Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-02-21
TheOSOphy
in Hebrew
Tradition
The Cabala and Its Content and
Meningitis Mystic
Message.
"Thc oabaIa," or Jewish Theosophy.

"The CabaIa," or Jewish TheOsophy.
This charming edition of THE
Cabala," issued by the Open Court
Publishing Company, of Chicago, VIII
be very welcome to those who take
an interest in the mystical philoso-
plies of the world. 1.-THE Cabala' is,
as the book says, important because
as a theosophical system ii has en-
gagged the attention of some OF the
greatest minds among Christian and
Jewish scholars. In the past It n
fiuenced such men as Raymond Lully
the doctor Jlluminatns; John l'icus
di Mirandola. John Reuchlin, the cele-
brated Dutch scholar; Cornelius
Agrippa Won Nettesheim, John Bap-
fist Won Helmont, Jacob Boehme, the
inspired mystic, and Theophrastus
Paracelsus.
The Hebrew word Gabala from
KibbeD denotes reception, then a
doctrine received by oral tradition.
In the oldest Jewish literature the
Cabala denotes the whole body of
Jewish tradition. But as the trans
lator points out. one must be careful
to distinguish between the Cabala and
mysticism indeed, it is difficult to
aver how far it is possible to trace
Jewish mysticism. 1t may be said,
however. that, like other Oriental
nations, the Jews were naturally IN
clined to theosophical speculation
and though this tendency was, as the
author says, repressed by the DEFINITE
teaching of Revelation while they
were confined within the sacred
boundaries of Palestine, it was more
pronounced and was given treer
scope after the Exile.
Finally. as defined by one OF the
greatest of Jewish philosophers, the
Cabala, or <abala, is Tradition, an
occult science, peculiar secret doc
trine, metaphysical, theological and
mystical. More ancient than Platon-
ism. and perhaps antedating the doc
trine of Pythagorus, this mysterious
philosophy, which, on the one hand,
corresponds to the systems which
emanated from Indian mysticism,
whence modern theosophy arises; on
the other hand, it is in affinity with
certain mystical interpretations OF
the Talmud.
AS L have pointed out above, the
Cabala has exercised remarkable
influence on those minds whose trend
is toward the realm of the trans
cendal and thaumaturgical, especial
ly in the fifteenth and sixteenth CEN
turtles.
The doctrines, transmitted from age
to age by adopts, tested and purified
by limitations of the most rigorous
kind and preserved intact in the
Orient where they had their birth,
penetrated into Europe at the epoch
of the crusades and took firm root
there The first exposition that APP
peared of the Cabalistic doctrine is
found in little brochure of a dozen
pages, THE Sepher Jeteirah," or
1.-The Book of the Creation" related
in Hebrew and Aaramaic analogo sto
that of the Talmud, and which,
therefore, determines the date as that
of the Second or third century of our
era.
The book contains a series of dog
matte affairmations conceived in SYM
bolical terms which would be abso-
lutely incomprehensible if there were
not in existence commentaries to ex-
plain them.
The doctrine of the Sepher, which
is uncompromisingly Pantheistic, at
tempts to explain the origin and re-
lations of the world by the progress
of ideas. But the Cabala is most
clearly and amply expressed in the
Zohar a vast collection containing
nineteen separate works, of which the
general title signifies eelat, or light.
All the doctrines of the Cabala were
justified by means of passages of the
Holy Scripture, transposed according
to Hermetic rules, in reading certain
passages in juxtaposition, vertically,
in forming Words by means of mi
tials and terminals, in explaining
words by the numerical value of their
letters and in reading the words by
means of an inversion of their letters.
Paul Ricci, physician of the En-
peror Macmillan l.. of Austria, pub
lished a translation of the Cabala and
it was from this translation that
Reuchlin and Pecusdi Mirandola
gained their knowledge of the Cabala.
One cannot take UP this mysterious
book without at once being filled with
a deep, and in some degree a CORE
spondingly mysterious interest.
THE CABALA." Its Influence on Ju-
daism and Christianity. BY Bernhard
Pick, PHI. D., ID. ID. The Open Court
Publishing Company, Chicago and Lon
don.