Note: this presentation brings together the Lurianic, Hasidic, and neo-Hasidic versions of the four worlds model and should not be used for scholarship purposes. Experientially, however, each of the worlds has a nest of symbolic associations and experiential elements, but perhaps their most important feature is that, because each world is important, the familiar hierarchies of spirit over body, and mind over heart, suddenly make no sense. The worlds of asiyah (action), yetzirah (formation), briyah (creation), and atzilut (emanation) and four souls of nefesh (fleshly, 'earth' soul), ruach (emotional, 'water' soul), neshamah (intellectual, 'air' soul) and chayah (spiritual, 'fire' soul) roughly map onto the familiar matrix of body, heart, mind and spirit. But all are really a reflection of yechidah ("unity"). Thus the ideal is not transcendence alone, but transcendence with inclusion of the "lower" in the "higher." Forgetting the body in favor of the soul is like forgetting the foundation of a house in favor of the living room; it will not hold.

ATZILUT
The World of Emanation

BRIYAH 
The World of Creation

YETZIRA
The World of Formation

The energetic world of emotions, sensations, feelings

Soul: Ruach/ wind-water-soul

Self: “Soul” colloquially, Faculties of Heart (compassion, fear & desire)

In the Body: Heart center, lungs, circulation/oxygenation

Human expression: Art, poetry, awe, love

World expression: Eros, forces of love and passion, nature in the Romantic sense

Separation: Sex & Violence, hatred, craving-desire

Prayer: Psalms, cultivating the heart

Element: Water

Torah: Remez, allusion, poetry.

ASIYAH
The World of Action

One final note about hierarchy. Jewish spiritual practice is an integral practice whose purpose is not to favor the body, heart, mind, or soul over the other parts of the self—but to join all four together, to experience life fully, richly, and deeply. Why obey the dietary laws, if one could contemplate them instead? Why perform a physical circumcision if a "spiritual" one were good enough? Because the "lower" does not merely serve the "higher." The body, independent of the heart's stirring and the misgivings of the intellect, is the site of holiness; even if there is no apparent change in the mind, and no softening of the heart, transformation takes place within the field of the body. This is not consolation; it is liberation. By no longer evaluating experience according to "how it makes me feel," the grip of an important illusion is loosened: the illusion that you are your mind, and that reality only matters when the ego is affected. Thus the body is simultaneously the ground of traditional Jewish law, and the deepest of its esoteric truths. In the Hasidic view, it is in the material plane that the "extension of the light of the Ein Sof" is most expressed. In the nondualistic view, ultimately the highest truth is the "lowest," as essence is manifestation. This is the esoteric reading of the Shema: that the transcendent is the immanent.

Image: the possibility of suicide by Peter Schwartz

Within twelve months, Sabbetai Zvi counted among his followers over one third of the European Jewish community. People left their homes, sold their belongings, and awaited the reconquest of the Holy Land. Entire communities were overturned, with Sabbatean leaders replacing traditional ones. In fulfillment of Kabbalistic prophecies, fast days were turned to feast days, and certain ritual laws annulled. Indeed, not to believe in the messiah, Sabbetai Zvi, was regarded, in many communities, as a lack of faith.

All of this attention did not escape the notice of worldly leaders, and when Sabbetai arrived in Constantinople in 1666, he was promptly arrested by the Turkish sultan. At first, Sabbetai lived a lavish life in his "imprisonment" in a castle, receiving visitors and carrying himself like the king he was heralded to be. However, things soon turned sour, and Sultan Mehmet IV did not like this peculiar Jew pretending to be king. Under duress, Sabbetai Zvi converted to Islam on September 16, 1666.

For most Jews, the conversion of the Messiah came as a terrible shock, instantly dashing their hopes of redemption. But for a considerable minority, it was all part of the plan. Some of Sabbetai's faithful converted to Islam themselves, while maintaining their Judaism secretly. Others, while not converting, maintained their secret faith in Sabbetai Zvi -- a tradition which lasted in some families for hundreds of years. These "believers" (ma'aminim in Hebrew) were relentlessly persecuted by mainstream rabbinic authorities, but they were never quite erased. As late as the last century, they still existed, either as crypto-Muslims in Turkey, or hidden Sabbateans in other communities.

The most colorful aspect of these secret Jewish heretics was their abolition of Jewish ritual laws, especially those around sexuality. Some of the more radical ones would convene on special holidays to engage in orgiastic behavior and sexual rituals. Others would eat specially treif meals of lamb cooked in milk -- scholars have published the recipes. The idea behind these practices wasn't hedonism -- remember, heretics are believers, not sinners -- but rather the belief that since the messiah has come, certain laws have been abolished. And what better way to prove your faith than to deliberately violate the laws of the pious?

Today, hardly anyone knows about Sabbetai Zvi. The traditional saying used in connection with villains is yemach shmo -- may his name be blotted out -- and it often works. But just last Spring, I was talking with an Egged bus driver in Jerusalem, and he described himself as "from Salonika," a code-word for the secret followers of Sabbetai Zvi. I looked him dead in the eye, and asked him (in Hebrew) if he meant what I thought he meant. He told me that he did.

Frank's name is little-known today. His recorded oral teachings, a disorganized, thousand-page jumble called the Words of the Lord, have never been published in English -- and were only printed in their original Polish a few years ago. He's a footnote -- the great scholar of Kabbalah Gershom Scholem called him a "degenerate," a cheap imitation of the antinomian messiah Sabbetai Tzvi.

But in 1760, if you asked any Jew on the street who Jacob Frank was, you can bet that they knew exactly. Frank was the most infamous (ex-)Jew of this day, a man who had been caught engaging in orgiastic sexual ritual, turned over to the Christian authorities for prosecution as a heretic (the Church had jurisdiction over all heretics in that day, not just Christian ones), and then, to avoid the gallows, led a mass conversion in which hundreds of his followers publicly renounced Judaism and became Christians. At the height of his popularity, approximately 50,000 Jews or ex-Jews considered themselves his disciples -- an enormous number even in those days. By contrast, if you asked the same Jew if he knew about the Baal Shem Tov, the future founder of Hasidism who was a contemporary of Frank -- you'd probably get a blank stare.

Born in 1726, Frank spent his formative years as a European expatriate in Turkey, consorting with the underground communities of believers in the messiah Sabbetai Tzvi, who had died thirty years prior but who still had thousands of followers. Some of these followers were Muslims who were secretly Jews; others were Jews who were secretly Sabbateans. Initially, Frank was just another heretic among heretics -- but all that changed in 1756, when he was (allegedly) caught performing a heretical ritual (admit it, you want to know: it involved having a young maiden, either naked or topless, embody the Shechinah, or Divine Feminine, and stand in the center of a circle of men who kissed her breasts the way we kiss the Torah today). A huge public disputation followed.

At first, Frank's party -- known as the Contra-Talmudists, because they rejected the Talmud and followed only Kabbalah -- was victorious. But then, in late 1757, the pro-Frank (and anti-semitic) bishop in charge of the disputation suddenly dropped dead. Quickly Frank's fortunes reversed, and he was more or less forced to either convert to Catholicism, or admit that he was a heretic, in which case he would probably be killed. On September 17, 1759, Frank converted.

But something was strange about these "New Christians," who insisted on maintaining their old customs (including -- I kid you not; this is my field -- the eating of kugel) and who never quite renounced their old faith. Indeed, for Frank, the conversion to Christianity was actually just another transgression of a boundary. He never really accepted Christ as his savior -- because he was the savior. Not quite the messiah; Frank never promised redemption. More like the anti-Messiah, the leader of a new sect that would transcend all the dichotomies between sacred and sinful, beautiful and ugly, sanctified and degraded. These ideas did grow out of Sabbateanism, which had to negotiate the huge gap between the world of truth, in which Sabbetai Tzvi was the messiah, and the apparent world, in which he was a dead apostate, and which, as a consequence, also came to regard the visible world as illusory, fallen, and evil. But they were also Frank's own: a radical new anti-religion that saw law and order as the problems, and antinomianism as the only holy solution.

The Church threw him in jail, and so Frank sat in a monastery for thirteen years, until the Russians conquered that part of Poland and set him free. From 1772 until his death in 1791, Frank had an astonishing career as cult leader, confidante of Emperor Joseph II, and pseudo-Russian nobility who set himself up with a small court and soldiers who paraded around his estate with guns and flags.

