Kabbalah, Cabala, & Qabalah

Coercion, Appropriation, & the Desecration of Sacred Tradition

Oct 31, 2024

To someone unfamiliar with the topic, you might think that these three words and practices are interchangeable, and online discourse often treats it as if it is. But these three could not be more different, a nesting doll of sacred practice cloaked in appropriation, amalgamation, and desecration.

Kabbalah is a system of Jewish mysticism that blossomed in 12th-century Spain, propelled largely by Sephardic Jews, though it spread quickly throughout the Jewish diaspora, with long-lasting contributions from French and North African Jewry. While people often refer to “the kabbalah”, it isn’t simply a book one can order on Amazon. There are texts that are central to Kabbalistic teachings, like the Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah, (which can on the rare occasion be referred to as ‘the kabbalah’), but the meaning of the word itself belies its intent: it is a received tradition that was originally orally given. Though it is now also written, it has always been received and communicated via community.

There are multiple forms of Kabbalah and it is not the only form of mystical tradition within Judaism though it is often used as an umbrella term. Unfortunately, this allows for the misconception that all mystical or magical traditions within Judaism are kabbalah. There are traditional restrictions on Kabbalah as it is meant to be rigorously studied by those well-versed in Judaism, as well as those who have the emotional and psychological maturity to deal with the spiritual intensity of the study and practice. In some rare situations, Kabbalah may be actually spelled "Cabala" by Latin language speakers, even when they are referring to Kabbalah. However, this is the rare exception to the rule, not the rule itself. The same goes for the spelling "Qabalah", as the 'Q' is the traditional transliteration of the Hebrew " ק" for many Jewish communities, such as Moroccan Jews.

While Kabbalah is the stuff of scholars, these scholars were not, as they are largely imagined, hermits who withdrew from their wider Jewish communities.

Despite its reputation in Christian circles as an occult teaching, and without regard to certain antinomian offshoots, Kabbala was not really “hidden,” but integrated into Jewish life and laws. Traditionally only male Jews over forty were considered learned enough in Torah and Talmud to undertake study of the mystical and therefore potentially dangerous texts. But kabbalistic mystics were not aged hermits. They were family men and activists within their communities who believed that the “healing of the universe,” or tikkun olam, depended on them and their actions.
— Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, “Russian Religious Thought and the Jewish Kabbala” in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture (1997)

Kabbalah is complex and sacred, but it is also the stuff of every day. A mother teaching her children about revealing the light of the Sefirot through doing mitzvot, cloaked in telling her children not to hit one another. While these children will not go on to study Kabbalah until they are much older, it is still ingrained into their lives. The dual nature of divine and earthly is a stunning encapsulation of the Jewish value of bringing heaven to earth.

Cabala refers to a Christianized form of Kabbalah that seeks to reimagine it through an entirely Christian lens. The spelling is on a decline, as is the practice, and is also commonly referred to as "Christian Kabbalah".

Kabbalah, despite the efforts of Cabalists and Qabalists alike, did not exist in a vacuum. The 1400s were rife with systemic antisemitism, which culminated in the expulsion of Jews from Spain with the Spanish Inquisition, which forced Jews to convert to Catholicism or perish. Areas that we now know as Italy fell heavily under Spanish rule, resulting in Jewish Italians being forcibly expelled from their home under threat of death. Living as a converted Catholic, however, was not smooth sailing. These new Catholics were under near constant surveillance from within their communities, tested, ostracized, and even killed for the worry that they were conversos (Jews who had converted but practiced Judaism in secret). Europe as a whole was hostile to its Jews: banned from working in many industries, forced to live in ghettos, subjected to unfair and prejudicial fines and taxes (like crossing into certain territories incurring a fee while Christians could pass freely), under the rule of Christian monarchs who could, at any time, simply choose to expel their Jewish population. The true explosion of Christian Cabala took place in the late 1400s, during which time Jews were suffering through the Witch Craze of Europe and the eventual Inquisition. The Witch Craze, which we’ve previously covered on our website, led to further speculation about Jews and their supposed connection to the Devil. This resulted in further bloodshed and persecution of Jewish communities across continental Europe.

