Parallels Between Kabbalah and Gnosticism
An amazing video with a scholarly discussion of Gnosticism and Kabbalah is available on the Orthodox Jewish "Judaism Demystified" Youtube channel.
In the video the man being interviewed is an apparently brilliant Christian scholar on Gnosticism, an ancient heresy that arose around the 2nd century and attracted both Jews and Christians.
There are actually amazing parallels between Gnosticism and Kabbalah (Kabbalah discussion starts around 1:10).
There is good evidence that Kabbalah simply cloaks some pagan/Gnostic ideas in Hebrew terminologies.
For example, there is an unknowable, ultimate, good deity (the Ein Sof) who emanates lower deities (Gnostic aeons / Kabbalistic "partzufim" such as Abba, Imah).
The lower deities (Emah in the Zohar / Gnostic aeons) emanate an evil world in rebellion against the Ein Sof (the world is the ultimate "klipah", all worldly matters are evil - see Chabad's Tanya).
The lower deities (Kabbalistic partzufim / Gnostic aeons) are in pairs with male/female genders. They have sexual relations and produce new deities (Abba + Emah gave birth to Zeir Anpin).
Divine sparks have fallen from the ultimate deity that have to be "liberated" by us.
Parallels Between Kabbalah and Gnosticism
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Chovot HaLevavot - Duties of the Heart
Facebook Group for Torah Metaphysics
Torah Metaphysics Book
Torah Metaphysics is a new book intended to present brief discussions of “classical” concepts in Torah theology and cosmology that have often been ignored in Torah observant communities in recent centuries.
Such “classical” (and essential) Torah concepts as “yichud Hashem”, creation ex-nihilo, unity of Torah and science, and man’s free will, etc. are too often being ignored in Torah observant communities.
Or we sometimes observe erroneous materialist/atheist doctrines such as Neo-Darwinism being artificially grafted onto classical Judaism.
This new book, available on Amazon, attempts to present "classical" Torah viewpoints on the above issues. (Note: The paperback version is about 173 6x9 pages. The number of pages displayed on the Amazon site may be inaccurate.)
