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The real founder and patriarch of the Jewish religion
is considered to be Abraham, who lived in Canaan (modern Israel) around
3700 years ago. He was initiated into a sacred traditional line by Melchizedek,
the mysterious Priest-King. It is with Abraham that the essential monotheistic
nature of Judaism, which marked it out distinctly from other religions
of the time, seems to begin. The later exile of the Israelite people in
Egypt may have influenced Egyptian thinking (the Pharaoh Akhenaten attempted
to introduce a monotheistic religion some time afterwards) and the Israelites,
in turn, assimilated some Egyptian ideas relating to the afterlife and
the nature of the Universe. Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt,
is supposed to have been responsible for the writing of most of the Pentateuch,
the first five books of the Torah. Another, even later, period of exile
in Babylon brought contact with Parsee and Zoroastrian influences. |
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As is related in the Christian New Testament, at
around the time when Jesus lived there was much friction in what was then
the Roman province of Judaea between the local inhabitants (the Jews) and
the ruling Empire. This led to many Jews leaving the country, where they
settled in their old lands of exile. Some went to Alexandria in Egypt,
then ruled by the Ptolemaic (Greek) dynasty, where they were influenced
by philosophical and religious ideas from the Greek civilization; ideas
that, at the same time, were having a significant impact on the Latin world.
Meanwhile, a new Jewish settlement was established in Babylon, which continued
for several centuries. The Greek influence was present here, too, a relic
of the conquests of Alexander; but other influences could be felt in Babylon,
including perhaps those of India and the Mongol nations. |
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In the period known as the diaspora (scattering
or dispersal) following the Roman suppression of Judaea, the Jews spread
throughout the then known world. Broadly, two camps can be distinguished:
the Sephardim, the Jews who followed the Moorish peoples in their conquests
along the North African coast and into the Iberian Peninsular; and the
Ashkenazim, those who made their way via Turkey and Romania to settle throughout
Europe, but notably in the mountainous regions of what are now northern
Italy and southern France. |
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The renewal of contact between the Ashkenazim and
Sephardim when their wanderings brought them together again in Toledo,
Cordoba or Granada, led to the flowering of Kabbalah. In the heady, liberal
days before the Spanish Inquisition, Jew, Christian and Moor could meet
together to discuss philosophy and theology to the mutual benefit of all.
The expulsion of the Moors from Spain, with the Inquisition coming quickly
after it, put an end to all that. But evil events sometimes have good results;
and the Jews, under threat once again, took the opportunity at this time
to write down a great part of their Kabbalistic knowledge, which might
otherwise have been lost - or at least unknown other than to a select few. |
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Fleeing Spain, some Jews returned to the Holy Land
where a new school of Kabbalah was founded which, though it lasted less
than a century, was to have considerable influence within orthodox Judaism.
Others moved to Eastern and Northern Europe, where other Jews were living,
remnants of the original Ashkenazi migrations. They established new, close
knit communities, many of which had to endure a succession of unsympathetic,
often oppressive governments, so leading eventually to the Zionistic ideal
of a new Jewish nation in Israel. However, with certain notable exceptions,
for example in Prague, these communities were not noted for their mystical
outlook. It was those Jews who moved into Italy, and from there into other
parts of Western Europe, that had the greatest influence on what we may
describe as modern Kabbalah. They were entering the heart of Europe at
the time of the Renaissance - a New Age, with a corresponding revolution
in man's thinking just as profound as that we are now encountering at the
dawn of the 21st Century. The Kabbalah of the Jews had a profound influence
on Alchemical, Rosicrucian and even religious movements. A new Kabbalah
emerged, frowned on by orthodox Jews, barely tolerated by others, but elaborated
in complex detail and to great effect by workers in the field into the
present century. Somewhere along the way, this branch of Kabbalah lost
its Jewish roots and with it a large proportion of its meaning and significance.
More open-minded approaches of the present day now make it possible to reunite
all the various aspects of Kabbalah into a whole that is meaningful and
productive for anyone who acknowledges the existence a higher divine power. |
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