It is through these conditions that Christian Kabbalah was born: from the blood and oppression of Jews, salting the earth of exploitation, both spiritual and physical.

There were two primary positions regarding Jewish texts in the mind of Christians at the time: either these were texts of evil inclination that must be destroyed, or they secretly contained the path to Christ. Contradictorily, some simultaneously believed both.

The belief that Jewish texts contained some specific evil and threat to the Church resulted in not only horrendous antisemitism but specifically the banning, rounding up, burning, and theft of Jewish texts. The list of times is long, but significant events include 1242, where an estimated 10,000 texts were rounded up and burned in Paris at the will of Pope Gregory IX. A decade later, the Disputation of Barcelona would result in not only the barring of Nachmanides from the Kingdom of Aragon but also the edict that all Jewish texts in the kingdom must be turned over to the Dominicans and Franciscans for examination⁸. After such inspections, if Jews did not alter the work to the desires of the Church, they would be destroyed⁹. Rome designated in 1553, that on Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) Jewish texts seized from Jewish homes would be burned in a great pyre. This was not just a single act: “Subsequently, the Inquisition ordered all rulers, bishops, and inquisitors throughout Italy to take similar action.” The confiscation would continue, in Italy, until the 18th century⁹.

The will to turn Jewish documents against Jews and towards Christ is as old as Christianity itself. From the desire to see Jesus in Genesis onward, we see Christians assert that Jewish texts are actually about Jesus and all one must do to convert Jews is reveal this mystery. Indeed, during the Paris Disputation (wherein 10,000 Jewish texts were burned), there were arguments made that even the Talmudic sages did believe Jesus was the Messiah despite also blaspheming him.

13th century Raymond’s Martini wrote “in his compendium Pugio fidei” that his belief was “that both the Talmudic haggadah and midrashes already bore signs of Christianity and could be given to Christian interpretation”.

Within Cabala, and the subsequent Qabalistic traditions, is a deep vein of antisemitism. Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was a Jesuit priest and Christian Cabalist who "rejected Islam, Gnosticism, and Judaism" while also accepting Cabala, "believing that it had been passed down from Noah to his son Ham. According to Kircher, Ham was the progenitor of the Egyptians, and they were the custodians of the true Cabala. Moses was an initiate, but all later Jews had corrupted the Cabala"⁶.

This appreciation and acceptance of bastardized Jewish theology paired with antisemitism is not uncommon and can be seen within most prominent figures of both Cabala and Qabalah.

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Before the agreed-upon progenitor of Christian Cabala, we see a tradition of proto-Cabalists who engaged in the theories that would solidify into Christian Cabala. Examples include the theologist Ramon Lull (ca. 1232-1316) (alternatively referred to as Raymond), who was “the first Christian to acknowledge and appreciate kabbalah as a tool of conversion.”³ Lull’s intention to coerce Jews into conversion is quite familiar for the time. However, just as Christians misinterpreted the Torah in the Jewish perspective, Cabala meant nothing to most Jews and failed spectacularly as a method of conversion.

"Those readers who enter an investigation of (Christian) cabala after having studied (Jewish) kabbalah may well become impatient at the outset with the misreadings and deformations characteristic of “Christian developments.” Perhaps even more frustrating, after co-opting such kabbalah as was desired, virtually all Christian Cabalists sought to transform it into a dogmatic weapon to turn back against the Jews to compel their conversion.”³

The first known "Christian Kabbalistic" work was believed to be created by an apostate Jew. It is often attributed to Paul de Heredia. However, it is comprised, in its entirety, of fake and distorted quotes from both real and made-up Kabbalistic sources, including fictional rabbis. It is a work of nonsense, though it still had massive prevalence in Christian Cabalistic circles.

De Heredia, though born a Jew, later converted to Catholicism. He then created a legacy of falsifying texts in order to paint Jews in a bad light, “he wrote a mystical work, "Iggeret ha-Sodot," which he ascribed to the Mishnaic teacher Neḥunya ben ha-Ḳana and his alleged son Ha-Ḳana, asserting that he had found it and translated it into Latin. In his ignorance, Paulus de Heredia put into the mouth of Neḥunya passages from the work of Judah ha-Nasi, who lived much later.”

