Some people see Kabalah as a negative thing. They group it together with attempts of things like the New Age cults and such. This was never my impression, but I think this opinion should still be considered. After all how is it that it got to be so widely and wildly accepted the religious world? I am not sure how to answer this? From what I can tell there might be some reason to think the entire acceptance of it as a legitimate part of Judaism might have been a mistake.
In any case it is hard to see any good that comes out of it.
However sometimes it seems people that were good did learn the Zohar and the Ari. And that does not seem like a bad thing. After all the Ari is just developing a modification of a neo- platonic system and using it to explain the Torah. Still you have to wonder is there perhaps some kind of bad energy mixed up with the whole thing? Based on what we have seen for the last centuries as Kabalah became popular we certainly did not see people improving in any way because of learning it.
What might be going on is that people are putting anything that smacks of the Dark Side all in one trash basket and throwing it all out without inspecting the particulars of each case. Thus they would be putting the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on and cabala and new age and hinduism all together and saying that it is underneath all the same dark side.
In other words some people are instead of focusing on the positive aspects of their beliefs system are focusing on avoiding the Dark Side in all and every manifestation of it. This is probably a good approach. The reason is that it is easy to be distracted and to swallow the bait. I think people are the most interested in avoiding the Dark Side are probably thinking correctly.The question is how to identify the dark side? But they are not concerned with that. They simply dismiss anything that smells even slightly off.
Now I have never done that myself and I am probably at fault for this. As I look over things I have read I see I have studied in great depth and detail systems that were pretty obviously from the Dark Side. Maybe I did not care, or maybe I thought it would not effect me. Maybe I thought I was immune?
I have talked about kabalah in particular is some other essay. But just for now let me mention that Im Kal Da [even though] which comes up all the time in the Zohar is a translation of Im Kal Ze [even though in Hebrew]. It was a phrase invented by the Ibn Tibon family during the Middle Ages. [There were ways to say "even though" in Hebrew during the time of R Shimon Ben Yochai, like "af al pi" or "af al gav." But Ibn Tibon was looking for something that made more sense, so he came up with this "im kal ze."] Therefore not one word of the Zohar can be from R. Shimon Ben Yochai. QED.
In any case it is hard to see any good that comes out of it.
However sometimes it seems people that were good did learn the Zohar and the Ari. And that does not seem like a bad thing. After all the Ari is just developing a modification of a neo- platonic system and using it to explain the Torah. Still you have to wonder is there perhaps some kind of bad energy mixed up with the whole thing? Based on what we have seen for the last centuries as Kabalah became popular we certainly did not see people improving in any way because of learning it.
What might be going on is that people are putting anything that smacks of the Dark Side all in one trash basket and throwing it all out without inspecting the particulars of each case. Thus they would be putting the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on and cabala and new age and hinduism all together and saying that it is underneath all the same dark side.
In other words some people are instead of focusing on the positive aspects of their beliefs system are focusing on avoiding the Dark Side in all and every manifestation of it. This is probably a good approach. The reason is that it is easy to be distracted and to swallow the bait. I think people are the most interested in avoiding the Dark Side are probably thinking correctly.The question is how to identify the dark side? But they are not concerned with that. They simply dismiss anything that smells even slightly off.
Now I have never done that myself and I am probably at fault for this. As I look over things I have read I see I have studied in great depth and detail systems that were pretty obviously from the Dark Side. Maybe I did not care, or maybe I thought it would not effect me. Maybe I thought I was immune?
I have talked about kabalah in particular is some other essay. But just for now let me mention that Im Kal Da [even though] which comes up all the time in the Zohar is a translation of Im Kal Ze [even though in Hebrew]. It was a phrase invented by the Ibn Tibon family during the Middle Ages. [There were ways to say "even though" in Hebrew during the time of R Shimon Ben Yochai, like "af al pi" or "af al gav." But Ibn Tibon was looking for something that made more sense, so he came up with this "im kal ze."] Therefore not one word of the Zohar can be from R. Shimon Ben Yochai. QED.
