"The kabbalist yearns to recover that primordial tradition, to regain cosmic consciousness, without renouncing the world."

The kabbalists grew adept at walking the tightrope between blind fundamentalism and mystical anarchy, though a number of them lost their balance and fell into one extreme or the other. Remarkably, despite their startling ideas and sometimes shocking imagery, the kabbalists aroused relatively little opposition, compared to some of the famous Islamic Sufis and Catholic mystics such as Hallaj and Meister Eckhart. No doubt this was due in part of the esoteric method of transmitting Kabbalah. At first, the secret teachings were conveyed orally from master to disciple and restricted to small circles. Even when written down, the message was often cryptic, sometimes concluding: "This is sufficient for one who is enlightened," or "The enlightened one will understand," or "I cannot expand on this, for thus have I been commanded."

From the beginning of the movement in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Kabbalah was promoted by renowned, learned rabbis such as Rabad of Posquieres and Nahmanides. Strongly committed to traditional observance, the kabbalists could not easily be attacked as radicals. But they were profoundly radical, and they touched something deep in the human soul.

The kabbalists made the fantastic claim that their mystical teachings derived from the Garden of Eden. This suggests that Kabbalah conveys our original nature: the unbounded awareness of Adam and Eve. We have lost this nature, the most ancient tradition, as the inevitable consequence of tasting the fruit of knowledge, the price of maturity and culture. The kabbalist yearns to recover that primordial tradition, to regain cosmic consciousness, without renouncing the world.

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