Origins of Kabbalah & Divine Communication - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

one of the big questions i get when speaking about jewish mysticism is really i think a very important question to address and that is where does jewish mysticism come from you know and why do we call it jewish mysticism if these are mystical concepts that are true concepts about the essence of creation and of how the world works and the soul within mankind then why don't we just call it mysticism why does it get that extra label jewish mysticism and while we're on this point let's ask further what would be the difference between jewish mysticism and some other type of mystic type of principle of thoughts that are out there is there other types of mysticism that we compete with as is there jewish mysticism community and some other type of mysticism right we cannot claim to be the only uh religion in the world that has access to mystical powers and mystical concepts right so let's address that i think very very fundamental and important to set the record straight um i'd like to start off with a very uh bold statement i believe at the end of this discussion you will all agree that it is absolutely true as well as bold is that there is no such thing as mysticism in the world other than jewish mysticism how does that sound did i sell you on it yet so so now's where the selling begins and i i think i might have upset anyone that's going to be watching this later on you know on the other uh platforms that it'll be it'll be displayed they might take offense but hear me out here and hear this through and understand what i mean by that statement because if i can't back it up then i'm just here you know no we know more than a comedian that's except i'm not so funny so let's let's get to the point where does all wisdom come from we have to address that that's part of this because ultimately mysticism is a part of divine wisdom so where does all divine wisdom come from so all divine wisdom comes from god and when did this wisdom start to exist well it always existed in god's head so to speak discussing time and creation and god's eternality is a very deep concept i want to just touch on it briefly god in his essence is beyond wisdom beyond creation beyond time however when god chose to create he chose to limit his divine expression and he also chose to create a world where he would be able to connect though he is infinite he would be able to connect with the finite beings that he would take place in his world that would live in his world so this is an unbelievable thing god the infinite takes notice of us and is interested in what we go through and decided to share of himself on some level with us the greatest thing he shared with us is his wisdom but he went further in sharing an opportunity for us to connect with that wisdom and ultimately on the highest level with the divine will with god's will by by living a life in accordance with what god desired this world to be like what god ultimately had in mind when he created mankind and said i would like to create uh human beings and i would like him to live this type of life if we can ascend and perceive what that type of life entails what kind of behavior it is included in such a life and what kind of behavior would be excluded we would then be able to tap into what god initially wanted from us and this world that he created so how do we find that out where do we get that priceless eternal information that will transform our life from another level of existence of animal the most sophisticated and of course handsome animals that exist versus being angelic being divine like as the verse in the bible actually says that god created mankind in the divine image how do we reach that divine image and move away from the animal that hashem also created within us so thankfully so god chose to give of this special knowledge of the essence and truth of creation and the purpose of the world and of mankind to very unique special people this begins with adam the first man and it continues with righteous leaders throughout every and all generations we'll start with the most famous of all of these righteous special people which if we learn about their life story we would be blown away with how special they in fact were one of the mistakes that we have as people is especially in this generation we think that you know everything comes to us and that we're great and we're all equal and that's a fallacy we are all created by god and we all have self-worth that can only be measured by god but we are not all the same and we have not all been given the same role a prophet a prophet of god is a person that reaches a spiritual level so exalted that it makes us seem like animals and i will quote from the the holy sages of the talmud the holy sages of the talmud wanted to remind all of the generation that would come later how to understand their true place in the big picture and they said this if we want to consider a person like mosher benu like just another person then we should consider ourselves like an animal like a donkey and not even a smart donkey but a foolish donkey but if we recognize that a person like moshe rabbenu moses was a holy saintly godly man more like an angel than a human being then we can see ourselves as human beings and that is a something we must really take into consideration and remember always a person like moshe that wrote a book also he wrote a book like this author i mentioned earlier i don't know if what part of the video is going to be playing but i mentioned that there was a nice man who wrote a book my conversation with god so he can sell a lot of copies and make a million dollars he did not have a conversation with god he had a nice conversation in his head with who knows maybe he's schizophrenic i don't know but he did not have a conversation with god you know who did have a conversation with god moses the man of god moshe who had a conversation with god and he wrote a book not to make any money not for any fame he wrote a book called the bible the torah that's a person that sat and spoke to god face to face unbelievable when you speak to god then you can think that you know the world revolves around you but until then realize we have our place in the big picture and if we would accept our place that nothing could be better than the place hashem made for you who you are in your generation yes go ahead so you know you seem very sure that whoever the author of that book was you know he didn't he didn't talk to god but you also seem very sure that moshe verbenu did talk to god so how do you know excellent the question coming from the audience is the troublemaker over here we're going to take care of him don't worry about it is i seem so certain that this man that wrote a book a few years ago that he had a conversation with god certainly did not while at