Kabbalah On The Edge

Since I have never discussed fad kabbalah here, I'll post my response to Akiva's response to my comment (whew!) regarding - drumrollllll - The Organization:

First, The yetzer hara, the evil inclination, comes to us all.

That's my point exactly. It's not even fair to try and judge the community of the "specific organization" (which I know little about other than through heresay or from what's written on the internet) by the same standards as an entirely different community - the orthodox community, for example (which I am only marginally more knowledgeable about by first hand experience). Each has its unique weaknesses which the accuser exploits. Just because my friend's weakness may not be mine doesn't mean that I don't have another weakness equally as serious as the weakness of my friend.

Second, the specific organization that was discussed does not have a good reputation for what they do ...

This may be true. Nevertheless, that doesn't justify throwing out the good that it does do for its followers. At some point, one could envision that those followers will want more. No good can come from alienating those who are part of that community who are learning for the right reasons.

Third, The Zohar and Kabbalah can be learned as an indepdendent wisdom of it's own. But it isn't, just as the Torah She'bic'tav, the Written Torah, neither stands on it's own or makes sense without the Torah She'pal'be, the Oral Torah (as now recorded as the Mishnah and Gemorah, aka Talmud).

Everyone has to start somewhere and I'm sure it isn't with the Talmud.

technorati tags: Torah Kabbalah Judaism