Hermetic Qabbalah ( from the
Hebrew קַבָּלָה "reception"), is a western, esoteric, mystical tradition which is a precursor to the neo-Pagan, Wiccan and New Age movements which draws on a great many influences, most notably;
Jewish Kabbalah,
western astrology,
tarot,
alchemy,
pagan religions (especially Egyptian and Greco-roman),
neoplatonism,
gnosticism, the
Enochian system of angelic magic of
John Dee,
hermeticism,
rosicrucianism,
freemasonry, and
tantra. It differs from the Jewish form in being a more admittedly syncretistic system. However it shares many concepts with Jewish Kabbalah.
A primary concern of Hermetic Qabbalah is the nature of god, though its conception of god is quite different from that presented in the monotheistic religions. An important difference is that there is not the strict separation between god and man which is seen in the monotheisms. Hermetic Qabbalah holds to the neoplatonic conception that the manifest universe, of which material creation is a part, is comprised of a series of emanations. These emanations arise from Ayin (negativity) which is the uncreated, unmanifest, unknowable (by man) source of all being, and the first of the three planes of negative existence. Following Ayin, i.e. moving toward manifestation, is En Soph (the limitless), then Or En Soph (the limitless light).
The Sephirot, also Sefirot, (סְפִירוֹת), singular: Sephirah, also Sefirah (סְפִירָה) "enumeration" in Hebrew. The sephirot are conceptualised somewhat differently in Hermetic Qabbalah to the way they are in Jewish Kabbalah. See Sephirot for the Jewish conceptualisation.
From Or En Soph crystallises Kether, the first sephirah of the Hermetic Qabbalistic tree of life. From Kether emanate the rest of the sephirot in turn, viz. Kether (1), Chokhmah (2), Binah (3), Daath, Chesed (4), Geburah (5), Tiphareth (6), Netzach (7), Hod (8), Yesod (9), Malkuth (10). Daath is not assigned a number as it is considered a hidden sephirah.
Each sephirah is considered to be an emanation of the divine energy (often described as 'the divine light') which ever flows from the unmanifest, through Kether into manifestation. This flow of light is indicated by the lightning flash shown on diagrams of the sephirotic tree which passes through each sephirah in turn according to their enumerations.
Each sephirah is a nexus of divine energy and each is given a number of attributions. These attributions enable the Qabbalist to form a comprehension of each particular sephirah's characteristics. This manner of applying many attributions to each sephirah is an exemplar of the diverse nature of Hermetic Qabbalah. For example the sephirah Hod has the attributions of; Glory, perfect intelligence, the eights of the tarot deck, the planet Mercury, the Egyptian god Thoth, the archangel Michael, the Roman god Mercury and the alchemical element Mercury. The general principle involved is that the Qabbalist will meditate on all these attributions and by this means acquire an understanding of the character of the sephirah.
The tarot forms an important part of the Qabbilistic system. While the sephirot describe the nature of god, the paths between them describe ways of knowing god. As the sephiort are numberd in turn, so are the paths numbered.
Meditate on the cards to understand the sephirot.
Hermetic Kabbalah probably reached its peak in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a 19th-century organization that was arguably the pinnacle of ceremonial magic (or, depending upon one's position, its ultimate descent into decadence). Many of the Golden Dawn's rituals were published by the occultist Aleister Crowley, and were eventually compiled into book form by Israel Regardie. The credibility of Crowley is inconsistent though, as many of the rituals published were actually manipulated versions. Regardie however developed a much better reputation through his own research, practice and publications after he broke with Crowley.
Crowley is probably the most widely known exponent of Hermetic Magic or
Magick as he preferred to render it. Although popular within certain groups, especially the
Thelemic orders he founded (such as the
O.T.O.), Crowley is not without critics. Notwithstanding this a number of his writings are still widely used today, even outside the Thelemic orders he founded. Perhaps the most widely used of these is
Liber 777 which is mostly comprised of a set of tables of correspondences. Which is to say, tables showing various parts of ceremonial magic and Eastern and Western
religion and relating them to thirty-two numbers representing the ten spheres and twenty-two paths of the Kabbalistic
Tree of Life. The attitude of
syncretism embraced by Hermetic Kabbalists is plainly evident here, as one may simply check the table to see that
Chesed (חסד "Mercy") corresponds to
Jupiter,
Isis, the colour blue (on the Queen Scale),
Poseidon,
Brahma, and
amethysts.
