Kabbalah is divine wisdom designed to 'prepare the world for the disclosure of Moshiach’: Chabad Lubavitch of Russia
The science of Kabbalah? Dispelting the myth
Why the transformation of Kabbalah into "science" is a myth that deprives it of sanctity and meaning for the soul.
11.02.2026
Kabbalah is not a subject of intellectual interest. This is not a theory of the universe and not a philosophical system. This is Divine wisdom that reveals the connection between creation and the Creator. And when it is turned into a secular discipline, there is a substitution.
REPETITION OF THE "GREEK" MISTAKE
Even in ancient times, the Greeks recognized the wisdom of the Torah, but denied its Divine origin. They sought to turn it into a human philosophy - understandable, logical, rational. Thus, they deprived her of her holiness.
Today, the same mistake is repeated when they try to analyze Kabbalah exclusively through the prism of academic logic. If we perceive it as a system of ideas, and not as a revelation of the Almighty, the main thing is inevitably lost - the source.
Hasidism emphasizes: it is possible to study only with the awareness that it is about the wisdom of God, and not about the product of human thought.
REASON IS NOT A MEASURE OF THE INFINITE
The "kabbalah as a science" approach suggests that human intelligence is the highest instance for assessing truth. But the inner teaching of the Torah claims the opposite.
Man is not able to understand the Essence of the Almighty. He can only understand what the Creator Himself wanted to reveal. An attempt to "grasp" the Divine only by reason, without faith and self-cancellation, leads to spiritual pride - a feeling of independence, detachment from the Source.
Then Kabbalah turns into an intellectual game.
THEORY WITHOUT ACTION IS EMPTINESS
In the tradition of Hasidism, the main criterion of the authenticity of the study is its influence on practice.
If knowledge does not lead to observance of the commandments, to a change of character, to the purification of actions, it remains an abstraction. Kabbalah is not given to satisfy curiosity. Its purpose is to help a person create a "dwelling for the Almighty" in the material world.
The "scientific" approach often leaves everything at the level of theory. Hasidism requires a result - internal and external.
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT COMMUNICATION WITH REBE
In the Jewish tradition, the light of the inner Torah is transmitted through the head of the generation - the Rebbe. He is not just a teacher, but a link between heaven and earth.
The study of Kabbalah outside of living tradition, outside of connection with the righteous, is considered spiritually barren, and sometimes dangerous. The academic approach is based on individual research. The Torah is built on the transmission, on the chain, on spiritual guidance.
Cutting off the source deprives the light of its power.
KABBALAH IS A PATH, NOT A RESEARCH
Science is looking for an answer to the question "how it works". Kabbalah answers the question "Who is behind it".
Science analyzes. Kabbalah requires a change of man.
Science allows distance. Kabbalah requires internal inclusion and self-cancellation.
Therefore, turning Kabbalah into a "scientistic discipline" is not just a change in the form of presentation. It's a change in her nature.
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Kabbalah is not an academic system of knowledge. This is Divine wisdom designed to purify the soul, strengthen faith and prepare the world for the disclosure of Moshiach.
Separated from faith, commandments and living tradition, it ceases to be what it should be. And then instead of light, a person receives only an intellectual shadow.
But there is good news: if you approach the Kabbalah correctly - through faith, commandments, connection with the Rebbe and the study of Hasidism - it opens up boundless light and joy. It does not leave a person alone with an empty theory, but leads to awareness, spiritual growth and harmony with the world.
A lot of what is promoted as "the science" is really kabbalah wearing a labcoat.
Kabbalist Rav Berg’s teachings have revealed a stunning truth: modern-day physics confirms what the ancient Kabbalists told us 2000 years ago when it comes to cosmology and the nature of reality. From the simplest scientific truths to the complexities of quantum physics.
For instance, the Zohar said the earth was round, 1500 years before Columbus.
The Zohar described a Big Bang creation of the universe twenty centuries before modern physics.