Alternate citations cite that it was not written by a converso, but rather forged entirely.

"A pair of letters in Hebrew, purportedly written by Tanna Nehuniah ben Hakanah, were “discovered”— more likely forged—translated into Latin, and commented upon by Paulus: THE EPISTLE OF SECRETS [Iggeret ha-Sodot OR Epistola de secretis] and THE DECLARATION OF TRUTH (published 1487 or 1488). These letters were put into English from Paulus’ Latin by Rodney G. Dennis; regrettably, Paulus’ commentary is not included in Dennis’ translation.

The Epistle represents “the first recognizable work of Christian kabbalah.” It got wide exposure through being quoted in the works of Franciscan theologian Petrus Galatinus, which, in turn, influenced Athanasius Kircher. It is worth noting, though, that Paulus’ cabala consists largely of (1) quotes from non-existent kabbalistic works and (2) distorted or fake quotes from real kabbalistic sources, such as the Zohar."³

There were a few Christian Cabalists who studied with Jews, though documentation shows that no Jew partook in such discussions with the intention of Christians bastardizing or "transforming" Kabbalah into a Christian theology. Instead, in order to merge it, proto-Cabalists relied on falsifications and information from apostates (see the section below entitled ‘Conversos’). The prevalance of false “Christian-Kabbalistic” documents were in circulation in Spain at least 35 years before our next subject broke onto the scene.¹⁰

Considered the father of Cabala, Count Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola (1463-1494) is the most well-known and cited of all Christian Cabalists. His absurd wealth and access allowed him to make such a name for himself. Born in what is now Northern Italy, Mirandola wrote 900 Theses, establishing himself in the world of spirituality.

While there were so-called proto-Cabalists before Mirandola, the majority of his predecessors were Hebraists, which were distinctive in both their ideology and methodology.

A Christian Hebraist believes that acquiring a systematic noweldge of the Hebrew langauge enables one to undestand better the Hebrew Bible, and thus gain new insights into the sources of Christianity. A Christian Kabbalist is one who believes that non-Biblical Hebre traditions, or oral traditions of biblical interpretation preserved by the Kabbalists, serve as an independent source demonstrating the truth of christianity.¹⁰

The goal of his writing was clear: “prove, among other things, that Christian truth is best attested by ‘kabbalah and magic’”.¹⁰ It was with this mindset that he approached Kabbalah and the Jews and apostates who would serve as his teachers.

Surprisingly, Mirandola did study with a Jewish teacher. However, many occultists choose to wrongfully romanticize this time as a golden age of interfaith solidarity. Yochanan Alemanno was a Jew who, like many others, lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place to find work as a teacher, as he and other Jews were prohibited from working in other trades (with the exclusion of being a money lender or tax collector at the behest of the church, who forbid Christians from doing this work). As a scholar, he did not have a library of his own but rather would teach from the libraries of his patrons. It is often stated that Mirandola learned all he did from Alemanno; however, his introduction to Kabbalistic information pre-dates their meeting. That is not to say that Alemanno did not tutor him, as it is well documented that he did in Hebrew, Torah, and Talmud, as well as a few other subjects, but he was not his first introduction to Kabbalah. There are also texts that prove that he learned Hebrew with the sole intention of learning Kabbalah, not the other way around⁴.

He also studied with Mithradites (an apostate Jew), who tutored him in Aramaic and Hebrew, as well as Paulus de Heredia, who is mentioned above. It is perhaps because of Mirandola’s tutelage under de Heredia that de Heredia’s false text reaches such prominence.

