Do you have any idea what you are talking about!

Do any of you actually know what your talking about, do any of you actually know hebrew, do any of you actually know the roots of kabbalah... i'd really like to know, and some of you talk about it becoming trendy, it became trendy when you guys started making it into a thing about painting sticks and talking to angels, that is not what the Kabbalah is, do any of you know the root of the word kabbalah? Have any of you read the Zohar, or studied with a true kabbalist, if so, whom? I'd really like to know, please, please answer me, whether through email or to all in the newsgroup...

93!

Do you have any idea what you are talking about! wrote:

yes

modern? sephardic? ashkenazic? do you include chaldee?

yes

perhaps you should consider studying the Kabbalah, and learn a little about 'talking to angels' yourself. _Sepher_Yetzirah_ seems a good place to start.

yes

yes

yes, but they weren't jewish, if that's what you mean by 'true'. I have studied with a hebrew scholar, Prof. Michael Schwartz (he was jewish, so perhaps he is 'true' enough). if it offers sop to your soul, he was as surprised at a goyim occultist knowing what they were talking about as I was at being accepted.

I regret I can only know it through translations - like the Soncino Press Zohar, which I have read, or Kaplan's superb translation of the Sefer Yetzirah. Not the same, I agree, especially in a tradition where the letters themselves are luminous with meaning, but what's a goy who never got to the yeshiva to do?

It seems to distress you that the hermetic kabbalah got started back in the Renaissance (got kinda trendy then too, except if you irritated the wrong people, when it got you indicted before the Inquisition), and has since gone off on its own track - painted sticks and all.

Not sure what the cure there is, except to make it clear when discussing these matters with the folks who don't know Liber 777 from the Bahir that the hermetic version is an offshoot that does not reflect a fraction of the mystical substance of the original and ongoing Judaic tradition.

Regards,