 So we're going to discuss Kabbalah and it's a topic that is often not well understood. First of all, aside from the inherent difficult esoteric nature of the Kabbalah, our virtual world is overpopulated by numerous people, allegedly proponents of Kabbalah, whose teaching is far from authentic, and that's what adds to a lot of the confusion. It's actually not that easy to find a reliable source of Kabbalistic teaching online or in popular bookstores or even in person sometimes. The old saying goes that he who says doesn't know and he who knows doesn't say. And that's very true when it comes to Kabbalah. So first let's begin by just explaining what Kabbalah is not, what it's not. Number one, Kabbalah is not pop psychology self-help teachings to gain more control over our lives and to become more successful. It's not what Kabbalah is. Number two, Kabbalah is not a religion or a sect within Judaism. Number three, Kabbalah is not a set of practices that are focused on things like wearing red strings or drinking holy water or numerology. This is not Kabbalah. Number four, Kabbalah is not centered on teachings to help us develop powers like clairvoyance or astral projection or being able to fly or anything like that. And finally, Kabbalah is not a philosophy or a mysticism that is disconnected from Judaism or from the observance of the Torah. Now the word Kabbalah means that which is received or tradition and it refers to a part or an area of knowledge that was revealed to us as part of God's revelation. That's what Kabbalah is. It's revealed and received teaching and this teaching was both revealed to us and then passed down from master to disciple. Now just like the core ideas, the central core ideas of the legal parts of the oral Torah that was revealed at Mount Sinai were compressed into the Mishnah by Rabbi Yehudah Nasi, Judah the Prince, around the year 200 of the Common Era, so to the esoteric mystical teachings of the oral Torah were recorded and compiled around the same time by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai in a work called the Zohar, the Book of Radiance or the Book of Splendor. There were also a number of other ancient Kabbalistic texts from around that time like the Safer Bahir and the Safer Yitzirah. In the 16th century of Tzvat in northern Israel, great Kabbalists like Ramosha Kordivero and the Ari systematized and explicated the teachings that were embedded in the primary Kabbalistic texts like the Zohar. And in the 18th century, these ideas were further crystallized and elaborated upon by great teachers like Ramosha Chaim Litzato, the Ramchal, the Vilnegon and the Baal Shem Tov. Now the Kabbalah is the soul of the revealed parts of the Torah. And they complement each other. So let's look just as a way of getting into the topic at the first verse in the Torah. The first verse reads as follows, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. We've all heard this so many times and it doesn't really seem to be that difficult until we begin to think about it. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Who is God? How do we understand God? The Torah uses the word God or various terms for God all the time. But what do these various terms mean? And what can we really know about God? The Torah doesn't go into a lot of analysis and speculation and teachings about exactly who God is. It just uses the word God, right from the get-go. Kabbalah actually teaches that we can never really fully grasp God. We can not ever wrap our minds around God. But God did reveal aspects of himself to us and that's what the Kabbalah delves into. The second idea of this verse, God created the world, the heavens and the earth. But why? Again the Torah never delves into that question. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth but why? What was God's motivation? What was his purpose? You read the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, that's not discussed. But the Kabbalah takes a tremendous amount of interest in this question. Why did God create the world? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Another question, how? How did God create the heavens and the earth? How does a finite physical world emerge from an infinite spiritual being? How does it happen? How do you have a finite, limited physical world emerging from a totally infinite and spiritual being? How did the limited emerge from the limitless? Those are very perplexing questions. Another question which is very, very disturbing to think about. Our world is imperfect. How could a perfect God produce an imperfect world? How does that happen? And why did it happen? How are we to understand the existence of evil in a world that was created by a benevolent God? It's an incredibly difficult question and the existence of evil seems to be possibly a reflection of the fact that the world is not perfect. Why is that? Another question, how does God relate to the world that he created? How does he interact with our world? Another question, how do we relate to God? How do we achieve something, for example, like prophecy? The Bible speaks about prophets, but how does someone achieve a level of prophecy? What are the steps? What's the development? What is prophecy? The Bible has many commandments that God gave to us. What are the purpose of these commandments? What do they accomplish on a spiritual level? These are all the kinds of questions that Kabbalah focuses on. How do we understand the makeup of a human soul? What is our soul? We know that God breathed the breath of life into this lifeless form of earth and dust. But what is inside of us? What is this soul? Does it have components? What is the makeup of the soul? Thor doesn't go into this. The Kabbalah does. What happens after we die? And what's going to happen in history in the future? Here's the world heading. These and many, many other questions are the focus of Kabbalistic teaching. And they're all geared to helping us live more holy and fulfilled lives by more deeply and fully exploring the Torah that God revealed to us.