And throughout, Frank maintained, with his followers, a secret, heretical religion of transgression, antinomianism, and inversion. It really was the stuff of folk legends: a sinister leader, secret sexual orgies, and a rejection of every standard of decency. Frank parodied the Zohar, the Talmud, the Torah; he boasted about his sexual prowess and told dirty jokes; and, he created an original theology that was innovative, if sinister.

Concepts of boundary and transgression are problematized within the Frankist theology -- and for a figure working within a religious context, they are crucial concepts; demarcations of boundary are among the most crucial aspects of religion in general, and certainly of Judaism in particular. As a moral-ethical order, religion sets boundaries upon human behavior -- beginning, as Freud theorized, with the incest taboo, but extending, in the Jewish religion, to every aspect of life, cultural demarcations (which in the Kabbalah are imbued with cosmological symbolic significance) of forbidden or permitted, pure or impure, inside or outside, central or marginal. Frankism deliberately sets about crossing every boundary available to it, and undermining the very notion of boundary. As such, it problematizes the question of "religion" itself, creating a religion of anti-religion, a paradoxical cult of the profane. Frank himself is a boundary-crosser, a Ladino-speaking Turk active in Moravia (itself a liminal, lawless "Interzone,", Germany, and Poland. He is said to speak all languages, and none of them well. His sexual practices transgressed the most fundamental of human taboos, including perhaps the incest taboo. And Frank's ideology, in Divrei HaAdon, is one in which the crossing of boundaries is the most important religious-personal obligation.

Frank's rereading of the myth of Jacob and Esau is a focal point for these ideas. Frank, who naturally saw himself as connected to his Biblical namesake, regarded Jacob as the great hero of the Bible. However, he parted company with that tradition (which he scorns on a number of occasions in the Divrei HaAdon) to regard Jacob as a failed hero rather than a successful one. Understanding Frank's revisionist reading of Jacob's quest is a useful entry point to understanding his theology in general. For Frank, the central theological move is the garbing of the holy in the unholy. In his neo-gnostic ontology, the world, wholly evil, is a creation not of YHVH but of an evil creator god. And yet, God has become manifest and present in the world, thus transgressing the boundary between pure and impure. Human beings, to imitate God, likewise must enter into the realm of the profane, like Jacob wearing the "skins" of Esau to receive the blessing from his father, a blessing that, Frank delights in recalling, is obtained through theft -- that is to say, through the individual and antinomian action of the mystic hero, a motif which recurs over and over in the Divrei HaAdon.

However, Jacob, the hero of the Jews, never understood this, and constantly worked to patrol boundaries and maintain separateness. For example, Frank notes, Jacob refuses to allow Rachel to bring the idols of her father Laban with her. This, Frank says, was a tragic mistake, because instead of joining together the Divinity incarnate in the idols (like that incarnate in the "Black Virgin" of Czestochowa, where Frank was imprisoned for twelve years), Jacob maintained the separation between the material world and the spiritual one. Only Rachel, who Frank identifies with his daughter Eva, understood that there is holiness even within the idolatrous -- the very secret of the Divine Incarnation.

Now, if we continue to view Frankism from within Scholem's dialectical theory, then it is natural to link such myths with the "uplifting of the sparks" as understood within the Sabbatean Kabbalah. However, I believe this is a projection of a conceptual framework absent in the Divrei HaAdon and scorned by Frank himself. Nowhere does Frank suggest that Jacob should have uplifted the fallen sparks of Divinity hidden within Rachel's idols. On the contrary, unlike the Sabbatean readings of "descent for the sake of ascent," Frank never proposes an eschatology in which the "liberated" sparks reunite in a cosmic tikkun or Messianic event. His cosmology is more radical: it is that the notion of liberating sparks, which entails a kind of ontological sifting of good and evil, is the problem, not the solution. Jacob's mistake was not in forgoing an opportunity to lift sparks fallen in Rachel's idols, but to recognize the thorough intermixing of Divinity with idolatry, and the transgression of boundaries that it represents -- not unlike Frank's veneration of the Cult of the Black Virgin ("all that we are seeking is a portrait," he remarks at one point).

Where conventional Sabbatean theology understood that the truthful Torah of Atzilut had already supplanted the Torah of Asiyah, the Divrei HaAdon effaces the distinction between the two, because it is the mixing of the two that is the quintessential Divine act. The dichotomy is the same, but the relationship to the dichotomy is quite different. Rather than moving from one to the other, and hoping to bring about the supplanting of one by the other, the Divrei HaAdon mixes the two together.

Amazingly, some of Frank's followers went on to become leaders of the Prague Enlightenment, prominent attorneys in Poland, and shape-shifters of every kind. Adam Mickiewicz, considered Poland's greatest poet, used Frankist themes in his work and was almost certainly part of a Frankist family. Even Justice Louis Brandeis had a portrait of Frank's daughter Eva on his desk in the Supreme Court -- an heirloom he received from his Dembitz relatives, whose ancestors were followers of Frank. The Supreme Court! Oh, and that Jewish-Masonic conspiracy the antisemies talk about? Not entirely fiction -- one follower of Frank, Moses Dobruska, was in fact a prominent Jacobin and powerful Freemason who went under the name of Junius Frey. He ran arms during the French Revolution, and may have spied for Austria. He was executed by guillotine.

Indeed, it is sexuality which most obviously marks the site of transgression for Frank and the Frankists. Notorious for their sexual transgressions, and heirs to a Sabbatean tradition which held that the disjuncture between the world of atzilut and that of asiyah was most clearly manifest in the abrogation of sexual norms, the Frankists, if the Kronika and contemporary sources shed any light on their actual practices, were sexual antinomians for whom erotic practice was simultaneously a transgression of social and religious norms and an actualization of the Kabbalistically-defined Divine eroticism. However, it would be a mistake to conclude that Frankist sexuality was simply a matter of defying convention in its starkest form. Rather, sexuality is that which enacts the phallocentrically defined empowerment of man -- the Lord, Adon, is a euphemism for the phallus and it is neither exaggeration nor vulgarization to translate Divrei HaAdon as "the matters of the cock." Indeed, this study will apply the methodology of queer theory to understand Frank's transgressive sexuality as an intentional, radical disorder of notions of gender as part of his epic quest to assert his own (phallic) power against the manifest world.

Whether these sexual practices included actual incest with his daughter Eva or not, it is clear that sexual potency is, for Frank, a symbol of power in general -- and it is for Frank the individual's power, in rebellion against norms and the limitations of the manifest world, that will enable him to attain godliness. Clearly, Frank was no saint; he abused his disciples, including sexually, and was a deliberately vulgar man. But like the followers of "left-hand" Tantrism, it might just be the case that Frank did it all to shake free of illusion and truly embrace the knowledge (gnosis, or das, in Frank's words) of the true God as he saw it.

In the academy, these ideas are rarely studied; and outside the academy, knowledge of Frank is quite limited. This neglect may at first seem surprising, given the uniqueness of Frank as a figure, but it can be understood in light of three facts: first, the paucity and unreliability of authentic Frankist sources; second, the belief by many scholars that a boorish or perhaps insane Frank never elucidated a theology, and the fact that Divrei HaAdon often more closely resembles the rantings of a madman or the rationales of a power-hungry deviant than any kind of theological, mystical, or religious treatise; and third, the fact that Frankism as a religious ideology, to the extent it can be called such, had far less impact on European Jewish history than Frankism as a sociological-religious phenomenon, which at its zenith affected over 30,000 people, and which has been credited with influencing the rise of Hasidism, the Haskalah in Prague, and other later developments in Jewish thought. Even today, as the redaction of Frankist sources makes them more available to scholars, the tendency to treat Frankism historically, rather than with the methodologies of religious studies, has continued.

Because of this focus on Frankism as history rather than as ideology, the prevailing scholarly understanding of what Frank and the Frankists actually believed (at least as recorded in the textual sources available to us) is greatly attenuated, and often incorrect. Generally, when scholars have remarked on the core ideas of Frankism, they have done so heavily influenced by Gershom Scholem's contextualization of Frankism as a late, extreme manifestation of Sabbateanism -- perhaps the reductio ad absurdum of "redemption through sin" (a doctrine which never appears in the Frankist corpus). Scholem, who regarded Frank as a "corrupt and degenerate individual," saw Frankist antinomianism and Christianization as a mere extension of Sabbateanism, and a poor derivative of it. Thus Frank's original contributions tend to be minimized -- notwithstanding Frank's own contempt for Sabbetai Tzvi and his strikingly post-Sabbatean, and even anti-Sabbatean, doctrines. And while it is commonly understood that Frank was an antinomian, the theological justifications for, and the cosmology underling, that antinomianism have rarely (if ever) been subjected to rigorous textual analysis. Yet Scholem's conceptions of Frankism, and the tendency of many scholars to accept them, are not borne out by Frankist texts. In fact, a study of those texts reveals Frankism to be a strikingly original, radically gnostic, nihilistic, constantly shifting, yet theoretically cognizable enterprise of boundary-crossing -- so much so that Frankism becomes almost a carnivalesque satire of religion itself.

Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572) is among the most influential, and remarkable, Kabbalists of all time. Called the Ari, or Holy Lion (the name is an acronym for Elohi Rabbi Isaac, or the Godly Rabbi Isaac), he is most associated with the renaissance of Kabbalah that occurred in Tsfat, a small town in northern Israel that is to this day a center of Jewish mysticism. Yet the Ari only lived in Tsfat for two years, and most of his teachings are only known through the writings of his disciples. He was a remarkable figure, regarded as an almost angelic being by his contemporaries, and universally acknowledged as a genius both of Kabbalah and of non-mystical Judaism.

Luria was born in Jerusalem, but raised in Egypt. Recognized early on as an adept at Jewish law, he spent several years studying Talmud. In his early twenties, however, he moved to a secluded island on the Nile to focus on the study of Kabbalah, particularly the Zohar. Little is known of this time in Luria's life. He would visit his wife and family only on Shabbat, and speak to them only in Hebrew. He believed himself to be in conversation with Elijah the prophet, and with deceased teachers of the Kabbalah. During one such conversation, Elijah told him to move to Israel and study with Rabbi Moses Cordovero. Luria did so in 1569.

Cordovero was to die the following year, and Luria two years thereafter. Yet the Ari's influence was immediate. Regarded as a saintly figure, he would often commune with the souls of departed tzaddikim (righteous ones), and composed elaborate mystical poems -- the only works known to be of the Ari's own authorship. This was a time of great mystical ferment in Tsfat. Kabbalah Shabbat, now practiced throughout the Jewish world, was created, and Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz wrote the Lecha Dodi. Exiles from Spain built a new center of Jewish learning, and drew solace from themes of exile in the Kabbalah, which they enhanced in their new writings. (The Ari himself was of Ashkenazic descent, though he is often associated with Spanish exiles such as Cordovero.)

Lurianic Kabbalah (Kabbalat HaAri) is, in large part, an elaboration of certain themes from the later portions of the Zohar. Yet it so expounds upon those themes that it is generally regarded, by scholars and Kabbalists alike, as its own branch of the Kabbalah. Today its most well-known doctrine is that of the creation of the world, which is seen as unfolding in a three-part process of Tzimtzum, the withdrawal of the Infinite to "make space" for the finite; Shevirah, the "breaking of the vessels" into which the Infinite light was poured; and Tikkun, the ongoing repair of those vessels. This doctrine is highly mythical; it is a narrative, not a theory. Yet it is also extremely complex, filled with mystical speculation on how the tzimtzum occurred, what the flaws of the "vessels" were, and a myriad of other details. Yet for all the mythic aspects of the theory, it can be seen as explaining a very basic aspect of life: that even though God fills the universe, the world often appears to be broken.

It is easy to draw a connection between the focus on the world's brokenness and the breakage of the Kabbalists' own world, in the wake of the Spanish Expulsion. Following Gershom Scholem, many scholars have suggested exactly such a link. Yet the actual historical situation was quite nuanced, and the Kabbalistic literature itself seems more occupied with cosmic exile, breakage, and return than with their reflections on the worldly plane. Still, these ideas resonate today with those who see the Holocaust in a similar light, and who draw inspiration from the great work of Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world. For the Ari and his associates, Tikkun Olam is effectuated by the mitzvot, and by specific intentions accompanying them. Today, however, the word is often used to denote acts of righteousness and lovingkindness. And while Tikkun Olam is a 16th century innovation, it is sometimes described as the primary purpose of Jewish life: repairing the world.

In this process, the precise intentions, or kavvanot, are essential. Many Jews are familiar with the word kavvanah, which means intention -- to pray with kavvanah is to pray like you mean it, with focus and intention. Kavvanot are a bit more complicated; they are specific intentions, not general ones; they are like a cosmic technology. Every mitzvah has a mystical meaning, in its precise detail. And every prayer corresponds to a different aspect of the Divine. Learning all of these details, and performing commandments with the right intention -- this is the task of the Kabbalist, and the way to bring about redemption.

There's a wonderful Hasidic teaching that the Ari provided all the keys to all of the locks in heaven -- but today, having lost the keys, we are trying to break down the door. That's the difference between Lurianic Kabbalah and Hasidism in a nutshell: the former provides the right keys for a thousand different locks, and the latter uses emotional force instead of calibrated mental intention.

Just as scholars have linked Lurianic Kabbalah's doctrine to the recent past of the Spanish Expulsion, so they have also connected them to the fervent messianism of the 16th and 17th centuries, which culminated in the mass movement of Sabbetai Tzvi, a messianic figure who at the height of his popularity had over one third of the European Jewish community as his followers. As before, there is truth to these theories, though the situation is more complex than it may at first appear. Clearly, the Ari and his followers saw themselves as bringing about redemption -- the Ari himself was seen as a proto-messianic figure, and his chief disciple, Rabbi Hayim Vital, saw himself that way as well. And Sabbetai Tzvi's primary advocate, Rabbi Nathan of Gaza, used Lurianic ideas to justify the new messiah. But there were many other factors as well, not least the tremendous upheavals and massacres of the 17th century, which, far more than the Kabbalistic theories of the elites, were a mass phenomenon. To draw a more recent parallel, the Kabbalah of Rav Kook clearly played a part in the creation of religious Zionism -- but the Holocaust probably mattered more, and to more people.

Kabbalat HaAri is today among the most complicated and inaccessible branches of the Kabbalah. Very little of the literature has been translated into English, and it is often so ornate that, even with adequate background in the Zohar, it is difficult to comprehend. Hayim Vital's Etz Hayim is probably the most widely accepted systematization of Lurianic Kabbalah, and translations of Lurianic literature are currently underway. (The popular anthology of "Safedian Kabbalah" primarily contains ascetic and pietistic practices, which were central to the movement but peripheral to its theological ideas. Lawrence Fine's "Physician of the Soul" is an excellent portrait of the Ari and his circle.) One teacher of mine remarked that he set out, early in life, to learn Sabbatean Kabbalah. But he realized that to do so, he would have to understand Kabbalat HaAri. And then he realized that to learn Kabbalat HaAri, he really had to understand the Zohar first. So, twenty years on, he is still learning the Zohar.

For all its abstruse detail, however, there is no denying that Lurianic Kabbalah has created some of the most familiar Kabbalistic ideas and practices, not least Tikkun Olam and Kabbalat Shabbat. And it was Isaac Luria, a genius turned hermit turned saint, who catalyzed this new phase of the Kabbalah's history. His grave in Tsfat is now a place of pilgrimage, where candles burn through the night.

Abulafian meditation may be unusual for Kabbalah, but in some ways it more closely resembles the mystical literature of other religions. Christian mysticism, for example, is often recorded in first-person narratives: I did this practice, contemplated in this way, and then had this experience. Likewise with Sufi mysticism, though the practices are often communal rather than individual. Kabbalah, however, is primarily composed not of similar first-person accounts, but of abstruse literature which may or may not be about direct experience. Today, there are excellent anthologies of Jewish "mystical testimonies" -- but these testimonies are not the primary form of Kabbalistic literature.

The truth is, they are not even primary in Abulafia's writings. What has happened, in the last forty years, is that Abulafia's meditation practices have been extracted from his books and presented as stand-alone exercises. In fact, when one actually opens Abulafia's books -- none of which has yet been translated into English -- one quickly sees that this extraction is a bit misleading, because Abulafia's prophetic techniques are tied to the type of prophecy one receives. In general, the techniques involve manipulation and permutation of the Hebrew language. What they bring about, in Abulafia's accounts and my own experience, is often a kind of stream of free association which plays within the concepts and words being permuted. Notice, though, that if you don't have the tools to interpret the "prophesies" you are receiving, they will be meaningless.

