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Reading Kabbalah
#16
(07-22-2014, 02:58 PM)Demockrat Wrote: 1. There are many legends inside Judaism teachings today. Some of them are strange to me. For example, different stories about angels and events in Heavens. How could a man get aware about things happened in Heavens in exact details?

Here are some of the ways this happened:

a) In order to learn the Torah from G-d, Moses ascended from the top of Mount Sinai into the Heavenly realm, where he also saw and conversed with angels and received information from them. Moses transmitted that experience and information to the Jewish people through teachings in the categories of Midrash and Kabbalah.

b) True visions of the Heavenly realms, and encounters with angels within those realms, were experienced by true Jewish prophets and recorded in their Biblical books: for example, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Daniel, etc. See there.

c) Before the Torah was given to the Children of Israel, there were exceedingly righteous individuals who were regularly or occasionally visited by angels, some of whose names are recorded in Torah sources. For example, it is related in the Book of Genesis that Abraham and Jacob (Israel) were on that level, and they passed that down to their descendants the Jewish people in teachings that were incorporated into Midrash and Kabbalah. Not to mention that before he sinned, Adam was openly aware of spiritual levels in G-d's ongoing process of  creation, and he passed that information on to select individuals among his descendants, which was transmitted to Noah and on to the prophets Shem and Eber, who taught it to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Abraham wrote some of this down in a book of Kabbalah called Sefer Yetzirah. Also, most opinions agree that Isaac ascended and lived temporarily in the Heavenly realms for several years after he was bound on the altar by his father Abraham.

d) There were righteous Jewish individuals who were regularly visited and taught by Elijah the Prophet, who was taken to the Heavenly realm alive and never died, and who since then has been going about on missions in the physical world, while otherwise residing as a soul in the Heavens. For example, Elijah taught Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, and Rabbi Anan in Talmudic times, and more recently Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov. Through Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and other Sages, teachings from Elijah about angels and the Heavenly realms were incorporated into Kabbalah (specifically the book of Zohar), Midrash, and other books.

e) There were Jewish sages who themselves entered temporarily into the Heavenly realms during their lifetimes through ascension of the soul (and in some cases perhaps bodily as well), and when they returned they taught what they saw and learned there. For example, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, and Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov.

(07-22-2014, 02:58 PM)Demockrat Wrote: How to differ truth from a myth?

Authentic Torah teachings are true. In the Five Books of Moses, this applies not only to the correct spiritual messages but also to the straightforward correct reading of the Hebrew text. In the rest of the Hebrew Bible and in the Midrashic and Kabbalistic sources, the teachings may be either literally or metaphorically true. That was largely sorted out in the Kabbalah teachings of Rabbi Yitzchak Luria (that AriZal), and further clarified in subsequent Chassidic teachings, beginning with the teachings of Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov.

In regard to all of this, Gentiles should not delve into such matters beyond the parts that are related to logically understanding the Unity and Oneness of G-d, and how nothing in the created spiritual or physical realms has any independent existence aside from its being continuously created by G-d according to His will. The essential thing is to know the truth of the existence of the One True G-d, and  how to properly fulfill the details of the commandments that one is commanded by Him to observe. Before the Messianic Era, G-d grants a person a physical life as a short amount of time during which to accumulate merit by serving Him in a challenging situation, and then the person's soul returns to the spiritual realm which is the World of Truth, where there is no question as to what is literally or metaphorically true.

(07-22-2014, 02:58 PM)Demockrat Wrote: 2. It is known that Adam and Eve lived in Paradise which was (is) located between Beriah and Yezirah.

The souls of Adam and Eve were in a state of spiritual Paradise associated with the spiritual worlds of Beriah and Yezirah *before* G-d created bodies for them in this world as physical receptacles for their souls.

(07-22-2014, 02:58 PM)Demockrat Wrote: Why was the Earth (Asiyah) mentioned in Genesis 1:1 created then?

G-d creates the Heavenly realms and the angels therein only as an intermediate step in His step-by-step process of creating His desired end result, which is the creation of this physical world with human beings as its crowning inhabitants. This is because it arose in His original thought that He desired to have a dwelling place for His Divine Presence in an eternal Messianic Era, along with created human beings in a created physical realm. But He also wants to give people the opportunity to earn the merit for this (or to fail to earn that merit) through their own free choice to live righteously by following their commandments in the face of challenges, during a temporary intermediate period of time (which has now almost reached its conclusion, before the time comes for G-d to send the Messiah descended from King David, to usher in the Messianic Era. That is why we have been seeing so many open miracles in our day and age, and increasingly so, especially in the Holy Land of Israel.
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Messages In This Thread
Reading Kabbalah - by James7 - 06-12-2007, 01:14 AM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by ahivarn - 11-22-2009, 12:59 AM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by Director Michael - 11-24-2009, 09:09 PM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by bdschuh - 11-29-2009, 05:31 AM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by Director Michael - 11-29-2009, 04:34 PM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by Hrvatski Noahid - 10-11-2010, 07:10 PM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by Director Michael - 10-17-2010, 10:03 PM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by Hrvatski Noahid - 10-19-2010, 03:54 AM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by Director Michael - 10-24-2010, 03:56 PM
RE: Reading Kabbalah - by OlKorekt - 08-31-2019, 03:54 PM
RE: Noahide Torah Study - by Randy - 07-10-2007, 08:25 AM
RE: Noahide Torah Study - by Director Michael - 07-10-2007, 01:09 PM
Noahides and Kabbalah - by sodergard - 11-01-2009, 05:14 AM
RE: Noahides and Kabbalah - by Director Michael - 11-10-2009, 07:50 PM
RE: Knowledge of angels and heavenly levels - by Director Michael - 07-24-2014, 06:05 PM

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