Perle Epstein, Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic, Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1978.
Perle Epstein taught at Briarcliff College and New York University. Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic is based on her studies with practicing kabbalists in Israel. Within the “palace” of kabbalah, Epstein writes, there are gates within gates and courtyards within courtyards. There are many worlds we must pass through before we are finally able to reach the heart of this mystical path. If we are fortunate and have done all the inner work required, we may at last reach an open courtyard where a great tree is still alive and growing.
“Its branches are made of ten differently colored spheres, each representing an ascending ‘world’ or level of spiritual perception. Having come upon this ‘tree of life’, the mystic knows that he has reached the point where he is truly ready to climb. The gates have led him into the hidden Pardes, the garden in which there grows the sacred tree which marks his ascent to God.”
The true kabbalist, Epstein writes, seeks to steadily and increasingly refine his or her “mind, body, and soul.”
Their aspiration is to “become so brilliantly clear that he or she reflects nothing but God.” If one is dedicated enough, “union with the absolute” then becomes “a matter of like attracting like.” The more “godly” a human being becomes, the more “divinity shines through them.” There cannot however, Epstein reminds us, “be any progress on the spiritual path without concomitant physical actions.” The kabbalists of 16th century Safed sought “to continuously purify their minds and bodies.”
Moses Cordero taught kabbalistic aspirants to “picture their own body as the great cosmic tree of life which contained all of the ten divine attributes.” The aspirant strove to “embody these divine qualities far beyond their usual human limitations” and, by doing so, “become a pure vessel, ready for still higher practices and knowledge.” Inner humility was essential as was humble behavior at all times. Ultimately the ego itself would have to be annihilated. At the culmination of this journey, attained by only a few, the kabbalist could “become” the divine qualities of the Sephiroth. At the highest level, the advanced practitioner could not only themselves merge with God but effect this union for all the world as well.
In 16th century Safed, Isaac Luria, the “Holy Ari”, taught his students that, to truly follow the way of kabbalah, it was crucial to pray continuously. True prayer, however, could only be uttered by a pure soul who had “disappeared into the infinite.” Luria instructed his students on how to walk, how to eat, and how to pray. He even gave them meditative chants to recite while donning their Sabbath clothes. When walking outdoors, Luria urged them to experience their own body in motion as the holy tree of the Sephiroth.
One of Luria’s successors, Moses Luzzatto, wrote:
“When the kabbalah enters the soul, light comes with it like a sun’s rays entering a house. Even more it is truly fire- like…because all its words and letters are like coals…but when anyone begins to work on it, a great many-colored flame arises from every one 0f its letters. This is the knowledge hidden in each letter.”
The “Jewish saint”, or “tzaddik”, Epstein tells us, “lives completely detached from the pleasure of the world.” If sufficiently cleansed, their fervent, unceasing love of God can bring him or her to a state of constant union with the divine. To attain this fusion, the practitioner must be fully “aware of God’s presence in his sitting, walking, sleeping, and waking life.” Ultimately, their body becomes a house for this divine presence, a “hollow channel vibrating with divine energy.” When advanced kabbalists pray, Epstein tells us, the intensity of their prayer “evokes the living spirit of God.” As far back as the first century AD, Rabbi Akiva admonished his students to dispense with the mental idea, or image, of God and instead, by transforming himself or herself, come to experience God.
In his or her journey into the divine, the kabbalist must pass through multiple chambers. As he or she makes this passage, the practitioner is actually going farther into the inner dimensions where the presence of God dwells. All of the multiple dimensions passed through are multiple emanations of the divine. In the innermost realm of divinity itself, the kabbalist can attain freedom from the limitations of space and time and become a co-creator with God. All of the multiple dimensions passed through are multiple emanations of the divine.
In 13th-century Spain, Moses de Leon wrote that:
“When God gave the Torah to Israel, He opened the seven heavens to them, and they saw nothing was there in reality but his glory; he opened the seven worlds to them and they saw there was nothing there but his Glory; He opened the seven abysses before their eyes, and they saw that nothing was there but His Glory. Meditate on these things and you will understand that God’s essence is linked and connected with all worlds, and that all forms of existence are linked and connected with each other, but derived from His existence and essence.”
In the realms of the interior, Epstein reports, the Hebrew letters appear to the kabbalist as “white flames upon black.” The separation between inner and outer can disappear. At an advanced level, the kabbalist’s entire body becomes “alive with knowledge.” The spheres of the Sephiroth infuse and illumine the body. In advanced meditation practices, the “spheres of the Sephiroth reveal themselves to be contained one within the other like the skins of an onion so that one is shell to another.”
Next Section: Earth Magic