Intro to Kabbala- PART ONE God created the universe and there are various names of God in the Torah. The name of God that uniquely encapsulates the entirety of existence is Yud Kei Vav kEI and the prove is of Shema where it says Shema Yisrael Hshem Elokeinu Hashem Echad and that echad means oneness Everything in this world is from determined amount of energy as physics tells us. No new energy is ever created and put in to or taken from the world- everything is energy and it just takes different forms and we call this energy God. He recreates us in every moment by sustaining this light or energy. The other names of God like Shaddai or Elokim Svaot are other various attributes, forms, or garments of God. You can’t define God but you can describe him. “Through my flesh I know you God” “Through your deeds” What this means is we can never understand or define God but in the world we see actions and deeds and we believe there are a finite number of attributes we can see of God and in the Torah we are given the 10 we can see. It is said that God looked into the Torah and created the world so when we try to look into the Torah and understand the world moving outward it becomes incredibly difficult since it is Just so massive. By looking out into the universe we can come to understand certain qualities of its creator. Now, in this age of science, we have available terminology that is much more accessible for the common mind and it brings what used to be very abstract concepts into a simpler setting of understanding. For example, our understanding of DNA tells us that by looking within any part of the whole you can see the entire being or creation and that makes sense in the infinite universe that we believe to live in. Instead of DNA they would use words like seed, which contained the entirelty of the tree The aim of this book is to transcend the one’s understanding if they solely relied on a dictionary- biblical hebrew is lashon hakodesh and it is separate/exclusive as in different Ivrit, another name for the hebrew language, is ayin brit which means 70 and covenant- that which unifies- and there are 70 dimensions in the holy language and when u put all these definitions together u can get an impression to what the words mean An example is Shamaim which is commonly translated to the heavens- that is not what it solely means, it can also be understood as destination, the world of potential, the world of thought, it can mean the collective unconscious etc and only when you aggregate all these understanding can u get the proper impression of the word Over the course of this book we will become acclimated to the terminology of the Torah and understanding the implications to the very words used because without that we couldn’t properly understand anything we read in the Pshat. A problem with the study of the Torah is that many people look into it and study various tid-bits of knowledge and they add up to a bunch of unique understandings that haven’t been coalesced into the big picture so what oftentimes happens is that the more Torah a person learns the more confused they become. Based on the teachings of our sages, within the Oral Torah there is a foundation and framework that one needs to be previously acclimated to in order to study the various parts of Torah and properly conceptualize and put together what you will learn It is a lens through which you need to perceive it King Shlomo said that “It is in the nature of wisdom to contain the entire universe in but a word” We have to unpackage these words and gain the best understanding we can from them This concept is also expressed by a famous writer, who once wrote a very long letter to his brother in law, and at the end of it he said sorry that he did not have time to write a shorter letter. This relates to this name of Yud Kay Vav Kay because we are told in the Zohar that it contains the same essence as the Torah, which contains an infinite universe of wisdom inside of it, in that you can break it down and search out all the dimensions of the Torah and the inner soul within it. PART TWO PARDES is the hebrew acronym for Pshat, Remez, Drash, and Sod Pshat is the exoteric, literal story, the grammar, the tenses and seeks to make the sense in everything- it is one-dimensional absolutely essential to the foundation of ur understanding as you continue into the next dimension of understanding Remez means a hint and it is the dimension of interesting hints right below the surface of the text and it indicates that youre going a little deeper Drash is a step further and Lidrosh means to search, seek, investigate and you really start to dig a little deeper here. The information Sod means secret but it refers to the inner essence of the text, there are 70 dimensions to every word in the torah at the level of sod and the numerological equivalent to sod is 70 as well and this is no cheap number trick- as we explore we realize it is an essential peart to th esystemization and structure to the torah There was once a great torah scholar who wanted to go into the kabbala and make a commentary that could be as easy to understand as a rashi and when he finally compiled it all it was Just too masive a work- u couldn’t have a commentary that was bigger than the book itself- so he went back into it and wittled it down as much as he could and when he finally succeeded he saw that it all came out to exactly rashis words. Pshat is the equation while Sod is the entire formula and numerology that led you there- the study of kabbalah will give you great insight but Pshat will package it all together. You begin to appreciate how beautifully everything is worked into each other and you see how Pshat and Sod are tired into each other. We said that the specific name of God, Yud Kay Vav Kay, is Just another way of saying Torah and it’s complete oneness. We believe that the endless worlds that were created, the endless levels of soul, are all contained in the Torah. It’s said that all the Torah is Just different names of God and that means that in it we are breaking down the observable features of Yud Kay Vav Kay Underneath Sod of Pardes there is another level called Chasidut and it is the unification of Pshat, Remes, Drash, and Sod. It is a system that allows us to understand all of them in a collective manner and to become an interactive participant in the search. It took what was once reserved for the few and expanded it for the common man. Rabbi Baal Shem Tov, the leader of the Chasidic movement, was a key figure in this effort. He was a great man who taught kindergarten for many years so he was great at taking Torah and making deeply meaningful yet simple parables infused with his knowledge that allowed individuals of all ages to internalize them and understand them differently. The Torah is the same way in that it never changes but your understanding of it evolves as you grow and in this way the Torah is said to be like a mirror- it reflects the person looing into it and searching it. R’ Baal Shem Tov and Chasidut was attacked for these parables that packaged extrardinary amounts of knowledge because it was right after the time of Shabtai Tzvi who abused the more powerful and magical parts of the Torah and came forward as a false Messiah before converting to Islam under the sword. Baal Shem Tov explains why he came forward with chasidut despite the adversity he faced with it. He gave a parable to explain There was a crown (Keter) and a jewel on it that belonged to the king who had a son who was very sick and no matter what any of the physicians did they could not cure him until one man came along and said that if u crush down the Jewel on the crown and feed it to your son then he will be healed and all the other physicians said no and that the maJesty and glory of the kingdom shouldn’t be crushed down by a fool but the king did not are about the jewel he only cared about the health of his son so the man didn’t take heed and did it anyway and it worked to indeed cure the child. R Baal Shem Tov believed taking this Torah, that had always been reserved for men who were deeply committed to the study of the text, and breaking it down in order to spread it would cure Israel who was sick at the time with a disconnect from Torah and he believed God would be alright with this because He is just like the king in the story who did not care about the jewel but the health of his child. Sod has 3 dimensions to it- Kabbalah Merkava- the creation of the universe- which we are told is reserved for few to study as it is very complicated Kabbalah Ma’aseet- which is practical magic- permutations of the names of god, calling upon angels and demons, and binding them to amulets etc.… with it all comes terrible abuse and the blackening of the soul for those who practice it and do not belong playing with such things and with that in mind it is also called Sod which is secret because it is meant to be kept hidden Sodei Tor- the secrets of the Torah- the secrets where we look into the narrative and we see an amazing infrastructure where we realize brilliant teachings underneath and this is the part of Torah that was broken down and made digestible by Chasidut.