Kabbalists About Studying Kabbalah, Part 10
Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.
The Opposition of the Study of the Wisdom of Kabbalah
Now you can understand the aridity and the darkness that have befallen us in this generation [lack of knowledge of the laws of life and the world], such as we have never seen before. It is because even the worshipers of the Creator [those who study the Torah] have abandoned the engagement in the secrets of the Torah [Kabbalah].
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 57
All the great Kabbalists unanimously cry out like cranes that as long as we deny the Torah of its secrets and do not engage in its secrets, we are destroying the world [since we do not attract the Light into our world any more].
– Rav Kook, Igrot (Letters), Vol. 2, p. 231
[24936]
It would seem the passages are addressing “Jerusalem Kabbalists” but that’s too easy an interpretation. Why would you ask for our questions except that we should see our individual responsibility for damaging the world? Are our efforts to attain damaging because we haven’t sufficiently ripened our desire? Now that we know unity will produce correction, is it a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a terrible thing?” Is one of the secrets that we can and should use our desire to influence the actions of the rest of Kli?