Kabbalah facts for kids
Kabbalah is an interpretation of the Torah (Hebrew Bible), or the religious mystical system of Judaism claiming an insight into divine nature. The kabbalah started in the 1st-century by Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai. It continued in the 13th century in Spain by Rabbi Moses de León.
It tries to explain how something beyond thought and imagining can still be seen and felt. The kabbalah has a great influence on the Jewish spiritual life. It is based on the various spiritual movements. It is a set of beliefs concerning God, God's creation of the universe and the laws of nature, and the path by which adult religious Jews can learn these secrets.
Kabbalah stresses the reasons and understanding of the commandments in the Torah, and the cause of events described in the Torah. Kabbalah includes the understanding of the spiritual spheres of creation, and the ways by which God administers the existence of the universe. The kabbalah is based on the tree of the 10 Sephirot called the "Tree of Life". In the tree are presented the 10 powers that affect each domain in the world.
According to Jewish tradition, this knowledge has come down as a revelation to elect saints from a remote past, and preserved only by a privileged few. It is considered part of the Jewish Oral Law.
Origin of Jewish mysticism
According to followers of Kabbalah, the origin of Kabbalah begins with the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible. When read by a Kabbalist, the Torah's description of the creation in the Book of Genesis reveals mysteries about God's creation of the universe, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and a Tree of Life, the interaction of these creations with the Serpent which leads to disaster when they eat the forbidden fruit, as recorded in Genesis 2.
Jacob's vision of the ladder to heaven is another example of a mystical experience. Moses' experience with the Burning bush and his encounters with God on Mount Sinai, the prophet Ezekiel's visions are all evidence of mystical events in the Tanakh, and form the origin of Jewish mystical beliefs.
In the medieval era Jewish mysticism greatly developed with the appearance of the mystical text, the Sefer Yetzirah. Jewish sources attribute the book to the biblical patriarch Abraham. This book became the object of the systematic study of the elect who were called baale ha-kabbalah ("possessors or masters of the Kabbalah").
Kabbalah teaches that every Hebrew letter, word, number, and accent of the Hebrew Bible contains a hidden sense; and it teaches the methods of interpretation for understanding these meanings.
Kabbalistic works are a theodicy (an attempt to answer the question of why a good God permits evil), of how the existence of a good and powerful God is compatible with the existence of evil in the world. There are mainly two different ways to describe why there is evil in the world, according to the Kabbalah. Both makes use of the kabbalistic Tree of Life.
Modern forms
A recent modern revival has been initiated by the Kabbalah Center founded by Philip Berg in Los Angeles in 1984, and run by him and his sons. With a number of branches worldwide, the group has attracted many non-Jews, including entertainment celebrities such as Madonna, Demi Moore, Mick Jagger and Britney Spears. Reactions from organized Jewish groups have been mostly negative.
Fictional representations
The anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion utilised the Kabbalah imagery heavily and implied a secret portion of the Kabbalah contained within the Dead Sea scrolls and maintained through time by various individuals. Imagery such as the Systema Sephiroticum is utilised by various characters in their offices and operation areas. During an apocalyptic sequence, referred to as the "Third Impact", in the film End of Evangelion, heavy use of the Tree of Life is undertaken, both visually and with characters "walking through" the explanation of what is happening.
The comic series Promethea by Alan Moore draws heavily on Kabbalah, and is in large part a framework for an overview and explanation of many Kabbalistic concepts. The main character journeys up through the entire tree of life over the course of many issues exploring the symbolism and meaning of each level and of the journey itself.
Images for kids
-
Kabbalistic prayer book from Italy, 1803. Jewish Museum of Switzerland, Basel.
-
Latin translation of Gikatilla's Shaarei Ora
-
The Ark of the Covenant in Solomon's Temple was the seat for God's presence. Ezekiel and Isaiah had prophetic visions of the angelic heavenly Chariot and Divine Throne
-
Grave of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias. He features in Hekhalot mystical literature, and as one of the four who entered the Pardes
-
The grave of Shimon bar Yochai in Meron before 1899. A Talmudic Tanna, he is the mystical teacher in the central Kabbalistic work, the Zohar
-
The 13th-century eminence of Nachmanides, a classic rabbinic figure, gave Kabbalah mainstream acceptance through his Torah commentary
-
The leading scholars of Safed in 16th-century invigorated mainstream Judaism through new legal, liturgical, exegetical and Lurianic-mythological developments.
-
Synagogue Beit El Jerusalem. Oriental Judaism has its own chain of Kabbalah
-
The 16th-century Maharal of Prague articulated a mystical exegesis in philosophical language
-
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, a leading Italian kabbalist, also wrote secular works, which the Haskalah see as the start of modern Hebrew literature
-
The Vilna Gaon, 18th-century leader of rabbinic opposition to Hasidism—a Kabbalist who opposed Hasidic doctrinal and practical innovations
-
Synagogue of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, in Medzhybizh (Ukraine). It gave a new phase to Jewish mysticism, seeking its popularisation through internal correspondence.
-
The Kabbalist (c. 1910–1920), portrait of an Hasidic man in Jewish religious clothing performed by the Austro-Hungarian Jewish painter Isidor Kaufmann (Jewish Museum, New York)
-
Metaphorical scheme of emanated spiritual worlds within the Ein Sof
-
Scheme of descending Sephirot in three columns, as a tree with roots above and branches below
-
In the 16–17th centuries Kabbalah was popularised through a new genre of ethical literature, related to Kabbalistic meditation
-
Amulet from the 15th century. Theosophical kabbalists, especially Luria, censored contemporary Practical Kabbalah, but allowed amulets by Sages
-
Joseph Karo's role as both legalist and mystic underscores Kabbalah's spiritualisation of normative Jewish observance
-
Building on Kabbalah's conception of the soul, Abraham Abulafia's meditations included the "inner illumination of" the human form
-
Title page of first printed edition of the Zohar, main sourcebook of Kabbalah, from Mantua, Italy in 1558
-
Golden age of Spanish Judaism on the Knesset Menorah, Maimonides holding Aristotle's work
-
Kabbalah mysticism on the Knesset Menorah, which shared some similarities of theory with Jewish Neoplatonists
-
Tikkun for reading through the night of Shavuot, a popular Jewish custom from the Safed Kabbalists
-
A version of Lekhah Dodi song to welcome the Shabbat, a cross denomination Jewish custom from Kabbalah
.jpg)
.jpg)
See also
In Spanish: Cábala para niños
