Question: Why is there an opinion that one can study Kabbalah only after he has mastered all of the Torah and Talmud?
Answer: The great Kabbalist the Ari and his disciple Haim Vital explain in their books that one should study all the books of the Torah and Talmud, but after he has revealed the Creator [1]. After the revelation, he can fill himself with the Light through the study of the Talmud.
People studied the Talmud with the purpose of revealing the Creator even before the destruction of the Temple. After all, the entire Torah talks about the law of love [2] of your neighbor. If a person begins to love others, he senses and includes within himself the entire spiritual world, which exists outside of his ego.
When he obtains the property of bestowal, he begins to study Talmud and perceives everything written there in the correct way. In other words, he sees that it is talking about spiritual concepts rather than their material branches in this world.
That is, anyone who has a desire can study Kabbalah [3], and they can start with Kabbalah before mastering Gemara, Mishna, and Torah. I can add only that I brought forty students from Tel Aviv to my teacher Rabash. They were absolutely secular people. I suspect that most of them did not know Torah even from the school curriculum. Yet Rabash accepted them, and they began studying Kabbalah right after that.
The study of Kabbalah was banned because the Jews went into exile, during which time they were not supposed to turn to Kabbalah. We had to wait for the end of the exile, which occurred at the end of the 20th century, about 20 years ago.
From that point on, Kabbalah is open all. As Baal HaSulam wrote, the period of exile completely ended in 1995. From that moment, this wisdom has become open for everyone.
Question: Some people think that the exile ended with the founding of the State of Israel.
Answer: I give the definition adopted in the wisdom of Kabbalah by the Kabbalists.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM 2/28/16
Related Material:
Dispelling Myths About Kabbalah, Part 2 [4]
Dispelling Myths About Kabbalah, Part 1 [5]
Like Water Seeping Through Sand [6]