What is Kabbalah?

Special thanks to Seth Weprin for co-writing this episode. Thanks to Gavi from @UNPACKED for reading an early draft.

References:
Boaz Huss, "All You Need Is LAV: Madonna and Postmodern Kabbalah," The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 95, No. 4 (Fall 2005).

Burack, C. D. H. Lawrence's Language of Sacred Experience: the Transfiguration of the Reader, 2005.

Gershom Scholem. “First Lecture: General Characteristics of Jewish Mysticism.” In "Major
Trends in Jewish Mysticism," 1-39. Jerusalem, Israel: Schocken Books, 1974.

Joseph Dan, "Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction," 2007.

Yaacob Dweck, "The Scandal of Kabbalah: Leon Modena, Jewish Mysticism, Early Modern Venice."

Itzik Lodzer (Arthur Green), “Notes from the Jewish Underground: Psychedelics and Kabbalah,” 
Response 2:1 (Winter 1968): 9-21.

Steven T. Katz, Comparative Mysticism: an Anthology of Original Sources. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Harriet Ryan and Kim Christensen. “Celebrities Gave Kabbalah Centre Cachet, and Spurred Its Growth.” Los Angeles Times, 18 Oct. 2011.

[EzraB]

I'm Jewish and this is by far the best explanation of Kabbalah I've seen on YouTube, even better than some Rabbis, lol.

[EMO_alpha]

Yeah, its nice hearing about religion from a secular world view thats not anti theist.

[AdamMorganIbbotson]

You’re one of the best educational YouTubers. You’ve helped me realise how fascinating the history of religion is.

[fratercontenduntocculta]

I love how virtually everything about Judaism is never easily explained. The Zohar is anything but light reading, and a working knowledge of the Tanach (all of the books of the old testament) is needed to comprehend it's largely symbolic written style. Understanding and a desire to have it would help us all get along, so I'm telling every one I know of your channel. I find Theology to be one of my favorite non professional hobbies, and am thankful you make such thoughtful videos.

[dixon]

I learned so much but what REALLY got me was “bibliography in the description” as a historian I never appreciated a YouTube video description so much. Thank you thank you! I will be checking out those sources soon.

[garrettf]

Please do something on hermetics. Or Victorian occultism like the Golden dawn, Thelema, how it all relates to Kabbalah and other forms of high magick in general. That’s a crazy wormhole I’d love to hear your explanation on.

[caterinagerbasi]

I that you are not using the usual youtube style. you dont care if this is too dense. you trust your audience not being babies.
this is an amazing video that I will have to see a couple of times to start understanding it.

[betube]

"You've probably seen schematic drawings of this tree around the internet if you ..." (4:13) watched Fullmetal Alchemist. I've never done any research into Kaballah, but as soon as I saw the diagram, I recognized it as being connected to the anime.

[AG_KEMPER]

We started talking about the sefirot and Tree of Life yesterday at Torah study, so thank you for helping me unpack it further!

[danielpaulson]

This is definitely a favorite channel. The more one knows about religious diversity, the more one sees their similarities.

[jecaurhyn]

Brave of ReligionForBreakfast to tackle this topic. What is and isn't Kabbalah is way more controversial than I think us outsiders could ever understand. Great job making it digestible!

[Qwajman]

I’d love to see a video in regards to Kabbalah, Gnosticism, and Jung. Very fascinating subjects to think about.

[allyzapena]

i have been waiting for this!! i went on a jewish/christian rabbit hole because of how weird evangelion was and their references to biblical angels

[NousSpeak]

I really love how academic yet completely accessible your channel is. Thank you for producing all this amazing content!

[yoryteperman]

A really good overview of the topic.
Harold Bloom, that Giant of American Literary Criticism who passed away after decades of teaching at Yale, also wrote several books on the subject, with the smallest and rarest also being the densest and most illuminating - it is called "Kabbalah and Criticism", and it is very dense indeed, as its "only" 67 small format pages will boggle your mind for days. It does address most important concepts, though its focus is primarily with Isaak Luria's teachings, which remain the most mysterious teachings within the body of Kabbalah... Highly recommend the book to all, except those who seek some magical formulas, as you will not find any in this book. Just pure intellectual stimulation... Cheers!

[jbghumanjr]

I wish SO BADLY your entire channel was taught to all High School students across the globe. It'd change the rational of our species towards dogma and overall induce a deeper conscious awareness for the patterns in our way of "belief." All of which would lead us into future that is more connected to a larger scope of reality. But yea... I dig it. TY for all your hard work. You deserve millions of subs. And I've no doubt you'll get them.

[singhjasbeer]

I was always and always waiting for an explanation of Kabbalah in this channel. Kabbalah is something which has made me see Jewish religion in very positive light, I am a Sikh and an Indian and kabblah helped me in clearing many mystical concepts of Sikhi also.

[davidschmidt]

Orthodox Jew: This was really well done.

Although my only reading of texts mentioned here is when I use the Zohar as a commentary on the Torah, even then I usually have no idea what is going on.

[brucewilson]

Hi. I've been a member of the Baha'i Religion, the Baha'i Faith, for 35 years. Since we celebrate and believe in all of the Prophets and Sacred Scriptures, I study all of them. You really helped me get my little mind around this subject. Thank you. Love and Light.

[jaderbabe]

I've been watching your videos for years now and this is, by far, my favorite.