Kabbalah

Name and early texts

The Hebrew word Kabbalah is glossed as "handed down by tradition." One historical atlas entry places the emergence of the movement in twelfth-century Provence and its maturity in thirteenth-century Spain, with the Zohar. The tradition itself looks to an older text, Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Creation), which describes creation through thirty-two paths of wisdom made up of ten sefirot and twenty-two Hebrew letters.

Dates proposed for Sefer Yetzirah vary widely. One article states that scholars have proposed dates from the first to the ninth century CE, with recent scholarship pointing to about the sixth, while an encyclopedia entry gives the second to sixth century, perhaps the third. Tradition attributes the book to Abraham, and many scholars think more than one author wrote it.

The Bahir and the Zohar

An encyclopedia entry describes the Sefer ha-Bahir as presenting transmigration of souls as a great mystery, and links its early strata to Gnostic-influenced Jewish circles in Babylonia or Syria. A separate article notes that the Bahir circulated among kabbalists in thirteenth-century Europe.

The Zohar appeared in late thirteenth-century Spain. It presents itself as the teaching of the second-century sage Shimon bar Yohai and is a mystical commentary on the Torah written in Aramaic. One article says it was most likely written by Moses de Leon; another says it is now believed to be the work of de Leon or a group of mystics.

Safed and Lurianic Kabbalah

After the 1492 expulsion from Spain, new centers arose, and in sixteenth-century Safed Moses Cordovero and then Isaac Luria shaped the tradition. Luria, born in Jerusalem in 1534, moved to Safed around 1570 and died in 1572 at age 38; one article says scholars regard much of the biographical record as legendary. His disciple Hayyim Vital is the main source for his teaching, which Vital's Etz ha-Hayyim later presented in its known form.

Lurianic teaching is organized around three themes. In one account, the divine withdrew into itself (tzimtzum) to leave space for creation; light poured into vessels that could not hold it, and some shattered (shevirat ha-kelim); human beings take part in repair (tikkun) by gathering fallen sparks and freeing holy souls trapped in the husks, through prayer, commandments and special meditations.

Hasidism and the academic study of Kabbalah

Hasidism emerged in the mid-eighteenth century and is traced to the Baal Shem Tov (1700-1760), whose central value was devekut, attachment to God. One article credits him with popularizing Lurianic teaching in Eastern Europe, though another outline of the period does not state a direct line from Luria to Hasidism. Traditional authorities at first opposed the movement fiercely.

Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) made Jewish mysticism a recognized academic field, and his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism remains a starting point. Moshe Idel later challenged his account, stressing ecstatic mysticism such as that of Abraham Abulafia and disputing Scholem's link between the Spanish expulsion, Lurianic Kabbalah and the Shabbetai Zevi movement.

The word and its spellings

A religious-studies article notes that the word means reception or transmission, first used in the Gaonic period for the transmission of a doctrine of divine names, and that Kabbalah can be understood as a mode of transmission of esoteric knowledge, or a claim to transmission, as much as a fixed body of doctrine. The sources reviewed on this page mostly spell the word Kabbalah. English writing also uses variants such as Kabbala, Cabala and Qabalah, and this page treats them as spellings that different traditions use, which the next subsection separates.

Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Cabala and Hermetic Qabalah

Christian Kabbalah is usually traced to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who printed 900 theses in Rome at the end of 1486, 119 of them Kabbalist. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that he aimed to ground Christian doctrines, including the Trinity, in Kabbalah, relied on translators whose renderings were not always accurate, and reshaped Kabbalah to serve Christian theology. It describes him as the patriarch of Christian Kabbalah, a Renaissance current distinct from the Jewish tradition.

Hermetic Qabalah is the Western esoteric tradition associated with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, whose Isis-Urania temple opened in London in 1888. One encyclopedia entry calls the order the fountainhead of the modern revival of ceremonial magic and says its grades carry Kabbalistic symbolism; another states that its correspondence tables link planets, paths and Hebrew letters to the sefirot and that Tarot imagery is largely Kabbalistic. That second entry does not explain how this differs from Jewish practice. Scholem dismissed occultist versions as misrepresentation, according to a later study.

Commercial and celebrity "Kabbalah centers"

The Kabbalah Centre, which a religious-studies analysis describes as drawing on the teachings of Yehuda Ashlag as taught by its founder, is the best-known modern organization using the name. The analysis says it addresses a small, observant Jewish group and a larger, loosely connected audience that may only buy a book or wear a red string. Scholars cited there describe much New Age use of the term as signaling an ancient, universal teaching, rather than a historical link to medieval Kabbalah.

A 2004 news report counted about fifty Kabbalah Centre locations in Britain, Israel and the United States and described the red string as its central symbol. The sources reviewed do not describe every group that uses the name.

The sefirot and the structure of the divine

According to the tradition, the divine in itself is Ein Sof, "Without End," hidden and without form. The ten sefirot are described as emanations through which God relates to the world: Keter, Hochmah, Binah, Hesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchut, the last identified with the Shekhinah, God's indwelling presence. The tradition teaches that human conduct affects the sefirot, and an article notes that names and schemas vary. A Machipedia page on Sacred Geometry covers diagrams in general.

Repair, study and the soul

Adherents describe study and observance of the commandments as taking part in repair. Gilgul, the movement of the soul through more than one life, is first explained in medieval Kabbalah, in the Bahir and Zohar; Vital's Sha'ar HaGilgulim describes souls reborn to perfect themselves. An encyclopedia entry notes earlier acceptance of transmigration among followers of Anan ben David and its later rejection by Karaites. An article on the idea says it has neither been unanimously ratified nor excluded in Judaism. The Machipedia pages on Judaism and Reincarnation give wider context.

