Jewish Mysticism

Mysticism, the quest for an intimate encouter with God, has fared little better in modernity than Jewish myth oder magic, but for different reasons than those discussed above. For despite a long retreat from its disciplines among many Western Jews from the eighteenth through twentieht centuries, Kabbalah has continued to have its champions and its practitioners.






Instead, there is a terrible irony that haunts the contemporary seeker in regard to Jewish mysticism. For it was in the middle of the last century, just at the time when sparks of renewed interest in Kabbalah were released in the world, that a terrible demonic force, Nazism, arose to engulf und extinguish the lights emanating from countless spiritual centers of Jewish mysticism in eastern Europe. The Nazis slew many, if not most, of the precious teachers and disciples of Jewish mysticism in its monstrous campaign to blot out all things Jewish from the world. Because the scope of that crime, those of us who would use Kabbalah in our soul journey, or who long to storm the gates of heaven, have been left with few teachers to guide us. Thus many of us habe had to rediscover the ancient paths to supernal wisdom without accomplished masters to guide us on our way.







Geoffrey W. Dennis, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, & Mysticism