The first Kabbalist we know of was the patriarch Abraham. He saw the wonders of human existence, asked questions of the Creator, and the upper worlds were revealed to him. The knowledge he acquired, and the method used in its acquisition, he passed on to coming generations.It is not until we reach the World of Yetzirah, or the World of Formation, that form, produced through force, begins to take on recognisable shape. In this region, everything that takes place can present an image to the mind. Symbols, as distinct from the words which describe them, are of great value, for they can convey concepts which, if we tried to think about them in an ordinary sequential manner might take days to formulate Kabbalah was passed among the Kabbalists from mouth to mouth for many centuries.

Each Kabbalist added his unique experience and personality to this body of accumulated knowledge . Their spiritual achievements were described in the language relevant to the souls of their generation.

An excellent example of this is the Tree of Life itself. It makes no difference whether an image invoked in the mind is of an object, perhaps remembered, or if it is pure fantasy. For this reason Yetzirah, where in human terms, all is seen in the form of image and symbol, is the most dangerous of the Four Worlds, for here fantasy is almost as real as the record of facts held in the memory.Kabbalah continued to develop after the Bible (the Five Books of Moses) was written. In the period between the First and Second Temples (586 BCE — 515 BCE), it was already being studied in groups. Following the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) and until the current generation, there have been three particularly important periods in the development of Kabbalah, during which the most important writings on Kabbalah study methods were issued. The first period occurred during the 2nd century, when the book of The Zohar was written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, ‘‘the Rashbi.’’ This was around the year 150CE. Rabbi Shimon was a pupil of the famous Rabbi Akiva (40 CE — 135 CE). Rabbi Akiva and several of his disciples were tortured and killed by the Romans, who felt threatened by his teaching of the Kabbalah. They flayed his skin and stripped his bones.

To complicate matters, it is at this level that we mostly "live and move and have our being" in real terms: another way of saying that we spend most of our waking lives in a perpetual round of fantasies and mental imaginings, often hardly noticing our physical surroundings at all. This will help explain why, in Christian terminology, the world of Yetzirah equates with Purgatory - not a place to which we go after death to be "punished" for our crimes, but a world in which we live right now, and in which we need to "purge" or purify our lives. It is in this world that most of the work of the Kabbalist takes effect.
Kabbalah helps us to distinguish between that which is real and that which is not. From there we can begin to build a real place for ourselves in a real world, and to become real people.

The last of the four Worlds is called Assiah, the material world, related to the Klippoth, or shells. In Assiah, all the activity of the previous three Worlds finds its expression in material activity, or material objects. It is also the world of appearances, for all things in Assiah contain within them the three worlds preceding it, hence the idea of shells, or containers. That includes us as kabbalists too.
Following the death of 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s disciples, the Rashbi was authorized by Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yehuda Ben Baba to teach future generations the Kabbalah as it had been taught to him. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and four others were the only ones to survive. Following the capture and imprisonment of Rabbi Akiva, the Rashbi escaped with his son, Elazar. They hid in a cave for 13years.

It is Assiah with which we are necessarily the most familiar, and in which we seek to create order. We often fail in this, since for there to be order in Assiah, it must first be conceived in Atziluth. In other words, there can be no harmony in the world unless we recognise therein the activity of the divine influence, the Holy Spirit, or presence of 'God' - YHWH - "That-which-is," or "Eternal Being."

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was one of the greatest of his generation. He wrote and interpreted many Kabbalistic subjects that were published and are well known to this day. On the other hand, the book of The Zohar, disappeared after it was written.
According to legend, The Zohar writings were kept hidden in a cave in the vicinity of Safed in Israel. They were found several hundred years later by Arabs residing in the area. A Kabbalist from Safed purchased some fish at the market one day, and was astonished to discover the priceless value of the paper in which they had been wrapped. He immediately set about purchasing the remaining pieces of paper from the Arabs, and collected them into a book.

They emerged from the cave with The Zohar, and with a crystallized method for studying Kabbalah and achieving spirituality. The Rashbi reached the 125levels man can achieve during his life in this world. The Zohar tells us that he and his son reached the level called ‘‘Eliyahu the Prophet,’’ meaning that the Prophet himself came to teach them.

The Zohar is written in a unique form; it is in the form of parables and is presented in Aramaic, a language spoken in biblical times. The Zohar tells us that Aramaic is ‘‘the reverse side of Hebrew,’’ the hidden side of Hebrew. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai did not write this himself; he conveyed the wisdom and the way to reach it in an organized manner by dictating its contents to Rabbi Aba. Aba rewrote The Zohar in such a way that only those who are worthy of understanding would be able to do so.

The Zohar explains that human development is divided into 6,000 years, during which time souls undergo a continuous process of development in each generation.In 1570, the Ari arrived in Safed, Israel. Despite his youth, he immediately started teaching Kabbalah. His greatness was soon recognized; all the wise men of Safed, who were very knowledgeable in the hidden and revealed Wisdom, came to study with him, and he became famous. For a year-and-a-half his disciple Rabbi Chaim Vital committed to paper the answers to many of the questions that arose during his studies. At the end of the process souls reach a position of ‘‘the end of correction, ’ ’ i .e . , the highest level of spirituality and wholeness.

This happened because the nature of hidden things is such that they must be discovered at a suitable moment, when suitable souls reincarnate and enter into our world. That is how The Zohar came to be revealed over time.
The study of these writings was conducted in secret by small groups of Kabbalists. The first publication of this book was by Rabbi Moshe de Leon, in the 13th century in Spain.

The second period of the development of Kabbalah is very important to the Kabbalah of our generation. This is the period of ‘‘the Ari,’’ Rabbi Yitzhak Luria, who created the transition between the two methods of Kabbalah study. The first time the pure language of Kabbalah appeared was in the writings of the Ari. The Ari proclaimed the start of a period of open mass study of Kabbalah.
The Ari was born in Jerusalem in 1534. A child when his father died, his mother took him to Egypt where he grew up in his uncle’s home.
During his life in Egypt, he made his living in commerce but devoted most of his time to studying Kabbalah. Legend has it that he spent seven years in isolation on the island of

The great Kabbalists provided the method and taught it, but knew that their generation was still unable to appreciate
its dynamics. Therefore, they often preferred to hide or even burn their writings. We know that Baal HaSulam burned and destroyed a major part of his writings. There is special significance in this fact that the knowledge was committed to
paper, and later destroyed. Whatever is revealed in the material world affects the future, and is revealed easier the
second time.

Rabbi Vital ordered other parts of the Ari’s writings to be hidden and buried with him. A portion was handed down to his son, who arranged the famous writings, The Eight Gates. Much later, a group of scholars headed by Rabbi Vital’s grandson removed another portion from the grave.

Study of The Zohar in groups started openly only during the period of the Ari. The study of The Zohar then prospered for two hundred years. In the great Hassidut period (1750 — to the end of the 19th century), almost every great rabbi was a Kabbalist. Kabbalists appeared, mainly in Poland, Russia, Morocco, Iraq, Yemen and several other countries. Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, interest in Kabbalah waned until it almost completely disappeared.

The third period of the development of Kabbalah contains an additional method to the Ari’s doctrines, written in this generation by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, who authored the commentary of the Sulam (ladder) of The Zohar, and the Ari’s teachings. His method is particularly suited to the souls of the current generation.

When we study their books, we are actually studying The Zohar and the Ari’s writings through the most recent commentaries (of the past 50 years). This is a life belt for our generation, since it enables us to study ancient texts as if they had been written now, and to use them as a springboard to spirituality.

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