Mirandola, it argued, learned from only four Kabbalistic manuscripts, though he wrote his Cabalistic theses before completing the translation of any of them⁴. His Hebrew, while passable for elementary conversation and reading, was not advanced enough for reading Kabbalistic writings in their original language. While we currently have unparalleled access to knowledge in both original and translated forms, this was not the case during Mirandola’s time. While he had a scholar by his side to aid him in translation, he would often cite texts that he had not read, nor was there any evidence that they had been provided to him in translation.⁴ Even more shocking, when analyzed, his Hebrew appears to be extremely cursory, “a thing of recent past at the time of writing, a matter of weeks or months, not of years.”⁴ Indeed, scholarship suggests that his study of Kabbalah (provided through the Latin translations of Mithridates) took place in the span of a single summer.⁴ Whether or not he even read the majority of The Zohar, argued to be the central text of Kabbalistic learning, is up for debate among scholars.⁴

Mirandola’s writings are also filled with inaccuracies: for example, while he lauds himself as the first Christian Cabalist, he falsely cites that the Church had confiscated a specific Kabbalistic text for translation. No such thing happened. He frequently makes mistakes in citations by citing the person whose work he is reading as the source material. For example, he falsely cites the Zohar when the true origin of his passage is a work by Recanti. He makes otherwise similar blunders that come from issues of mistranslation or hurried reading, like utilizing the wrong terminology to refer to certain practices.⁴

The Jewish communities of Mirandola’s time were not at all impressed by his forray into Jewish spirituality. In fact, he made no waves at all. It would be decades before his work was even acknowledged in a meaningful way by the Jewish community. ¹⁰

Mirandola is not just considered the father of Cabala but also referred to as the grandfather of Qabalah, for his writings are not merely taking from Judaism but also other esoteric and gnostic traditions.

Qabalah

Perhaps the most popular form in the modern day, Qabalah is a Frankenstein-like tradition with information pulled from numerous sources in order to fill the gaps left by the removal of Jewish paradigms. Like Cabala, it is based in Jewish mysticism, but it is distinctly colored by its Christian predecessor.

According to Wikipedia, Qabalah is a blend of "Jewish Kabbalah, Western astrology, Alchemy, Pagan religions, especially Egyptian and Greco-Roman (it is from the latter that the term "Hermetic" is derived due to the fact that Hermeticism’s founding texts were purported to have been written by Hermes Trismegistus, often associated with the Greek God Hermes and the Egyptian God Thoth, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, the Enochian system of angelic magic of John Dee and Edward Kelley, hermeticism, tantra and the symbolism of the tarot".

Qabalah transliterated Kabbalistic terms into English using a different style: Sefirot becomes Sephiroth, Kabbalah becomes Qabalah, Kelipot/Klippot becomes Qlippoth. The use of the “th”, a sound that does not exist in Hebrew, is at times used as a guide to figure out if the material is authentic Kabbalah or Qabalah.

Its earliest roots appear to be in the 15th century, with Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola², discussed above, although German occultist Agrippa is also acknowledged. However, as this is a blended practice, pinpointing its modern form in history is difficult, particularly due to the fact that Qabalah prides itself on being the "original Qabalah" despite the fact that it is far predated by Kabbalah and that the word itself is actually rooted in Judaic Hebrew.

Its originators also acknowledged that it is based in Judaism; however, popular Qabalistic thought shrugs off the work of its forebearers, choosing to adhere instead to a fictitious history that sees Jews, once again, as thieves and con artists.

Judaism is, what is referred to in modern occult spaces, a closed practice, meaning that one must be born into it or convert (initiate) into it, and unlike the Cabalists, who entered into it as a means of converting Jews, Qabalists were not interested so much in eradicating Jews as they were in cherry-picking Jewish beliefs in order to fulfill their desires.

Éliphas Lévi, born Alphonse Louis but poorly translated his name to Hebrew in a vain attempt to appear more Jewish and therefore more authentic in his C/Qabalah, was an 18-1900s ex-Roman Catholic priest who sought power by becoming a "Kabbalist" and ceremonial magician. I have yet to see evidence that he ever studied with any Jewish person, but rather copious evidence that he learned from the texts of Cabalists who were already using Christianized versions of Kabbalistic documents. He is known to have inspired the likes of antisemite Aleister Crowley, who is credited with propelling Hermetic Qabalah into the modern public view.

Many practices are based in Hermetic Qabalah, many of which go by long, complex names. These are far outnumbered by practices that use Kabbalistic concepts but never name it.

