God of the Kabbalists | Pantheism & Kabbalah
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- Making Sense of the Infinite, En Sof, the God of the Kabbalists. Is Kabbalah Pantheistic? Find our in this instalment of Pantheism and the Metaphysics of Mysticism.
Continuing our series on Jewish Pantheological thought. Looking at the way thinkers within the Jewish tradition thought about the relationship between God and World, in creative, daring and inspiring ways.
In this instalment we’re looking at the thinking of the Kabbalists on this issue, and trying to get a glimpse of just how they go about thinking and unpacking nothing less than what they believe to be the mysteries of the universe, God and the human condition.
Part 1: The Other God of Judaism • The Other God of Judaism
Part 3: Kabbalah’s Great Chain of Being • Kabbalah's Great Chain...
00:00 Intro to Kabbalah & Pantheism
00:37 Recap: Bible, Philo and Rabbis
01:58 Pantheology in Kabbalah
04:40 Pantheology in the Zohar
11:31 Pantheology in De Leon
12:53 Pantheology in Cordovero
18:59 Recap of what we covered
19:52 Upcoming: S’H and Tzimtzum
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Tags: Kabbalah, Pantheism, Zohar, Moshe de Leon, Moses Cordovero, Ramak
#Kabbalah
#Mysticism
#Unity
Wahdat Al-Wujud ... Sufism, Kabalah... It's all the same... Excelent work.If you ever travel to Brazil, it would be my pleasure to have you as guest. God Bless you, friend
Awesome! And we get to look forward to The Great Chain of Being and Tzimtzum?! I'm so excited! Those are two of my favorite concepts within kabbalah. You're the best, Zevi.
Thank you Justin 🙏🏼 We’re excited as well to try unpack them.
thank you so much Zevi for all the hard work invested in these videos and for bringing light to our hearts and minds 🙏 up until your videos, I've never heard of Cordovero, however I feel him and his writings (500 years later), happy I've discovered Kabbalah and your videos, be blessed!
Thank you Miron. It’s an immense pleasure to be exploring and sharing these thinkers and thoughts with you and all the seekers out there.
Great explanation, looking foward for future videos! Todah rabah.
Thank you Marin 🙏🏼
Plotinus, Ibn-Arabi, Spinoza, etc. There is something to be found in all these thinkers, and it draws me like a madman*!
(*actually, like a sane man)
16:41 "the fool corporealizes god" is a good quote, lots of levels to it
Excellent! Keep up the good work!
Thank you Sebastian 🙏🏼
Watch Part 1: The Other God of Judaism ua-cam.com/video/UXyNh_guO88/v-deo.html
Thank you. I hope you enjoyed and maybs even learnt something.
By the way, I really loved your conversations (dialogos) with John. Please do more, if you both have the time and opportunity! Your interaction was magical.
Thank you so much. I’m so glad you found it to be so. We did continue the dialogos, we’ve done three so far (two on SoU and one on John’s channel), and will be recording a fourth this week, G-d willing.
@@SeekersofUnity
Looking forward to it. ❤
I can even say that John was the one who got me interested in Mysticism with his Awakening From The Meaning Crisis series, and indirectly brought me to your channel.
Just bought Vol. 1 of the Pritzker edition of the Zohar, can't wait to read it.
Although, from everything I've learned from you, it was how I thought of God all along.
I came here because I asked /r/Judaism/ if there was anything in Jewish thought that was analogous to the Tao, and I'm delightfully surprised to find out that there some parallels! This was a fascinating video, thank you!
You’re most welcome friend. We’re glad you found us. Glad we could be of assistance. Welcome 🙏🏼
I've always been so interested in Cordovero, but felt there was a lack of literature in english (I could be wrong). Is there anything you would recomend? Any good translations of his works? The Pardes Rimonim seems like a beast, but maybe one can start with his shorter works?
Hey Filip, so nice to hear from you.
Cordovero is fascinating and an absolute giant of thought and so can be a little intimidating. As far as I know there hasn’t been a great amount of scholarly work dedicated to him in English unfortunately. The Classics of Western Spirituality series has something small on him in their Safed Spirituality edition (I have it on my bedside table at the moment, I’d lend it to you if were nearer ;). The only full length English work I’ve come across is Zohar Raviv’s Decoding the Dogma Within the Enigma, but I don’t know what the quality of the work is, I haven’t seen it cited much, or at all.
Of his two magnum opera, Pardes Rimonim and Ohr Yakar, the former was translated into English in 2007, but it is a monster of a work. The only text of his that I’ve gone cover-to-cover on is his Tomer Devorah, but it’s generally categorised as ethical mussar literature rather than Kabbalah. His introduction to the work however shows his predilection for the mystical, setting out the work as an extended meditation of just how one ought go about imitatio dei-ing, “aligning the form and the likeness.” If I remember correctly. Oh, and it’s been translated into English a few times, the popular book that it is. Jacobs’ transition is more precise and scholarly, Miller’s however flows and reads more naturally.
