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עמוד:12
From Lurianic Kabbalah To Hasidism 12 is that of a being which is transcendental to this world, that – is, separate from it in his very essence and in the truth of his existence and entirely separate from it . It is true that God reveals himself personally in this world, intervenes in its conduct and attempts to lead it in the way of righteousness according to the commands of his will . Nevertheless, in the substantial sense, there is no link between the transcendental God and the created world, and no essential connection exists between them . The mystic, following the basic interests which drive his spirit, attempts to build a bridge over this abyss between God’s being and the non - divine world ; to discover the hidden way of the spirit, to rise in the ladder of spiritual perfection, to return his soul to its divine root, to cleave to this root, from which his soul has been derived, and even to become part of it and to be absorbed into its hidden recesses . The basic assumption of the mystic ‒ that there is some essential link between the divine being and the non - divine world, implies also the assumption that man can glimpse with the eyes of the spirit ( not, of course, with the eyes of the flesh ) into the divine world, become attached to it, adapt himself to the inner rhythm of its hidden life, and even act within it for better or for worse . When we address Kabbalistic thought and its history, we must divide it into two central units : early Kabbalah and late Kabbalah . Early Kabbalah developed in Provence towards the end of the twelfth century and continued its existence for a few hundred years in Spain and Italy until the destruction of the great Jewish community in Spain in 1942 . At the center of Early Kabbalah stands the Zohar , the Book of Light, ascribed by tradition to the Palestinian Sage ( Tanna ) of the second century, C . E . , Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai . The truth of the matter, as scholars today know only too well, is that the author of this book is Rabbi Moses de Leon, a Kabbalist who lived and wrote in Spain during the second half of the thirteenth century . The Zohar of Rabbi Moses de Leon became the canonic text of
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