Kabbalah 101

What is Kabbalah/Mysticism?

Definitions

Theosophy ... refers to systems of esoteric philosophy concerning, or seeking direct knowledge of, presumed mysteries of being and nature, particularly concerning the nature of divinity.

Esoteric - understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; intended to be revealed only to the initiates of a group. (dictionary.com)

Gnosis generally signifies a spiritual knowledge or "religion of knowledge", in the sense of mystical enlightenment or "insight". Gnosis taught a deliverance of man from the constraints of earthly existence through insight into an essential relationship, as soul or spirit, with a supramundane place of freedom. (Wikipedia)

PaRDeS

Peshat- Literal, Surface level, Plain Meaning

Remez- Hints

Derash- Allegorical, Aggadah, Legend, Midrash

Sod- Secret, Mystical, Hidden Truth

Isaac Luria (1534 – July 25, 1572), "Ha'ARI" (The Lion), "Ha'ARI Hakadosh" (the holy ARI), or "ARIZaL" - born in Jerusalem, died in Safed

Luria’s new myth is concentrated in three great symbols, the tsimtsum, or self-limitation, of God, the shevirah, or breaking of the vessels, and the tikkun, or harmonious correction and mending of the flaw which came into the world through the shevirah.

Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, p. 110

What are the Sefirot?

The Sefirot – God emanates ten vessels through which the world is created, called sefirot, which are both part of God and created by God. These vessels are channels of light or water, and they also are light. They are God and of God, but they cannot define God or limit God – what is truly God is wholly beyond these descriptions, beyond the first sefirah, called Keter or crown, denoted by the term Ein Sof – without limit, without end.

When Kabbalists read stories in the Torah, every character and place represents a configuration of the Sefirot. For example, the binding of Isaac is Chesed (Abraham) overcoming Gevurah (Isaac). A (secular) technical term for how the Sefirot function is that they are "hypostases" (sing. "hypostasis") – that is, abstract concepts imagined as beings or as parts of a reality that are more real than the physical world around us ...

The Structure of the Sefirot – for the Zohar, an essential aspect of this world is that the Sefirot are emanated in the form of a Mishkal or balance scale, with a center, right and left, which can be pictured as the form of a triangle or triad. This allowed each Sefirah to share the force of creation with those around it, so that none would shatter because of the influx of God's energy. Each of the Sefirot also contains within itself an element of all the others. (Sarah Idit Schneider's term for this is that they are "interincluded" within each other.) This fractal structure is one way in which the Sefirot are infinite or divine in their essence.

Rabbi David Seidenberg, neohasid.org/kabbalah/sefirot/

Shevirah - Shattering the Vessels

At the beginning of time, God’s presence filled the universe. When God decided to bring this world into being, to make room for creation, He first drew in His breath, contracting Himself. From that contraction darkness was created. And when God said, “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3), the light that came into being filled the darkness, and ten holy vessels came forth, each filled with primordial light.

In this way God sent forth those ten vessels, like a fleet of ships, each carrying its cargo of light. Had they all arrived intact, the world would have been perfect. But the vessels were too fragile to contain such a powerful, divine light. They broke open, split asunder, and all the holy sparks were scattered like sand, like seeds, like stars. Those sparks fell everywhere, but more fell on the Holy Land than anywhere else.

That is why we were created — to gather the sparks, no matter where they are hidden. God created the world so that the descendents of Jacob could raise up the holy sparks. That is why there have been so many exiles — to release the holy sparks from the servitude of captivity. In this way the Jewish people will sift all the holy sparks from the four corners of the earth.

And when enough holy sparks have been gathered, the broken vessels will be restored, and tikkun olam, the repair of the world, awaited so long, will finally be complete. Therefore it should be the aim of everyone to raise these sparks from wherever they are imprisoned and to elevate them to holiness by the power of their soul.

Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls, p. 122

The Ten Sefirot

(Basics of Kabbalah: http://www.inner.org/sefirot/sefirot.htm)

A sefirah (pl. sefirot) is a channel of Divine energy or life-force. This most fundamental concept of Kabbalah is that in the process of creation an intermediate stage was emanated from God’s infinite light to create what we experience as finite reality. These channels are called the Ten Sefirot, Ten Divine Emanations, Ten Divine Radiances, Ten Divine Eluminices, or Ten Divine Powers which are the basic terms and concepts of the inner wisdom of the Torah which is called Kabbalah.

The above chart shows the traditional form of the Kabbalah which includes three axes: right, middle, and left. For each sefirah, we have given its Hebrew spelling, and its English transliteration on the top line and its English translation immediately below.

Although often the sefirot are enumerated as being ten, there are altogether eleven sefirot spoken of in Kabbalistic literature. This is because the sefirah of keter and da’at are actually one, representing differing dimensions of a single force. When keter, which is the super-conscious of the soul, manifests itself in consciousness, it transforms into the sefirah of da’at. In other words, keter and da’at are two sides of the same coin, a conscious side and a unconscious side. Usually when referring to the Ten Sefirot one will either count keter in which case one does not count da’at. Or visa-versa one counts da’at in which case one does not count keter. Therefore there are actually only Ten Sefirot but there are all together eleven names. Still, many times in various models, all eleven sefirot are used at once.

The configuration of the sefirot is graphically depicted in Kabbalistic texts by a vertical array along three parallel axes (or kavim), each representing a mode of Divine influence within Creation. This configuration is variously referred to in the literature as a sulam (“ladder”), an etz (“tree”), or a tzelem Elokim (supernal “image of God”). According to this last designation, the configuration of the sefirot suggests the form of the human body which, as recorded in the Bible, was fashioned “in the image of God.” Hence each sefirah is associated with the particular limb or organ which corresponds to its position in the anatomical sefirotic structure.

The interaction between the various sefirot is depicted through a network of connecting tzinorot (“channels”) which illustrate the flow of Divine energy throughout Creation. These connections suggest various subgroupings of the sefirot, each reflecting a common dynamic amongst the sefirot which they include.

As one can see on the chart above, the sefirot are divided into three triplets of three. There is right, left, middle at three different levels. The first triplet of right, left, middle, is the triplet of the mind: da’at (or alternatively, keter);chochmah; binah). The second triplet is of the inner emotive powers of the heart before one begins to act and do things: chesed; gevurah; tiferet. The third final triplet is of action, which means of behaviouristic characteristics: netzach; hod; yesod. These are also emotions, but emotions that only become manifest in behavior. The final point malchut can be viewed as either an appendage of this last subgrouping, or as an independent entity receiving those energies which precede it. Malchut is the final result of product of all of the experiences of the soul.

Also according to the Kabbalah there is a specific order for the sefirot from center, right, left, center. Beginning with keter the order continues to chochmah, binah, da’at (first triplet–mind). Then to chesed, gevurah, tiferet (second triplet–heart), netzach, hod, yesod (third triplet–behavior), and finally malchut.

Another way of dividing the sefirot is into partzufim (profiles, or personas). A partzuf is a metaphorical figure of human likeness, used to represent the elaboration of an individual sefirah (or group of sefirot ) into an independent configuration with ten sefirot of its own. According to Kabbalah, the sefirot of keter, chochmah, binah and malchut each possess two interrelated partzufim; whereas the six sefirot from chesed through yesod form their own common and independent pair of partzufim.

Sequentially, the sefirot represent the various stages of the creative process whereby God generated from the very core of His own infinite being, the progression of created realms which culminated in our finite physical universe. As a coexisting group, the sefirot constitute the interacting components of a single metaphysical structure whose “genetic” imprint can be identified at all levels, and within all aspects, of Creation.

Underlying the purely functional structural aspect of each sefirah is a hidden motivational force which is best understood by way of comparison to some corresponding psycho-spiritual state of the human soul. Chassidut’s exposition of the sefirot is primarily concerned with articulating these states and exploring the role that they play in man’s service of God in this world.