It is common to hear that there are bans regarding the study of Kabbalah. Usual examples of these bans are that one needs to have already received a rigorous education in Torah, one needs to be 40 years old, married, and needs to find a secret teacher with whom he is one of his sole disciples...
Such bans existed only before the 16th century, before the time of Rabbi Isaac Luria (nicknamed "the Ari"). Kabbalists themselves initiated these bans for the purpose of concealing the wisdom from the masses. They did this because the masses desires, until the 16th century, were not evolved and ripe enough to receive the wisdom of Kabbalah correctly. Simply put, nobody needed it but a select minority.
The Meaning of "Forbidden" in Kabbalah
This is, in fact, the meaning of the term "forbidden" in relation to the bans of Kabbalah study. The term doesn't mean that a person who has a sincere desire to study Kabbalah is forbidden to study if he is, say, under 40, unmarried, and non-Jewish. The term "forbidden" means that one who has no desire to take the study upon oneself is forbidden from the study through their own desire not being at a point where they feel a need for it.
Kabbalah from the 16th Century to Our Time
The Ari stated that from his time onward, Kabbalah was meant for everybody. This is because people's desires, since the 16th century, have increased, and especially today more and more people are finding that they cannot be satisfied by fulfilling desires for things in this world. This is described as the "desire for spirituality" evolving in humankind. In other words, over the centuries humanity evolved through desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, pride, power, and knowledge. At the time when humanity would still "want more," meaning at the time when we would find no lasting fulfillment in all the aforementioned, we would be ready to start working on fulfilling the desire for spirituality.
Bans Can't Stop Desire
Kabbalah describes the foundation of nature, toward which each and every person is being led. It describes the process of the creation of everything in our existence, and the process by which everything evolves toward its final and perfect state.
The force that propels this evolution is desire. There is no ban that can stop a person who feels the desire for embarking on the next stage of evolution.
Related Material:
- Kabbalah.info - all concepts presented in this article were learned from the free materials and resources available at the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Institute - www.kabbalah.info
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