[Avodah] Is Panentheism Heresy

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 04:02:52PM -0500, Jonathan Baker wrote:
: No, it's not. Read the scholarship, read the texts.  Sure, there's meditative
: material in Chasidism which is drawn from the earlier ideas, and in other
: kabbalistic texts, but Kabbalah itself was a new creation written (or revealed)
: in the 1200s.  It did not form part of the old Merkabah mysticism in either
: case. 

As I wrote yesterday, I think that the particular area of nistar we tend
to call Qabbalah is from the Bahir, not the Zohar.

Merkavah mysticism evolves into the heikhalos literature.

The Bahir develops angelology futher. But it also mixes in ideas from
peirushim on seifer haYetzirah. Thus, seifer haYetzirah's 10 sefiros,
which are only discussed in terms of being a 10-fold count, are identified
with 10 high angels / spiritual existences to become the sefiros we
later find in the Eitz Chaim.

The Zohar then has the basic ideas, and adds to the structure.

To my mind the next discontinuity, where a new idea is published rather
than details and develops added to an existing system, is by the Ari.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You are where your thoughts are.
micha at aishdas.org                - Ramban, Igeres Hakodesh, Ch. 5
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