Meditation and Kabbalah by Aryeh Kaplan: The Complete Guide

Who Was Aryeh Kaplan?

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan died at the age of 48 in 1983, just one year after the publication of Meditation and Kabbalah. In his too-short life, he produced a body of work that scholars and practitioners of Jewish mysticism continue to rely on as indispensable. To understand why Meditation and Kabbalah matters, you need some understanding of who he was and what he brought to this material.

Kaplan was born in New York in 1934 and received a thorough traditional rabbinic education. He was ordained as a rabbi and went on to study physics at the graduate level, eventually becoming the first American Orthodox rabbi to hold advanced training in the physical sciences. This combination was unusual and deeply significant: it gave him both the traditional learning to read primary Kabbalistic sources in their original Hebrew and Aramaic and the systematic analytical mind to organize and present complex systems clearly.

His output was extraordinary. He translated the Sefer Yetzirah (the foundational Kabbalistic text on the Hebrew letters) with extensive commentary, translated the Bahir (the earliest systematic Kabbalistic text), translated major portions of the Zohar, and wrote numerous books on Jewish meditation and mysticism. The consistency and depth of this work over roughly a decade and a half before his death is remarkable by any standard.

Kaplan worked during a period when interest in Eastern meditation traditions (Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, Vipassana) was at a peak in the West, and many Jewish practitioners were turning to these traditions partly because they were unaware that comparable depth existed within their own heritage. Kaplan's project was partly an act of recovery: showing that the Jewish tradition had its own sophisticated meditation practices, rooted in thousands of years of accumulated wisdom, that had been largely hidden even from many observant Jews because the relevant texts were untranslated and the interpretive tradition had been disrupted.

What Is Meditation and Kabbalah?

Published in 1982 by Samuel Weiser, Meditation and Kabbalah is structured as a systematic survey of the major streams of Jewish meditative practice from the Talmudic period through the Hasidic movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is organized historically and by school, moving from the earliest Merkabah mysticism through the medieval Kabbalistic schools to the Hasidic synthesis.

The book's central claim is stated in its introduction: that Kabbalah has three branches (the theoretical, the meditative, and the magical), and that while the theoretical branch has been extensively documented in Western scholarship, the meditative branch has been almost entirely neglected, partly because of the difficulties of the source texts and partly because of the traditional reluctance of Kabbalistic masters to discuss these practices publicly.

Kaplan remedies this neglect by translating extensive passages from the primary sources and providing the contextual commentary needed to understand what the texts are actually describing. For many readers in 1982, and still for many readers today, this was the first time they had encountered passages from the Greater Hekhalot, Abulafia's Otzar Eden Ganuz, or Cordovero's Pardes Rimmonim in accessible English.

The book is demanding: it assumes the reader is willing to engage with technical material, with unfamiliar Hebrew terminology, and with a tradition of thought that operates very differently from the psychological and contemplative frameworks most Western readers bring to the subject. But for readers who meet it on its own terms, it is one of the most significant books published on any subject related to Jewish mysticism in the twentieth century.

The Three Branches of Kabbalah

Kaplan's organizational framework for the book is his division of Kabbalah into three branches, and this framework is itself one of the book's most valuable contributions to understanding what Kabbalah is.

Theoretical Kabbalah (Kabbalah Iyunit) concerns the structure of the divine realm: the nature of the Ein Sof (the Infinite), the ten sefirot (divine attributes or emanations), the four worlds (Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah), the divine names and their significance, and the relationship between the divine and material realms. This is the Kabbalah most people encounter when they read popular books about Kabbalah or take courses at Kabbalah centres. It is rich and important, but it is not primarily a practical system.

Meditative Kabbalah (Kabbalah Asiyit or Kabbalah Hitbonenut) concerns the use of Kabbalistic knowledge for the transformation of consciousness: the journey through heavenly realms, the use of divine names and Hebrew letters as meditation objects, the cultivation of prophetic states, and the achievement of devekut (cleaving to God). This is the Kabbalah that Kaplan's book addresses and that had been almost entirely undocumented in accessible sources before 1982.