Aleister Crowley, who is the founder of Thelema and ex-member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, perfectly encapsulates attitudes towards Jews in these spaces.

In 1922, he penned an article under the name “The Gentile” (meaning non-Jew) entitled “the Jewish Problem Re-Stated”. Published in The English Review, it contains such charming lines as “[The People of] Israel [have] corrupted the world, whether by conquest, by conversion, or by conspiracy. The Jew has eaten his way into everything
and “Jewish commercial cleverness has created cosmopolitanism. Jewish sympathy with suffering has made the cliffs of caste to crumble. Jewish ethical exclusiveness has created a tyranny of conventional formalities to replace the righteousness of self-respect. The Jew, living so long on sufferance, by subterfuge, servility, and self-effacement, has taught his tricks to the whole world….The Jew has failed to realize himself…..One may appeal to the learned rabbi, then out of his own mouth, to accept the Law of Thelema* as a foundation of the future of Israel. One may as him to agree that the salvation of Israel depends upon the understanding the spirit of the people in the light of history, ethnology, and psychology…..Each Jew as his own soul shows him for himself, and for the race, as the soul of the race is shown him, by the spirit of Anti-Christ, the Messiah, who shall arise Israel for this purpose.”¹⁴

Jews, in the mind of Crowley, were filthy animals, useful only in as much as they served a purpose in his delusions. The central text of Thelema, The Book of Law (Liber AL vel Legis) expounds on this, “but most especially the parasites of man, the Jews” (The New Comment on Liber AL, III:11). Not merely parasites, but also barbarians: “but to the general position of the ethnologist that the Jews were an entirely barbarous race, incapable of any spiritual pursuit” (preface to 777, printed in The Equinox, Vol. 1, No. 8).

Crowley continued to perpetuate antisemitic myths that resulted in the persecution of Jews for thousands of years:

“One must further remark that each sign governs two main types — the active and the passive. Thus Aries: the high brows, long face, aquiline nose, tall thin muscular figure, shows the fiery and martial qualities of the sign. But there is an evil and averse counterpart corresponding to the ovine nature. We have the gross, hooked, pendulous proboscis; the thick, flabby, moist lips; the patient stupid eyes, and timid, hunted gait of the bad type of Jew”. (Confessions, chapter 77)

“Human sacrifices are to-day still practised by the Jews of Eastern Europe, as is set forth at length by the late Sir Richard Burton in the MS. which the wealthy Jews of England have compassed heaven and earth to suppress, and evidenced by the ever-recurring Pogroms against which so senseless and outcry is made by those who live among those degenerate Jews who are at least not cannibals.

We find Christ insisting on this absolute chastity of body and mind, in a similar manner, and for similar reasons; for the Eastern Jew if he is not actually doing something dirty, is sure to be thinking about it. (The Temple of Solomon the King, footnote, published in The Equinox, Vol. 1, No. 4)

Is it to such people, indeed, that we are to look for the highest and subtlest spiritual knowledge?” (preface to 777, printed in The Equinox, Vol. 1, No. 8)

It is ironic, of course, that he would indeed look towards Jewish mysticism for many of the bases for his work. His work, Confessions, cites Cabala and Kabbalah dozens of times.

Like a person tapping the glass at a zoo, clapping for an animal eating with its paws in a crude mockery of humanity, he disdained Jews even as he crowed at actions he deemed reputable.

A similar case is presented by the Jew, who really does only too often possess the bad qualities for which he is disliked; but they are not proper to his race. No people can show finer specimens of humanity. The Hebrew poets and prophets are sublime. The Jewish soldier is courageous, the Jewish rich man generous. The race possesses imagination, romance, loyalty, probity and humanity in an exceptional degree. But the Jew has been persecuted so relentlessly that his survival has depended on the development of his worst qualities; avarice, servility, falseness, cunning and the rest. (Confessions, chapter 54)

He exalted the supposed “racial pride” he inaccurately surmised when discussing Morrocan Jews. This, of course, is a thinly veiled means of validating his own belief in “racial purity” and pride.

