Posted by jonvon on September 01, 2001 at 12:41:05:
In Reply to: oooohhh Kaballah (said with whispery echos of mystery) posted by john on August 31, 2001 at 14:39:05:
: Kaballah is truly an intersting thing. I also know that it is extremely powerful and not to be taken lightly. Many people fear to dabble at all because of the spiritual ramifications this philosophy/ religion/ school of thought carries. I myself studied ABOUT it for awhile, but never got into the teachings themselves. I think some of the danger lies in its total acceptance of what we know to be true. I mean it is a Jewish mystic tradition from ancient roots. It understands the order of things and thus leaps ahead of many other mysticisms that operate in a flawed paradigm.
: Still the post was a beautiful writing expressing a beautiful idea. What were you thinking about when you posted it?
I love this subject line. whispery echoes of mystery, that is great.
Here's my two cents... Like everyone else I don't know too much about it. It does seem at least potentially scary.
1. A guy Paula and I know from Boulder, the heart doctor who operated on Paula, he is a practicing Jew. He's like the conservative kind who really tries to keep kosher and wears the yamika (sp?) and all that groovy jazz. We had a really brief conversation about Kabbala one time. He said that rabbis are warned against trying anything or practicing it at all until they are at least 40 years old (and I assume have been studying all the other mainstream stuff their whole lives).
2. I too read Foucalt's Pendulum. When I read it I remember thinking that all christians should read this book. its really neato. a heavy read though, i remember having a dictionary at my side while reading it.
3. Did you guys see the movie Pi? I know Steve did... From what I understand the main point of kabbala is to arrange the letters of the old testament (i believe specifically the Torah, although I'm not sure) in such a way as to somehow release the power that is in the name of God. Jehovah/Yahwey whatever those hebrew letters are, that 10 letter (if i remember right) name is at the heart of it all. Each Hebrew letter represents a number, so they were trying to figure out some mathematical equation or something that would allow them to see or perhaps to even use in some sort of utilitarian way this power that is located and contained in the name of God. In the movie Pi, this mathematician figures out the secret by studying Pi and suddenly can see the divine pattern underlying everything. Which really pisses off the jewish guys, and some other people too. Its quite a movie, highly recommended at least by me. But like Foucalt's Pendulum, it is of course a work of pure fiction.
4. There are legends of a mythical creature known as the golem. A rabbi wearing white clothes who has purified himself and armed with some kind of methodology can supposedly bring life to a man-shaped pile of clay by inscribing a few hebrew letters on its forehead. Once again we have kabbala, hebrew letters and a "powerful" rabbi who might be thought of as a magician. But like John suggests, not quite the kind of magician found in other traditions or schools of thought. The golem being a magical creature, a kind of frankenstinian man but with magical powers of his own, usually rescues some group of persecuted jews and then is put back to rest by the rabbi when the rabbi removes one of the hebrew letters. The word goes from emet (truth) to met (death) and the golem falls back into the shapeless mass it came from.
All of this stuff just seems to me a whole lot of heat without much light. Its interesting and if nothing else can lead to some interesting study about this or that. I think kabbalah ended up becoming somewhat popular in medieval times, about the same time that some people were trying to transmutate lead into gold. Its just a lot of silly stuff at the end of the day. No one ever really brought a golem to life, no one has ever "unlocked" the math inherent in the letters of the hebrew alphabet (although again it might lead to some interesting study) in such a way as to effect some real change in anything.
As christians we know what the power of the name of God is about in a very simple way. We simply call on the name of Jesus when we ask for God's help. It is as simple as calling out to the father, saying "abba" or "da-da" as Roan puts it. The kingdom of God is available to the childlike. Right? I mean, people go to such lengths when it is right in front of us all the time.
Anyway, there a couple of cents. :-)