A way of life
In the past, in order to learn Kabbalah, or participate in this way of life, one had to be fully immersed in the Jewish tradition. Presently, it seems, that Kabbalah is often used as a means of drawing new age proponents into the Jewish fold. I’m afraid I don’t really live up to the “requirements” of the modern (or ancient) Kabbalistic meme. However, I feel a connection with HaShem, Adonai and the Elohim almost constantly, hovering in the space between the immanent and the transcendent — in dialogue with both. Kabbalah has helped me to find a language with which to express that, and a means with which to come to terms with my “practice” thereof.
But living as a singular Jew in the mountains of the Eastern Cape—“frontier” country as it is called—brought here, btw, by following the flame by night and the cloud by day, I suddenly stepped into my own dream, and found my practice slipping. That space being filled by sublime moments alone and in communion with the greater “I” that surrounds all.
The Mekubal
I was born in the cauldron of creation
The kabbalist is known in Hebrew as the Mekubal - which means receiver. In other words, the essential task of the Mekubal is to receive the Divine Light that is constantly shining down upon each one of us. But, in order to do that, the Mekubal needs to maintain a purity of life that takes in the physical, emotional and spiritual.
A kabbalist does nothing… except pray and keep himself open to receiving the messages that G-d sends through his angels — with all his heart and soul. All his work is in the upper realm. The one referred to as the imaginal or angelic realm. A realm exemplified by the imaginary numbers of mathematics, producing, through the intermarriage of the real and the imaginary, the realm of the complex.
He performs the acts necessary to maintain his physical being, but only in order to pursue his calling and work in the upper worlds.
Working as close to Source as he is able to, he has no apparent effect on anything tangible. As we are all connected to this source, his work can affect anything and everything. Whether, or how long it will take, his actions manifest or have some effect, depends on many factors, both known and unknown—though, that is not his purpose.