Lesson 5: The spiritual force in authentic Kabbalah books - Fundamentals of Kabbalah 2024/2025

The language of Kabbalah - the language of branches and roots
What is the secret of the “magic” or potency contained in the books of Kabbalah?
How does reading and studying the writings of Kabbalah help a person to develop spiritually and realize their purpose of life?
The four languages used to describe the spiritual world in the primary sources, the differences between them, and their meaning.

Root and Branch Law

According to the law of root and branch,
each "branch" in this world has its own unique and special "root" from which it hangs down into this world.
root = cause; branch = consequence.
The world of the roots = the spiritual world
The world of branches = the physical world.

The language of the branches that appears in the Kabbalah books describes the spiritual roots while using the names of the "branches" in our world.

When we come across words that are familiar to us from everyday life in the books of Kabbalah, we must remember that they are directed to the spiritual roots and not to what is happening in our world.

Pleasure is only the equivalence of form with the Maker. When we equalise in every conduct with our Root, we sense delight.
(Baal HaSulam, Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah])

There is not an element of reality or an occurrence of reality in a lower world that you will not find its likeness in the world above it, as identical as two drops in a pond. And they are called “root and branch.” That means that the item in the lower world is deemed a branch of its pattern found in the higher world, which is the root of the lower element, as this is where that item in the lower world has been imprinted and made to be. That was the intention of our sages when they said, “You have not a blade of grass below that has not a fortune and a guard above that strikes it and tells it, ‘Grow’!”
(Baal HaSulam, The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah)

This wisdom is no more and no less than a sequence of roots that hang down by way of cause and consequence, following fixed, determined laws that interweave into a single, exalted goal described as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.”
(Baal HaSulam, The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah)

"The Torah, which is divine wisdom, has nothing physical in it."
(The Maharal of Prague, "Derech Haim", author's foreword)

"The Torah is spirituality"
(Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Likutei Moharan, I)

The secrets of the Torah clothe in parables and riddles in the Torah due to the extension of the Torah and its lowering from the highest degree down to this earthly world.
(The Ramak, Know the God of your Father, 14)

Rabbi Shimon said, woe unto one who says that the Torah comes to tell literal tales. However, all the words of the Torah have the superior things and uppermost meanings.
(Book of Zohar)

“Thus, Kabbalists have found a set and annotated vocabulary sufficient to create an excellent spoken language. It enables them to converse with one another of the dealings in the spiritual roots in the upper worlds, by merely mentioning the lower, tangible branch in this world, which is well defined to our corporeal senses. The listeners understand the upper root to which this corporeal branch points because it is related to it, being its imprint. “
(Baal HaSulam, The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah)