The truth of Kabbalah

Who answered, you or your team?

I don't have a team. The answers here are all mine.

Mordechai, I really feel you. I also think all of Kabbalah is nonsense, especially the Book of Zohar, but as you said, Kabbalah has entered everywhere. There's nothing to be done, it is what it is.

Mordechai, on the one hand you oppose Kabbalah, and connect with ”rationality”, and on the other hand you bring up the researcher you mentioned here..

I suggest you check out who she is and what she writes about.
Her colleagues' criticisms of her are very harsh.

In the 13th of Iyar 54th

The belief in the coming of the Messiah was established in the three main principles of the Rambam. It is mentioned in the words of the prophets, for example in Isaiah, “And a branch came out of the stem of Jesse.” In the prayer, the blessing “May the branch of David, your servant, quickly grow.” Matters of the “secrets of the Torah,” such as the act of Genesis and the act of the chariot, are mentioned in the Mishnah in the chapter “They do not seek” (in Tractate Hagiga).

With greetings, Fishel

Shalom Mordechai.
Kabbalah has no halachic authority and therefore in my opinion any halachic text originating from there can be ignored. Personally, I also ignore all the kabbalistic texts in the siddur (such as Leshem Yahud). You don't need Professor Rachel Elior to know that the Book of Zohar does not originate from Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai but rather from a later period. There are of course many disputes about who wrote it and what exactly, but it is certainly not Rashbi. In general, Kabbalah is a complete corpus of writings and as such it is certainly possible to find things that are more correct and things that are less correct (and of course things that seem to conflict head-on with the belief in Yahud as formulated by Maimonides). In my opinion, treat it like the things that Jews thought for themselves, like another philosophy. In my opinion, there is no problem being a Jew in our time and completely ignoring it.

It's a shame to read Zohar without learning how to read it. To an outsider, it seems nonsense, but religion also seems fanatical from the outside. It's very worthwhile to learn how to read Kabbalah from the book "Khokar ve Kabbalah" by Ramchal [found inside the Ramchal gates at the beginning], which presents a debate between the researcher - the rationalist - and the mystical Kabbalist. There you also see that as much as Ramchal was a Kabbalist, he was very grounded. The book gives Kabbalah a completely different perspective, and in my opinion [and maybe for you too if you read the book], someone who believes in religion without believing in Kabbalah is the complete opposite of rationalism.

Hello, I'm Mordechai, who brought up the question here. I was really excited to see that it sparked interest and thanks to everyone who responded and added. Thank you Shimon, thank you Kath, and thank you Tzemach David. Thank you to Moshe Sellam. Thank you to Yoni.

Anyone who studies Zohar with a honey-sweet interpretation understands the superhuman arrangements and connections to compose such a work, even from a literary perspective alone. And that alone indicates something that has disappeared from us.