Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiritsoar
Wow. I started reading this thread with one question in mind, and ended up spending my whole lunch break reading and thinking, which spawned a bunch more questions. But since my break is nearly over, I'll start with my original question. How do Jews in general, and you specifically, feel about non-Jews and Kabbalah? (or however you spell it, I've found about 10 different ways, and I imagine the differences arise from translation from Hebrew to English) I'm particularly interested in your opinions in its use in Hermeticism, but also curious about what you think of those who seem to practice it as a stand-alone belief system, such as Madonna and the Kabbalah Centre.
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First of all Kaballah does deal in HEBREW and the Torah, I have met some true Kabbalah Rabbi who can scare the pants off of you and tell you some stuff that make you cringe in fear to just meet them and ask for advice. And most ashkanzic Jews hold that until you 40 you should not even consider learning Kabbalah. Sephardic Jewry learn it more, Ashkanazic tend to learn it much less often since there is so much more to learn first.
Kaballah is the mystical portion of the Torah, it is about understanding more the world we have , us and G-d, using Torah and mystical connections.
We can also talk about translating the Kaballah to English etc..., how words when translated the meaning is not precise, how someone with 0 knowledge or groundwork in Torah try to learn the Torah mystical section which is very heavy based on the Torah, on Hebrew letters, on truths that take 40 years worth of Torah learning to consider before you even start to learn it, yes do not make me laugh...
I am under 40, and I have heard seen I think 3 times with a Rav who learns kabbalah showed me an answer to a unique question I had showed me an answer in there, and it is not something you can just read and understand you need so much groundwork before hand.
By the way my curiosity my desire to learn Kaballah is there, yet I know inside me despite how much I learn and know I will probably not get to the level where I can begin to grasp it, and it is something that is not for me to know.
<edit> Here is 1 of Kaballah stories in my life. Oh and I consider this the least creepy one.
I will add a story of a Rav who was the student of the famous M'Kubul Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira or better known as באבא סאלי (Baba Sali). I met a man in my building who was looking to meet someone in the community, he was the shamash (right hand man) for this Rabbi, who was visiting from Israel and was outside in the car. And I asked the man if I can get a Bracha (blessing), from him, and he said of course. I went outside the Rav was 103 at the time, and I had only had heard of him before but never met him. The man I spoke with translated what I asked for to the Rav, he gave me a blessing, I then gave a list of hebrew name of my siblings and he went through giving each family a blessing, when he got to one of my sisters he stopped, and finally said he will give it but it will not help, and continued with my other family.
My sister he stopped at, is married to an abusive manipulative wife-beater piece of garbage husband.