Dion Fortune, a fellow initiate of the Golden Dawn, disagreed with Crowley.
Samael Aun Weor has many significant works that discuss Kabbalah within many religions, such as the Egyptian, Pagan, and Central American religions, which is summarized in his work The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of Tarot and Kabbalah.
The Hebrew word Sefirah (סְפִירָה) literally means "Numbering" or "Numeration". Sefirot is the plural, "Numerations". Sometimes, Jewish midrashic interpretations reread the Hebrew letters of this word to mean "Spheres" or "Narrations".
Ten Sefirot as Process of Creation According to Kabbalistic cosmology, Ten Sefirot (literally, Ten Numerations) correspond to ten levels of creation. These levels of creation must not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different ways of revealing God, one per level. It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes. While God may seem to exhibit dual natures (masculine-feminine, compassionate-judgmental, creator-creation), all adherents of Kabbalah have consistently stressed the ultimate unity of God. For example, in all discussions of Male and Female, the hidden nature of God exists above it all without limit, being called the Infinite or the "No End" ( Ein Sof) - neither one nor the other, transcending any definition. The ability of God to become hidden from perception is called "Restriction" ( Tsimtsum). Hiddenness makes creation possible because God can then become "revealed" in a diversity of limited ways, which then form the building blocks of creation.
Ten Sefirot and Physical Sciences The Ten Sefirot mediate the interaction of the ultimate unknowable God with the physical and spiritual world. Some students of Kabbalah suggest that the Sefirot may be thought of as analogous to fundamental laws of physics. God's "Restriction" ( Tsimtsum) within the spritual levels is often compared with the Big Bang in the lowest physical level. Just as the resulting gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force allow for interactions between energy and matter, the Ten Sefirot allow for interactions between God and creation. (Compare Theory of Everything.)
Theodicy: explanation for the existence of evil Kabbalistic works offer a theodicy, a philosophical reconciliation of how the existence of a good and powerful God is compatible with the existence of evil in the world. There are mainly two different ways to describe why there is evil in the world, according to the Kabbalah. Both make use of the kabbalistic Tree of Life:
Kabbalistic understanding of God
Kabbalah ( Jewish mysticism) teaches that God is neither matter nor spirit. Rather God is the creator of both, but is himself neither. But if God is so different than his creation, how can there be any interaction between the Creator and the created? This question prompted Kabbalists to envision two aspects of God, (a) God himself, who in the end is unknowable, and (b) the revealed aspect of God that created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind. Kabbalists speak of the first aspect of God as Ein Sof (אין סוף); this is translated as "the infinite", "endless", or "that which has no limits". In this view, nothing can be said about this aspect of God. This aspect of God is impersonal. The second aspect of divine emanations, however, is at least partially accessible to human thought. Kabbalists believe that these two aspects are not contradictory but, through the mechanism of progressive emanation, complement one another. See Divine simplicity; Tzimtzum. The structure of these emanations have been characterized in various ways: Four "worlds" (Azilut, Yitzirah, Beriyah, and Asiyah), Sefirot, or Partzufim ("faces"). Later systems harmonize these models.
Some Kabbalistic scholars, such as Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, believe that all things are linked to God through these emanations, making us all part of one great chain of being. Others, such as Schneur Zalman of Liadi (founder of Lubavitch (Chabad) Hasidism), hold that God is all that really exists; all else is completely undifferentiated from God's perspective. If improperly explained, such views can interpreted as panentheism or pantheism. In truth, according to this philosophy, God's existence is higher than anything that this world can express, yet He includes all things of this world down to the finest detail in such a perfect unity that His creation of the world effected no change in Him whatsoever. This paradox is dealt with at length in the Chabad Chassidic texts.
Number-Word Mysticism
Gematria:As early as the 1st Century BCE Jews believed Torah (first five books of the Bible) contains encoded message and hidden meanings. Gemetria is one method for discovering hidden meanings in Torah. Each letter in Hebrew also represents a number - Hebrew, unlike many other languages, never developed a separate numerical alphabet. By converting letters to numbers, Kabbalists were able to find hidden meaning in each word. This method of interpretation was used extensively by various schools. An example would be the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria
[1].
