School

Kabbalah

Overview

Kabbalah or Qabalah ( kə-BAH-lə, KAB-ə-lə; Hebrew: קַבָּלָה, romanized: Qabbālā, pronounced [kabaˈla] ; lit. 'act of receiving' or 'acceptation') is an esoteric method, discipline, and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (מְקֻובָּל, Məqubbāl, 'receiver').

Kabbalists originally developed transmissions of the primary texts of Kabbalah within the realm of Jewish tradition and often use classical Jewish scriptures to explain and demonstrate its mystical teachings. Kabbalists hold these teachings to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional Rabbinic literature and their formerly concealed transmitted dimension, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances.

Kabbalah emerged from earlier forms of Jewish mysticism in 12th to 13th-century Occitania, specifically in Languedoc, among the Hachmei Provence (lit. 'sages of Provence' or 'wise ones [of] Occitania'), as evidenced by the Bahir (בָּהִיר, Bāhîr, 'clear'). Following the movement of Jews from Occitania, Catalonia, and other parts of Spain, it was found in the Rhineland school of Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg, which coincided with the Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain (Al-Andalus). This included the Zohar (זֹהַר, lit. 'radiance' or 'brightness' or 'splendor'), the foundational text of Kabbalah, which was likely authored by Rabbi Moses de León in the late 13th century. It was then reinterpreted during the Jewish mystical renaissance in 16th-century Ottoman Palestine.

Isaac Luria (16th century) is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah; Lurianic Kabbalah was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards. During the 20th century, academic interest in Kabbalistic texts led primarily by the Jewish historian Gershom Scholem has inspired the development of historical research on Kabbalah in the field of Jewish studies.

Though minor works contribute to an understanding of the Kabbalah as an evolving tradition, the primary texts of the major lineage in medieval Jewish tradition are the Bahir, Zohar, Pardes Rimonim (פַּרְדֵּס רִמּוֹנִים, 'Orchard [of] Pomegranates'), and Etz Chaim (עֵץ חַיִּים, ʿĒṣ Ḥayyîm, 'Tree of Life'). The early Hekhalot literature is acknowledged as ancestral to the sensibilities of this later flowering of the Kabbalah, and, more especially, the Sefer Yetzirah (סֵפֶר יְצִירָה, Sēfer Yeṣîrāh, 'Book of Formation') is acknowledged as the antecedent from which all these books draw many of their formal inspirations. The document has striking similarities to a possible antecedent from the Lesser Hekhalot, the Alphabet of Rabbi Akiva, which in turn seems to recall a style of responsa by students of Joshua ben Levi in tractate Shabbat 104a. The Sefer Yetzirah is a brief document of only a few pages that was written sometime between 200-600, many centuries before the high and late medieval works detailing an alphanumeric vision of cosmology and may be understood as a kind of prelude to the major phase of Kabbalah.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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The thrush also alters its colour, for in winter it is grey, and in summer is variegated on the neck; but its voice does not alter. The nightingale sings unceasingly for fifteen days and nights, when the mountains become thick with leaves. As the summer advances it utters another voice, not quick and varied, but simple; its colour also is altered, and in Italy it is called by another name at this season of the year…
Aristotle, Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books
States what Kabbalah is; the author is tied to Kabbalah in the knowledge graph.
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And the Greek name of this faculty is derived from the use of the term συνιέναι in learning: μανθάνειν and συνιέναι being often used as synonymous. The faculty called γνώμη,[40] in right of which we call men εὐγνώμονες, or say they have γνώμη, is “the right judgment of the equitable man.” A proof of which is that we most commonly say that the equitable man has a tendency to make allowance, and the making allowance…
Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
States what Kabbalah is; the author is tied to Kabbalah in the knowledge graph.
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The Creator is called the God of the heavens and the God of the Universe, on account of the relations between Him and the heavens; He governs, and they are governed; the word elohim does not signify “master” in the sense of “owner”; it expresses the relation between His position in the totality of existing beings, and the position of the heavens or the Universe; He is God, not they, i.e., not the heavens. Note this…
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
States what Kabbalah is.
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Kabbalah

Overview

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Philosophers who discussed Kabbalah

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