The Jew in Morocco is, on the whole, a very fine fellow. He has a religion and a point of honour, to say nothing of his pride of race. (Confessions, chapter 61)

Are we going to repeat the insanity? Should we not rather breed humanity for quality by killing off any tainted stock, as we do with other cattle? And exterminating the vermin which infect it, especially Jews and Protestant Christians? Catholic Christians are really Pagans at heart; there is usually good stuff in them, particularly in Latin countries. They only need to be instructed in the true meaning of their faith to reflect the false veils.

An XXI Sol in Cancer After some years spent in Catholic countries, I wish to modify the above. Catholics are dead alike to Spirituality and to Reason, as bad as Protestants. And the Jew is far from hopeless outside America, where the previous paragraph was written.¹³

The Book of Law, Aleister Crowley

Crowley was a virulent racist, Islamophobe, and xenophobe: it is no wonder that his hatred of Jews was so strong. Despite his clear hatred and fetishization of Jews, he required Judaism for the creation of his religion.

And he is not alone. Occultists love to claim that you can not ‘close’ the magic of the Universe, for Kabbalah is for everyone, by everyone — it is not Jewish alone. Ezra Rose, author of FYMA: A Lesser Key to the Appropriation of Jewish Magic & Mysticism, makes it clear, “Another argument is that the “fundamental truths” found in Jewish mysticism are in fact not Jewish in origin, but part of an ancient universal wisdom only partially entrusted to Jews. This claim is antisemitic on its face: it denies Jews the authorship of their own cultural concepts and practices.”¹⁵

It is in the sefirot we see inked into the skin of New Age practitioners, sold as baubles and charms, restaurants and yoga studios named Malkut and Yesod, rings that say ‘keter’, podcasts entitled “repenting the tree of life’ or ‘Christly Bina’, none acknowledging the bloody history that allowed their tradition to stand upon the crumbled bodies of the Jews who were forced to suffer and bleed for their spiritual awakenings.

And even if one does not engage in Qabalah, they have been impacted by it: “Crowley’s influence permeated many of the later 20th-century occult movements, including Wicca and other forms of neo-paganism as well as Satanism (Pasi, 2003, p. 225). His original use of the spelling “magick” to refer to occult ritual is now endemic in many occult and witchcraft communities (and he is the reason I avoid this spelling).”¹⁵

Of course, Crowly was inspired by Waite, a Qabalist whose failure to engage with Kabbalah in a meaningful way resulted in this scathing review by legendary Kabbalistic scholar Gershom Scholem, “even though Waite’s sense of historical criticism may have been superior to that of other contemporary esoteric writers on Kabbalah, it still remained extremely inadequate. He simply lacked the proper instruments needed for the task of really understanding Jewish Kabbalah.”¹⁶ A. E. Waite being one of the creators of the Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck, the most infamous and wide-spread deck of all time. If you have used modern tarot, you are guaranteed to have seen something impacted by the theft and appropriation of Jewish culture.

"Waite appeared to be ignorant of almost all the modern literature on Kabbalah, so that what he wrote about its origins, development, and decline was ‘for 80% wholly without foundation’....although Waite claimed to have searched hard for manuscripts, he was blissfully unaware of the relevant holdings even in the British Museum, not to mention manuscripts in Oxford, Munich, and so on. Scholem’s conclusions were therefore unavoidable: ‘it is only with sincere regret about the fatal disproportion between [Waite’s] great labors and the depth of understanding that was possible for him, on the one hand, and [his] so sadly deficient knowledge of original sources and a useful historical-critical foundation, on the other hand, that one will have to put this book aside’"¹⁶

Conversos & Apostates

When debating whether or not Christian Cabala is appropriative online, many engage in a disingenuous line of thinking: but what about the apostates who believed? While there is evidence that prior to Mirandola, Jewish converts to Christianity did attempt to bring their Kabbalistic ideals into their new Catholic faith (like using Hebrew letters in the style of Abulafia to write Christian affirmations), any scholar of the topic will be clear; prior to Mirandola, there was no concerted effort to utilize Kabbalah as a tool of Christianity in a meaningful way. These apostates were not only living in a time and circumstances unfathomable to the modern world, but it was not their work that spawned the Cabala that exists today. To compare oneself to these conversos is morally irredeemable and utterly disingenuous: in order to replicate the circumstances under which they lived, studied, and learned Kabbalah would be (thankfully) impossible. I beg those who make these arguments to consider the historical circumstances that brought about the need for those converts to practice in the way that they did. Not to mention, while some willingly converted, the society in which they lived did not make this a conscientious choice.