There is no one fixed way to "do" gematria. Some say there are up to 70 different methods. One simple procedure is as follows: each syllable and/or letter forming a word has a characteristic numeric value. The sum of these numeric tags is the word's "key", and that word may be replaced in the text by any other word having the same key. Through the application of many such procedures, alternate or hidden meanings of scripture may be derived. Similar procedures are used by Islamic mystics, as described by Idries Shah in his book, "The Sufis".
Divination and Clairvoyance
A small number of Kabbalists have attempted to foretell events or know occult events by the Kabbalah. The term Kabbalah Maasit ("Practical Kabbalah") is used to refer to secret science in general, mystic art, or mystery. However, within Judaism proper, the foretelling of the future through magical means is not permissible, not even with the Kabbalah. However, there is no prohibition against understanding the past nor coming to a greater understanding of present and future situations through inspiration gained by the Kabbalah (a subtle distinction and one often hard to delineate). The appeal to occult power outside the monotheist deity for divinative purpose is unacceptable in Judaism, but at the same time it is held that the righteous have access to occult knowledge. Such knowledge can come through dreams and incubation (inducing clairvoyant dreams), metoscopy (reading faces, lines on the face, or auras emanating from the face), ibburim and maggidim (spirit possession), and/or various methods of scrying (see Sefer Chasidim, Sefer ha-Hezyonot).
Gnosticism and Kabbalah
Gnosticism frequently appears as an element of Kabbalah. Gnosticism - systems of secret spiritual knowledge, or some sources say - — that is, the concept Chochmah (חכמה "wisdom") - seems to have been the first attempt on the part of Jewish sages to give the empirical mystic lore, with the help of Platonic and Pythagorean or Stoic ideas, a speculative turn. This led to the danger of heresy from which the Jewish rabbinic figures Rabbi Akiva and Ben Zoma strove to extricate themselves.
Original teachings of gnosticism have much in common with Kabbalah:
However there are also aspects of Gnosticism at odds with Kabbalah. Most glaring is the fact that within most of the Christian Gnostic groups the Jewish creator God was looked down on. This ranged from somewhat sympathetic pity for what the Gnostics felt was a deranged abortion, to outright identification of the Jewish God to evil incarnate.
Criticisms Dualism One of the most serious and sustained criticisms of Kabbalah is that it may lead away from monotheism, and instead promote dualism, the belief that there is a supernatural counterpart to God. The dualistic system holds that there is a good power versus an evil power. There are (appropriately) two primary models of Gnostic-dualistic cosmology. The first, which goes back to Zoroastrianism, believes creation is ontologically divided between good and evil forces. The second, found largely in Greco-Roman ideologies like Neo-Platonism, believes the universe knew a primoridal harmony, but that a cosmic disruption yielded a second, evil, dimension to reality. This second model influenced the cosmology of the Kabbalah.
According to Kabbalistic cosmology, the Ten Sefirot correspond to ten levels of creation. These levels of creation must not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different ways of revealing God, one per level. It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes. While God may seem to exhibit dual natures (masculine-feminine, compassionate-judgmental, creator-creation), all adherents of Kabbalah have consistently stressed the ultimate unity of God. For example, in all discussions of Male and Female, the hidden nature of God exists above it all without limit, being called the Infinite or the "No End" ( Ein Sof) - neither one nor the other, transcending any definition. The ability of God to become hidden from perception is called "Restriction" ( Tsimtsum). Hiddenness makes creation possible because God can become "revealed" in a diversity of limited ways, which then form the building blocks of creation.
Rabbi Leon Modena, a 17th century Venetian critic of Kabbalah, wrote that if we were to accept the Kabbalah, then the Christian trinity would indeed be compatible with Judaism, as the Trinity closely resembles the Kabbalistic doctrine of sefirot. This critique was in response to the fact that some Jews went so far as to address individual sefirot individually in some of their prayers, although this practise was far from common. This interpretation of Kabbalah in fact did occur among some European Jews in the 17th century. To respond, others say that the sefiros (To clarify for the reader not accustomed to the jargon, Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum says "The names of God are the Ten Sefiros of which the kabbalists spoke. The Ten Sefiros are ten kinds of revelation of God's powers that are accessible to us: these are His Ten Names, as explained in the Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah") represent different aspects of God. In order, the first six are Chesed (kindness), Gevurah (might). Tiferes (harmony), Netzach (victory), Hod (splendor), and Yesod (foundation). The German Jews may have been praying for and not necessarily to those aspects of Godliness.
