When God passed down the written tradition, or the Torah, to Moses, the story of Kabbalah says that He also passed down an oral tradition, which was then passed down from generation to generation. This oral tradition became known by some as Kabbalah. And while the Torah served as a means of studying God's laws, Kabbalah became a set of practical techniques or rituals used to approach God. Kabbalah can be seen as a mystical, even magical venture, and brings on comparisons to the I Ching, the Tarot and the shamanistic rituals of Native American tribes. Practitioners of Kabbalah range from devout, orthodox rabbis and their congregations, to new age desperadoes looking for the spiritual flavor of the month.
Skeptics find the Kabbalist rituals involving angels, counting, and chanting pure hocus-pocus.
Even worse, certain Kabbalist societies, including The Kabbalist Centre, where Madonna purportedly Kabbalahed, have been accused of cult activity. Yet despite all the new age mysticism surrounding the comeback of Kabbalah, actual ancient Jewish texts evoking Kabbalah do exist, and prove interesting to anyone curious about the rich and complicated history of Judaism. In the mid-13th century, a Kabbalist named Abulafia used abstract Hebrew letter combinations and intense meditational practices to reach ecstatic states. The Zohar, as it is known, covers a wide range of subjects and was highly influential for centuries in mainstream Judaism, and continues to be within certain orthodox sects. Kabbalah in general greatly influenced Judaism all through the 17th and 18th centuries, but shortly thereafter fell into decline.