#I know this can be touchy but the asker seems to have good intentions

[perfectlyvalid49]

Hello! Thank you so much for your patience in talking to and teaching people out here on this wild west internet. ❤️ As a poorly-informed goy, I've learned things! And I was hoping you could elaborate on one of those things, so I don't accidentally Do a Bad.

So, context: one of the things I love learning about the most is mythology, mysticism, esoterica, and religion, especially the history thereof. This generally isn't for the purpose of practicing anything in particular - magical or religious - but just because I love these topics. Lately I've been diving into the history of Christianity and Judaism, and I've noticed that one of the youtube channels I've been enjoying the most (Esoterica, which is run by a Jewish man) has videos on Kabbalah.

And therein lies the question - until I encountered your blog, I didn't even know that Kabbalah was an extant practice and had restrictions inside of Judaism itself, though I did know that Judaism is a closed religion. (Oops! I haven't gotten to the Middle Ages or Renaissance in my current studies yet.) So I guess what I want to ask is, is it only the practice of Kabbalah by unqualified people that is taboo, or is the knowledge of the practice also forbidden? Because while I would love to learn about it (it would be fascinating to see how it influenced Renaissance Alchemy!), it isn't something truly necessary to me in any way, and I don't want to be accessing knowledge that I oughtn't. Do you know the answer?

Thank you so much, and sorry for the long, weird question! I hope you're having a good day!

Hi! I’m glad you find what I have to say informative; it’s always nice when someone appreciates your work.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer for your question. I don’t study kabbalah (I’m neither male nor over 40, nor would I consider myself a scholar in Torah and Talmud (nor do I actually have the time to devote to it)), and I’m unfamiliar with the youtube channel you mentioned. I’ll tell you what I do think in case that helps, and I’ll tag jumblr so that if someone who knows more than me feels like helping you out, they can see this ask too.

The first thing I want to be clear on is that whatever answer I give you, there will be Jews out there that disagree with it. That is true in part because Jews are not a monolith, but also because Judaism very much believes in healthy debate, so the phrase “two Jews, three answers” applies to pretty much ANY question.

Without knowing the youtube channel, I find it somewhat concerning that the guy running it doesn’t make it clear that Kabbalah is highly restricted as part of teaching about it. Maybe he assumes you have that knowledge already, or maybe it’s in a video you missed, but it seems like the sort of thing you would want to make clear in teaching about it. So if he didn’t do that, then I wonder about what else he might be leaving out.

My personal opinion is that it’s complicated. I do think that if your interest is academic (I want to learn about the thing for historical/cultural context) and not spiritual (I want to use this as a method of understanding/growing closer to G-d) then I don’t think that your desire is offensive. But that’s my opinion and others may disagree.

A lot of the problem comes down to the fact that part of practicing kabbalah is studying kabbalah. So, as an example, to learn about kabbalah, you may want to learn about the Zohar. But reading the Zohar (a great way to learn about it) is practicing kabbalah – a thing you should not do. It can be hard to know where the line is between learning *about* kabbalah and just learning kabbalah, and that makes this tricky.

I guess I would say that if you stick to studying things that are one step removed, you’re probably OK? So like if Rabbi X was a famous kabbalah scholar, you could learn about Rabbi X or read any published writings of his that aren’t considered part of kabbalah, that’s probably ok, but studying actual kabbalah itself would not be.

I will say that many Jews are prickly on this subject because many goyim like to take things that are Jewish and closed and insist that we share them anyway, with no respect toward our peoplehood or culture. That doesn’t seem to be what you’re doing though, and I appreciate that.

Anyway, I hope that this was helpful, or that someone else responds to this with something that is.