The Language of the Kabbalah
Q: What language do Kabbalists use among themselves?
A: Kabbalists don’t invent their own language. They share the same feelings about the spiritual world. For every feeling about the spiritual world, there is a name. Such a name cannot be changed.
For example, there are twenty-two names, or attributes, involved in the creation of the world. These are marked accordingly as Hebrew letters. Their combinations render a spiritual sensation of an object which can be described by the physical terms of this world.
The description of the spiritual world is the description of man’s soul, the description of the degrees of its nearness to the Creator and its feelings of closeness. The more the soul feels the Creator, the nearer it is to Him.
Kabbalah divides the collective soul into parts and gives each part a unique name relating to its traits and describing its operations. Although it is the language of emotions, it is an accurate one.
Kabbalah is the “engineering of the soul.” But how can we use such accurate research and descriptions if our language is inaccurate, limited and worldly? For that purpose, Kabbalists established a unique language for their science: “the language of the branches.”
Any created being, whether still, vegetative, animate or speaking, as well as anything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, and every object and its guidance, all come from the Creator and go through all the spiritual worlds to a state where He is no longer revealed in our world.
But Providence is renewed perpetually, from Above downward to our world. Anything that exists in our world necessarily begins in the Upper World and gradually descends to ours. Therefore, whatever exists in our world is a result of the world above it. There is a direct link of cause and consequence between the objects of our world and their origin in the Upper World.
Kabbalists accurately discern that link between the Upper Object and this world’s object. Anything that exists in our world is an outcome, and is under the guidance of the Upper One. Therefore, Kabbalists can clearly say what is linked with what and call the objects (the roots in the Upper Worlds) by the names of their worldly outcomes: “branches.” Hence the name, “the language of the branches.”
Furthermore, this link of spiritual root and worldly branches undergoes a continual process of renewal. From the dawn of creation to its end, there is an ongoing process of creation, corrections, and ascents.
This process is run by a program that comes down to our world with its every detail fixed, and determines everything we experience. Each object goes through its own root, although it does mingle with others, but it never disappears and always remains consistent with itself. Of course, as a result, it is impossible to swap one name for another.
In order to find an accurate, yet secret language, we need to use only those words that describe the Upper Spiritual Root, as the Kabbalists have shown us.
The Kabbalists who discovered this language accurately describe for us a spiritual world in words we can understand. There simply cannot be another language. How is it possible to take words from our world and use them to define spiritual concepts? We have to learn to follow the rule that everything we read in the Kabbalah and the Torah are terms that define our spiritual roots, not worldly objects. We must never confuse them!
What stands behind those words are only spiritual objects, or roots, which are in no way connected with our world. The entire Torah is comprised of the names of the Creator; thus, it is called “the work of God.”
When the Torah denominates an object or an act, it expresses the spiritual root, which generates that object or action. In our world, we name objects in much the same way. To reiterate, the Torah is a description of the creature’s nearing to the sensation of the Creator and how He is found in those emotions .
Kabbalists have used this language to convey and explain information, and put it in writing in the form of words and signs of this world. Just as mathematicians use formulas to communicate ideas, when Kabbalists write or read, they feel what they are talking about, what is implied in these words in the language of the Kabbalah.
To summarize: a word is a sign that expresses a certain spiritual object. This, in turn, expresses a certain feeling. While reading, a Kabbalist can reproduce that feeling, just as a musician reproduces a melody. One does not need words in order to understand the language of music.