the same time i feel so certain that moses did speak to god ultimately many truths that we live with and base our life on we cannot swear to 100 percent we make the best educated yes we can and we live with a level of faith and trust for example we trust smart people because we see that they know more than us and we trust them for the things that are too complicated for us to figure out i don't have to understand how a computer works in all its detail to benefit from a computer nor do i have to know how a plane flies before i can fly on a plane i trust the people that designed the computers and the planes that they were smarter than me and they figured out things that i can benefit from i trust my parents that they care about me and that they wouldn't willfully and knowingly lie to me and that does not leave room for the fact that they can be wrong and unfortunately many parents are wrong about their life choices and path and they pass that on to their children so there are no real guarantees however we must look at the information before us and make the best educated guess on some level and maybe a little bit of a leap of faith and choose a life path that we feel is going to bring us somewhere positive now one of the greatest benefits of choosing a life that is full with true value and morals and religious practice is that if you follow it the right way especially and i can speak mostly for judaism but it doesn't negate any other life paths for other people that were born of different religions is you get a good life in this world you get blessing you get wholesomeness you get truth you get integrity you get respect those are very important values to seek out and to try to live with and live for so ultimately again i'm not talking about certain religious fanaticism and ritualism that may not have an immediate benefit right now specifically speaking about the clear benefit to living a life that's based on the bible now as far as believing that mushroom was a true prophet so there's a philosophical approach to answering that question you cannot fake a public event if there were three million people present when he claimed to be a prophet and were convinced that he was a prophet he had good proof they heard the voice of god according to scripture they heard his voice and it was such a high level of revelation that it was hard for them to make out 100 clear but mushroom then was able to fill in the blanks that were missing and prove to them that he was a true prophet let's go one step further all of the major religions of the world that we generally speak about you know catholicism christianity the muslim religion and the jewish religion all except as a fact that moses moshe was a true prophet it's funny when they wanted to start their own religions both the christian religion and then the muslim religion they understood that it's going to be foolish to try to undermine the first true religion and so they used the jewish religion and its prophets as a base of validity for their own religion and that itself is not a proof either there are it's hard to bring absolute proofs but it shows you that they understood and recognized and accepted the truth of the jewish prophets so we as jews today to come in and reject and think this is all a fallacy and how could god choose one nation and leave the others out well it has to start somewhere and where it started was with the small nation of israel but it was meant for the entire world one secret that not everybody is aware of is when god gave the bible to through moses to the jewish people on mount sinai he gave the entire world the same torah each nation of the world has a part in that torah because it is a relation of god's ultimate plan and everyone in god's world has a purpose as we started saying all true wisdom comes from god and so mysticism if it's going to be true has to come from god so let's start with some of the more famous basic ideas that we know come from god again many accept we're not here to prove that's not the philosophical philosophical uh point of this talk is to prove how we know and and how is the torah that was given at mount sinai absolutely true we are going to accept it on some level and accept that many people in the world many religions of the world accept it as a valid and true event so let's start with the written words of the five books of moses which are accepted by a vast majority to be authentically the words of god that were given to moses the prophet of god okay now here's where we're going to have to take a little bit of a of a step to this beyond that now there is an oral tradition an oral dialogue that took place between god and moshe as well and that oral dialogue is so to speak like the the uh fills in all of the blanks in the written work of the torah because let's take one example and from that we can understand how the whole written torah works together with an oral torah the mitzvah of putting on to fill in it's it's the torah itself is very very concise and it only mentions a few words about the tefillin that we're meant to wear it's supposed to have certain parts of the torah itself written and placed on our arm and on our head and what they look like what exact words should be in them uh how they should be applied to the arm and head all of that is left unmentioned so the question is how do we know exactly how to fulfill that mitzvah that command of wearing to fill in how do we know that they should be black boxes they should be square they should have parchments on the filling of the head it should be four separate parchments on the filling that go on the arm it should be one parchment with the same four sections written but on one page of parchment so how do we know all this so this is one of the indications and one of the in fact proofs on some level that there was an oral interpretation and explanation that came from god to moses and so the oral torah is no less part of the torah part of the divine command and divine expression of his wisdom than the written and it goes together written and all go together without the oral you're missing the explanation and the application for the written so that's the beginning of appreciating and understanding where jewish mysticism comes from because the oral torah which again is going to be the detailed explanation of how to follow and fulfill all of what the torah itself is asking of us is the beginning of appreciating where jewish mysticism mysticism comes from so let's let's go one step further in addition to the technical details that the oral torah sheds a light on for example that the fill-in boxes have to be black have to be square have to have four separate sections written in a particular order uh four parchments in the head and and one parchment in the arm the same place where that information comes from and many of the other details in the torah of how