Daniel C. Matt’s The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism is a great introductory and intermediary work for learning about the Kabbalah (for different reasons). It is a concise work which includes many concepts and introduces them in a way which makes things just click. It can work as an introductory work for the more mystical path to the Kabbalah, but it also serves to lay the path forward and out of pure theory for intermediate practitioners. This is a work you may end reading more than once as you discover the hidden meaning behind each page and paragraph.
The Essential Kabbalah is a heavily layered book which just gets richer as you learn more and read it. It covers almost all of the basic principles, and uses many different approaches. As you read more and learn more about the Kabbalah, sections which didn’t mean much begin to take on a life of their own and blossom with the fruit of knowledge and understanding. This book is a must read for any aspiring Kabbalist.
Content
The book is divided into 11 chapters with a foreword. Each chapter covers a philosophical aspect of the Kabbalah which help lays out the underlying structure of the entire thing. Almost each chapter is standalone in its own way, but the book is best read in order for an introductory reader.
The first chapter lays the ground to the nondualism of ein sof, which quickly delves into how ein sof permeates existence. From here, the book transitions into how ein sof fits into the sefirot. The next few chapters introduce Ayin and goes into detail about the ten sefirot.
From here, the book delves into the metaphysics of the Kabbalah including the origin of creation, how the Hebrew letters map to the sefirot and paths on the Tree of Life, meditation, origins of thought, and so on. The book covers a lot of content in little space. It does so very efficiently, but as you understand more, a veil is lifted from each section as you reread.
Structure
The structure of this book is what makes it so powerful. Most spiritual books use a single format and dredge through it. You might have a sutra in verse, or an exposition in prose, but rarely are these combined. The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism uses a mix of verse, prose, and parables to explain concepts. Each of these pieces will make sense the first read through, but each subsequent reading becomes a new experience.
This book combines a mix of styles and approaches to each concept. Some parts just didn’t stick until put in context in a completely different way. The book also proceeds in an order which is contrary to many introductory works on the Kabbalah, but the unique structure makes it work.
Some chapters and sections start one way and shift rapidly between the styles. If you don’t get something, read through the whole chapter and it should start to click by the end. Reread or skim through again when you get to the end of a chapter and everything just falls into place. The structure also ties many concepts back via references to the Torah (or Zohar among others). This simplifies certain things if you grew up in a Judeo-Christian background, but can make some references less clear.
Approaching the Kabbalah
The principles behind the Kabbalah are the cornerstone to many occult systems in the West. Why do you want to learn the Kabbalah and what does it mean to you? This book is written to be more Judeo-Christian oriented, but ultimately, it doesn’t double down like some books on the Kabbalah do. The philosophy bleeds into the mysticism which bleeds into the religious aspects, but the three are largely separable. You just need to put the time to split the concepts out.
This book approaches the Kabbalah from a more mystic side (ergo the title), which makes it a more neutral resource for many use cases. If you’re reading the book to learn more about the occult, it fills in the philosophy which powers most western systems. Should you be looking for something which doesn’t clash with more rigid Christianity or Judaism, this book works too. It manages to approach the metaphysics without trampling too hard into one camp or the other (though there’s a heavy Judeo-Christian bias, for obvious reasons).
I feel this book really fits as a looser reading after A Garden of Pomegranates. A Garden of Pomegranates gives you a much more rigid approach which this is able to build off of. I read this book before A Garden of Pomegranates, but thumbing back through this book gave me much more clarity.
I approach the Kabbalah a bit like I approach learning. You have rote knowledge and application. This book provides some of the rote, but really helps cement the application. There’s enough to work with, but I feel the power in this book is when it’s used in conjunction with something more focused on terms and their explanation. Each type of work feeds into the other, but I prefer a solid foundation first.
What Makes This Book Great
The content is vast without being wordy, and the structure makes it really work. You won’t learn everything, but you’ll really see how the Kabbalah applies from a more mystic perspective. The Kabbalah is much less rigid and much more alive in this work. The sefirot aren’t just some Hebrew words on an abstract tree; they’re living breathing entities in existence.
This book poeticizes existence through the lens of the Kabbalah. It interconnects aspects of reality and ties it all together into a higher purpose. Whether you’re reading for more occult purposes or just to contextualize your faith, this book is a treasure. Certain sections may not appeal to you, but ultimately, reading them contributes to contextualizing other parts. You can always disregard the religious pieces after the fact, but you can’t ignore them.
This book works as an organic whole. Even if one part doesn’t appeal to you, the understanding makes the rest of the system live in context. Once you read through it, you will see why it’s so powerful. The biblical references, the Judeo-Christian parts, etc. aren’t there to proselytize, but to put everything in a context of how and why without having to reinvent the wheel. This gives the book even more strength if you grew up in a Judeo-Christian background. Unlike some works though, it doesn’t hurt anything if you don’t believe in it though.
Conclusion
This book is a treasure to your library if you’re interested in the Kabbalah. It has continued to serve me well as I reach new stages in understanding and offers layer upon layer of meaning. There are certain considerations for this book, such as why you’re interested in the Kabbalah and whether or not you’re from a Judeo-Christian background. Those concerns aside, this is a gem for your shelf which you will read again and again if you are really interested in the Kabbalah.
The Essential Kabbalah gets richer and richer as you learn more. This is a book you will revisit many times. The content is rich, the structure adds complexity without overwhelming, and the whole book works towards a holistic understanding of the Kabbalah. The religious parts color bits and pieces, but can be removed without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This is a solid home run of a book on the Kabbalah for your bookshelf.
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