What is the Kabbalah? The short answer is that it is the sacred writings of Jewish mysticism. The word Kabbalah means both 'that which is received' and 'receiving'. According to Feldman (see Reading List)
In earlier times only married Jewish males over the age of forty were permitted to study the Kabbalah. Although these restrictions have largely been lifted, it is argued that the study of Kabbalah is rooted in, and inseparable from, the study of Torah, and cannot be properly understood from outside.
Others argue that Kabbalah, as the basis of the Western mystical tradition, should be accessible to all.
I find myself in broad agreement with the first viewpoint; because of that I shall probably never do more than peer over the garden wall, but that, in its way, is very satisfying.
What the Kabbalah is not: Not a parlour game. Not the latest New-Age fad. The study of Kabbalah should be approached with reverence.
abbalah has been for me up until now very much "a garden locked, a fountain sealed" (TheSong of Solomon (Canticle of Canticles) 4:12). Now I find myself at the entrance to the garden. I can see flowers of rarest beauty. I know the names of some of them, but not the method of their cultivation. Others are quite unknown to me. I can see the tops of the trees in the Orchard.
On the psychospiritual level the Kabbalah ... can best be understood as Jewish teachings and tools for attaining transcendence, or 'God-consciousness'.
Kabbala is the Torah's expression of the way the world works. Removed from its source, it's a whole lot of rubbish.
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