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complement each other. Kabbalists often use the analogy of a nut to visually communicate the relationship between these levels. The outer shell conceals the soft, deep core that is the most nourishing part of the nut.
    An Unsolved Mystery
    Some of the most basic questions about Sefer HaBahir remain unanswered. The Bahir is acknowledged by all modern scholars as the first true work of Kabbalah because it contains the major elements that distinguish Kabbalah from other, earlier forms of Jewish mysticism. While traces of the earlier mystical traditions are evident in the Bahir , a new literature had clearly emerged.Although it is unclear where the book first appeared, it may have been in Germany in the area where another very important mystical school flourished. This other school was called Hasidei Ashkenaz, which means the German Pietists (that is, very pious people), and is also known as the Hasidim of Medieval Germany. The other possible location of the Bahir ’s origin is Provence in southern France. The latest research points toward a German origin with a later editing stage in Provence.
    It is a common assertion among Kabbalists that God and Torah are one. In other words, Torah at its deepest level contains the essence of divinity. What exactly does this mean?
    By equating the Torah with God’s essence, Kabbalists emphasize the primacy and strength of language in Judaism. The power of language is evident in the Creation story in Genesis, where it says, “Let there be … and there was.”
    The perception that God and Torah are one lends a completely new meaning to the study of Torah. Recognizing the spiritual power of the letters of the Torah makes meditating on a passage of Torah particularly potent. For Kabbalists, texts are important and are to be meditated upon. Studying a spiritual text is not like reading a novel or a history book. There is a layering of words, a trait of kabbalistic literature that becomes more apparent the more times you go over the same passages. Re-examining a certain passage and using it as a focus of meditation can suddenly reveal its many meanings to you. All of this is part of altering your consciousness, the result of spiritual meditation.
    Heavenly Messengers: Maggidim
    One more avenue of attaining secrets of Torah is through the phenomenon of maggidim. The term maggid has numerous meanings, the most common of which is the “traveling preacher.” However, in this case a maggid is a disembodied heavenly messenger that visits someone to reveal secrets of Torah and often appears as a voice emerging from the person visited by the maggid. Probably the most famous maggid is the one that appeared with regularity to Rabbi Yosef Karo. Historically, this phenomenon began to be spoken of during the sixteenth century. A number of well-known Kabbalists were visited by maggidim. In addition to Yosef Karo, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto and the Vilna Gaon also claimed to have been visited by maggidim.
    Understanding with Your Heart
    An important thing to understand when speaking about things such as the Torah being all names of God and other striking statements is that these are not intended as intellectual concepts. This is part of the esoteric nature of Kabbalah. When these statements remain “ideas” or “concepts,” they are truly hidden. It’s only when one begins to experience what is implied by these words that Kabbalah ceases to be a cerebral activity and becomes a much more spiritual one. The process is achieved, if ever, by entering the lifestyle of contemplative study, meditation, kavana (awareness), and so on. As Pirkei Avot (one of the tractates of the Mishna) says, “it’s not study that is most important, but practice” (1:17).
    Ein Sof and the Sefirot
    Kabbalah embodies two major experiences of Divinity. One is that God is transcendent, eternal, and unchangeable. The other is that God is also deeply personal, in other words, the very same Transcendent One is also dynamic and