still raging) can it be done (understanding and practicing the wisdom of Kaballah without reading and understanding
the Torah first)? Ancient scribes and modern-day scholarly rabbis say “no way, it’s a waste of time to try”.
I don’t have an opinion on it, but it only makes sense to me. An analogy might be a very
bright junior high student. At times one is so bright they are put into college, and not made to
graduate from high school. Though many do well academically, the emotional strain is too
much. History is loaded with such great young minds. And because of that, education has
changed dramatically in the past four decades and it is not done so often. New more challenging
alternative programs have been developed for “the gifted child” to be challenged througout
middle and high school academia and entering college at a more appropriate age.
Such is trying to graduate from Torah, it appears, and going straight to Kaballah, which,
admittedly is much “more fun and interesting to talk about at parties, but has anything
really dramatically transpired to help that person? Maybe so, maybe not. Again, I am no
expert. I know in my own case, I tried to go straight to Kaballah and found it very confusing.
I was not brought up religiously so I did not learn the Torah (I am not proud of that) but it was
just my reality. Now I am trying to read and learn from it; the end game is not “to graduate”
one day to Kaballah, but if I feel I truly understand the Torah one day, and am “living it”
as it teaches, I may not even find I need Kaballah. I tend to have good instincts and to
often understand the mystical underpinnings of most philosophies. I may find I want