We also must face the fact that what we now call ‘tokenization’ was rampant in Christian communities of this time. Having a “saved Jew” who was willing to minister to Jews in attempts to bring them to Christianity was hailed as the ultimate achievement (even if said apostates were living a precarious, often dangerous life). Alfonso de Valladolid (born Abner of Burgos, c. 1260-1347) is often cited as an important Cabalistic figure. His writings, which posit that famous Jewish rabbis like Maimonides actually already believed in Christianity, are often held up as some sort of proof text due to their mention of kabbalah by name. But, when rigorous interrogation of his history and scholarship is performed, he was found to be part of the Maimonidean-Avoeristic Jewish movement and was greatly unfamiliar with Kabbalah. His broad strokes references belie just how little he studied the topic before his conversion to Christianity. Merely referencing it, however, often grants him a place on the podium of importance in Cabalistic scholarship.¹¹

This tokenization relies on the exploitation of a group of people whose day-to-day life was entirely ruled by a Christian monarchy hell-bent on their destruction.

So, why is it important to know the difference? It is often said that Kabbalah is the heart of Judaism. Without a body, the heart cannot function.

When you remove Kabbalah from its roots, it is like a heart without a body. This is why Cabalists and Qabalists must draw from other places to supplement their belief systems. Qabalah plucks knowledge from numerous places, while Cabala must use Christian beliefs to supplement their supposed understanding. Kabbalah is inextricably linked to Judaism. The central text used by Kabbalists (though there are many), is the Zohar, which is a commentary on the Torah. To understand the Zohar, one must study Torah from a Jewish perspective.

Traditional restrictions on Kabbalah were in place to ensure that those who studied it were prepared intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically. These restrictions all pointed to one point: you must be well-versed in the Torah.

Like every single topic in the Jewish community, Kabbalah is not agreed upon. There are some, like the rabbis before us, who seek to "de-mystify" Judaism as a means of making our community more approachable, less threatening, and ultimately protect us from bigots who use our mysticism as a weapon against us (after all, the word "cabal" stems from "Kabbalah").

Maimonides was famously anti-mysticism and magic (though it is noted that before his death, he did study Kabbalah and wrote in a letter that he would have written differently on it had he learned earlier)⁵. The reality is that there are many within the community who are unfamiliar with Kabbalah, but that does not change the fact that Kabbalah, like all Judaism, is closed to non-Jews. Non-Jews may be invited into our ceremonies (like being invited to Shabbat), may even be invited to study (I have many non-Jewish theological study partners), but this does not extend to practicing Judaism on ones own. Think of it like a birthday: you may be invited to a birthday party, but that doesn’t mean that it suddenly becomes your birthday.

This problem of appropriation in the occult community is in no way limited to Kabbalah. Jewish religious practices, culture, and beliefs are frequently bastardized by the occult community in new and improved ways even in the modern-day. From occultists using Jewish prayers but subbing in the names of their deities or having fake Shabbat ceremonies, the appropriation of Judaism isn’t new, but that doesn’t mean that it is okay.

Judaism is not a dead religion, it is not a religion that had to be “reborn” or “revived”. We have endured and survived, and to pretend that you can pick and choose from it, without being part of it, carrion pecking at the flesh of a very living being, is ignorant, arrogant, and disrespectful.

Judaism is so much more than a mystical wellspring for non-Jews to profit off of, whether that be monetarily, spiritually, or as a means of societal currency.

Jewitches’s Substack

Kabbalah, Cabala, & Qabalah

Coercion, Appropriation, & the Desecration of Sacred Tradition

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