Rabbi Daniel Rowe on Jewish Mysticism and Torah

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in 18Forty’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Rabbi Daniel Rowe, it's such a privilege and pleasure to be with you here in the heart of the city that you now call home. You were the executive director of Aish UK and did phenomenal things there. A senior educator now at Aish Global and a phenomenal writer, phenomenal teacher, and really an incredible person. So thank you so much for joining us today. Pleasure. So there are so many different aspects to you, Rabbi Daniel Rowe, and what not as many people know about you is your incredible knowledge of Jewish mysticism and the deeper teachings. What is Jewish mysticism? It can mean so many things. The Gemara talks about what we call either Pardes, the orchard, or Maaseh Bereshit and Maaseh Merkava, the Work of creation and the Work of the Divine Chariot. And it talks about the parts of Torah that are sisrei Torah, secrets of Torah, that are not taught in public. Now, the Rambam has his take on what that is although he says he has no tradition. The world that's called Kabbala today and typically called mysticism today focuses very strongly on the aspect of God's names and God's, if you like, middot, the attributes that are popularly known as sefirot. That is the language that has been used since about the thirteenth century: these hemispheres, these channels through which God interacts with the world. So typically today we'd call it Kabbala, the received tradition. That's what we mean by all that. But in essence, what it means is it really goes all the way back to the neviim, the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, who have these visions that there is an inner working of the heavens. They have it in Isaiah chapter twelve and in Ezekiel chapters one and ten, where they see something behind the scenes of reality and creation.

Jump to a moment

1. 0:02Rabbi Daniel Rowe, it's such a privilege and pleasure to be with you here in the…
2. 2:49started just learning and learning and learning, finding my vein, finding people in new material, and…
3. 5:25another person, it's: I'm just drawn in to search for the beyond. That's what we call…
4. 8:04he says a lot about how he can't describe God. But then he also says, yeah,…
5. 10:45to it. I use the analogy – Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, once said, “When I say…
6. 13:58This would be a typical, more kabbalistic way of talking. And the soul in the Garden…
7. 16:34some contradictions about this. And the answer is very simple, it is that in the Messianic…
8. 19:16that the valentine is often your meandering. Anyway, hopefully you get back. So we have this…
9. 21:56in a way that will change everything I do. So Talmud Torah [Torah study], yes, it's…
10. 24:32The biggest obstacle always is self-centeredness. Self is the biggest single obstacle. Self, meaning a superficial…

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