Language Resources for the Student of Traditional Rabbinic Kabbalah]
Hermetic Qabbalah ( from the
Hebrew קַבָּלָה "reception"), is a western, esoteric, mystical tradition which is a precursor to the neo-Pagan, Wiccan and New Age movements which draws on a great many influences, most notably;
Jewish Kabbalah,
western astrology,
tarot,
alchemy,
pagan religions (especially Egyptian and Greco-roman),
neoplatonism,
gnosticism, the
Enochian system of angelic magic of
John Dee,
hermeticism,
rosicrucianism,
freemasonry, and
tantra. It differs from the Jewish form in being a more admittedly syncretistic system. However it shares many concepts with Jewish Kabbalah.
A primary concern of Hermetic Qabbalah is the nature of god, though its conception of god is quite different from that presented in the monotheistic religions. An important difference is that there is not the strict separation between god and man which is seen in the monotheisms. Hermetic Qabbalah holds to the neoplatonic conception that the manifest universe, of which material creation is a part, is comprised of a series of emanations. These emanations arise from Ayin (negativity) which is the uncreated, unmanifest, unknowable (by man) source of all being, and the first of the three planes of negative existence. Following Ayin, i.e. moving toward manifestation, is En Soph (the limitless), then Or En Soph (the limitless light).
The Sephirot, also Sefirot, (סְפִירוֹת), singular: Sephirah, also Sefirah (סְפִירָה) "enumeration" in Hebrew. The sephirot are conceptualised somewhat differently in Hermetic Qabbalah to the way they are in Jewish Kabbalah. See Sephirot for the Jewish conceptualisation.
From Or En Soph crystallises Kether, the first sephirah of the Hermetic Qabbalistic tree of life. From Kether emanate the rest of the sephirot in turn, viz. Kether (1), Chokhmah (2), Binah (3), Daath, Chesed (4), Geburah (5), Tiphareth (6), Netzach (7), Hod (8), Yesod (9), Malkuth (10). Daath is not assigned a number as it is considered a hidden sephirah.
Each sephirah is considered to be an emanation of the divine energy (often described as 'the divine light') which ever flows from the unmanifest, through Kether into manifestation. This flow of light is indicated by the lightning flash shown on diagrams of the sephirotic tree which passes through each sephirah in turn according to their enumerations.
Each sephirah is a nexus of divine energy and each is given a number of attributions. These attributions enable the Qabbalist to form a comprehension of each particular sephirah's characteristics. This manner of applying many attributions to each sephirah is an exemplar of the diverse nature of Hermetic Qabbalah. For example the sephirah Hod has the attributions of; Glory, perfect intelligence, the eights of the tarot deck, the planet Mercury, the Egyptian god Thoth, the archangel Michael, the Roman god Mercury and the alchemical element Mercury. The general principle involved is that the Qabbalist will meditate on all these attributions and by this means acquire an understanding of the character of the sephirah.
The tarot forms an important part of the Qabbilistic system. While the sephirot describe the nature of god, the paths between them describe ways of knowing god. As the sephiort are numberd in turn, so are the paths numbered.
Meditate on the cards to understand the sephirot.
Hermetic Kabbalah probably reached its peak in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a 19th-century organization that was arguably the pinnacle of ceremonial magic (or, depending upon one's position, its ultimate descent into decadence). Many of the Golden Dawn's rituals were published by the occultist Aleister Crowley, and were eventually compiled into book form by Israel Regardie. The credibility of Crowley is inconsistent though, as many of the rituals published were actually manipulated versions. Regardie however developed a much better reputation through his own research, practice and publications after he broke with Crowley.
Crowley is probably the most widely known exponent of Hermetic Magic or
Magick as he preferred to render it. Although popular within certain groups, especially the
Thelemic orders he founded (such as the
O.T.O.), Crowley is not without critics. Notwithstanding this a number of his writings are still widely used today, even outside the Thelemic orders he founded. Perhaps the most widely used of these is
Liber 777 which is mostly comprised of a set of tables of correspondences. Which is to say, tables showing various parts of ceremonial magic and Eastern and Western
religion and relating them to thirty-two numbers representing the ten spheres and twenty-two paths of the Kabbalistic
Tree of Life. The attitude of
syncretism embraced by Hermetic Kabbalists is plainly evident here, as one may simply check the table to see that
Chesed (חסד "Mercy") corresponds to
Jupiter,
Isis, the colour blue (on the Queen Scale),
Poseidon,
Brahma, and
amethysts.
