seekinghokmah

Thanks Freedom07 for the interesting link.

With all due respect to CARM…this type of “scholarship” amongst the Christian community is precisely why I brought up the subject. A brief response to the CARM assessment of “Kabballah” as they (or the author of that particular article) defines it:

-The scope of the articles assessment is incredibly broad, lumping New Age nuts together with Orthodox Jews as though they are all from the same camp…that non-biblical kabbalah cult (tongue firmly in cheek).

-He quotes extensively (almost exclusively) fom David Cooper…who is more New Age than Jewish and in no way representative of kosher kabbalah as found in Orthodox Judaism. You cannot take Kabbalah out of traditional Judaism and still call it Kabbalah any more than you can cite Mormonism as representative of main stream Christianity.

-He lists the term kavanah (I suspect right out of Coopers subject headings) as meaning “awareness of implications of things we do”…the author of the article studied Hebrew in seminary and should have recalled that it means “intention”…in other words we should examine our inner motivations in all that we do and act-pray ect. with corrected “intentions” and pure motivation.

-He does almost no original research and simply quotes non-kosher sources as representative of kabbalah as a whole or quotes Kabbalistic texts with no context are interpretation…then labels it as not Christian and not Biblical.

-He makes numerous charges that Kabbalah is unbiblical or that its teachings contradict scripture…but gives no specific examples (other than a few quotes from New Agers or references with no context or interpretation)

Example: He mentions (correctly) that there are four levels of interpretation, but then states that this gives rise to all manner of contradictions. This is a common error made by those not familiar with Judaism. Yes there are four levels of interpretation that can be applied to any give passage of scripture…but the KEY is that they MUST NOT give rise to contradictions with any of the other levels…all must agree or you are clearly off track!

-the article constantly states that Kabbalah is entirely subjective and therefore un-testable. This is absolutely untrue. Kabbalah by its nature is engaged in examining things that typically transcend our ability to express in human language (take Ezekiel’s vision for example)…therefore in order to understand what they are actually talking about you have to learn their terms and what they mean by certain phrases and concepts (called the language of the branches by some) if you are to have any hope of accurately assessing the teachings. Obviously the only way to do this is to go to actual kabbalists and their sources…which this article never does. Genuine kabbalah is very scientific and consistently systematic once you begin to understand it…but this can take years. I have been studying ABOUT kabbalah for over 16 years…and I can now unequivocally say I know squat ;-) But I can definitely spot the counterfeits in most cases.

Note that the nature of kabbalah is rooted in altruism and absolute humility…so if someone tells you they are a kabbalist that is probably the surest way to know that they AREN’T one. At the least you should be very suspicious. None of the “genuine” kabbalists I am aware of ever claimed to be kabbalists or (heaven forbid) actually advertised it or sought students from the general population. They certainly never sold kabbalah water LOL.

-the author lists karma as a kabbalistic teaching…not a chance, that is eastern mysticism not Judaism and it may be a pet concept in David Coopers teachings but not Judaism.

-the article includes a “list of what kabbalah teaches”…unfortunately this list is just the authors cherry picking from his incredibly brief and subjective look into the subject and is hardly representative of what kabbalah is really about.

-the worst part is his online “dialogue with a kabbalist”, this one really makes me cringe. He goes online…grabs the first guy claiming to be a kabbalist (note my comment above) and takes him as a valid representative of genuine kabbalah!!!! The guy tells him throughout the conversation that his primary influences came from the Hermetic Dawn…a western occult system in now way associated with actually Jewish Mysticism…and the guy’s not even Jewish. The fact that he says he has started leaning towards genuine Jewish Kabbalah literature doesn’t make him a kabbalist, or suggest that he would interpret said literature correctly. Good grief! (sorry…but that part just burns me)

I’m all for Christian apologetics…but CARM deserves a firm slap on the wrist for that horrible example of pseudo scholarship…regardless of whether anyone thinks kabballah should be studied at all by Christians…we should at least do our homework accurately and not grossly misrepresent the subjects we address.

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Good questions, when answered, innevitably lead to better ones. The light is in the search, and the search itself is the destination.

Beloved

Good Morning,,, Your statement about philosophical self discovery educates me enough to know it is not for Christians...

Christians are to die to theirselves, their old nature, and surrender and follow Christ and live a New Life by being Born Again unto Christ through the Holy Spirit and the Word...

Through Repentence and Salvation we do discover who we really are... Totally lost and sinful, even the best of us, whether we are a Mother Teresa type, or a homosexual muslim terrorist...

Their is not one good, but the Father, Christ and His Holy Spirit...

Everything else is merely a ploy to distract us from our Life in Him...

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Shalom

( SHALOM says: Completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. )

Beloved
1 Corinthians 14:1 Let Love be your highest goal.

EndTimeZSouljah

In my opinion, yes, it is the occult.

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Beloved

This is a link from the "Christian Research Institute" No way am I going to read all that research I don't havr the time...It's for further information from a Christian perspective...

http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMN...41F/JAK045.htm

And for those newbie Christians:

http://www.fathersloveletter.com/flltextenglish.html

And for the new converts:

http://www.wayofthemaster.com/faq.shtml Questions and Answers

http://www.wayofthemaster.com/learntoshare.shtml True or False Conversion

__________________
Shalom

( SHALOM says: Completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. )

Beloved
1 Corinthians 14:1 Let Love be your highest goal.

seekinghokmah

Well…CRI starts out quoting the same three non-representative sources…but then straightens up a bit and quotes Adin Steinstalz, I love the comparison of Bergs Kabbalah Centre to Orthodox Kabbalah as compared to Barney and a real dinosaur…or pornography and love.
Unfortunately the CRI article still doesn’t take the time to go to legitimate sources to understand what Kabballah really teaches. In the quotes below it lists “differences” between Christianity and Kabbalah…but misunderstands Kabbalah completely on most points.

All well and good…but ein sof is not a separate being, rather it is merely a term used to refer to God as He truly exists…completely transcendant and beyond our ability to comprehend. Christians surely agree with this notion and do not try to put God into a nice little box we can grasp with a finite mind…we agree that in reality God is beyond us. This is not to say that He is not personal…it simply acknowledges that He is knowable because He chooses to make Himself known…not that He is actually limited by OUR nature.
The tree of life is an expression of the conduits or means by wich God reveals Himslef to creation…they are NOT attributes, since God is one and cannot be divided into “attributes”. Maimonides spends a great deal of time elucidating this in his “Guide for the Perplexed” and this is completely consistent with Kabbalistic thought.
The problem is that people unfamiliar with Kabbalah look at it briefly and mistake statements as being absolute expressions of doctrine rather than what they really are…attempts to express the limitlessness of God using limited human language…a difficult task to be sure, hence the apparently esoteric nature of Kabbalistic language, which is replete with metaphor and complex allusions.

This is a red herring in that Kabbalah is not discussing God as He reveals Himself to us on a personal level but the deeper aspects of His nature…this is like saying particle physics is invalid because it doesn’t talk about black holes and supernovae, Kabbalah is discussing God on a different level of perspective.

Kabbalah does NOT teach that God is incomplete…but that creation itself is incomplete because God wants to involve humanity in the process rather than just doing it all for us. Christianity does not deny our involvement, quite the opposite…it is simply a matter of whether we choose (via free will) to BE involved.

Christian interpretation may well assume…but the text does not actually SAY how God communicated with Moses, only that He did…so this isn’t much of an argument.

It is quite understandable that a cursory examination of Kabbalah would lead one to make comparisons with Gnosticism…but the similarities are only apparent on a very simplistic level. The more one learns about what Kabbalah is really talking about the more those apparent correlations melt away. The key point I would make here is that Kabbalah does not assert that understanding the deeper interpretations are at all necessary…in fact it goes out of its way to discourage people from pursuing it if they are not properly prepared in knowledge, understanding and (most of all) character. We are neither forbidden nor encouraged to study Kabbalah…how close we wish to get to God is entirely up to us…but it is hardly appropriate for those who choose one degree to make judgments or assumptions about those who choose another.

I agree, but it bears remembering that the Jewish people have been “blinded for a time” by God Himself…and so some aspects of the actuall method of redemption and tikun are obviously going to be hidden from them until they come to recognize Jesus as the true Messiah. Unfortunately, it is Christian ignorance, arrogance and bigotry that most often deters the Jewish people form even entertaining such a notion. If we became better informed about the religion OF Jesus (Judaism) I suspect we would be far more proficient in expounding the religion ABOUT Jesus (Christianity). Jesus was, after all, a Jewish rabbi.

__________________
Good questions, when answered, innevitably lead to better ones. The light is in the search, and the search itself is the destination.

Beloved

Hello Seeking, I agree with much you say... Im glad you visited their web site... and could give us an overview ...

Speaking for myself... The first most important journey Born Again Christians are to take is Knowing Christ...

I don't know if Kabbalah will do this for you or anyone whether they are Jewish or not...

The Holy Spirit will lead us into all Truth that the Father wants us to have...

The second most important step Christians are to make is attaching ourselves to Christ to we can produce His Fruit,

Love and being Loving as Christ is, is the foundation for Gifts of the Spirit and growth in our Walk...

It is not for me to say that Kabbalah could lead a person into these paths...

If it is for you, God Bless...

For me I did all the study and research I needed to know all I wanted enough to center my attention on one thing and that was the Lord...

I'll leave it to the others here to define if its good or evil according to your research... Which seems excellant...

__________________
Shalom

( SHALOM says: Completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord. )

Beloved
1 Corinthians 14:1 Let Love be your highest goal.

seekinghokmah

I agree whole heartedly Beloved, my only desire is to encourage my fellow believers to pursue excellence in all things...and when examining other beliefs to do so honestly, diligently and accurately...or leave it to those better equiped.

Again I stress that I in no way encourage Christians to pursue Kabbalah...just that we not demonize things we do not understand.

I would, however, encourage people to gain a deeper understanding of Judaism as a whole as that can prevent a great deal of misunderstandings. Jesus, Paul, the entire scriptures in fact are written from within a Hebrew context.

Jesus Himself may well have been a pharasee...yet most Christians immediately associate that term with the epitome of "hypocracy".
Orthodox Jews of today ARE pharasee's and the ones I know are less hypocritical than most of the Christians I know. We have a lot to learn from the people of the Book.

__________________
Good questions, when answered, innevitably lead to better ones. The light is in the search, and the search itself is the destination.

Jax

Whpo even wants to know about Kabaalah, when we have Jesus Christ?
I dont know about you but I find He is sufficient, I have no desire for any other spiritual roads.

seekinghokmah

Because ignorance is not bliss, it is a breading ground for arrogance, biggotry and hatred.

Because it is a major part of Judaism...the religion of Jesus Himself.

But as I stated earlier...we are neither encouraged nor forbidden. We are, however, required to show respect...and it is difficult to show respect for something we know nothing about.

__________________
Good questions, when answered, innevitably lead to better ones. The light is in the search, and the search itself is the destination.

mikeOfChrist

The Kabbalah, is a system which was developed within Judiasm, as a
mystical science, to understand God, and God's Scripture, And as such most
of it has allways been wrong.

However, God has made use of number in scripture, as well as acrostics, etc..,

An "acrostic" is defined as "a verse or arrangement of words in which certain
letters in each line, such as the first or last, when taken in order spell out a word,
motto, etc..,"

However, God's use of Acrostics, consists of simply, having "each and every
verse," in a text begin with the subsequent letters of the Hebrew alphabet: alph,
beth, gimel, daleth, etc..,

---and as such is not of the Mysticism, subsequently added in "meaning" to what
God has inspired as the Scripture thus given.

Also, God is perfect in His creations, and has used what we as mankind have tried to
abuse. And as such, even before there was even such a thing as "Verse" divisions
/designations, these simple acrostics, served as a future model for such divisions.

The Jews, also in line with the world, wanted to see numerology within their
Scriptures, and as in line with Pythagoras, who developed 3 sets of 9 music of the
spheres type of numerology, 1-9, 10-90, 100-900, the Jews then took the 22
Hebrew letters, and created 5 "final" forms, to give 27 letters, or 3 sets of 9,
so they could assign 1-9, 10-90, and 100-900 to God's scripture. But then thru
the perfection of God's design, and God forseeing the future, which system
would God have intended, 22 or 27 letter value assignments????, or
both?????

And then to take each and every Hebrew word, as the Jews have done, and
assign every word of the same total value, such as 75, 120, 83, or whatever,
as being a commentary on all other words of the "same" value total, and calling
it "Gematria," has God indeed authorized such usage or not??????

And there is the "rare," alphabet "Cipher" in which God, for example would allow
a Biblical-Book author, to use a letter-substitute ciphper, for "Babylon," in which
case I ask the question, then why are we to assume, just from such a limmited
useage, that God intended for the Jews to be able to use their own letter substituion
ciphers, such as the "attabash cipher" ???????, etc..,

Or why, should we allow, as the Jewish Kabbalists do, that God's "Torah," or the first 5-book
of Moses =the only law, ="One Long Secret Name Of God," consisting of all of the
letters of the "Torah" combined in one long string???????

And on top of that, why should we also allow that the "Torah," is "Black Fire written on
White Fire," meaning this one secret, long name of God/Creation, actualy consists
of the Hebrew Letters we know, and "White" shadow letters formed by the spaces
between the actual Hebrew letters of the text?????????????

And in Hebrew, "Sepher", is a word for book: So therfore the Kabbalah first "Officialy"
showed up in the blasphemous works such as the "Sepher Yetzirah," etc.., and any such
legitimate usage, was subsequent to the abuses, where the Jews claimed, retroactively
that God first secretly gave the "Kabbalah," to Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, etc..,

And there is an excellent book, for exposing what most of the Kabbalah has been, in it's
gnostic content, such as assigning a dual "androgynous" role to God, with the Mercy Seat
of the Ark, in the Holy of Holies, being assigned as the female genitalia of God, entitled,
"Kabbalah And Eros,"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and then there is the assignment of 10, and then 11 spheres of "Emenations" of God,
and His creation, and their 10/11 broken "Shells," representing demons /and the
demonic ---in a spiritual "Heirarchy," of emenations, of spiritual order of forces, which I
believe, gives the false spiritual heirarchies of the Nicolations, and the Synagogue of Satan,
as is mentioned in Revelation,


and as such I believe You are way off base, as to it's legitimacy, and origins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yes, it would seem God has forseen /and used number in Scripture!!!!!!!!!!!1 However
that is a far cry from the numerology turned Mysticism of the Kabbalah. And number in Scripture,
can indeed show words and phrases of same and opposite meanings, with same numerical values,
in an overall O.T. / N.T. pattern, such as was put forth in the book "Theomatics,"


However, God's revelation or unveiling of such usage, has allways followed upon the heals of the "Abuse"
of Scripture usages, showing up first ---and therefore is God indeed not using, and or responding to "The
foolish things of the world," when His revelations are opposite to that of the Kabbalah, no matter what
false claims of legitimacy the Kabbalah claims????????

And in fact was not the founder of Hasidism, if I remember correctly, called "Baal Shem Tov," or "He of the
Good name," a kabbalist, of the Lurianic ( 11 Sephiroth ) school of Kabbalah??????????????????

And in fact, are these blapsphemous 10 /morphed into 11, spheres of God, and His creation ---accessed thru
"Chariot," or "Merkabah Mysticisms," thru the "Abuse" of Ezekiels visions, etc.., but are not these 10/11 spheres
of the "God of Fortress," paralleled in, and mocking the 10, and 11th "little horn," of Daniel???????????????

The Kabbalah, is indeed the secret Heirarchy of the Nicolations, morphed out from the secrets of the Synagogue
of Satan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stay away from the Kabbalah, and some of the legitimate conclusions of what God has done, as found in "Theomatics,"
for example, if indeed one holds them to be legitimate usage,

just because it was falsely coppied by "Satan" first, in the Kabbalah, in no way legitimises the Kabbalah, just because the
Kabbalah poisions certain truths of God, ---and then has the nerve to claim it is a good usage

Whats next, Nostradamus, Harry Potter, or Aliens?????????????

I am part Jewish Myself, and as such can call Myself a Christian, or a Messianic Jew, if I prefered, and at least I have enough
sense to see it for the pure evil it is!!!!!!!!!!!!


May Christ Richly Bless Those Who truly Love Him, Amen.

Mike.