What you might find most interesting though, and isn’t too long, is his introduction to and argument for the study of Kabbalah, Ohr Ne’erav. It’s been translated and is available on Sefira: www.sefaria.org/Or_Neerav?lang=bi
I don’t know how good the translation is but I’d like to check it out as well. I’ll send you the link to my upcoming vid where I get a little into Cordovero on the Great Chain of Being etc.
Much love, Zevi
Looking forward to our next collab 😉
exquisite video, thank you!
You’re most welcome Richard. Thank you.
Thank you really enjoy your ways of explaining as I find it very grounding
I came as the Kabbalah from Christianity so discovered the Quabalah first which was fascinating but very overwhelming as all religions are included as well as different descriptions of the spheruit. I think it depends who you learn from too.
100% what you said about misinterpreting sacred texts resonates with me. Guilty !!!!
You’re most welcome. Yes, Kabbalah takes time and work. But sounds like you’re well on your way. Thank you for joining us.
Excellent.
Thank you friend 🙏🏼
Thank you Brother
You’re most welcome Brother.
"Nothing can be found except those spreading radiances" sounds a lot like the essence-energy distinction of Orthodox theology. Which also states God's essence unknowable. Interesting!
It is, and from that birth, and from that birth and from that birth endlessly caught in one moment one place, One that contains everything forever transforming into the endless potential.
Love your videos. I'm 7000km away from my library sadly with only 3 books with me (Maimonides Guide, Spinoza's Ethics and Abulafia's Light of the Intellect) and a Tanakh for the past 2.5 years. So your videos are always a welcome refresher of the things I dedicated so much time studying and money acquiring the books you mention. I know he is extremely controversial but I'm really curious about your take on Zvi's pantheism/panentheism? It is probably the most extreme take but it seems like he takes those ideas to their furthest conclusion in the realm of Judaism for better or worse. Given your goal and your open-minded approach (which I love and is very refreshing and inspiring) I'd love to hear your thoughts on his pantheism. All the best :)
Thank you so much 🙏🏼 Sorry to hear that you’re stranded without your library, but it would be tight competition to think of better books to be stranded with. I’m really glad you’ve been enjoying the videos. Thank you. I would like to present Tzvi and his followers thought at some point, but I’d probably do it in the context of mystical antinomianism, messianism or bitheology rather than in this series. Look forward to getting to all those fascinating and radical characters, nothing is out of bounds here.
That declaration reminds me of the Kybalion passage “nothing exists outside of THE ALL, else THE ALL would not be THE ALL.” Kind of seems like circuitous wordplay but it’s clearly important to establish because pantheism doesn’t really seem to allow for the void, pleroma, dark matter or whatever you call the stuff beyond the universe but within God
Yes, it is an important distinction. I think within strict pantheism the universe would be "THE ALL" but within panentheism God is the universe AND also is transcendent beyond time/space as well. In this series I believe he is discussing both panentheism and pantheism. However, those strict categories do an injustice to the variety of thought that can be included within them so, I believe, instead of constantly trying to distinguish between the two or creating a separate series for so similar of a concept he has just included both within the umbrella of pantheism.
If you go back to the first video in the series he covers that at some point and probably explains his reasoning better than my attempt here.
@@justinbirkholz7814 that diagram at the beginning was helpful. In my faith there is this doxology at the end of mass where we say “through Him, with Him and in Him" so it’s clearly not pantheism but then gender thing tends to limit. I kinda like THE ALL in all caps cuz it’s like they are yelling at you 🤣
@@yahwings7813 interesting. If you don't mind, would you tell me what faith that is? My religious curiosity is boundless
@@justinbirkholz7814 Catholic
the light of infinity = OR EN SOF light reception = KABBALAH thanks R' Zevi.
Thanks for this informative topic. Allow me to give my understanding on this issue. It seems more counterintuitive to posit a pantheistic worldview than a monistic/dualism. It is counterintuitive to say that a rock is God than to say the rock is not God. Speaking of limitation, if God is a rock, then he has limited himself to a rock, and if God is also everything else, then everything would seem to disappear. We would not see a rock or everything else but God as God, indeed, we would not see God because we are part of “everything else” which is vanished. The whole Tanach and especially the Psalms seem to make a clear difference between God and everything else. Our faculty of reasoning would have been contradicted if God were a rock, for what do we mean by God and a rock? If they are not distinct, reason will have to give up itself on the meaning of at least one of them, but then the proposition “God is a rock” must disappear also.