Dion Fortune, a fellow initiate of the Golden Dawn, disagreed with Crowley.
Samael Aun Weor has many significant works that discuss Kabbalah within many religions, such as the Egyptian, Pagan, and Central American religions, which is summarized in his work The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of Tarot and Kabbalah.
The Hebrew word Sefirah (סְפִירָה) literally means "Numbering" or "Numeration". Sefirot is the plural, "Numerations". Sometimes, Jewish midrashic interpretations reread the Hebrew letters of this word to mean "Spheres" or "Narrations".
Ten Sefirot as Process of Creation According to Kabbalistic cosmology, Ten Sefirot (literally, Ten Numerations) correspond to ten levels of creation. These levels of creation must not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different ways of revealing God, one per level. It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes. While God may seem to exhibit dual natures (masculine-feminine, compassionate-judgmental, creator-creation), all adherents of Kabbalah have consistently stressed the ultimate unity of God. For example, in all discussions of Male and Female, the hidden nature of God exists above it all without limit, being called the Infinite or the "No End" ( Ein Sof) - neither one nor the other, transcending any definition. The ability of God to become hidden from perception is called "Restriction" ( Tsimtsum). Hiddenness makes creation possible because God can then become "revealed" in a diversity of limited ways, which then form the building blocks of creation.
Ten Sefirot and Physical Sciences The Ten Sefirot mediate the interaction of the ultimate unknowable God with the physical and spiritual world. Some students of Kabbalah suggest that the Sefirot may be thought of as analogous to fundamental laws of physics. God's "Restriction" ( Tsimtsum) within the spritual levels is often compared with the Big Bang in the lowest physical level. Just as the resulting gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force allow for interactions between energy and matter, the Ten Sefirot allow for interactions between God and creation. (Compare Theory of Everything.)
Theodicy: explanation for the existence of evil Kabbalistic works offer a theodicy, a philosophical reconciliation of how the existence of a good and powerful God is compatible with the existence of evil in the world. There are mainly two different ways to describe why there is evil in the world, according to the Kabbalah. Both make use of the kabbalistic Tree of Life:
Kabbalistic understanding of God
Kabbalah ( Jewish mysticism) teaches that God is neither matter nor spirit. Rather God is the creator of both, but is himself neither. But if God is so different than his creation, how can there be any interaction between the Creator and the created? This question prompted Kabbalists to envision two aspects of God, (a) God himself, who in the end is unknowable, and (b) the revealed aspect of God that created the universe, preserves the universe, and interacts with mankind. Kabbalists speak of the first aspect of God as Ein Sof (אין סוף); this is translated as "the infinite", "endless", or "that which has no limits". In this view, nothing can be said about this aspect of God. This aspect of God is impersonal. The second aspect of divine emanations, however, is at least partially accessible to human thought. Kabbalists believe that these two aspects are not contradictory but, through the mechanism of progressive emanation, complement one another. See Divine simplicity; Tzimtzum. The structure of these emanations have been characterized in various ways: Four "worlds" (Azilut, Yitzirah, Beriyah, and Asiyah), Sefirot, or Partzufim ("faces"). Later systems harmonize these models.
Some Kabbalistic scholars, such as Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, believe that all things are linked to God through these emanations, making us all part of one great chain of being. Others, such as Schneur Zalman of Liadi (founder of Lubavitch (Chabad) Hasidism), hold that God is all that really exists; all else is completely undifferentiated from God's perspective. If improperly explained, such views can interpreted as panentheism or pantheism. In truth, according to this philosophy, God's existence is higher than anything that this world can express, yet He includes all things of this world down to the finest detail in such a perfect unity that His creation of the world effected no change in Him whatsoever. This paradox is dealt with at length in the Chabad Chassidic texts.
Number-Word Mysticism
Gematria:As early as the 1st Century BCE Jews believed Torah (first five books of the Bible) contains encoded message and hidden meanings. Gemetria is one method for discovering hidden meanings in Torah. Each letter in Hebrew also represents a number - Hebrew, unlike many other languages, never developed a separate numerical alphabet. By converting letters to numbers, Kabbalists were able to find hidden meaning in each word. This method of interpretation was used extensively by various schools. An example would be the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria
[1].
