E-Lectures Glossary
KabbalahKabbalah (also Qabbala, Cabala, cabbala, cabbalah, kabala, kabalah, kabbala) is the most central trend in Jewish mysticism and is often used to refer to Jewish mysticism in general. The Hebrew word Kabbalah (קבלה) literaly means 'that which is received' ( i.e. tradition).Originating in Provance and Northern Spain, the Kabbalah is the medieval mystical tradition whose practitioners attempted to understand, affect, and communicate with the divine. Sefer ha-Bahir, a book of unknown authorship, is the most important early kabbalistic work. This book, written in the form of traditional midrashim - rabbinic dialogues and commentaries on the biblical text - introduces a revised theory of the sefirot, the ten attributes of God first mentioned in Sefer Yetzirah. In kabbalah, God as the Ein-Sof or "the Infinite" - cannot be comprehended by humans. God can only be understood as He reveals himself in the sefirot. The sefirot are dynamic; they interact with each other and can be affected by humans. Indeed, much of the Kabbalah is an attempt to influence and "fix" the sefirot. The doctrine of the sefirot reached its fullest articulation in the Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Torah. The Zohar interprets the Torah symbolically in an attempt to extract secrets about the divine realm. It is also written in Aramaic and structured like a midrash, and its attribution to the 2nd-century sage Shimon bar Yohai was accepted in most traditional circles. Scholars have refuted this claim categorically and believed the book to be the work of the 13th-century Spanish Jewish mystic Moses de Leon, or as recent scholars have suggested, the work of a group of mystics including Moses de Leon.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel |