What is Kabbalah?
Kabbalah is the mystical tradition of Judaism. Meaning “receiving” or “tradition” in Hebrew, it seeks to uncover the divine truths hidden behind the words of the Bible (Torah). It holds that God in himself is the “Infinite” (Ein Sof), unknowable to humans, and that the world came into being through ten stages emanating from it.
The Tree of Life (Sephiroth)
The symbol of Kabbalah is the diagram called the “Tree of Life” (Tree of the Sephiroth). With ten spheres (sefirot), from “Crown” (Keter) and “Wisdom” (Chokhmah) down to “Kingdom” (Malkhut), and the 22 paths connecting them, it represents the nature of God and the structure of the world. The number 22 corresponds to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
The Zohar and gematria
The Zohar (Book of Splendor), written in late 13th-century Spain, is considered the most important book of Kabbalah. Kabbalah also developed “gematria,” a method of finding hidden meanings by converting words into numbers, using the fact that each Hebrew letter stands for a number. This is one of the roots of modern numerology.
Influence on Western magic and pop culture
In the Renaissance, Christian scholars adopted Kabbalah, giving rise to “Christian Kabbalah,” linked with alchemy and astrology. Kabbalah became an important theory in Western magic from the 19th century on, and the idea of matching the 22 major arcana of tarot cards to the paths of the Tree of Life also spread. The legend of the golem is told in connection with the Kabbalistic power of letters. The Tree of Life diagram often appears in anime and games.