There is no one fixed way to "do" gematria. Some say there are up to 70 different methods. One simple procedure is as follows: each syllable and/or letter forming a word has a characteristic numeric value. The sum of these numeric tags is the word's "key", and that word may be replaced in the text by any other word having the same key. Through the application of many such procedures, alternate or hidden meanings of scripture may be derived. Similar procedures are used by Islamic mystics, as described by Idries Shah in his book, "The Sufis".
Divination and Clairvoyance
A small number of Kabbalists have attempted to foretell events or know occult events by the Kabbalah. The term Kabbalah Maasit ("Practical Kabbalah") is used to refer to secret science in general, mystic art, or mystery. However, within Judaism proper, the foretelling of the future through magical means is not permissible, not even with the Kabbalah. However, there is no prohibition against understanding the past nor coming to a greater understanding of present and future situations through inspiration gained by the Kabbalah (a subtle distinction and one often hard to delineate). The appeal to occult power outside the monotheist deity for divinative purpose is unacceptable in Judaism, but at the same time it is held that the righteous have access to occult knowledge. Such knowledge can come through dreams and incubation (inducing clairvoyant dreams), metoscopy (reading faces, lines on the face, or auras emanating from the face), ibburim and maggidim (spirit possession), and/or various methods of scrying (see Sefer Chasidim, Sefer ha-Hezyonot).
Gnosticism and Kabbalah
Gnosticism frequently appears as an element of Kabbalah. Gnosticism - systems of secret spiritual knowledge, or some sources say - — that is, the concept Chochmah (חכמה "wisdom") - seems to have been the first attempt on the part of Jewish sages to give the empirical mystic lore, with the help of Platonic and Pythagorean or Stoic ideas, a speculative turn. This led to the danger of heresy from which the Jewish rabbinic figures Rabbi Akiva and Ben Zoma strove to extricate themselves.
Original teachings of gnosticism have much in common with Kabbalah:
However there are also aspects of Gnosticism at odds with Kabbalah. Most glaring is the fact that within most of the Christian Gnostic groups the Jewish creator God was looked down on. This ranged from somewhat sympathetic pity for what the Gnostics felt was a deranged abortion, to outright identification of the Jewish God to evil incarnate.
Criticisms Dualism One of the most serious and sustained criticisms of Kabbalah is that it may lead away from monotheism, and instead promote dualism, the belief that there is a supernatural counterpart to God. The dualistic system holds that there is a good power versus an evil power. There are (appropriately) two primary models of Gnostic-dualistic cosmology. The first, which goes back to Zoroastrianism, believes creation is ontologically divided between good and evil forces. The second, found largely in Greco-Roman ideologies like Neo-Platonism, believes the universe knew a primoridal harmony, but that a cosmic disruption yielded a second, evil, dimension to reality. This second model influenced the cosmology of the Kabbalah.
According to Kabbalistic cosmology, the Ten Sefirot correspond to ten levels of creation. These levels of creation must not be understood as ten different "gods" but as ten different ways of revealing God, one per level. It is not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes. While God may seem to exhibit dual natures (masculine-feminine, compassionate-judgmental, creator-creation), all adherents of Kabbalah have consistently stressed the ultimate unity of God. For example, in all discussions of Male and Female, the hidden nature of God exists above it all without limit, being called the Infinite or the "No End" ( Ein Sof) - neither one nor the other, transcending any definition. The ability of God to become hidden from perception is called "Restriction" ( Tsimtsum). Hiddenness makes creation possible because God can become "revealed" in a diversity of limited ways, which then form the building blocks of creation.
Rabbi Leon Modena, a 17th century Venetian critic of Kabbalah, wrote that if we were to accept the Kabbalah, then the Christian trinity would indeed be compatible with Judaism, as the Trinity closely resembles the Kabbalistic doctrine of sefirot. This critique was in response to the fact that some Jews went so far as to address individual sefirot individually in some of their prayers, although this practise was far from common. This interpretation of Kabbalah in fact did occur among some European Jews in the 17th century. To respond, others say that the sefiros (To clarify for the reader not accustomed to the jargon, Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum says "The names of God are the Ten Sefiros of which the kabbalists spoke. The Ten Sefiros are ten kinds of revelation of God's powers that are accessible to us: these are His Ten Names, as explained in the Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah") represent different aspects of God. In order, the first six are Chesed (kindness), Gevurah (might). Tiferes (harmony), Netzach (victory), Hod (splendor), and Yesod (foundation). The German Jews may have been praying for and not necessarily to those aspects of Godliness.
Language Resources for the Student of Traditional Rabbinic Kabbalah]