CABALAH PRIMER: Introduction to English/Hebrew Cabalah

by Henrietta Bernstein

Because Cabalah contains the Universal Laws of God, it teaches us how to connect to a direct experience of the upper worlds, giving us a more complete sense of wholeness and balance. CABALAH PRIMER, with its aspects of English, Hebrew, Tarot, and Sacred G

Genres: Occult

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1984

Reviews

[Alex Obrigewitsch · Rating 1 out of 5]

Any attempting to read this work best read with a wary eye and a skeptical mind. I do not say this in diminishment of Kabbalah, or of mysticism more generally - but merely of this work by Bernstein.
For this short book contains the worst of more recent esoteric vitriol, such as airy soul-talk and a plethora of capitalised words such as Consciousness (this term needn't be capitalised) in order to make them seem significant and of grand spiritual import once the initiate comes to understand the esoteric truth. Of course, Bernstein never explains what these things might be (take the conclusion, for example; she states that it is experience which allows our soul to transcend the earthly veil unto the higher plane. But what exactly is this experience, how does one procure it, and what might it refer to? Not a single clue or reference.). As always, one best beware of a false produndity which in fact belies not but a profound vapidity.

My other critique falls upon Bernstein's reduction of centuries of Kabbalistic thought to numerology and phi principality. For while the practice of Gematria may have an import with Hebrew words and language, to simply carry it over to English and believe that it unveils some spiritual truth conveyed through the covering of words is innane at best. Bernstein believes that she "discovers" hidden meaning and connections everywhere using this methodology, unthinkingly diregarding the fact that this all tales into account translational choices, the transposition of letters (how is one to even spell Cabalah/Kabbalah - for this fact transforms the Gemetriac numbering and significance?) - Bernstein fails to see that she is not finding meaning, but constructing it; that if this is "truth" it is a construct; and that every time she employs numerology it appears so vain and desperate - it is an attempt at wish-fulfillment, which Freud associated with dreaming...

And so, what then? Study the Kabbalah, by all means. But be cautious of works such as this - works you find in the "Metaphysics" section, that tell you their words gesture towards a hidden abundance of meaning, while they actually say so little, if anything at all. Avoid this work - go to the source texts that Bernstein at times refers to yet seems every time to misunderstand and wilfully miscontextualize (such as in the chapter on the key historical texts of Kabbalah), which are difficult yet have something to teach you, leave you with something to ponder.

[Nicola Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and helpful, yes. Terrible writing that makes the topic much harder to follow, also yes