sooth­sayer; miraculous speech is given to his ass, and he himself prophesies the Messiah, saying a star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre out of Israel. The raising of the spirit of Samuel by the witch of Endor, on being consulted by Saul, is another example of magic in the Old Testament. Finally the most remarkable feat of all was the act of Josue (Joshua) in making the sun stand still, the meaning of which has been variously interpreted by commentators.

The first of the ten commandments includes a prohibition of idolatry. This was so strongly condemned among the Jews and Moslems that there was a strong tendency, especially among the latter, to forbid even the making of images. However, we know that images were sometimes used by the Jews in the worship of God, as for instance the two cherubim on either side of the mercy-seat, over the tabernacle and temple, where the presence of God was believed to dwell, (2 Ex., xxv, 22) and the cherubim carved all round the walls of Solomon’s temple. (3 III Kings, vi, 29.)

However, such images were frequently looked upon with distrust. The brazen serpent, set up by Moses at the command of God, ( 4 Numbers, xxi, 8,) which healed the Israelites bitten by serpents, was afterwards destroyed, as it had become an object of idolatry. The teraphim first mentioned as belonging to Terah, the father of Abraham, and frequently later, were consulted as oracles. (IV Kings , XVIII, 4) . There is little doubt that images then, became associated with foretelling the future, (Zach.,X, 2).not to mention other abominable practices hinted at in various places in the Old Testament, that the sin of idolatry, in fact, had associations with black magic.

Secret Knowledge. The Jews distinguish between the external, or exoteric features of their belief, and the internal, occult, or esoteric aspects. In fact they marked out three grades of knowledge, (i) the law, expounded in the Old Testament, and particularly in the first five books, the Pentateuch, ascribed to Moses, which was sup­posed to be learnt by all Jews; (ii) the Talmud, which was studied by all priests and learned rabbis; and (iii) the Kabalah or Kabbalah (QBLH) which was secret knowledge, imparted to highly learned initiates only, and which has only partly been revealed in writing, and that only in relatively modern times. In addition to the Talmud, we may mention the Midrashim, which continued the theological discussions of the Jews from the 2nd to the 13 century A.D.

The Kabalah is the great repository of Jewish occult knowledge, and this in mediaeval times had a tremendous influence on both theologians and magicians, Jewish, Christian and Moslem. It is still taught and revered in arcane schools surviving to this day. The Kabalah or Qabalah (variously spelt) is a complete system of symbolism, angelology, demonology and magic. It discusses reincar­nation and messianism, and in view of the latter, has become a bone of bitter contention between Jews and Christians, it having been alleged, by the latter, that it contains the whole of Christian theology, whilst it is a fact that a few Jews have been converted to the Catholic religion by its means. It must also be recorded that some Jewish philosophers of note reject the Kabalah altogether, and call into question its fundamental assumptions. Amongst these are Moses Maimonides (A.D. 1139—1205) whose Guide to the Perplexed has often been reprinted in recent times, and H. Graetz (1817-91), the great Jewish historian.

The Kabalah is an unwritten tradition, and should be learnt from one who is not only a profound Hebrew scholar, but who possesses a flair for occult symbology. This particularly applies to the use of the kabalistic law of correspondences. The kabalists believe that every word, every letter and every point in the Old Testament script has a meaning and therefore the text cannot be altered. The writer once heard a learned kabalist quote Jesus, from the New Testament, regarding Him as a learned rabbi: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or title shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matt. v, 18) Now the kabalists believe there are many cor­respondences between words and sentences, between letters and numbers and between letters and other letters.

Kabalistic Writings. The kabalah was sacred tradition, going back to Abraham or, as some say, to Adam. It is not a written system at all. Nevertheless it was inevitable that, in course of time, it came to be written down, in whole or in part. The clearest exposition of the system as a whole, and the shortest is the Sepher Yetzirah. A very full exposition, rich in mythological symbolism, and the longest is the Sepher ha Zohar. A knowledge of these two books, or even the first of them alone, will give the reader a very good idea of the kabalah. Other works are either commentaries on these or connect up kabalism with other matters.

The Sepher Yetzirah was written in Hebrew. Its authorship is ascribed to Akiba or Akibha ben Joseph, a Rabbi of the 1st century. It first appeared in print in a Latin translation by William Postel, published in Paris in 1552, and only ten years later, in 1562, did the original Hebrew appear in print, at Mantua. Many other editions followed, and it was translated into a number of European languages, including English. Akibha was originally a shepherd in Palestine, but he became a learned man, founded the first kabalistic school, and when he died in A.D. 138 is said to have had some 24,000 followers. He was succeeded by his pupil Simon ben Yochai, himself a brilliant and famous teacher, surnamed the spark of Moses, one of the most famous of kabalists, who lived to about A.D. 16o. In the latter part of his life Akiba suffered persecution, from the pagan Roman power and it is said that he took refuge in a cave, and was finally martyred by the Romans.

There is little doubt that the subject matter of the Sepher Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) was only systematized by Akiba and is very old indeed. The work is astonishingly compact and only occupies a very few pages. Yet it, more than any other work, embodies the very essence of the kabalistic conception of the Universe.