Practical or Magical Kabbalah (Kabbalah Ma'asit) concerns the use of Kabbalistic knowledge to produce effects in the material world: amulets, divine name invocations for protection or healing, and related practices. Kaplan discusses this branch but distinguishes it carefully from the meditative branch and notes that the practical Kabbalah has often been condemned by Kabbalistic masters as dangerous and inappropriate.

This three-part division has become standard in academic and popular discussions of Kabbalah since Kaplan's book and is itself an important contribution to the field.

Merkabah Mysticism and the Hekhalot Tradition

Kaplan begins his historical survey with the oldest documented form of Jewish meditative practice: the Merkabah (chariot) mysticism described in the Hekhalot texts. The name "Merkabah" comes from Ezekiel's vision of a divine throne-chariot drawn by four living creatures, described in the first chapter of the book of Ezekiel. This vision became the starting point for a tradition of mystical practice that sought to replicate, extend, and systematize the prophetic ascent to the divine throne.

The Hekhalot texts (from the Hebrew word for "palaces" or "halls") describe a journey through seven heavenly halls or palaces, each guarded by angelic beings who demand specific credentials before allowing the meditator to pass. The highest hall contains the divine throne, the Merkabah itself, and the divine presence. The meditator who successfully passes through all seven halls achieves a state of divine vision that is described as overwhelming in its intensity.

The preparation for Merkabah meditation as described in the Hekhalot texts was extensive and demanding. The practitioner needed to maintain a high level of ritual purity, to fast for specific periods, to know the correct divine names and angelic passwords for each hall, and to be in a state of mental and spiritual readiness. The texts describe practitioners entering the experience in a state of intense concentration, sometimes using postures that compress the body (head between the knees) to facilitate the inward turn.

Kaplan is careful to distinguish the Merkabah tradition from later developments. The Merkabah mystics are not trying to dissolve the self into divine unity; they are trying to ascend to the divine throne while maintaining their identity as human visitors. The experience is one of encounter and vision rather than of union and dissolution. This places it closer to certain Tibetan Buddhist tantric practices (in which the practitioner visualizes entering the deity's mandala) than to either Zen or Advaita Vedanta.

Abraham Abulafia's Letter Meditation System

The section of Meditation and Kabbalah that Kaplan himself considered most important and most original is his treatment of Abraham Abulafia (1240-1291), a medieval Spanish Kabbalist who developed the most systematic and fully articulated meditation system in the entire Kabbalistic tradition.

Abulafia's system is based on the Hebrew alphabet and the divine names. He observed that the Hebrew letters are not merely conventional signs but genuine channels of divine power, and that systematic meditation on different combinations and permutations of these letters produces specific and repeatable effects on consciousness. His major works, including Otzar Eden Ganuz (Treasure of the Hidden Eden) and Or HaSekhel (Light of the Intellect), provide detailed instructions for these practices.

The basic Abulafian technique involves taking the letters of a divine name or a Hebrew word and permuting them in systematic sequences, accompanying each permutation with specific breath patterns and vocalizations. The practitioner begins by relaxing the body and stilling the ordinary flow of thought, then introduces the letter permutations as the primary content of attention. The permutations serve as a kind of mantra system, but one that is varied and systematic rather than simply repetitive.

Abulafia described the results of this practice in terms of prophetic experience: a flow of divine wisdom that enters the mind from beyond its ordinary content, a kind of inner dictation that transcends normal thought. He was careful to distinguish between the products of imagination (which he considered inauthentic spiritual experiences) and genuine prophetic influx. The criteria he used for this distinction are remarkably precise and constitute one of the most sophisticated discussions of the discernment of spirits in any religious tradition.

Kaplan provides extensive translations from Abulafia's writings and his commentary is essential for understanding what the technical terminology means and how the practices are actually meant to work. He notes that Abulafia's system bears significant similarities to certain forms of Tantric and yogic practice, particularly in the use of sound vibration, breath control, and systematic variation of meditative content.

Divine Names as Meditation Objects

A theme that runs throughout all the traditions Kaplan covers is the use of the divine names as primary objects of meditation. The Hebrew divine names are not labels applied to God from the outside but, in Kabbalistic theology, actual channels of divine power, ways in which the infinite Ein Sof makes itself accessible to finite human consciousness.

The most important of these names is the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name YHVH, which is never pronounced aloud in Jewish practice but is visualized, contemplated, and meditated upon. Kaplan explains that different forms of the Tetragrammaton correspond to different sefirot and produce different effects in meditation: YHVH written in full (with each letter spelled out in full) produces a form whose numerical value (gematria) corresponds to a specific divine attribute, and meditating on this form cultivates or invites the qualities of that attribute.

The 72-letter name, derived from three consecutive verses in Exodus (14:19-21) by a specific method of interleaving the letters, is another major meditation object in Kaplan's book. He explains how this name was extracted from the text, provides its 72 three-letter segments, and discusses the meditative and practical uses attributed to it in various Kabbalistic sources.

Kaplan also discusses the use of shorter divine names and sacred words as the equivalent of mantras: the word "Ehyeh" (I Am), the name "El" (God), and various angelic names that correspond to specific qualities or aspects of divine reality. The systematic use of these names in combination with breath, visualization, and body posture constitutes a complete meditative technology.

Sefirot Visualizations and the Tree of Life

The Tree of Life, with its ten sefirot (divine attributes) arranged in a specific geometric pattern and connected by 22 paths corresponding to the 22 Hebrew letters, is the central diagram of theoretical Kabbalah. Meditation and Kabbalah shows how this theoretical structure becomes a practical meditation tool in several distinct traditions.

Joseph Gikatilla's Sha'are Orah (Gates of Light), written in the late thirteenth century, is one of Kaplan's primary sources for sefirot meditation. Gikatilla systematically maps the divine names to the ten sefirot and explains the meditative contemplation of each sefirah through its corresponding name and qualities. Contemplating Keter (Crown) through the name Ehyeh cultivates a quality of pure divine transcendence; contemplating Tiferet (Beauty) through the Tetragrammaton cultivates the qualities of the divine heart center; contemplating Malkuth (Kingdom) through the name Adonai cultivates the awareness of divine presence permeating the material world.

Cordovero's Pardes Rimmonim (Pomegranate Orchard), written in sixteenth-century Safed, extends this sefirot meditation into a comprehensive system that integrates visualization, contemplation of divine qualities, and the cultivation of specific spiritual states. Kaplan's translations from this source are some of the most detailed and practically useful in the entire book.

The Lurianic Kabbalah, the system developed by Isaac Luria (the Ari) in sixteenth-century Safed and the most influential form of Kabbalah in the modern period, adds the concept of kavvanot (intentions) to prayer and ritual practice. Kavvanot are specific meditative focuses for each word or phrase of the prayer service, involving visualizations of divine name combinations, sefirot, and cosmic tikkunim (repairs). Kaplan introduces this tradition and explains how the entire Jewish prayer service becomes a meditative practice in the Lurianic system.

Hasidic Meditation and Devekut

The final major tradition that Kaplan covers is Hasidic meditation, the form of Jewish meditative practice most widely known today and the tradition that has most influenced contemporary Jewish spiritual renewal.

Hasidism, the popular mystical movement founded by the Baal Shem Tov (Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, c. 1700-1760) in eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, took the complex technical apparatus of the earlier Kabbalistic meditation traditions and democratized them, making them accessible to ordinary Jews without specialized scholarly training. The Baal Shem Tov emphasized devekut (cleaving to God) as the central spiritual goal, attainable through prayer, Torah study, joy, and a quality of sustained mindful awareness in everyday life rather than through elaborate technical practices.

Kaplan traces how the Hasidic movement both preserved and transformed the earlier meditation traditions. The practice of hitbonenut (contemplative meditation), particularly as developed in Chabad Hasidism by Shneur Zalman of Liadi (author of the Tanya), involves extended contemplation of Kabbalistic ideas and divine attributes until they become genuinely felt realities rather than abstract concepts. This is a form of meditation that uses intellectual content as its object but aims at something beyond intellectual understanding: a genuine transformation of how one experiences reality.

The Tanya, Shneur Zalman's foundational work, receives extended attention in Kaplan's book as one of the most systematic expositions of the psychology of spiritual development in the entire Kabbalistic tradition. The Tanya's division of the human soul into the divine soul (nefesh haElohit) and the animal soul (nefesh haBehamit) corresponds to the Gnostic distinction between the pneumatic self and the material/psychic self, with the same practical implication: liberation involves identifying with the divine soul rather than with the animal soul's desires and fears.

