Kabbalah (Hebrew qabbalah, "that which is received") is the central tradition of Jewish mysticism.
Imported citation, not independently checked: G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941)
religion · Shared topic · Revision 0
What Is Kabbalah?
What Is Kabbalah?
The current answer
Judaism's great mystical tradition: a medieval system that maps how a hidden Infinite becomes a God you can name, address, and even wound.
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First, Kabbalah is not a single book or a fixed creed; it is a layered tradition that argued with itself for centuries, and its texts sometimes contradict one another.
Imported citation, not independently checked: M. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (1988)
Kabbalah as a developed system surfaces in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries among the circles around the Sefer ha-Bahir and the mystics of Provence, Catalonia, and Castile.
Imported citation, not independently checked: G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah
The Zohar's most quoted passage (III:152a) gives Kabbalah its theory of reading: the plain stories of scripture are a garment, beneath which lie a body and a soul, the hidden divine meaning.
Imported citation, not independently checked: Zohar III:152a
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