A work called the Alphabet is also ascribed to Akiba. In it the letters are represented as contending amongst one another for the honor of beginning creation.

In the 12th century the Spanish Jew, Ibn Gebirol, known as Avicebron, attained some fame as a philosopher. He was a profound student of the kabalah, wrote The Fountain of Life and The Crown of the Kingdom dealing with this subject. He died in 1070. By this time the visions of Daniel and Ezekiel had been explained in kabalistic terms.

In the 12th century the kabalistic School of Gerona was founded in the extreme north-east corner of Spain. It was established by a famous Rabbi known as Isaac the Blind and flourished from 1190 to 1210. He made reincarnation one of the chief cornerstones of kabalistic teaching, and expounded the Sephiroth in some detail. He taught the Rabbis Ezra and Azariel. The latter wrote a Com­mentary on the Ten Sephiroth about 1200. Rabbi Azariel was suc­ceded by Nachmanides (1195). The latter was famous for his work on three methods of interpretation (i) using words for letters or the reverse (Notariqon), (ii) using numbers for letters and com­paring words of the same numerical value (Gematria), and (iii) substituting letters for other corresponding letters (Temurah). Nach­manides was followed by the Rabbis Isaac Nasir and Jacob ben Sheshet who bring this school of thought to a close. However, there were several other Schools of the Kabalah in Spain. In the north-central part of the country was the School of Segovia presided over by the Rabbi Abulafia (1240-292) for example. He is said to have announced that the Epoch of the Messiah was to begin in 1290.

Not far away, at Guadalajara, north-east of Madrid, was the most famous school of all, from whence emanated, just about the year 1290, the greatest of kabalistic books, the previously mentioned Zohar, from the pen of the Rabbi Moses ben Leon, the leader of the School of Guadalajara. It was written in Aramaic.

It now seems certain that Moses ben Leon was the first to write it down (internal evidence shows that some parts at least must have been written in the i3th century) it is equally certain that much of it is much earlier. Regardie9 quotes S. M. Schiller-Szinessy, a Cambridge University Reader in Rabbinic Studies, to the effect that much of the Zohar “goes back to Mishnic times.” We have dated the latter as A.D. 70-00.

The Zohar is a massive work. It first appeared in printed form in the Hebrew language in Mantua in 1558, shortly after, in Cremona in 1560 and later at Lublin in 1623. In the following centuries other Hebrew reprints were made. It was partially trans­lated into Latin in 1684 by Baron Knorr von Rosenroth, with com­mentary, under the title Kabbala Denudata. Translations into some modern European languages have subsequently appeared.

The word Zohar means splendor. Sepher-ha-Zohar is the Book of Splendor. This is really the title of the main section of the work, which, in its present form also contains appendices.

Later Kabalists. Moses ben Leon died in 1305. He was succeeded as head of the School by Menahem di Recanti (1350), Isaac Loria or Luria (1572) and Chajim (Hayyam) Vital (1620). Loria has been described as a wonder-worker or magician. He is said to have been influenced by the prophet Elias (Elijah). He was born at Jerusalem in 1534 and died at Safed in the North of Pales­tine, 1572. He came of a German-Jewish family and was educated at Jerusalem and Cairo. At the age of twenty-two he took up the life of a hermit in Egypt, but returned to Palestine in 1569. He continued to favor an ascetic mode of life, and is known to have preached the importance of intention in carrying out wondrous works. This is a theme which passed to mediaeval magicians and many of them thought that ascetic practices, fasting, abstentions of various kinds, helped them to direct their intention on their work. To Luria is ascribed Rashith ha Galgalim (The Origin of Rotations) which is a kabalistic presentation of the reincarnation doctrine, but he wrote relatively little, and most of our knowledge of him comes through his pupil Vital. (The most complete English translation, by H. Sperling and M. Simon appeared in five volumes, 1931-5934.)

The latter was born at Safed in 1534 and died at Damascus, 1620. He was a rabbi in Jerusalem for a short while, but at an early age moved to Damascus, where for a time he was an exponent of the early advent of the Messiah, but pressure was put on him by rabbinical authorities to stop this part of his preaching. Thereafter he elaborated the more recondite parts of the Lurian System, and delved deeply into occultism. He wrote Otz ha Chim (Tree of Life) a large manuscript in six parts. This was stolen by a relative, copied and distributed without the consent or even, at first, the knowledge of the author. It was, for a long time, retained by the Jews in Palestine. Eventually it was brought to Europe, 1772, and soon after printed at Zolkiew, Poland.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, there were many Christian students of the Kabalah. The most famous of these include Cornelius Agrippa (1486-536), Guilliam Postel (1510-1581) and Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), whom we will meet again in a later chapter. In this he was followed by a number of his disciples. The messianic movement has persisted into recent times. For instance in 1889 Joseph Abdallah, a Jew of the Yemen, Arabia, announced his mission, and no doubt others might be recorded. 

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Last modified: 06/27/08