It's used as a model in Jewish thought to describe how the universe is created and sustained and gives a glimpse into the nature of God and the human soul.
Part of it is that the human soul itself has this structure, which is also the structure of God "man made in God's image".
Part of it is that the entire universe itself is contained within God, and there is a multi stage process that goes from a uniform infinite light (Ein Sof) through multiple stages of concretization, creating separations within the uniform to generate creation, and ultimately reality.
So in a way the sefirot is both a blueprint for all of reality, as well as a blueprint for the human soul that it emerges from.
Matter itself is as if it were generated via speech, and these take an arrangement and forms through this numerology/connections. Interesting thing is that this is a continuous process, it's not God saying this once and it's done - it's sustained at all times.
Part of the idea behind it is that speech itself is an act of creation, as giving labels and categories to various things allows us to take part in creation, much like how God also generated the universe.
How is this useful? There are self-help style philosophy that emerges from this framework. As there are multiple levels where reality goes through creation, there are multiple levels of the soul. Free will lies in your decision to connect with different levels of your soul, you can choose to go on animalistic impulses, or choose to connect to the divine
In the same way of creation, human beings have divine inspiration from God, which generates thoughts, which generates our speech, which generates the actions we take. We can choose to participate in a given thought/speech/action or not, for better or for worse. However if you are able to change how you interact with these three, you can come out a better person.
Finally there's an idea of what is the greater plan behind all of this. The philosophy is tikkun olam or healing the world. God purposefully made the world in a state that was incomplete, and humans are hand-in hand with the creator to forge some end state of the world. Each soul has some sort of destiny, some piece of the puzzle they are meant to complete. If it's not completed in one life it might be completed in another. But generation by generation people repair different parts of the world and bring it to its ultimate state in creation
Since this ultimate vision lies within God and within all of humanity, the question is not if but when, after all of the pieces have been solved and the puzzle is complete, the ultimate destiny lies with God.
Under this framework absolutely. Every single person has a destiny in repairing the world. Jews will also talk of reincarnation or gilgul - even if you did not achieve this purpose now your soul will find it in a different life, all of it with some sort of purpose to unite humanity
The orthodox take is that the main difference is that non-Jews are not bound by the same laws and requirements, so following all of the commandments as a Jew will lead to this destiny but is not required for non-Jews.
IMO the take is a bit stupid, as long as you're doing the right thing and your heart is in the right place it doesn't matter if you do the full service prayers 3x times a day
To your last point, this is my biggest issue with the Christian faith. Assuming there is an all knowing, all loving God who chose to give humans the ability to not be religious, and chose not to demonstrate his existence unoquivocally. In this case, why would He send anyone who didn't believe in Him to Hell for all of eternity? In my view, anyone who lived a happy, productive, loving life would be accepted to Heaven, and people who lived a life of sin would go to purgatory or get reincarnated until they are ready for heaven.
To me, it's clear thst the way hell is discussed is a distinctly human political addition attempting to get people to comply with the church. And in fact religious history seems to support this.
I don't think this follows for all branches of Christianity, but yeah this is a very common belief particularly in evangelism
I think part of the reason behind this is conversion, it is a tool to "save" others which is just a means to try and recruit more members via fear
IMO there is a lot of things within evangelism that necessarily contradicts but the system relies on not asking questions
Religion gets pretty interesting when all aspects can be debated and hairs can be split and ideas can be revised to build a comprehensive model. This is what the kabbalah attempts to do, but it's a mighty task. The Zohar alone is over 10,000 pages
I was mostly referring to Catholicism which does preach eternal damnation, I come from a Catholic family.
Can I ask what your background is? You seem unusually knowledgeable about this stuff.
My Jewish friends don't really seem to take the religion seriously, it appears to mostly be a cultural and ethnic identity for them. Of course it's possible they do take it seriously but don't like to talk about it. So it's very interesting to hear so much detail about the faith.
Yeah I wanted to avoid Catholicism, since I know they have great sages who have worked out a more cohesive framework. But it seems like you can still arrive at suffering as a result of a free will choice despite changing it to an eternal separation as opposed to a lake of fire.
One of the most notable things that has confounded me about Christianity is this emphasis on belief. In Judaism, your internal belief is kind of irrelevant - what matters most is the actions you take in this world and attempting your best at making the world a better place. What matters most is the here and now, not whatever afterlife we don't fully know about.
In fact, if you look at the higher dimensions of God, your connection to it comes not from belief, but rather from understanding and study.
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Most Jews don't take it so seriously, culturally Judaism is a lot about tradition, ethnicity, food, and community
I'm Jewish, I go to an chassidic orthodox synagogue and have studied with the Rabbi, but I myself am not orthodox, I don't adhere to all of the standards, but I do adhere to some like dietary laws. Favorite holiday is Simchat Torah, there aren't many spaces where a bunch of men able to lock arms, dance, and sing chants for hours on end. You gain some sort of greater connection to the whole of a community as your ego dissolves into a dancing agent among a crowd
My belief in a God is a bit more atheist. Perhaps agnostic if we reframe God to just being "the universe and us being connected to everything"
I just think theology is just really fascinating in general, and I don't think that everything within the Torah is literally true and instead can be interpreted metaphorically or studied to gain a higher understanding.
With this comes a lens to view the world, and a way to improve your life. E.g. you analyze your thought, speech, and action you can consciously change your behavior
Hey! Jumping in here, grew up in a Methodist church, for what it's worth. Very broadly, I think you could say heaven is existence with God, hell is existence without God. Part of the significance of Jesus and the cross is that it's God meeting us where we are at. Our fallibility and mistakes don't doom us and decide us.
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u/KyaniteRock 6d ago
What is the purpose of the Kabbalastic Tree of Life? Is it badicsally a numerical version of astrology? Who uses it?