4,670 related texts · Page 18 of 98
After Judas Maccabeus fell in battle, everything he had fought for nearly collapsed. Josephus opens Book XIII of his Antiquities with a bleak picture: the lawless and the disloyal ...
When Aristobulus I died after just one year on the throne, his widow Salome Alexandra did something audacious. She released Aristobulus's brothers from prison, where he had kept th...
In 63 BCE, two brothers tore Judea apart. Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, both sons of the Hasmonean queen Alexandra, fought each other for the throne. Hyrcanus was the elder and the hig...
It might sound like a silly question, but Jewish tradition actually has some fascinating, even awe-inspiring, things to say about God's "robe of glory." Some mystical texts describ...
Jewish tradition has a powerful way of understanding that feeling: it's the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, in exile with us. Think of the Shekhinah as the feminine aspect of God, ...
That's the idea behind the concept of the Ruah ha-Kodesh, the Holy Breath. It's a fascinating notion, and one that Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav explored deeply. You might also hear Ru...
He saw a spiritual drought gripping his generation, a darkness born from something quite specific: a decline in faith. Not just any faith, but faith in the wisdom of the ages, in t...
It's a bit dense, but stick with me, because it unveils something profound about how we perceive and understand the world. This point circles back to a concept we touched on earlie...
That tension, that need for harmony, is a thread woven deep into the fabric of Kabbalah. And today, we're going to explore a fascinating concept about how that balance comes into b...
These feelings, this sense of movement – up, down – it's not just about our physical lives. In Kabbalah, these directions take on a whole new, spiritual meaning. We often talk abou...
Ze’er Anpin, often translated as "Small Face" or "Short Countenance," is a crucial concept in Kabbalah, representing a specific level of divine emanation. Think of it as a bridge b...
It's a wild ride of heavenly ascent and divine secrets. In this particular passage, Rabbi Ishmael encounters Seganzegael, a powerful angelic being, the Prince of the Presence. Now,...
And while the Torah itself seems to discourage the idea, hinting at the impossibility of seeing God and living, the mystical tradition, particularly the Heikhalot (the heavenly pal...
One such text is Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, a work of Jewish mystical literature that takes us on a journey through the heavenly realms. And in it, we find a truly a...
Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, a fascinating text from the Heikhalot literature – a collection of Jewish mystical writings that explore heavenly palaces and divine encou...
Let’s talk about ‘Anaphiel, a truly extraordinary angel. His name itself is a clue. ‘Anaphiel. It hints at ‘anaph, meaning "branch" or "ramification." But what does that even mean ...
That’s the feeling that leaps off the page of this passage from Mitpachat Sefarim (מטפחת ספרים), a fascinating and relatively obscure work. The title itself, "Scroll Covering," hin...
He urges us – "people of understanding," he calls us – to listen closely and use our discernment. He’s worried about the uncritical acceptance of everything written in books of Kab...
And guess what? According to Mitpachat Sefarim, this pursuit isn't just about intelligence. It’s about your whole being. The text tells us it "requires sanctity, separations, purit...
But Jewish mystical tradition, particularly the Kabbalah, suggests exactly that. It proposes that while God, the blessed Creator, reigns over the earth and assigns angels to overse...
But it goes deeper than planting saplings and eating dried fruit. My father, may his memory be a blessing, had a unique way of looking at things, especially when it came to Jewish ...
We find it even in seemingly simple prayers. one. This passage, taken from Peri Etz Hadar, delves into this very concept, yearning for the reunification of these scattered sparks. ...
Jewish mystical tradition grapples with this very feeling, and offers a breathtakingly intricate explanation for it. It all comes down to sparks. Specifically, 288 sparks. Accordin...
This isn't some physical being, of course, but a powerful emanation. MAH’s job? To sift through the wreckage, the shattered pieces of the kelim (vessels) from the primordial shatte...
The Jewish mystical tradition, particularly the teachings of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the Ramchal), offers a fascinating way to visualize these forces and how they relate to our...
Kabbalah, that ancient Jewish mystical tradition, offers a breathtakingly complex and beautiful vision of just that. Today, we’re going to delve into a particularly intriguing conc...
Makes you realize just how vast the universe is, and how limited our own understanding can be. Well, the ancient sages grappled with this too, especially when it came to the Divine...
It's a bit dense at first glance, but stick with me. It's worth untangling. The text presents a kind of ladder, a hierarchy of control and existence. Imagine it: existence without ...
It asks, isn't our time here meant for avodah – service? But what does that service actually mean? The text clarifies that our service is to remove the deficiencies that exist in c...
It’s a question that’s haunted humanity since we first looked up at the stars. But is it even possible to know the answer? To understand the mind of the Creator? Psalm 92 seems to ...
And wrestling with that feeling – the interplay between our will and something greater – is at the heart of some pretty profound Jewish mystical thought. to Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah...
When we talk about God, about HaShem, the Name, we're talking about ultimate unity. But what does that even mean? The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a profound work of Jewish thought, di...
Today, we're diving into a concept that's both mind-bending and deeply comforting: the idea that everything, absolutely everything, is connected by an underlying unity. We're pulli...
to a fascinating idea from the Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a Kabbalistic text whose name hints at "unlocking the chambers of wisdom." It grapples with the age-old problem of suffering...
These are HUGE questions that have echoed through generations, and our tradition grapples with them head-on. There's a perspective out there that sees evil as an entity, a power th...
This isn't about some abstract philosophical argument. It's about how the very nature of God's oneness manifests in the world, even, perhaps especially, through the presence of wha...
And specifically, how the Shechinah governs the world. How do we even begin to understand that? The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a Kabbalistic text whose title hints at "138 Openings o...
It's not a simple, linear thing. They used both circles and lines to explain it. Let’s untangle that for a bit. The igul, the circle, represents an all-encompassing governance. It ...
It’s not just random chaos, you know. Jewish mystical tradition, especially the Kabbalah, offers a fascinating peek behind the curtain, suggesting a beautifully intricate system at...
It uses the image of a circle to describe a specific level of divine light and its influence on the world. Imagine a circle of light encompassing everything. According to this text...
That’s kind of how it is with understanding the Sefirot (the divine emanations) in Kabbalah. Now, the Sefirot (סְפִירוֹת) – these are the ten emanations of God's light, the ten at...
Jewish tradition suggests the latter. And it goes even further, proposing that the very tool used to construct reality is something incredibly familiar to us: the Torah. Now, we’re...
It presents us with a fascinating idea: that the world of the "Residue" – think of it as the realm of limitation, imperfection, and even evil – only exists because of the "Unlimite...
And in the Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a deep dive into Kabbalistic wisdom, we find a fascinating perspective. The central idea? That Eyn Sof – the Infinite, the "Without End" – canno...
They asked: How can the Infinite, the Ein Sof (אין סוף), which literally means "without end," the Unlimited, be connected to our finite, limited world? How does absolute perfection...
The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a profound Kabbalistic text, delves into this very idea, exploring how imperfection, what it calls the "Residue," came into being. It posits two possib...
The Kabbalists grappled with this same question, and the text Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah ("138 Openings of Wisdom") offers a beautiful analogy: the soul and the body. You have this in...
It asks a profound question: how can an infinite, all-encompassing God – Eyn Sof (אין סוף), the Infinite One – possibly concern itself with the finite, limited world we inhabit? If...