to fulfill the mitzvot there is a deeper explanation that was also given over by god to moses remember they did not sit for 40 days and 40 nights having a conversation about basic external details ultimately serving hashem needs to have a spirit it needs to have a soul it needs to have a heart it needs to have deep understanding and so the within the conversation between god and moshe was also a discussion of how these commands affect the realms that are just above this physical world god did not just create a world god created worlds he made create many worlds physical spiritual and and many many many worlds according to kabbalah there are many worlds that god created there's in fact a very inspiring story about one of the great jewish rabbis that lived uh in the in russia during the time of communism and and a lot of persecution people were were taken to siberia for just practicing their religion putting onto philanthropy and siberia the people were killed the the russians then the czar he controlled russia with an iron fist and they killed people people disappeared left and right it was a crazy time today it's hard to relate to what it was like living then you can read some of the older stories and it's insane for example i read the other day a story about a jewish family that was renting a piece of property from a landlord and they couldn't pay the rent after a year and they put the entire family in prison and sentenced them all to death there were crazier times than we've seen than we see today trust me and uh so just to appreciate so this was the time when the russian the kgb decided that that those chabad rabbis and those that are trying to really pursue religion and defiantly teach jewish religion have to be stopped and they didn't stop at just taking some of the soldiers so to speak of the rebbe they took the actual rebbe the leader of the entire leba jewish movement in russia and they they took him prisoner and they tortured him they beat him and at one point he he tells his whole story that the person pulled a gun to his head and said we're going to kill you we're going to shoot you and he answered like this your gun may scare a person that believes in many gods in one world but when you believe in one god and many worlds then your gun doesn't scare me it's like holding a toy and he survived that confrontation and he survived to come and move to america and build the beginning of a jewish movement that is flourishing like wherever this coca-cola there's chabad okay so again we believe in one god and many worlds not many gods and one world fortunately when you have many gods in one world you run around like a pinball being bounced around worshiping every little thing that tickles your fancy and you get nowhere in life we have a life we have a purpose we have prophets and we have scholars that have bestowed upon us unbelievable wisdom depth of wisdom that you could spend your entire life learning so again not to get too off topic the mysticism the true mysticism what we call kabbalah was given to moshe and it's not that he was the first person to ever learn these secrets these secrets were also taught to adam and to abraham and to isaac and to jacob and to even there were several holy people in between like and methuselah there were very righteous holy people that learned the secrets of creation and secrets of kabbalah it was kept private at mount sinai it was re-given over to moshe in a complete way more than anyone before him and it was still kept private moshe gave over the written torah to all of the jewish people he gave over the oral interpretation and explanation of how to fulfill the mitzvot on a basic level to all the jewish people and he gave over the secrets of kabbalah which is called jewish mysticism which is really true of mysticism it has it's true mysticism has to come from moshe it can't come from anywhere else he gave that over only to a few select jewish leaders and that wisdom was given over from leader to student which eventually were the leaders of the generations for over 2 000 years it wasn't until the time of the around the common era when the jews were being exiled where permission was given to the great holy rabbi shimon bar yochai who the author considered the author of the zohar was given permission to finally record in writing the secrets of torah and now it's interesting it was given permission to write it and then it was hidden the book was hidden for another thousand fifteen hundred years um common error yeah about fifteen hundred years and then all of a sudden the book surfaced now here's an interesting thing that is again not going to be an absolute proof but it's going to really give us some some substantial basis for what i'm saying there are ideas that are written in that zohar that was hidden for 1500 years that no one saw that you can find spoken about in other holy works why because the books were hidden but the teachings were passed on from rabbi to student throughout that fifteen hundred years so a special rabbi like lahmannades who was known to be one of the last true kabbalists one of the last true jewish mystics until later on when the arizal surfaced in swat he writes about ideas that he never saw in the physical though or because the czar was hidden but that he learned from his rebbe who learned it from his teacher and so on and so on back to rabbi shimon all the way back to moshe albano so the true wisdom of the secrets of creation of the real mystical realms that that exist above us the the depth of this of the soul and of god and of how all the mechanics of the upper worlds and how they work together as one big ultimate creation by god all that wisdom was again given over to adam to abraham to the great leaders and prophets throughout history it was reconfirmed and given in full in entirety to moshe and passed on from student teacher to student until the time of rabbi shimon bar high where permission was given to recorded in writing those writings were hidden again for another 1500 years and were finally revealed around the 12th the year 1200 and from then on it was published published and publicized and the masses on some level began to have some type of exposure and ability to learn the secrets of kabbalah in the 1500s the great rabbi isaac luria one of the greatest kabuls that ever lived he was as close as you can get to a prophet as can be there are stories documenting he had divine divine communication he knew secrets about people he knew the future he knew a lot of things he comes and reveals and solidifies what we call modern kabbalah in the 1500s and from then on all the kabbalah that exists in the world all of this mysticism that exists whether it be any nation whether it be from india or anywhere any mystical concept that is true has its source in this information given over by god to the prophets that we mentioned [Music] you