Suppose, for example, you are associating using gematria, the numerical equivalents of letters. Abulafia makes much of the equivalence of "Israel" with the term "Sechel Ha-Poal," which means Active Intellect. But if you don't know that 541 is the numerical value of each, or can't calculate gematria that quickly, then you may reach the end of the line very quickly. Or suppose you have a vision of certain letters, as you are rotating through the 72-letter name of God (really, the 216 letter name, comprised of 72 triads). This can be a beautiful experience, but without the tools to make sense of what you are seeing, an experience is all it is. It's ecstasy, but not prophecy.

For those dabbling in spiritual matters, or using meditation as a substitute for "getting high," experience is quite enough. This is why, I think, the term "ecstatic Kabbalah," which was used by certain scholars, is often used instead of "prophetic Kabbalah," which was used by Abulafia himself. Ecstasy is a diffuse experience; prophecy is particular. Ecstasy is focused on the escape from the world; prophecy on how the escape relates to the rest of life.

In the wake of the 1960s, whose mass spiritual phenomena were often focused entirely on escape and experience, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan publicized the teachings of Abulafia, demonstrating that the mystical practices that were attracting many Jews to Buddhism, Hinduism, and other "Eastern" religions were present right within Judaism itself. Kaplan had his own reasons for doing so. For our purposes, I simply want to make clear that the attainment of a mystical state is really only half of the "point" of Abulafia. We will focus on those techniques which work with very limited knowledge of Hebrew or Kabbalah, as did Kaplan. But for the other half of the project, which integrates the knowledge received in mystical states with the rest of the world, there is no way around actually learning the language, the symbols, and the terms of Judaism and Kabbalah.

One of Abulafia's simplest practices, popularized by Aryeh Kaplan, involves a series of head movements and breath, combined with pronouncing the Divine name.

The shortest version works by sounding out different Hebrew vowels together with the tetragrammaton (Y-H-V-H). When you do the practice, you'll want to sit comfortably in a place where you will not be disturbed, and allow the eyes to close. One begins with the first letter of the Divine name, Yood, and pronounces with the yood the vowels Oh, Ah, Ay, Ee, and Oo. Each vowel has a corresponding head movement, which resembles the way the vowel mark is written in Hebrew: with Oh the head moves up and back to center, Ah to the left and back to center, Ay to the right and back to center, Ee down and back to center, and then Oo forward, backward, and back to center. Move your head with the breath: on each inhale you move away from center, then on the exhale, pronouncing the sound, you move back. So, it looks a bit like this:

Inhale - move head upward
Exhale - move head back to center, pronouncing Yoh
Inhale - move head to the left
Exhale - move head back to center, pronouncing Yah
Inhale - move head to the right
Exhale - move head back to center, pronouncing Yay
Inhale - move head downward
Exhale - move head back to center, pronouncing Yee
Inhale - move head backward
Exhale - move head foreward, backward, center, Yoo

You then repeat that process with the letters Hey, Vav, and then Hey again.

There are many layers to this practice. On the esoteric level, notice that since you're permuting each letter of the Divine Name with each vowel, somewhere in there you have pronounced the ineffable name of God. On the more practical level, the complexity of this practice really focuses the mind. You can be thinking about mortgages, tests, and kids when you start, but in order to keep it straight, those thoughts just have to leave. Moreover, this is just the simplest level of the practice. As you develop, there are more and more complicated versions. One is to visualize the letters and vowels as you pronounce them. Another is to combine Divine names, such as YHVH and ADNY ("adonai"), and rotate through the vowel-sequence with the two names. You can even do one name backward and the other name forward.

Now, if this is approached as a sort of parlor trick, it's not very interesting or uplifting. But look closely at what Abulafia is doing: focusing the mind, and training the mind and body to work together. And all in a system that expertly pushes distracting thoughts away.

The results can be amazing. For example, there's a version of the practice above in which you rotate through the vowels on the exhale. Instead of just inhaling, you pronounce a vowel and move the head on the inhalation. So it sounds like "Oh-Yo... Oh-Yah..." etc., then "Ah-Yo, Ah-yah," then "Ay-yo, Ay-yah," and so on. The practice takes about twenty minutes, if you don't rush. Usually, when I finish it, I've really got YHVH in my head -- I can imagine the letters of the name imprinted on whatever else I'm seeing: trees, people, traffic jams. And that is the truth, isn't it? That the trees and people and cars are just the skin of the Divine? Isn't that the simple truth we've been trying to wake up to?

If you are interested in learning more about Abulafia, there is no substitute for practice. Kaplan's book
Meditation and Kabbalah contains concise instructions, as well as selected translations from the original. Moshe Idel's studies contain a great deal of information on Abulafian techniques. And in the near future, we will be adding excerpts from Abulafia's texts on this site, so that you can practice right along with the master.

However, don't get too fancy too fast. Try the above practice first, perhaps setting aside twenty minutes each day for a few weeks. Observe what happens to the mind; see how you feel afterwards. If you find the practice has become too easy, add one of the extra layers suggested above until you really have to concentrate in order to do it. Again, with only the introductory practice, it's not as if you're going to attain prophecy overnight. But it's a start.

Charismatic, insightful, and apparently gifted both in mystical practice in and relating to everyday people, the Baal Shem Tov was one of many "holy men" circulating in Eastern Europe in the late eighteenth century -- but the only one to found a sect that, within 50 years of his death, had spread throughout the entire region. He was a man, in many ways, of contradictions. His teachings were at first confined to a small elite, but quickly became a mass movement. The essence of his teachings was simple -- there is nothing but God, and our task is to live in devekut, cleaving to God -- but their roots were in the complicated Kabbalah of the Ari, and in response to the heresies of Sabbateanism. And the Baal Shem Tov himself was a man who seemed to many to be an unschooled peasant, but who was actually much more learned than he appeared.

The early life of the Baal Shem Tov (or "BeShT," the acronym by which he his sometimes known) is shrouded in mystery and legend. He was born in a small town near the Polish-Russian border, in the region known as Podolia. It is told in the legendary accounts of his life that the young Israel would wander in the fields and the forests, in close communion with the Divine; whatever the truth of these accounts, certainly a heartful, soulful emotional relationship with God would become a central feature in the Besht's Hasidism. Indeed, perhaps the best summary of Hasidism and how it relates to Kabbalah is contained in the Hasidic teaching that "The Kabbalists of old had all the keys to all the locks in heaven. We don't, so we use our prayer to break down the door."

Eventually, the Besht became a simple teacher of schoolchildren in the town of Brody, probably becoming acquainted with the students in the kloiz, or advanced yeshiva (really, a bit like a monastery), there. It was not until 1734 that he revealed himself as a spiritual master, and took on the name Baal Shem Tov. The name itself is instructive. A Baal Shem is, essentially, a miracle worker who would use angelic or Divine names for healing or magic; there are many baalei shem whose existence is recorded in history. The name Baal Shem Tov is a bit audacious, since it implies that the Besht could use "The" Divine name as well. As has been shown by scholars, the seemingly simple and pietistic of Hasidism -- ecstatic prayer, emotional love of God and people, spirituality being more important than scholarship -- have behind them an intricate structure based on Kabbalistic ecstasy, theury, and magic.

One of the few writings that is almost certainly by the Besht himself is a letter to his brother in law, in which he describes an ascent to the heavenly realms -- now known as the Iggeret Hakodesh and reproduced here on this site. The Baal Shem Tov there meets the Messiah, and immediately asks him when he will arrive on Earth. The Messiah answers, "when your teachings become publicized and revealed to the world, and your well-springs have overflowed to the outside ... so that others, too, will be able to perform mystical unifications and ascents of the soul like you." The Baal Shem Tov reports being greatly troubled by this answer, since " a long time must pass for this to be possible." Yet this text does say a great deal about Hasidism's emphasis on promoting once-hidden teachings. In former centuries, Kabbalists regarded their wisdom as secret, and reserved it only for the few. Especially after the Sabbatean heresy, mainstream authorities likewise forbade the study of Kabbalah by all but the elites. But, inspired by this teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, most Hasidim, in the movement's first hundred years at least, spread Kabbalistic teachings throughout the masses.