As to the argument against Theism on infinity. I would argue from the teaching of Kabbalah itself, that God has limited Himself ‘when’ created the world by a “contraction”. Theism does keep intact the infinity of God while positing a limitation on His part when creating and manifesting Himself in the world. The difference and way of maintaining Gods infinity and limitation is by understanding the Ad intra and Ad extra of God. God as to Himself is infinity, but as to every other existence He has limited Himself, and the limitation lies in that the other thing is other than God because God is infinite. Let that other thing have everything it can from God, is still not God, because its capacity to contain God is infinitely limited. Another way of seeing this is by understanding the difference between original and shadow. God is the original but everything else are little shadows that put together reflect God, yet a shadow is infinitely other in itself than the original reality, even when everything there is to the shadow is due to God. So as the psalmist says, everything declares the glory of God. And I think it means exactly what I explained, the sky is not God, but a limited manifestation of God, only one shadowy aspect of who God is. The sky can never be an infinite manifestation of God because is itself temporal and finite. Nor we are to say that God is the sky in a limited form because the sky does not reveal the glory of God in every aspect, nor the whole of this creation reveal the fullness of God, but there is a man that reveals the fullness of God who is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God who we call here Jesus. And, surely his redeemed people will in the future world will be a fuller revelation of God which yet still has an infinite time to reveal Him, never reaching Him, always finding more Glory and Godliness through His Son.
Clear, concise and poetic! I now have a far better understanding of the subject, thanks Zevi, perhaps in my ignorance of the subject in discussion, I couldn't help but make some comparisons with Plotinus's cosmology...am I way off the mark?
Thank you Jason. No at all. Just wait till next weeks video, those comparisons you’re hearing are going to become a whole lot more explicit.
@@SeekersofUnity Interesting! Look forward to it.
@@SeekersofUnity for something I am indifferent to I sure am excited to keep listening. Thanks again zevi, quiet day at work great pace to listen to plugging widgets
@@ramkitty my pleasure.
I want to learn kabalah,plz help
Working on it 😉
@@SeekersofUnity how,there is only theory,not practical
@@zulfikarzulfikar9789 I had some success doing an ajin with a Rabbi via email back in 2000 so, maybe there's more here than you think..., currently?
A pantheist must hold all things as sacred because everything is God, so he can't oppress anyone. I think one day pantheism will take world peace to a much more advanced level way beyond what non-pantheistic religion could acheive.
How was the dobie Logos and Revelation book? I am a brutally slow reader so I am very selective.
I haven’t read it. I just thought it might be a nice illustrative graphic for that moment in the vid with whatever it was I was talking about.
@@SeekersofUnity understandable time is limited. I may give it a go after I plug through ryckman's einstein bio also written with a philosophical take
Best of luck friend.
C: teh book of radiance
Although I'm not entirely convinced that pantheism and panentheism are separate things Kabalah is generally held to be a form of panentheism rather than pantheism as the source is outside of the created order therefore transcendent.i don't think that you could say it's a form of pandeism as God doesn't become the universe and cease to exist in transcendent form.in my view if the source generates a universe, and us,then it's all one anyhow....as you say a paradoxical Divine,here yet not here.perhaps panentheism within the ultimate framework of pantheism....no division within God.
I can find a lot similarities with Ibn Arabi
Do share…
Wahdat al-Wujud!
What does that actually mean?
I get anxiety when I hear infinity/never-ending concepts, apeirophobia. :(
Consider these vids exposure therapy 😉
Try taking psychedelics and pondering the infinite, my friend.
What does that actually mean?🤔
How to practice of kabalah,meditation like awakening of kundlni?
Daily prayer and learning from a reputable source like Aish or Chabad. Develop kavanah (spiritual intention) in everything you do. Try to add more and more acts of kindness in your daily life and make a kindness journal to motivate yourself.
you may want to check out The Nemeton's channel for some kabbalistic meditation and contemplative practices. He has at least a few on there.
@@Mesorah.6 Chabad doesn't teach Kabbalah they teach Chasidut and their main source is the Tanya
Why use the word panentheism to describe a vision where as the quote of Ramak you provided says: it has no corporal characteristics at all? I do not know of him truly but on this same issue of panentheism describing sufism as panentheistic as you did in other video of these series would be rejected by all orthodox or traditional or classical or simply muslim sufi teachers themselves. Wahdat al wujud or wahdat ash shuhud (the other sufi variant as per the great Imam Rabbani As Sirhindi) specifically negates equating any within God-ness as material even if we speak of the totality of things. Even acknowledging that God (Allah as we call him on sufism) is al Batin, the most Hidden, as well as ad Dhahir, the Manifest, as one sufi Master said, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al Habib from Morocco XX century the totality of things are illusions only Allah exists. That is not any variant of pantheism even qualifying it as panentheism. As from the quotes you bring that would also seem to be the case from Kabbalah though I am new to that field. Do Kabbalists themselves describe them as a variant of panteism or do they -as sufi masters do- reject and condemn any form of panteism?
Kabbalistic Judaism is clearly pagan. Pantheism accurately describes Jewish mysticism and theosophy.
It is definitely influenced by (Neo)Platonic (Especially Iamblichus and Theurgy) thought and Hermeticism.
Huh? what on earth ( or not on earth) 😃are you talking about?
@@Zelvital Most likely the other way around Plato visited Egypt at the time when the Jews were there
What do you define as 'Pagan'?
the light of infinity = OR EN SOF light reception = KABBALAH thanks R' Zevi.
You’re most welcome 🙏🏼