Kabbalah of Creation The Mysticism of Isaac Luria, Founder of Modern Kabbalah

by Klein, Eliahu; Klein, Eliahu

• ISBN13: 9781556435423
• ISBN10: 1556435428
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-13
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Summary

Kabbalah of Creationis a new translation of the early Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria, founder of the most influential Jewish mystical school of the last 400 years. Living in relative obscurity in Northern Galilee, Luria experienced a powerful epiphany that influenced his lyrical, influential text. Poetically and meditatively described, the range of subjects includes the revelation of the Godhead's light in the world and its relationship to every aspect of the human life cycle, including lovemaking, conception, gestation, birth, and maturation.

Author Biography

Eliahu Klein has taught Kabbalah and Hassidism for over twenty-five years throughout North America, England, and Israel. He apprenticed under some of the greatest Jewish spiritual teachers of this generation, including Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and Rabbi Shlomo Twerski of Denver. Rabbi Klein received a private simchah (rabbinic ordination) from the late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in 1983, and in 1995 he published Meetings with Remarkable Souls: Legends of the Baal Shem Tov (Jason Aronson). In 2001 he was a visiting scholar at the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, an affiliate institute of Oxford University in England. Rabbi Klein has taught at San Francisco State University and The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and is currently on the faculty of Chochmat Halev Jewish Meditation Center in Berkeley, California, and the Academy of Jewish Religions in Los Angeles. Along with writing meditative commentaries on the Bible, the Haggadah, and the Jewish prayerbook, he is completing a degree in Clinical Pastoral Education at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. Rabbi Klein lives with his family in Berkeley, California.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	x
DEDICATION	xi
PREFACE TO THE SECOND REVISED EDITION	xiii
INTRODUCTION	xv
AUTHOR'S NOTE	xliii
1. A Discourse on the Nature of Circular and Straight Energies	3	(22)
Narrative of the Origins and Spiritual Evolution of Creation	10	(4)
The Wedding Ceremony as Cosmic Re-enactment	14	(1)
Narrative of Cosmic Progressions	14	(2)
The Cosmic Collapse of Light	16	(2)
The Process of Tikkun	18	(1)
The Death of the Kings	19	(6)
2. The Order of Restoration	25	(20)
The Next Stage of Creation	31	(9)
The Kabbalah of Kissing	40	(5)
3. The Mystery of Pregnancy and Nursing	45	(26)
Hebrew Letters of Divine Names	51	(3)
Cosmic Conception	54	(3)
Cosmic Development	57	(1)
The Birth of the Divine Daughter	57	(1)
The Gestation of the Divine Daughter	58	(3)
Cosmic Birth	61	(1)
Cosmic Nursing	62	(1)
Cosmic Maturation	63	(2)
Meditation on the Divine Names Linked to the Process of Nursing	65	(1)
The Mystery of Divine Breasts	66	(2)
The Divine Name that Manifests During Nursing of the Cosmic Embryo	68	(3)
4. The Second Pregnancy and the Development of Threes	71	(22)
Re-entering the Womb	75	(1)
Sleep and Cosmic Union	76	(1)
Evolution and the Miniature Divine Male	77	(1)
Divine Letters and Embryonic Evolution	77	(1)
The Pregnant Divine Male	78	(1)
Three Stages of Maturation: (1) Gestation One, (2) Nursing, (3) Gestation Two	78	(4)
The Embryo and Devotional Beautification	82	(1)
Biblical Measurements	83	(3)
The Mystery of the Mezuzah	86	(1)
Divine Parental Influences	87	(5)
Joseph's Beauty	92	(1)
5. Mental States and the Image of the Little Face	93	(12)
Meditation of the Divine Image	97	(1)
