Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Ramchal on the study of Kabbalah
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: DanBenNoah on March 23, 2008, 09:05:12 PM ---
See, this is what I'm talking about. Since Hasidism and kabbalah have supposedly been the practice of some "great" rabbis, who were supposedly smart, I'm "ignorant" because I criticize it. That's similar to a Christian regarding Jews who don't accept Jesus as "hard-hearted" or "resisting the Holy Spirit". These are both ideologies that require some special "inner knowledge" of sorts in order to justify the doctrines that are contradicted by the plain meaning of the Torah. Hasidism was a late innovation within Judaism, and it was opposed when it first began by the Mitnagdim. There was no divine revelation of Hasidism/kabbalah, it was just extrapolated back by its inventors kind of like Mormons extrapolate some of their scriptures back to Avraham. And the reason it is idolatry is for the same reason that other religions who teach reincarnation, astrology, pantheism, etc. are idolatry. It also seems to attract women in a witchcraft-esque way.
--- End quote ---
This post shows that you are terribly misinformed. The leader of the misnagdim, the Vilna Gaon, delved deeply into Kabbalah. The term itself means there are deeper secrets held within the Divine text known as Torah that go beyond the simple meaning. It doesn't require things to be illogical as in they 'don't make sense.' Mystical and illogical are not synonyms. Mystical is a different way of looking at things. And you are characterizing incorrectly when you say that kabalah, the inner secrets or mystical interpretations of Torah, contradict the simple meaning. This is not true or else none of them would have ever been accepted by any self-respecting rabbi. There was an Oral Torah given at Mt. Sinai in addition to the written Torah. Many mitzvot would be impossible to do or know how to do without this tradition from the Oral Torah. Included in the Oral Torah are some kabbalistic insights that were passed on, as well as 13 principles of exegesis to delve into the deep secrets of the Torah and find more meaning. Implicit in Judaism is the needed participation of the rabbis over the generations to refine our Torah knowledge (holy nation, nation of priests) and make rulings (see Rambam), to strive for truth in every era and come to codified traditions where they don't already exist or where there is machlokes. You seem to lump this in with kabbalah as well, which is even more terribly mistaken.
Your comparison to Christianity has no bearing on this discussion, Judaism, or any discussion of kaballah or any other aspect of Jewish tradition. We don't base our religion on "what is wrong with _____ religion."
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