The Ari, Isaac Luria

There are few that really know the writings of Isaac Luria well. But even among the few that know Kabalah well there is a tendency to go into pretty bad stuff. I have no idea why this is.

It is almost for sure that if you see someone learning Kabalah that they think they are the messiah, or if they have some famous person they follow they are thinking of this famous person as the messiah.

But it rarely stops there. It is amazing to see the worlds of delusion they get into.

This in itself would be a good reason to critical of the Ari's writings except that it seems to me most of the problems come from the teachings of people that came after the Ari and were unknowingly influenced by the Shatz. It is astounding to me to discover most of the most basic teachings that got into the religious world have their origin in Nathan the false prophet of the Shatz. The truth be told, this is not well known because most people have not learned the writings of Natan. If they would and then look at the religious world today, they would see what I mean. It is not subtle but in your face in a way that you can't ignore.

I do not like to dwell on this, but just to conclude I want to say that there is good reason  Lithuanian yeshivas discourage any and all mystic practices and rather concentrate of the Talmud, Musar and learning a kosher vocation.

Isaac Luria

The legitimate mystics after the  Ari  האריז''ל does expand the Ari. We have the Reshash שלום שערבי having the שבירת הכלים in all the עולמות. That is fine because that is just going along with the regular expansion that the Ari himself does in the second part of the עץ חיים.

 The צמצום [contraction] refers to all ten sepherot.

The reason I bring this up is because this corresponds to something that Kant was doing.  Kant also limited reason. He said that when pure reason {not just human reason} ventures into areas where it does not belong it produces self contradictions.

The movement that the Gra put into Cherem. This would be a problem from the standpoint of Halachah even if we did not understand the motivations of the Gra. All the more so when we do understand. The trouble is certainly because of idolatry. But that would not be as bad as idolatry coupled with real evil. There is after all is said and done very good reasons that Gra signed the Cherem and it is a real failure of judgement for people to ignore it.  And recently we have Rav Shach saying the same thing as the Gra and predictably he too was ignored.

Isaac Luria

In the Torah every ''vav''in front of a verb is a ואו מהפך. It turns the tense from future to past and visa versa. This usage stopped by the time psalms and Ecclesiastes were written.  The reason modern Hebrew does not use the reversing vav is because it goes by later sources. That is they assume the Torah was written in a special way because it was given by inspiration from God, and does not tell us about the normal usage.
So what I think is the Torah means it both ways. Everything that did happen will happen. So when it says ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי אור it means just like the literal meaning-- and God will say let there be light.  And so on for the whole Torah. When it says ייוצא השם ישראל ממצרים It means in the future God will save Israel from every troubling  times.

 What I am getting at is the idea that you have in the Isaiah "את השמים החדשים ואת הארץ החדשה אשר אני עושה the new heavens and the new earth that I am making."  and the idea that Israel goes through lots of periods of trouble. and you see in the book of Judges that God often sends some kind of person to help. So I think that these kinds of events in the Torah were not one time types of things but rather things that will continue to be repeated.

If you read Isaac Luria  this kind of idea might resonate a little more with you. It is kind of mystical. I don't mean that I am expecting a new earth. Rather a kind of spiritual light  and understanding that I think will come.