Related practices on other pages

Several Machipedia pages describe practices that sources link to Kabbalistic ideas, usually through Christian or Hermetic channels rather than Jewish mysticism: Western esotericism, Tarot Reading, Numerology, Astrology, Divination, Theosophy and Christianity. The Golden Dawn entry above attaches Hebrew letters, planets and Tarot cards to the sefirot. This page does not describe procedures, and it does not present restricted teachings.

In the Jewish tradition

Kabbalists sought a deeper inner religious experience that they believed rational thought alone could not reach, and read Judaism as a system of mystical symbols. Hasidic teaching places devekut, attachment to God, at its center. In Lurianic terms the purpose of the commandments and of human history is repair and the gathering of divine sparks. Early commentary also treats Sefer Yetzirah as a guide to contemplation of the Hebrew letters.

An anthropological study of Lubavitch Hasidim in London reports testimonies of miraculous healing that draw on Kabbalistic imagery of exile and restitution. The study describes beliefs and testimony, and the abstract does not test whether any healing occurred.

In popular and Hermetic uses

Promotional material from the Kabbalah Centre quoted in an academic analysis presents meditation on the seventy-two names of God as a remedy for challenges including money, energy and illness, and sells a red string, tied at the left wrist, as protection against negative energies. The author observes that such a list of benefits could be found in almost any New Age group. Hermetic groups use the sefirot as a scheme of correspondences for ritual and for symbols such as Tarot.

Scholarship on the texts and history

Scholarship on Kabbalah is historical and textual. Scholem placed the Zohar in thirteenth-century Spain, and sources reviewed describe later work that treats it as the product of a circle around Moses de Leon rather than a single author, though the sources differ on how settled this is. Dates for Sefer Yetzirah remain open, and Idel's criticisms show continuing disagreement about the shape of Kabbalah's history.

Scholarship on contemporary Kabbalah

A religious-studies article reports that scholarly attention to contemporary Kabbalah was sporadic as of 2010, and traces the neglect to Scholem's disdain for living kabbalists, which his students long upheld. The author does not argue for a true or original Kabbalah and examines instead how groups use the term. An overview states that many Jewish leaders and scholars criticize the Kabbalah Centre as a distortion of Kabbalah. A 2004 news report quotes a Ben-Gurion University scholar crediting the Kabbalah Centre with making Kabbalah accessible to a mass audience, set against rabbis who object to its commercialization.

Health and psychological research

No controlled studies of Kabbalah-based programs, counseling or therapy were found. The searches were PubMed for "Kabbalah," which returned 18 records, none a trial, and "Kabbalah AND (intervention OR counseling OR therapy OR randomized OR trial)," which returned 5 records, all historical or anthropological; a broader search on spelling variants returned 165 records that were not individually screened. Web searches on Kabbalah Centre scholarship and on Kabbalah and healing found no trials either.

The nearest research is historical. A 2020 article describes an early twentieth-century psychotherapy that reframed elements of Kabbalah and Chassidic mysticism, and it assesses neither effectiveness nor outcomes. A systematic review of health beliefs in Hasidic populations, a community that emphasizes Kabbalah, found that members may seek spiritual healing, and reported methodological shortcomings in many included studies. That review does not evaluate Kabbalah itself.

Traditional limits on study

For much of Jewish history Kabbalah was limited to the pious and learned because its knowledge was seen as powerful and potentially dangerous. An article cites the Talmudic story of four sages who entered the garden (pardes), notes that Maimonides apparently barred study until a person had mastered the Torah, and reports a seventeenth-century ruling attributed to the Shach against study before age forty, with students expected to be married and steeped in Torah and Talmud.

The same article says these rules were never widely observed, that Luria died before forty, and that modern teachers disagree on whether the limits still apply. It links the concern partly to the Shabbetai Zevi messianic crisis, and quotes a twentieth-century teacher warning that practical Kabbalah practices can have effects that are traumatic and dangerous if improperly used. These are traditional and rabbinic views, and the sources reviewed do not present clinical data on such harms.

Cost, claims and group concerns

The sources reviewed document cost mainly as a commercialization concern. A 2004 report described a Jerusalem starter kit with a red string and lecture disc priced at $42 and said other rabbis worry the Kabbalah Centre commercializes a tradition long kept hard to access. An academic analysis notes red strings sold in packaged form with ritual instructions, and promotional claims that the names can bring money or recharge energy and address illness. No source reviewed tests those claims.

The open sources opened for this page did not document specific high-pressure group practices at Kabbalah centers. One report of fundraising complaints was behind a restricted library and was not used. Legal and regulatory material is outside this page's scope. Readers weighing any organization may wish to ask what it charges and what it claims.

Care boundaries and who speaks for the tradition

Nothing on this page replaces medical or mental health care, and spiritual teaching or products should not stand in for necessary care. The Hasidic health review notes that spiritual healing may be sought alongside illness explanations, which is a reason for clinicians to learn the cultural context. The review does not report harms from Kabbalah study itself.

No single body speaks for Kabbalah. Orthodox authorities, Hasidic leaders, academic scholars, Christian and Hermetic groups and commercial organizations make different and sometimes opposed claims, and an Israeli politician quoted in 2004 argued that Kabbalah should be limited to men steeped in Jewish scholarship. This page describes what published sources say and does not reproduce restricted teachings.