Eventually, later Hasidim would close the doors again, claiming that the ordinary people of their generations were not as worthy as those of the Besht's. But in the last fifty years, the portals are open once more, in the guise of 'neo-Hasidism,' the outreach efforts of Chabad, and Kabbalistic institutions like this very website. To be sure, unlike some of the latter-day popularizers of Kabbalah, the Besht insisted on maintaining a life of mitzvot, and, while he did simplify Kabbalah, never "dumbed it down." He left behind several prominent students, and leadership of the Hasidic sect eventually passed to Rabbi DovBer of Mezrich, who coordinated the explosive growth of the movement and set up Hasidic courts in cities across Eastern Europe. Within a single generation, the conditions set down in the Baal Shem Tov's vision seemed far closer to fulfillment.

This translation is based on that by David Sears in The Path of the Baal Shem Tov (Aronson), although I have edited it in several places.

The Epistle of the Baal Shem Tov (Letter to Rabbi Avraham Gershon Kitover)

To my beloved brother-in-law, my friend who is dear to me as my own heart and soul, the exalted rabbi and Hasid, renowned for his Torah scholarship and fear of Heaven, our master, Rabbi Avraham Gershon, may his light shine. Peace unto him and his family, his modest wife, Bluma, together with all their children; may they be blessed with life, amen, selah.

I received the letter written by your holy hand, which you sent by means of the emissary from Jerusalem, at the fair of Luka in the year 5510 (1750). It was written with extreme brevity, and explained that you had already written at length to each of us individually and had sent those letters by means of a certain man en route to Egypt. However, those letters never arrived, and I was sorely grieved that I never saw the work of your holy hand which was written in greater detail. Assuredly this is due to the calamitous state of the many lands in which the plague has spread because of our many transgressions. Not far from our region the pestilence has reached the holy community of Mohilev, as well as Wallachia and Turkey.

[Your letter] also states that the Torah teachings and mystical revelations which I sent you through the rabbi and preacher of the holy community of Polonoye did not reach you. This, too, caused me great distress. It certainly would have given you great joy if they had reached you. I have since forgotten many [of those teachings]. However, the few details I still remember I will write to you in brief.

On Rosh Hashanah of the year 5507 (1746), I made an oath and elevated my soul in the manner known to you. I saw wondrous things in a vision, the like of which I had never witnessed since the day my mind first began to awaken. The things which I saw and learned when I ascended there would be impossible to communicate, even if I could speak to you in person. When I returned to the lower Garden of Eden, I saw many souls, both living and dead, some known to me and others unknown-their number was beyond reckoning. They were hastening back and forth in order to ascend from one world to another through the pillar known to those initiated into the mysteries. Their joy was too great for the mouth to express or the physical ear to hear. Also, many evil-doers were repenting, and their sins were being forgiven, since it was a special time of Divine favor. Even to me, it was amazing how many of them were accepted as penitents, a number of whom you also know. There was great joy among them, too, and they ascended in he same manner.

Together they begged and implored me unceasingly, "Because of the glory of your Torah, God has granted you an additional measure of understanding to grasp and to know these matters. Ascend with us so that you can be our help and support."

Because of the great joy that I beheld among them, I agreed to go up with them... And I sought my master (Achiyah HaShiloni) to accompany me, for the ascent to the Supernal Worlds is fraught with danger. From the day of my birth until now, I never experienced such an ascent as this.

I went up from level to level until I entered the Palace of the Messiah, where the messiah studies with the Tannaim (rabbinic sages)and tzaddikim, as well as the Seven Shepherds. There I found extremely great rejoicing, but I did not know the cause of this delight. At first I thought that it might be due to my having passed away from the physical world, God forbid. Later they told me that I had not yet died, for they have great pleasure on high when I effect mystical unifications in the world below through their holy Torah. However, to this very day, the nature of their joy remains unknown to me.

I asked the messiah, "When will you come, master?" And he replied, "By this you shall know: it will be a time when your teachings become publicized and revealed to the world, and your well-springs have overflowed to the outside, [when] that which I have taught you-and that which you have perceived of your own efforts-become known, so that others, too, will be able to perform mystical unifications and ascents of the soul like you. Then all the evil klippot [shells] will be destroyed, and it will be a time of grace and salvation."

I was amazed at this and greatly troubled, since a long time must pass for this to be possible. But while I was there I learned three segulot and three Holy Names which are easy to learn and explain. My mind was then set at ease, and I thought that with these teachings the people of my own generation might attain the same spiritual level and state as myself. They would be able to elevate their souls and to learn and perceive just as I do. However, I was not granted permission to reveal this during my lifetime. I pleaded for your sake to be allowed to teach you; but I was denied permission altogether and took an oath to that effect.

Yet this I can tell you, and may God assist you, that your way may be pleasant to the Lord, and that you do not go astray (particularly in the Holy Land). Whenever you pray or study-and with every utterance your lips-intend to bring about the unification of a Divine Name. For every letter contains worlds and souls and Godliness, and they ascend and combine and unite with one another. Then the letters combine and unite to form a word, and they are actually unified with the Divine essence-and in all these aspects, your soul is bound up with them. All become unified as one, and they ascend and bring about great joy and delight without measure. Consider the joy of a bridegroom and bride in this lowly physical world, and you will realize how much greater is the joy on such a lofty spiritual level.

God will surely help you. Wherever you turn, you will succeed and become enlightened. "Give wisdom to the wise, and he will become wise all the more." Please pray for my sake, that I might be privileged to dwell in God's land during my lifetime; and pray for the remnant of our people who still remain in the Diaspora

These are the words of your brother-in-law who longs to see you face-to-face, who prays that length of days be granted to you and your wife and children, and who wishes you peace "all your days-including the nights, for many good years," Amen, selah.

Israel Baal Shem Tov
of the Holy Community of Medzhibozh

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Notes for Study:

Notice, in this text, the combination of several forms of Kabbalistic practice. At first the Besht says he took a "vow" to ascend on high; later he refers to his method as "mystical unifications and ascents of the soul." Notice, too, how the supposedly simple and devotionalistic Hasidic master actually uses complicated, ecstatic-magical Kabbalah, and how his advice to his brother in law is not simple piety but a specific kavvanah to "bring about the unification of a Divine Name." If you read closely, you will see many other subtle Kabbalistic allusions in the text.

It's fascinating that the Besht says he learned very simple tools for this type of ascent, but was not allowed to reveal them. What is the purpose of this revelation-and-concealment? The Besht does not provide a reason why his forbidden to reveal these tools, but it would be interesting to speculate as to possible ones.

Hasidism is sometimes known for its "neutralization" of political messianism: instead of focusing on a this-worldly redeemer whose imminent arrival is expected, Hasidism taught that the messianic age can be experienced "here and now" through the experience of ecstatic prayer. The Holy Letter functions in different ways in this regard. On the one hand, the fact that the Baal Shem Tov's first question in heaven is when the messiah will arrive shows that messianism was still a primary concern to the Hasidim (or perhaps to their audiences, many of whom were greatly tempted by contemporary messianic movements). On the other hand, the answer he receives suggests that the messiah's arrival is hardly imminent. Moreover, since the best way to bring about the coming of the messiah is to spread Hasidic practices and teachings, the distinction between "bringing the messiah" and "practicing ecstatic prayer and other practices" disappears. It's worth looking at the messiah's answer closely, in Hebrew if you have the text, to see the many subtleties present in his reply.

As I have an academic background myself, clearly I don't think academic study is misguided. By applying the tools of critical theory and close reading to the Kabbalah, scholars have vastly enriched our understanding of its substance, its roots and historical development, and its textual makeup. There is no substitute for intellectual rigor, and there are brilliant academics of several generations upon whose shoulders we all sit.

At the same time, this site is intended for the spiritual seeker and general student, rather than the scholar and academic. For that reason, as you can see by perusing the sidebar, we mostly proceed according to types of Kabbalah, ideas, and phenomena — rather than according to history and chronology. Thus, by reading the site and working with some of the texts provided, you can get a sense of what Kabbalists say about certain fundamental questions. This is not how Kabbalah is taught in universities. The chief questions many scholars ask are very different from the questions a spiritual seeker might ask: where does this idea come from, historically? What other texts or figures influenced its development? What influence did it have in the history of Kabbalistic thought? Whereas a spiritual seeker might ask questions such as, what does this text mean, on its own terms and for me? How can I understand the relationship between this teaching and another teaching? Historical concerns are of paramount interest to the scholar trying to understand how Kabbalah developed, but they are of only peripheral interest to the seeker trying to develop herself. For the seeker, it's useful to know that one text was written in 1290 and another in 1570, but it's certainly not the most important thing — it's more important to let these teachings penetrate your soul, and discover them from the inside out.