Kabbalistic vs. Eastern Meditation

One of the most useful things about Meditation and Kabbalah for contemporary readers is Kaplan's explicit comparisons between the Jewish meditative traditions and the Eastern practices that were attracting so much attention in 1982 and continue to attract attention today.

Kaplan notes several important parallels: the use of mantra (equivalent to divine name repetition), the use of breath control (integral to Abulafia's system), the cultivation of altered states through specific techniques, and the general aim of transcending ordinary consciousness to access a more fundamental level of reality. These parallels suggest that the different traditions are, at least in part, mapping the same terrain of human consciousness through different cultural and theological frameworks.

But the differences are also significant. Eastern meditation, particularly in the Buddhist traditions, tends toward the dissolution of the sense of self into a state of emptiness or pure awareness. The Kabbalistic traditions tend toward encounter: the meditator maintains their identity as a specific person in a specific tradition and meets the divine as an Other, however that encounter is described. The Buddhist goal is often described as "no-self"; the Kabbalistic goal is more often described as the purification and elevation of the self into divine union while retaining consciousness of the relationship.

The use of specific content (letters, names, sefirot, heavenly halls) is also distinctive. Most Buddhist meditation aims at reducing or eliminating the mental content that arises in meditation, cultivating a state of pure open awareness. Kabbalistic meditation tends to replace ordinary mental content with sacred content, using the specific resonance of Hebrew letters, divine names, and Kabbalistic concepts as vehicles for transcending ordinary consciousness rather than simply dropping all content.

How to Use This Book for Practice

Meditation and Kabbalah is primarily a scholarly and historical work, not a step-by-step practice manual. Using it effectively for personal practice requires a specific approach.

Start with Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide. Kaplan's shorter 1985 book is specifically designed as an entry point for practitioners rather than a scholarly survey. It provides simplified versions of the techniques described in Meditation and Kabbalah and is the better starting point for someone with no background in Kabbalistic practice.

Choose one tradition to study in depth. Meditation and Kabbalah covers multiple traditions, and trying to practice all of them simultaneously would be overwhelming and counterproductive. Choose one: either the Abulafian letter meditation system, the sefirot visualizations, or the Hasidic hitbonenut practice, and study that section carefully before moving to the others.

Read the primary source translations slowly. The greatest value of the book is its translations of primary Kabbalistic sources. Read these slowly, ideally more than once. Kaplan's commentary gives you the technical context; the primary sources themselves give you direct access to the experience being described.

Engage with a teacher or community. Kaplan himself was clear that Kabbalistic meditation is ideally learned in a transmission context, from a qualified teacher within a living tradition. His books are invaluable for understanding the tradition intellectually and as practice guides for those without access to a teacher, but they are not substitutes for personal guidance. Contemporary teachers working in the Jewish Renewal movement, the Chabad tradition, and independent Kabbalistic circles continue to transmit these practices in living form.

Kaplan's Legacy and Influence

Forty years after the publication of Meditation and Kabbalah, its influence on Jewish spirituality and on the broader landscape of contemplative practice is difficult to overestimate.

Within Judaism, Kaplan's work helped catalyze the Jewish Renewal movement and the broader return to Jewish mystical practice that characterized the late twentieth century. By showing that a rich meditation tradition existed within Judaism, comparable in depth and sophistication to the Eastern practices that were attracting so many Jewish practitioners away from their heritage, Kaplan made a compelling case for remaining within the tradition rather than going elsewhere for contemplative depth.

Within the broader Western esoteric tradition, Kaplan's translations of the Sefer Yetzirah and the Bahir provided accessible English-language access to texts that had been foundational to Kabbalistic practice for centuries but were known in the West primarily through second-hand descriptions. His translation and commentary of the Sefer Yetzirah in particular is still considered the standard English reference for this foundational text.

Among scholars of religion and religious studies, Kaplan's work helped establish the meditative dimension of Kabbalah as a legitimate field of academic inquiry. His translations and commentary have been cited in countless scholarly works and have influenced the academic study of Jewish mysticism at major universities.