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Kabbalah: 5 Common Myths Dispelled

Religion or Science, Magic, Philosophy, Amulets, and Jewish Mysticism

Every few decades a resurgence of ancient mystical beliefs comes to the forefront of society. Kabala is experiencing this resurgence now. With so many people following the ancient traditions, rumors get easily started about what it is and isn’t. Some of the most common myths are also the most damaging.

Myth 1- Kabala is a religion.

Truth- Kabala isn’t actually a religion. It’s much more closely related to science than anything. In Kabala physics of existence is looked at in a way that can be religious in experience. It’s not its own religion though.

Myth 2- Kabala is a form of magic.

Truth- Nope. Kabala is not magic or alchemy or anything else of that nature. This myth comes from centuries old rumors that were designed to dispel believers of other faiths from following Kabala. Some of the teachings do use mysticism, meditation and deeper thought, but it’s not necessarily ‘magical’.

Myth 3- Kabala is a New Age philosophy.

Truth- Kabala has been around for thousands of years. Calling it ‘New Age’ makes people think that it’s a newer form of thinking or believing. The reality is the first known concepts of Kabala started to pop up more than 5,000 years ago.

Myth 4- Kabala uses amulets.

Truth- Nope. In the last few decades a few amulets and other ‘identifiers’ such as red string bracelets have become popular and attributed to Kabala. They really have nothing to do with the actual belief system aside from a way to identify others who follow similar beliefs.

Myth 5- Kabala is only supposed to be studied by Jewish scholars and men over 40.

Truth- This myth may have had some truth to it centuries ago, but today it’s simply not true. In the early days Kabala was only studied by selected people, and they typically were Jewish men in their 40s. However, this didn’t last long. For the last several centuries the teaching of Kabala has been open to anyone.

Praying in Kabbalah

Prayer is something that is found in just about every belief system in existence. The idea of prayer does change a little from system to system, but most people pray as a way to plead with the ‘powers that be’ to change something for the better.

Kabala teaches prayer as well, but in a much different form. When I first started to study the various mystic aspects of religion, the idea of prayer in Kabala caught my interest.

To understand the difference between prayer in Kabala and prayer in other beliefs you have to understand the basic concept of Kabala and the Creator energy.

In Kabala everything that happens and will happen is inherently good. Human nature may prevent a person from seeing the bright side in certain events. Instead of praying to change the course of events so that we can perceive them as good, the use of prayer is designed to change the perception of the person experiencing the situation so that they can see the positive.

Prayer is also not necessarily done with spoken words. In Kabala the feelings, actions and heart is the prominent form of prayer. This part is a little harder to explain, but I found a great video I’ll include at the end of the post to help. People can choose to pray through word, but it’s a person’s intentions that matter far more than the words that are spoken. In this respect prayer is something that occurs every moment of every day, and is much more honest.

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