Obviously what an academic approach leaves out are how the teachings of Kabbalah may apply to us today. In a sense, this question is a misleading one for academics, because if we project back our own concerns onto the Kabbalists, we obscure what they are trying to say themselves. To relate hesed and gevurah to a contemporary political situation is precisely, I think, what the Kabbalah wants us to do — but it is very bad scholarship to do so. The more we blend the Kabbalistic worldviews with our own, the less clearly we can see what the Kabbalah was about for those who created it.

To me, academic and non-academic study of Kabbalah are natural complements of one another (rather like the Kabbalah itself is always seeking balance between two extremes). But I find there are comparatively few teachers who combine actual spiritual practice — be it meditation, or traditional study, or Jewish ritual observance — with intellectual rigor and critical openness. Not none — but few. What I have found, and what you will find, is that to learn Kabbalah is to take on, temporarily, different modes of learning, and do a lot of the integration work yourself. Obviously, in my own classes and in those of some other teachers, attempts are made to bring together academic rigor with spiritual seriousness. But most of the time, it's either one or the other.

There are several ways in which a bit of academic rigor can help the spiritual seeker in her study of Kabbalah.

First, learning Kabbalah with contemporary Kabbalists usually means entering a worldview in which Shimon bar Yochai wrote the Zohar — which scholarship has almost conclusively proven false — and in which the Torah is a Divine text in a way that no other document is. I do not find it difficult, any longer, to transport myself into that world, work within its assumptions, and then translate what I learn into my own weltanschauung. I can even learn text at the Kabbalah Centre, see through its commercialism and selective emphases of Kabbalistic themes, and understand what it is they're saying. But the beginning student of the Kabbalah should be mindful of these different approaches, and the different assumptions they conceal. Of course, discerning the concealed is one of the main purposes of Kabbalistic study anyway — so you're well on your way.

Second, and relatedly, in many places where Kabbalah is taught today, very traditional answers are given to historical questions -- such as, again, that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai wrote the Zohar, or that the patriarch Abraham wrote (or received) the Sefer Yetzirah, or that Biblical figures knew Kabbalah. These and other statements may be very important spiritually, but they are almost certainly inaccurate historically. And when the overwhelming evidence against them is presented, a beginning student is right to feel betrayed, confused, even alienated from the whole Kabbalistic enterprise. This isn't supposed to be about taking things on faith, and yet even the most popular commercializers of Kabbalah today repeat statements which have been disproven. (See the "Shimon bar Yochai" page for a detailed discussion of one of these.) This is disappointing.

Third, academic methodology, with its critical distance, love of distinctions, and historical sophistication, should be a natural complement to our study of the Kabbalah itself, not because it is "the" answer — for spiritual seekers, it isn't — and not but because it honors our curiosity and helps us pursue truth. Surely, whatever God is, It is closely related to truth. And our intellectual yearning for truth is part of the picture. Remember, Kabbalah is all about balance, and levels of reality. If we ignore our hearts, bodies, and souls on our religious quests, we will end up with a dry, over-intellectualized reduction of doctrine, dogma, and facts. On the other hand, if we ignore our minds, we are not developing fully either. We are apt to believe things based on authority, and jump from legend to legend without grounding ourselves in old-fashioned good sense and skepticism. Authentic spiritual teachers are not afraid of questions.

Fourth, the history is remarkable. The ways the Kabbalists thought, and wrote, and worked with their traditions — these can really enrich our appreciation of the Kabbalah. It's a bit like literature. If all you're interested in is the etymology of Shakespearean English, you are clearly missing the point of Hamlet. Then again, if you just read Hamlet and don't notice what a remarkable, amazing departure it is from everything that has come before, your appreciation of Shakespeare's genius is dimmed. The study of how these ideas came to be deepens our enjoyment of them.

And finally: our understanding is immeasurably deepened as well. Only through a critical, historical approach to text can we really know the subtle differences between how the Zohar, Rabbi Isaac Luria, or Rav Kook use the word "Tikkun," to choose one example. They use the same word, but if we know each of their systems of Kabbalah, we can understand the subtle connotations that might be lost on a less careful student. Again, it's not that these connotations are central, and it is very easy to get lost in the little shadings of meaning. But they are important, and, if we don't get lost, we will be able to understand these texts on a much deeper level. There's the Kabbalah again: balance, and levels of reality.

Knowing the rich historical development of the Kabbalah may well shake the faith of some. It may seem too intellectual, too dry, and too far removed from how we can make these teachings real in our lives today. On the other hand, for other people, approaching the Kabbalah as a set of ideas or teachings without the historical context may raise suspicions, or even seem dishonest. After all, these ideas didn't develop out of nowhere, or fall from the sky, even though some contemporary teachers say they did. There are limits to both approaches. The academic approach asks whether something is true historically, but never asks whether it is true theologically. And the traditional approach is the exact opposite.

Thus, finding the right mode of learning is, as suggested above, part of the practice of Kabbalah itself, which is so fundamentally about balance both vertical and horizontal. Vertical balance means moving among levels of reality, denying neither the revealed surface nor the hidden substance underneath. And horizontal balance means, on each of those levels, balancing heart and head, adventurousness and restraint, and so on. For each individual, the right proportion of inspirational-but-perhaps-a-bit-ahistorical teaching to historical-but-perhaps-less-inspiring information will vary. But in general, I think it's unwise to rest your knowledge of Kabbalah on shaky foundations, or on foundations that aren't as credible as the rest of how you lead your life. Religion, spirituality, and contemplation should not be dependent upon suspension of disbelief, curiosity, or even skepticism. To repeat, whatever God is, It must be closely related to truth — and whatever tools we can use to discern that truth, we ought to use.

Naturally, no one wants to believe this. It's fine to think "everything is God" on a warm summer's day, when the birds are singing tunes of Heaven. But what about in a hospital, where a child is dying of cancer? What about in the gas chambers? For that matter, what about any situation in which our moral faculties are aroused, and the presence of evil is as palpable as the sunlight?

To say that evil is part of God is not to say it doesn't exist. Everything is part of God: the self, objects in the world, this computer. "Exist" is a property we ascribe to these objects, and which we do not ascribe to, say, dragons or unicorns. That is because this computer does things that a unicorn does not -- it appears, it reliably functions as an object, and so on. Likewise, to say that evil is "only" part of God and is not "ultimately real" does not alter its significance in our daily lives.

But it does alter how we relate to it. Many texts in the Kabbalah, including the Zohar, say that the task is not to destroy evil but to return it to its source -- to "include the left within the right," in the Zoharic metaphor, "to uplift the fallen sparks" in the Lurianic one. In Chabad Hasidism, it is stated that evil exists as part of the Divine revelation itself. Indeed, to think that evil really is separate from God is, itself, the essence of evil, which is precisely the illusion of separation.

The most common form of this evil is something we all do all the time: assume that we are separate from God. The natural consequence of this belief is that "good" and "bad" are best evaluated according to how they benefit or harm the self. Thus, enriching the ego, making ourselves feel good (materially, usually, but also spiritually) -- all these quintessentially human endeavors stem from the illusion of separation. The yetzer hara, conventionally known as the "evil inclination," might be better thought of as the "selfish inclination" or the "separating inclination." It is that which grounds all experience in the separate self, and does its best to enlarge, enrich, and empower that self above others.

Conventional morality posits a dualistic psychology, in which a yetzer tov, a good inclination, balances out the evil one. For the Kabbalah, however, there is only truth and falsity: the truth that only God truly exists, and the falsity that all of our own conventional existence is real. Truth leads to those acts which benefit God -- for traditional Kabbalists, that includes ritual as well as ethical behavior. Falsity leads to those which seem to benefit the separate self.

This is hardly the end of the story. Some heretical Kabbalists believed that "acts which benefit God" include deliberate forays into the world of "sin," where the illusory nature of evil can be more readily exposed, and the sparks thereby elevated to their Source. Traditional Kabbalists and Hasidim, however, maintained the opposite: that the Torah provides the blueprint for right action, and that once the selfish inclination is abnegated, what remains are the commandments. The fundamental cosmology is the same, but the consequences are completely different.

Letting go of the reality of separate evil, and really accepting that the sitra achra is a side of Divinity, is easy on paper and very difficult in reality. Sitting in a cozy armchair, it's possible to meditate on the unity of all being, even those which are horrible. But when one is in the midst of the horror, I suppose, it becomes a rather different enterprise, and much closer to the ideal of the saint.

