Kabbalah

Meaning “heritage,” a mystical form, or “secret science,” of Judaism that developed in the late Middle Ages. Kabbalah was an esoteric method of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures by way of the numerical coding of Hebrew letters. Such a code system was meant to bring out the hidden meaning of each biblical word. The culminating, classical work of Kabbalah was the Zohar (“illumination”), a work containing the record of revelations concerning divine mysteries, as they were traditionally received from the second-century Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai and his mystic circle.

Contributed by: Marty Maddox/CTNS