Meditation on Divine Coupling	98	(1)
The Divine Image and Conception	99	(2)
Meditation on the Divine Beard	101	(1)
The Mystery of Circumcision	102	(2)
The Mystery of Tefillin	104	(1)
6. The Descent of the Graces	105	(8)
The Incremental Aspects of Divine Descent	107	(6)
7. The Entity of the Feminine	113	(10)
The Divine Feminine	117	(1)
The Mystery of Vows, Promises, and Tefillin	118	(1)
Mystery of the Absolution of Vows	119	(1)
The Mystery of Biblical Tithing	120	(1)
Deconstruction of a Talmudic Phrase	121	(1)
Is There a Difference Between Men and Women?	122	(1)
8. The Entering of Qualities of the Divine Image into the Little Face	123	(10)
When Is a Child Responsible for Its Actions?	126	(1)
The Mystery of Father Jacob Being Blessed	127	(1)
The Function of Enveloping Light	128	(1)
The Mature Divine Child	129	(4)
9. The Developmental Stages of the Feminine and the Little Face	133	(4)
The Three Stages of Development	134	(2)
"And You Give Life to All"	136	(1)
10. A Discourse on Jacob and Moses and the Base of the Father	137	(14)
The Function and Meaning of Cosmic Energy Exchange: The Five Powers and the Five Graces, Their Emanation, and Purpose!	143	(1)
The Creation of Jacob	144	(1)
How Divine Names Manifest within the Divine Mother and the Divine Male Embryo	145	(3)
The Mystery of Prophetic Vision within the Evolution of Cosmic Archetypes	148	(1)
All Souls Are Linked to Other Souls	149	(1)
Why Did Abel Have to Die?	149	(2)
11. A Discourse on the Generation of the Desert, and Binah and Tevunah. The Mem and Samech in the Tablets Were a Miracle	151	(26)
The Generation of the Desert	157	(1)
Why Did the Generation of the Desert All Die?	158	(1)
The Link between Jacob, the Desert Generation, and the Mystery of Why Moses Was Chosen to Lead the Israelites through the Desert	159	(2)
Intuition and Insight	161	(2)
The Three Manifestations of the Divine Mother	163	(4)
Gender Transformation and the Divine Mother	167	(1)
The Gay Tikkun-A Meditation upon the Restoration of a Soul	168	(3)
Hebrew Letters Mem and Samech: Their Stations on The Tree of Life	171	(6)
12. The Construct of Leah and the Mystery of Tefillin	177	(16)
The Emergence of Mother Leah	181	(1)
The Mystery of Cosmic Hair	182	(1)
The Mystery of Tefillin Straps	183	(1)
Mother Leah and the Prophet Moses	184	(1)
The Creation of Mother Leah	185	(1)
The Union of the Little Face with Leah	185	(3)
The Midnight Prayers (Tikkun Chatzot) and Mother Leah	188	(1)
Meditation upon Torah Study	189	(1)
The Mystery of the Recitation of the Shona and the Wearing of Tefillin	190	(1)
The Mandala of Mother Leah, Tefillin, and Divine Letters	191	(1)
The Mystery of the Sabbath and Tefillin	192	(1)
13. The Secret of the Severing	193	(24)
Adam's Primordial Trance	198	(2)
Practices of the Early Hasidim	200	(2)
Meditation on the Divine Name of E-L-O-H-I-M	202	(2)
How the Unions of Wisdom, Intuition, Beauty, and Sovereignty Affect Human Unions: A Text from Rabbi Chaim Vital	204	(2)
How Cosmic Unions Affect Human Unions: Union Resulting from the Realm of Emanation	206	(1)
Concluding Discussion of "The Gate of Principles" of The Tree of Life	207	(3)
New Translation: The Legacy of the Divine Parents to Their Divine Children	210	(7)
GLOSSARY	217	(48)
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE STUDY OF LURIANIC KABBALAH	265	(8)
APPENDIX A: Photographic samples of kabbalistic diagrams of The Tree of Life published in the Ilan Ha Gadol (The Great Tree) by Rabbi Meir Poppers, the final editor of the Etz Haim, or The Tree of Life	273	(3)
APPENDIX B: The Forgotten Tzimtzum	276	(3)
A translation of Rabbi Moshe Jonah's early version of Isaac Luria's Tzimtzum	278
APPENDIX C: Frontispiece of the first printed edition of the Etz Haim (Koretz, 1780).
ENDNOTES	279	(10)
INDEX	289