Still, to the extent it is possible to do so, the notion is indeed life-changing. Everything is a flavor of Divinity — we may naturally want more hesed and less gevurah, and indeed, the Kabbalah contains thousands of incantations, intentions, and actions to shift the balance in just that way. But even the dinim, the harsh judgments which we experience, are a side of the Divine manifestation. I think all of us can find the edge of tolerance in this area. Some endure life-threatening traumas and yet are able to maintain the wider view. Personally, I can lose my proper perspective after only mild physical violence. Perhaps the right work on the self is to find the edge and expand it, gradually allowing more of God to exist without forgetting. This does not remove the imperative to fight against evil, of course — only the constriction and delusion which can sometimes accompany it.

We can know this directly simply by closing our eyes and trying to remember mundane details of our surroundings. What the images are on the sides of this page, for example. Or even what you are wearing today. Some things we notice, some we forget, and some we barely seem to encounter in the first place.

If we accept the principle that there is more to the world than what we usually perceive, then the question arises of how, if we are interested, we might perceive more. This is another fundamental question of Kabbalah, as discussed on the introductory pages: how we can receive. For the Kabbalists, the world is wholly Infinite, wholly One, wholly Divine. Some of us may not be so sure. But surely, whatever life is, many if not most of us are interested in knowing it as deeply and richly as possible.

So how do we do that? Clearly, some work must be done on the mind, in order to unlearn some of the filtering and sifting we began learning at birth. Each of the three streams of Kabbalah has a different way of doing this work.

The most immediate method for spiritual seekers today is probably that of meditation. By slowing down the rushing trains of thought inside the mind, it is possible to observe the mind more clearly, and to notice each perception in greater and greater detail. All sorts of results tend to appear. Psychologically, meditators can become much more attuned to their feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, noticing negative emotions like anger, hurt or sadness before they "take over" and noticing positive emotions when they arise. People who meditate thus tend to be able to relax more easily, since they are not being driven by their emotional, reactive minds. We are also able to perceive the world more clearly -- one mouthful of food, one step, or one breath at a time. For "spiritual" types like me, the world becomes achingly beautiful, and perceptibly charged by the Divine. Meditation does, indeed, help me see more clearly -- and what I see accords with what mystics have written about for centuries.

Notably, this form of meditation is not present in Kabbalah until the nineteenth century. To be sure, there are many Kabbalah teachers today who integrate the basic practice of insight meditation, or some other form, with Kabbalistic ideas and structures -- myself included. But the forms of meditation indigenous to the Kabbalah are subtly different, and meditation itself is, while present, not central to every type of Kabbalah.

So, let's proceed instead from the Kabbalah's assumptions and structures.

Theosophical Kabbalah helps practitioners receive the fullness of reality by closely attuning them to the symbolic and energetic structures of that reality, in text and in life. Take the ten sefirot. Each of these can be experienced as physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual realities. As one learns to do so, one deepens one's vocabulary of experience, and becomes more and more attuned to the minute fluctuations of it. Elsewhere on this site, I go through the sefirot in detail, and draw an analogy to the (false) urban legend about Eskimos having many words for snow. The point of that analogy is that as our vocabulary grows, our experience deepens.

If you really immerse yourself in theosophical Kabbalah, learning the Zohar, coming to know its symbols, you will discover for yourself that the chains of associations begin to flow very easily. You can "jam" with the Zohar the way a jazz musician jams on a motif in a composition. You can feel the interplay of energies (and I use this term very loosely) in your lived experience. And you gradually begin to open up, deepen, and receive.

It works -- but the only way to know whether it works is to try it. And to try it takes a lot of learning and effort. Theosophical Kabbalah is not like basic meditation, which anyone can pick up with just a few days of practice. It exists within an elaborate context of symbols, language, and religious structures, which is one reason it is often reserved for advanced students.

Many spiritual seekers today are convinced that any spiritual path can be learned quickly, in one's spare time, and in English. Well, this is not true. Some paths can, and some cannot. Whether for better or for worse, theosophical Kabbalah cannot. You can learn the symbols, acquaint yourself with the core truths, and deepen your appreciation for life through the Kabbalah's beautiful ideas. However, the fact is that in order to become truly fluent with the particulars of theosophical Kabbalah, it takes time.

Prophetic Kabbalah has a more familiar, and accessible, path to receiving: meditation. The precise techniques of Abulafia and his students do depend on the Hebrew language, but I've found that they can be transposed into English fairly easily. What those techniques do is loosen the grip of thought, just like insight meditation. Their method, though, is very different: they scramble the mind, a bit like Zen, and unchain the subconscious, a bit like some forms of psychoanalysis. With free association, letter permutation, and many other techniques, the practices of prophetic Kabbalah scramble up the thinking mind, enabling more direct perception of reality.

Just from this short description, you can see how different the methods of prophetic Kabbalah are from those of theosophical Kabbalah. Prophetic, or ecstatic, practice does not fine-tune the senses to the minute fluctuations of the sefirot; it shakes up the mind until it can see reality directly. Now, prophetic Kabbalah does still work with the language and topics of Kabbalah -- sefirot, letters of the alphabet, Divine names, and so on. However, it uses those resources to engender a mystical experience.

It, too, works, though it, too, takes a lot of practice. You can taste the fruits of ecstatic Kabbalah fairly quickly if you devote even a single night to it -- but you do need to devote the whole night, permuting letters and allowing the mind to free itself up. Critically (as described in the prophetic Kabbalah section), the point is not to get high; it's to receive insights. You will, if you do the practices, get high -- by which I mean, you will attain an altered mind-state that will hopefully be fascinating and delightful for you. (It may also be frightening, if you have fears or insecurities that arise too strongly.) But to just drift along in the altered mindstate, blissing out, is to miss the point. There are fruits to this practice, "messages" that seem to come from outside, or from deep inside -- which are really the same place. It will be obvious to you how Abulafia would understand these messages as prophecy from God. Whether you see them that way, or see them only as your deepest self speaking to you -- well, that depends on your theology. But don't ignore them; they're part of what you're there to receive.

Finally, practical Kabbalah also has its path to receiving. Returning to the basic assumption at the top of this page -- there is more than what we usually perceive -- practical Kabbalah aims to attune us to specific "frequencies" (again, a term used loosely and metaphorically) that we ordinarily tune out. What is magic, really, but a tapping into energies and potencies we normally ignore? It's easy to say, from a position of doubt, that these potencies are nonsense, that we don't believe in magic. But without direct experience, how do you really know? Because there are charlatans on television? Because there's been no "scientific" study of it? Well, how could scientific studies work, when the intentions of the participants (there should not be any observers) are what determine the outcome?

I'm not saying you should believe in magic. In fact, I'm saying the opposite, that you shouldn't believe in anything. But that includes your own preconceptions. Believe nothing. Experience everything.

On the path of practical Kabbalah, practitioners attempt to discover, and use, aspects of the world which we don't yet understand. Some of it, undoubtedly, is psychosomatism. And some of it is probably hogwash. But, in my experience, some of it is real -- not necessarily explicable, but practically indubitable. What one learns, when one's preconceptions about the world are shaken in this way, is that there is more to receive than we ever imagined. There are layers of reality, energies of reality, that are out there, but of which we are not ordinarily aware. So practical Kabbalah, too, enables us to receive more.

These ways of receiving are experiential, and, as a result, my review of them accentuates some aspects of the Kabbalah at the expense of others. There are some who would say that Kabbalah is entirely a textual phenomenon, and that to talk of experience at all is a mistake. But the Kabbalists themselves describe experiences -- not always in the classic "mystical testimony" form, but in various ways in different sources. And I think that if we do not involve the experiential element in our own learning, we are reading recipes instead of tasting the meal. Is that really a deep knowledge of truth?

In addition to his writing, Jay has taught Kabbalah and spiritual practice at a wide range of institutions, including Yale University, City College, Elat Chayyim, the Skirball Center, the Wexner Summer Institute, Limmud UK, Limmud NY, Wesleyan University, Drew University, the New York University Hillel, the Burning Man festival, Easton Mountain, the Park Avenue Synagogue, the Trinity School, the Dorot Fellowship, and a number of synagogues and community centers, as well as online at www.learnkabbalah.com. He taught for four years the Jewish Theological Seminary's Ivry Prozdor school, and for five years at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires. He has created and taught over twenty curricula for formal and informal Jewish education, ranging from "How Not to Believe in God" to "The Philosophy of Halacha." A frequent speaker, panelist, and scholar in residence at synagogues and community centers, Jay brings Kabbalah down to earth, and brings the most mundane of earthly subjects to a higher spiritual plane. His classes range from textual studies of the Zohar to lighter workshops such as Eat Your Way to Enlightenment: The Art of Eating Meditation.

