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Kabbalah: Jewish Kabbalah
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"Jewish mysticism began in Biblical days, long before the term Kabbalah was invented. By the first century it had become a proper subject for scholarly study. Philo Judaeus speculated on the Platonic idea of emanations as intermediaries between God and the physical world. The Roman philosopher Plotinus (205-270) traveled in the East and returned to combine Indian, Persian, Greek, and Jewish mystic theories into a systematic structure of these emanations." 6.
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The fundamental work of Kabbalah is the Bible, and more specifically the Pentateuch (Torah). The best English translation of the Bible is that of the Jewish Publication Society, published in one volume editions as "Tanakh". It is ... desirable to have an edition of the Bible in which Hebrew is printed with English, due to the subtleties of Kabbalistic interpretation. The best bilingual text is probably that of Koren Publishers (Jerusalem) for two reasons: the Hebrew text is published in a font almost calligraphic in appearance, and is formatted to imitate traditional Hebrew paragraphing and page formats; and the various names of persons and places are transliterated directly from the Hebrew, instead of merely using the traditional Greek derived forms of most other versions. Both of these versions, as well as all other Jewish Bibles, adhere to the Masoretic text, which has considerable differences not only in verbal phrasing but also chapter division and order of the Biblical books from the usual Christian versions.
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Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) teaches that God is neither matter nor spirit. Rather God is the creator of both, but is himself neither. But if God is so different than his creation, how can there be any interaction between the Creator and the created? This question prompted Kabbalists to envision two aspects of God, (a) God himself, who in the end is unknowable, and (b) the revealed aspect of God who created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind. Kabbalists believe that these two aspects are not contradictory but complement one another. See Divine simplicity; Tzimtzum.
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According to most groups of Orthodox Judaism, Kabbalah dates from Eden and is an integral part of the Jewish religious tradition. It is believed to have come down from a remote past as a revelation to elect Tzadikim (righteous people), and, for the most part, was preserved only by a privileged few. By contrast, contemporary scholarship suggests that various schools of Jewish esotericism arose at different periods of Jewish history, each reflecting not only prior forms of mysticism, but ... the intellectual and culture milieu of that historical period. Questions of transmission, lineage, influence, and innovation vary and cannot be easily summarized.
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The History of the Kabbalah can be traced back to Avraham the patriarch who wrote the “Sepher HaYetsira“- Book of formation. Since then, many developments following the wandering of the Jewish people in the different continents, further clarified its concepts.
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According to this book, the "Kabbalah may be defined as the esoteric Jewish doctrine. The word Kabbalah comes from the Hebrew root QBL, meaning 'to receive,' and refers to the passing down of secret knowledge through an oral transmission."
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Jewish Kabbalah