The first question about qabala is, obviously, whether it's qabala, kabballa, cabala, etc. In Hebrew, there is one word and one spelling; using the Roman alphabet equivalents to the Hebrew letters, the word is spelled QBLH. By now, conventions have arisen regarding use of the Roman alphabet such that one spelling is used to denote Jewish QBLH, and another spelling to signify Christian or Hermetic QBLH. For the sake of convenience, I always use one spelling; qabala, an easy, phonetically correct spelling that approximates the actual Hebrew letters.
Many people have many different beliefs around the issue of a creator, a supreme being, a core intelligence underlying the universe, etc. Qabala is, at its root, a mystical system within Judaism. Accordingly, qabalistic literature is couched in the language of Judaism. This involves discussion of the deity, God, in personalized terms and typically as male. For the most part, this material can be readily understood even if you choose to substitute some other label for God (the Tao, All That Is, etc.), although for reasons that will eventually become clear, thinking of the prime deity as a Goddess could lead to confusion. The issue of gender can get very complex. In presenting this material, I'll stay within its Jewish roots and refer to God and describe the deity using masculine pronouns.
Even within Judaism, there are multiple qabalistic schools of thought. What I will be presenting should be viewed as "an" approach to qabala (drawn heavily, but not exclusively, from the teachings of Luria, also referred to as the Ari), not necessarily "the" approach. And even a single school of thought may contain a variety of ideas that don't necessarily sit with one another in a readily perceivable completely consistent system. I recommend that you simply accept each idea on its own terms and not worry too much about treating each as a component with its own unique place in a sleek machine. Eventually, you should find it all holding together despite the presence of paradox contradiction.
One of the important underlying assumptions of qabala is that the Hebrew alphabet is a mystical one and that each letter has its own set of properties that can aid in mystical work. And there are several techniques used by Jewish mystics to work with these letters and connect words and phrases that may, to the casual observer, seem to be completely unrelated. These will be introduced in the next installment of the series.
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