A recent finalist for the Koret Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award, Jay is a columnist for the Forward newspaper, where he writes the "Fringes" column on emerging Jewish spiritualities, as well as a contributor to the Jerusalem Post, Slate, Shma, and other publications. Jay also writes and lectures widely on issues of law and religion, and was a recent presenter on "Anti-legalism and anti-Judaism" at Cardozo School of Law's conference on Jews in the Legal Profession.

Jay's background as a teacher of Kabbalah is unusual in that he has both academic and "practical" training in the Kabbalah. After graduating from Columbia University, Jay obtained an M.A. in Religious Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, focusing on Jewish mysticism and working one-on-one with Moshe Idel, Rachel Elior, and others, and taking classes with Joseph Dan, Zeev Harvey, and other leading scholars of Jewish mysticism and philosophy. His primary academic work involved writing on the role of the material world in Chabad and Bratzlav Hasidism, translating portions of the Shaarei Tzedek by a disciple of Abraham Abulafia, and his master's thesis on the dichotomies of letter and spirit and flesh and spirit in Judaism and early Christianity. He has also worked with professors Elliot Wolfson and Daniel Boyarin.

A lifelong student, and now a teacher, of the world’s mystical traditions, he considers himself both a nondenominational, halachic Jew and a Western Buddhist. Jay recently completed Rabbi David and Shoshana Cooper's Jewish Meditation Advanced Training Program, during which he spent six weeks in silent meditation retreat over the last two years, and, in fall 2004, sat a six-week silent meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Jay lives in Putnam County, New York.]]> 2006-05-14T10:17:13Z 2005-04-27T15:04:47Z tag:www.learnkabbalah.com,2005://2.31 2005-04-27T15:04:47Z

This link list will be our subjective index of reliable Kabbalah teachers, and websites, on the Internet. Please feel free to email your suggestions.

Binah
Third of the sefirot, Binah means "understanding." Binah is the "supernal mother," the hidden Divine feminine, and the womb of the remaining sefirot. Binah is the first place of differentiation, which receives the seed of Hochmah and gives birth to the universe.

Ein Sof
Name given to the Divine infinite in Kabbalistic thought. Early kabbalists conceived of the Ein Sof as the absolute perfection in which there is no distinction or plurality. While "God" may be thought of in relational or conceptual terms, the Ein Sof transcends these categories. Importantly, the infinite really is infinite -- it does not end at the front of your brain, or anywhere else. Therefore, it is all there is.

Gevurah
Fifth of the sefirot, Gevurah means "strength." The sefirah is also referred to as din, "Judgment," and is the source of contriction, boundary, and restraint. Generally, Kabbalists pray that the forces of gevurah be sweetened by those of hesed (lovingkindness), although gevurah is also necessary for the world to exist -- otherwise it would be overcome by Divine light. Interestingly, Gevurah is gendered feminine even though the word itself is related to gever, the word for man.

Gilgul
Metempsychosis: the migration of a soul from one body after its death to another.

Halakhah
Literally means "Way of going" -- but refers to Jewish law. Traditionally, the halakhah is made up of the Written Law, as recorded in the Pentateuch, and the oral law, which includes later responsa as well as established customs. During the period of the Temple the Sadducees denied the authority of the oral law; this view was also adopted later by the Karaites. However, the oral law was collected by Judah Ha-Nasi in the Mishnah, and the discussions of the amoraim are recorded in the Talmud. Subsequently Jewish law was codified in such works as the Mishneh Torah by Maimonides and the Shulhan Arukh compiled by Joseph Caro. While Orthodoxy claims to regard the halakhah as unchanging, both it and Progressive Judaism continue to adapt law to modern life, with different emphases.

Hesed
Fourth of the sefirot, Hesed means "lovingkindness." It is the aspect of Divinity which spreads forth, and opens. It is the first active principle, balanced by the receptive principle of gevurah.

Hochmah
Second of the sefirot, hochmah means "wisdom." It is analogized to a spark of light, and is the first form to proceed from emptiness. Hochmah is primordial wisdom, and may be thought of as the organizing laws/principles of the universe.

Hod
Eighth of the sefirot, hod means "splendor." It is associated with inspiration, suppleness, and transitory beauty. It is, as it were, the principle of hesed translated into action. Hod is balanced by Netzach.

Kabbalah
Literally, "Receiving," either in the sense of a received teaching dealing with mystical or esoteric matters; or in the sense of receiving direct experience of ultimate reality. Technically, Kabbalah refers to Jewish esoteric teachings which evolved primarily in the medieval period, regarding the hidden life of God and the secrets of his relationship with his creation.

Keter
First of the sefirot, keter means "crown." It is the link, so to speak, between the emanations of the sefirot and the perfect unity of the Ein Sof.

Malchut
Tenth of the sefirot, Malchut means "sovereignty." It is the sefirah identified with the Shechinah, the manifestation of the Divine feminine.

Midrash
Legends, stories, and fantastic elaborations of Scripture. Jews have been creating midrash for thousands of years, and still do so today; it is often an imaginative, creative reconstruction or reconfiguration of sacred text. The interpretative approach known as midrash halakah explores the full meaning of biblical law. Midrash aggadah, on the other hand, sometimes aims to derive a moral principle, lesson or theological concept from the biblical text.

Mitzvah
Commandment. A mitzvah may be an ethical precept or a prescribed ritual action. Kabbalistically, mitzvot may have theurgical or magical properties. In Jewish law commandments are either positive (mitzvah aseh) or negative (mitzvah lo taaseh). According to tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah. The Talmud differentiates between two types of commandment: mishpatim, ordinances that would have been deducible even if the Hebrew Bible had not prescribed them, and hukkim, commandments that could not have been logically derived.

Netzach
Seventh of the sefirot, Netzach means "endurance" or "eternity." It is the principle of determination, continuity, and steadiness, counterbalanced by hod, which represents inspiration and splendor.

Sefirot
In kabbalistic literature the sefirot are depicted as emanations or manifestations of God. The Sefirot are explained on this site here.

Shabbat
Sabbath, day of rest. It is observed every week from before sunset on Friday until nightfall on Saturday. According to tradition, the Sabbath is celebrated to honor God's day of rest after creation. No productive labor should take place on the Sabbath; rabbinic legislation stipulates 39 categories of activity which are forbidden.

Shekhinah
Divine presence. The Bible refers to God's dwelling in the midst of the children of Israel (Exod. 13:21-2; 40:34-8). Subsequently the concept of the Shekhinah embodied God's presence in the world. In Kabbalistic sources the term Shekhinah refers to the tenth Sefirah, representing God's feminine aspect.

Talmud
Vast record of the discussion and administration of Jewish law by scholars in various academies from c.200 to c.500. Comprises the Mishnah (law) together with gemara (commentary and supplement to the Mishnah text), as well as legendary and other material.

Tiferet
Sixth of the sefirot, Tiferet means "beauty." It is the balance point between hesed and gevurah, and the seat of compassion. Tiferet is regarded as the center of the sefirot, and is sometimes depicted as the center of a wheel.

Torah
The Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). "Torah" is sometimes used more broadly to refer to any Jewish learning.

Yesod
Ninth of the sefirot, Yesod means "foundation." It is the conduit from abstraction to manifestation, and is analogized to the sexual organs, which take together that which is inside and project it into the outside (malchut). Yesod is also identified with the righteous human being, whose actions support the world.

Yetzer
Inclination; will. Traditional Judaism believes people to possess a will toward the good and a selfish will toward evil. Sometimes "yetzer" is used to refer purely to the selfish inclination. This yetzer, the yetzer hara, sees the world purely in terms of the self and its desires.

Zohar
The masterpiece of the Kabbalah, the Zohar takes the form of a mystical commentary on the Torah. According to tradition, it was composed in the second century by Simeon bar Yohai. However, the work as we have it was first published in the 13th century by Moses de Leon in Spain and contains language that is certainly medieval in origin.