Kabbalah and the sefirot
Explanation
Kabbalah (qabbalah, "received tradition") is the mystical and esoteric current of Judaism. Although there are precedents in early mystical literature (merkavah-hekhalot, Sefer Yetsirah from the 2nd-6th centuries), Kabbalah proper emerges in southern France and northern Spain in the 12th-13th centuries, with works such as the Bahir and, above all, the monumental Zohar ("Book of Splendour", attributed by Moses de León to Shimon bar Yochai). It later flourishes in the community of Safed (Palestine) in the 16th century with Isaac Luria and his disciples.
The fundamental structure of Kabbalah is the Tree of Life, with ten sefirot (divine emanations) through which the Eyn Sof (the Infinite, the hidden and ineffable God) manifests itself and creates the world. The ten sefirot are: Keter (crown), Hokhmah (wisdom), Binah (understanding), Hesed (kindness), Gevurah (severity), Tiferet (beauty), Netsah (victory), Hod (splendour), Yesod (foundation), Malkhut (kingdom). Arranged in three columns and four levels, they form a map of the whole of reality, of the creative process and of the human soul.
Lurianic Kabbalah (16th century) added a dramatic cosmogony in three acts: tsimtsum (contraction of the Infinite to make "room" for the world), shevirat ha-kelim ("breaking of the vessels" that could not contain the divine light), and tikkun (repair, through human acts, of the cosmic fragmentation). This tragic and redemptive vision of the universe gave Kabbalah a most profound ethical dimension: each mitzvah (commandment) fulfilled repairs a fallen spark.
The human soul, according to Kabbalah, has five levels (nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah), of progressive divinity. The physical body is a vehicle, but the sefirot are also reflected in the anatomy of the spiritual man (Adam Kadmon, the primordial man). Human consciousness can ascend through the Tree of Life through meditation, sacred study, contemplation of divine names, and ethical practice.
For the theory of consciousness, Kabbalah offers a sophisticated emanationist model in which divine consciousness modulates itself in ten archetypal aspects that are reflected in the human psyche. It has affinities with Neoplatonism (especially through Renaissance interpretations by Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin, Gikatilla) and with the structure of emanations in other mystical traditions.
Kabbalah has had enormous influence: in Hasidism (a Jewish mystical movement born in the 18th century with the Baal Shem Tov, which popularised kabbalistic ideas), in Renaissance Christian Kabbalah, in Western esotericism (tarot, Hermeticism, Golden Dawn), in depth psychology (Jung) and, in its desacralised and simplified version, in contemporary movements (Kabbalah Centre). Scholars such as Gershom Scholem, Moshe Idel and Elliot Wolfson have rehabilitated rigorous academic study of it. As a subtle map of consciousness in its ascent toward the divine, Kabbalah remains one of the peaks of human spirituality.
Strengths
- Sophisticated systematisation of levels of consciousness (sefirot and souls).
- Integrates metaphysics, ethics and practice.
- Massive influence on Western esotericism.
- Concepts such as tikkun relevant for contemporary ethics.
Main critiques
- Symbolic complexity requires prolonged initiation.
- Risk of mystical literalism.
- Non-Jewish appropriations sometimes decontextualised.