Kabbalah

Shalom,

Regarding the Spiritual and Meditative parts of Kabbalah, the most accessible resource is the writings of Aryeh Kaplan. Look for his book 'Jewish Meditation' for a primer on meditative practices and 'Innerspace' for a primer on more intellectual and spiritual ideas. From there all of his works open up, including his own original writings, his translations and his in depth commentaries on ancient core texts.

Regarding the Freemasons, a lot of their practices are based on 'Hermetic Kabbalah' which is basically a christian spiritualist invention based on/inspired by traditional Jewish Kabbalah. There are a great many similarities but there are also many significant differences. I would definitely recommend looking into traditional Kabbalah more than the christian *******ization.

"*******ization." I wonder what Yamah wrote here. I noticed that the name of At-water changed into A****er. When I looked at the letters that were replaced by asterisks I found that we cannot use the word t-w-a-t on SF.

[Squatchit]

Begins with b ends in d with astar in the middle!

Originally Posted by Squatchit

Begins with b ends in d with astar in the middle!

Thanks, Squatchit.

It would be better had the forbidden words been preceded by a space and followed by a space so that words that are part of names or other "legitimate" words do not change into asterisks.
I think this is getting to be extreme. Everyone on SF knows not to call people names.

I was introduced to the mystic side of the Kabbalah through an adept of the Golden Dawn many years ago as a neophyte in preparation for initiation - back before I realized my path this time is a solitary one and any initiations I should receive are straight from the source - and while I never joined any of the Thelemic orders (Golden Dawn, OTO) I have found the Tree of Life is the only universal map that works for me.

Oddly enough a few years after I "found" this system Madonna and several other public figures began espousing its benefits. Heh. *smile*

Here are a few links I've found helpful in studying the Tree.

http://www.joyousworld.com/qabalah/s...ory/index.html

http://www.byzant.com/Mystical/Default.aspx

http://ankhafnakhonsu.net/an-essay-u...-holy-qabalah/

Happy studying!

Thanks guys loads of great material here x

Thanks for the response Yamah, I appreciate the information. I will look further into the parts of the Kabballah in regards to meditation and spirituality.

As a practicing Jew and Kabbalist, my best advice to you is that Judaism is the "why," whilst kabbalah is the "how." It is my opinion that one must be a learned Jew to practice and trully understand Kabbalah. They walk hand in hand. The most important book (or set of books,) The Holy Zohar, is just a REALLY long commentary on the Torah, which in my opinion contains all the knowledge man needs outside of the Talmud and the Zohar. It will take years to read it all, but it is worth it in that you will have a much greater understanding of why we are here and what our mission is.

Originally Posted by heartsmart

I wanna know if any of you has read the zohar.

I'm working on a 30 volume version. I'll get back to you in 6 months to a year. ;-)

Originally Posted by ZechariahBenDovid

As a practicing Jew and Kabbalist, my best advice to you is that Judaism is the "why," whilst kabbalah is the "how."

Um... I would strongly disagree with that statement; I don't think either things really deal with the question of 'why', at least not any more than the other. Judaism as a religious practice deals more with what happens in this world, Kabbalah deals more with what happens in the Higher Worlds / Next World... mostly.