The Zohar said time was relative and an illusion two thousand years before Einstein.
It said white light contains all the colors of the spectrum 15 centuries before Isaac Newton. Newton incidentally, had his own copy of the Zohar.
The Zohar described black holes and a ten dimensional universe twenty centuries before superstring theory.
And the Zohar resolves all the paradoxes of physics, like the time reversibility paradox, currently haunting physicists.
So I had read a couple of passages of the Zohar to physicist and best-selling author, Michio Kaku. He was “dazzled.” Below is a tiny except of that interview along with an interview clip with professor Kenneth Hanson on the same subject.
Book review: Kabbalah & the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism
Root cause analysis is a problem-solving process meant to help identify the fundamental underlying cause of a problem. That the Vilna Gaon and the first Lubavitcher Rebbe (Shneur Zalman of Liadi, AKA Rashaz) didn’t see eye to eye is well known. But what was the root cause of their disagreement?
In Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism (Stanford University Press), Dr. Eli Rubin argues that it came down to what tzimtzum means.
Tzimtzum is the Hebrew term for contraction. As used by the Ari, it refers to how the infinite God has to self-limit himself to allow the world to come into existence. This, in turn, deals with infinite cosmic kabalistic concepts, divine emanations, and more.
At its core, tzimtzum attempts to address a seemingly insurmountable paradox: an infinite God in a finite world, and a God who transcends everything yet whose presence is felt and immanent.
Richard Feynman, one of history’s most outstanding scientists, believed that no one truly understands quantum mechanics in an intuitive, classical way, as its core concepts are alien to our everyday experience. Similarly, tzimtzum is alien to our everyday experience.
The Vilna Gaon and Rashaz understood tzimtzum in very different ways. Rubin writes in this remarkable work that the Gaon considered the Rashaz approach heretical.
Yet after all that, Rubin writes that Rav Eliyahu Dessler asked people whether they knew how to explain the substantive distinction between Rashaz and the Gaon. To which none of them could give a clear explanation.
So, why is the concept of tzimtzum so significant? Rashaz felt that the Gaon’s approach to declaring God’s infinite self to be absent from the created cosmos is to stumble into philosophical self-contradiction.
Rashaz’s approach to tzimtzum, Rubin argues, seminally shaped Chabad’s emergent self-image as a distinct stream within the broader Hasidic movement. This is at least part of the reason tzimtzum became such a central concept in Chabad’s intellectual history.
This is brilliant work avoids the disputes surrounding tzimtzum, instead exposing the underlying enigma that has made tzimtzum a source of new ideas.
The tzimtzum wars were intense centuries ago. What was once a contentious battle has not turned into normative Judaism. How do we know that?
One of the most influential figures in Jewish thought over the last two generations is none other than the educational entertainers Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men. They taught countless Jewish children across the globe the fundamental idea that HaShem is here, HaShem is there, HaShem is truly everywhere. Uncle Moishy was able to convey the profound kabbalistic idea of tzimtzum in a way that made it accessible to children.
Although tzimtzum is a core concept within Chabad, the book demonstrates that it was not a monolithic concept. He traces how each Rebbe of Chabad molded and adapted the idea of tzimtzum.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the final Rebbe of Chabad, plays prominently in the book. Rubin highlights his brilliance and groundbreaking approach to numerous kabalistic concepts.
Parenthetically, Rubin writes that one of the Rebbe’s professors at the University of Berlin was Erwin Schrödinger, who developed the fundamental foundations of quantum theory.
Rubin is a unique scholar who understands the philosophy of Chabad both personally and academically. The author has packed a wealth of fascinating information and analysis into this groundbreaking work. It’s one of the most intriguing and engaging books that I have read in recent years.
QM & GR are problematic and this likely comes from these rabbinical and kabbalistic concepts which have crept into science through people like Einstien and Feynman
tzimtzum sounds a lot like pantheism IMHO.