Jewish Mysticism: Why was Kabbalah Kept Secret for So Long? - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

[Music] originally when when man sinned so in addition to the world becoming affected you know we said that the world went down in its level of purity and sanctity also man himself was affected before the sin the concept of evil and confusion was external to man after the sin it became part of him part of his makeup and so to the world was became mixed a mixture of good and evil but we're not really also aware of his even the Torah itself became mixed of good and evil when man sinned and so once that happened so according to the result the forces of negativity the forces of evil that exists had more power to attach themselves and affect the Torah at the early stages of the Jewish people it was it was almost crucial to the continued existence of the Jewish people and of the Torah the way it needed to be developed to limit the amount of secrets because if we would have taught the secrets of Torah then the the forces of evil were so strong that they would have been able to get a lot of power from it as well so it was kept secret only the absolute pure and holy were able to learn it and it was restored in that way and from generations in the duration it was it was maintained so that it wouldn't get lost and then around the fifteen hundreds when the all the work that the Jewish people had done from the beginning of the Jewish people until the fifteen hundreds all that collective you know progress in weakening the forces of evil so at that point in time it was decided by God that now Kabbalah can be revealed in a much bigger grander way and that's why that's when the Tsar was found and of another hundred or so years after that eras all comes in in the mid-1500s and begins to teach Kabbalah publicly the immediate reaction when I read I began to teach Kabbalah publicly was one of the great rabbis of his time the probably one the gutter lad or a much older rapper than the original himself was a young rabbi you know he died at 36 so this at this point he was you know even younger than 35 years old imagine a 35 year old rabbi doing something that was unheard of in the Jewish world teaching Kabbalah to it publicly it became became famous for being a mystic and teaching his teachings new novel understandings of the Zohar and deepest secrets that we had that the world hadn't heard of from the beginning of time so the God alador of the time sent a message to the Rahzel simple message you know I guess when you're a wise man and a Jewish leader an everybody listens to you you just need a few words simply said to him we don't teach Kabbalah publicly and that was he gave him an instruction to stop but I read all did not stop but what happened so he summoned the result to come to him because you don't you don't go against Authority we don't we don't we're not one of the right to do what we want we have the right to make you have our opinions but we also what was up the end of the day check especially when it's no gerd to the to all of all of the Jewish people and we're trying to you know elevate a new a new thing we have to make sure what the people that know better than us and that have more experience that it's correct what we're doing so he summoned the era's out to come to him to give him he was gonna rebuke him and say you can't do that but before the result I had a chance to go to him so he had a dream the rabbi had a dream and in the dream they told him that the original has permission to do what he's doing from heaven and so he sent another message to the areas are saying you know you can continue doing what you're doing go in strength and and be successful because you have been chosen for I'm paraphrasing of course for this this mission and he understood he was told from heaven that it's time to change [Music] [Applause]