Thesis on "Kabbalah Practice"

Thesis 5 pages (1666 words) Sources: 6 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Kabbalah Practice and Its Followers

The Kabbalah, in its various recensions, is a collection of Jewish mystical texts that many believe represents a special, hidden, and universal, wisdom. Studied down through the centuries by many who were practicing Jews-even including learned rabbis-Kabbalah has no attracted a wide following among both Jews and non-Jews alike. Many are drawn to its teachings because of its transcendent message. Kabbalah is interpreted as applying to all, regardless of their previous faith, or affiliation. Kabbalah teaches a form of direct union with the Divine. One seeks one's ultimate divine purpose, attempting to reorganize one's life in accordance with a program of spiritual growth. Ultimately, modern Kabbalism is based on a notion that, in its true form, all is perfect. By studying Kabbalah, human seek merely to achieve that lost, or obscured, perfection. Kabbalism has attracted large numbers of followers throughout the modern world. Many are dissatisfied with the approach of traditional religions, whether those religions be Judaism, Christianity, or another belief. Indeed, modern Kabbalism has done much to "Christianize" the traditional Kabbalah, seeing many of its passages, and precepts, ideas that conform to ideas usually seen as Christian. For the Kabbalist then, the Kabbalah transcends differences in dogma. It even adds to, or transcends, other authoritative texts and canonical teachings, such as the Bible and the Talmud. Kabbalism is a way of life that attracts those who seek a way to divine perfection and union.

Essential to Kabbalah practice is the belief that in the true Divine realm, all is actually as it should be, the Divine essence descending into the material world of human beings. The Book of Splendor, by the Thirteenth Century Kabbalist, Moses de Leon, represents this movement of the Divine into the human world through the image of the Tree of Life. Kabbalist practice attempts to place its followers on a path to follow this Divine inspiration back to its original source, "Through righteous living, contemplation, and meditation, Kabbalists mystically ascend the Tree of Life, passing through stages such as Endurance, Loving-kindness, Wisdom, and Humility."

Much modern Kabbalist belief derives from the work of Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag. In 1992, Ashlag translated the basic text of Kabbalah, the Zohar, from Aramaic into Hebrew, thus making the work, and its precepts accessible to large numbers of modern Jews. He further organized his translation into chapters and paragraphs, accompanying the whole with an introductory text entitled, Ten Luminous Foundations.

The ten luminous foundations of Ashlag's work are a reference to the ten sephirot, or emanations of God, that are directly linked to each of the ten positions on the Tree of Life. Together, the ten sephirot represent the spiritual forces that, issuing directly from their Divine source, combine together to produce all the possibilities of the manifest creation.

Kabbalist practice involves meditating on these Divine emanations. Called hithonenut, in Hebrew, devotees concentrate on the Divine Light that informs the sephirot, and brings forth the values associated with each sephirah. Light, as a symbol of inspiration and knowledge, is directly connected with the idea of mind.

As in other religious practices, such meditation is intended to bring the worshipper closer to Divine reality. D. Scott Rogo has compared this experience of the light in Kabbalistic mysticism to the effects in a wide variety of other religious traditions. In particular, he notes the similarities with the Buddhist practice of Kundalini, "Whereas most Eastern traditions speak of the Kundalini as a heat energy, the Kabbalistic tradition refers to it as 'light.' It is also suggestive that the Kabbalistic rabbis were, by tradition, gifted with psychic powers.'"

In Buddhist practice, Kundalini is a kind of mystic energy. Those who can rouse the Kundalini energy can ascend to higher realms of consciousness, while simultaneously developing the power to perform great psychic feats. Thus, Kabbalah practice can also be seen as a way of enhancing one's hidden inner powers in a search for greater truths. Individual practitioners can learn to transcend the apparent realities and limitations of the mundane world, exchanging them, at least temporarily, for experiences of alternative states. These alternative states, or other planes of existence, provide knowledge that is essential to ascending the path of the Tree of Life. Eventually, practitioners will achieve a state of perfection wherein they can become completely attuned with God's will. All becomes as it should actually be, which is to see, that the follower of Kabbalistic practice returns to a perfect and unchanging state.

It is the similarity between Kabbalah practice, and many other Eastern or New Age beliefs and practices, that appears attract many to the belief system. The popularity of this interpretation of Kabbalah reflects a general searching, in contemporary American society, for a deeper connection with the natural and divine worlds. Many people in modern day America feel a deep disconnect between themselves and something greater, or more purposeful. They seek genuine meaning in their lives, and look around themselves, and see an existence that often appears devoid of higher goals. Modern society seems the preserve of large, impersonal, and extremely materialistic, institutions, with individual men and women deprived of effective control over their own lives. By beginning "with the assumption that the self is sacred or divine, they [Kabbalah and other similar beliefs] place the responsibility for change with each individual. Even when it is social and political structures that need changing, the self and not the institution is the agent and locus of change."

Such ideas comport well with a society that is also highly individualistic and egalitarian in outlook. Whether such notions are true or not, such is the rhetoric of much modern thought. Contemporary Americans are subject to continual exhortations from advertisers, filmmakers, writers, and even educators, to "be themselves." Individualism, even extreme individualism, is prized above all else. Kabbalah practice offers one more outlet for this cult of the individual.

Yet interestingly, it is within the practice of Kabbalah that one can also seek a sense of unification with the sum total of creation. By discovering and following God's plan, adherents of Kabbalah find a path that, on the one hand, suits them as specific individuals, while bringing them together with a larger purpose. The follower of Kabbalah starts out as a lone woman or man seeking guidance, and ends up, hopefully, as one indistinguishable from Divine Reality. Kabbalah practice, like other movements outside the mainstream Western religious tradition, appears also to stress the blurring of the distinctions between the material and spiritual realms. Rising concerns over the environment, spur many to explore the effect of human beings on animals, plants, and the natural landscape. Kabbalah seems to say that there is something beyond these everyday realities. The physical creation is informed by a higher spiritual creation. In fact, the spiritual creation may be the only true reality. Going as far back as the Christian Scientists of the Nineteenth Century, many sought to find the means to observe and measure the direct effects of the Divine in daily life.

Kabbalah, too, presents a method for working with spiritual forces. By manipulating these forces, the practitioner of Kabbalah can hope to bring about positive and observable changes in their current circumstances. Improved mental and physical health can both be strong motivations for joining a practice, such as Kabbalah. Further, the goal of ultimate union with Divine purpose lends to these lesser goals the sense that one is cured, or improved, by becoming more in conformity with one's true, and immutable, Divine nature. Again, it is the idea of God's universal plan working through each individual.

So, Kabbalah practice attracts those who seek to identify themselves with something greater, while at the same time improving their own lives, and the lives of those beings, human and non-human, that surround them. Kabbalah provides a… READ MORE

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