Monday, April 21, 2008
KABBALAH AND FREEMASONRY
In exploring Freemasonry, it soon becomes obvious that Kabbalah plays a part. The questions are what part, and what sort of Kabbalah? Does Masonry embrace the Jewish Kabbalah, the Christian Cabala, or the occult (some say Islamic) Qabala? Perhaps Albert Pike provides a clue. In MORALS AND DOGMA there are 65 entries having to do with "K" (Kabbalah), 5 entries with "C" (Cabala) and none with "Q" (Qabala). Pike, at least, thought there was good reason to promote Jewish Kabbalah. He writes:
All truly dogmatic religions have issued from the Kabalah and return to it: everything scientific and grand in the religious dreams of all the illuminati, Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, and others, is borrowed from the Kabalah; all the Masonic associations owe to it their Secrets and their Symbols.(ibid. p. 744)
The Kabalistic doctrine was long the religion of the Sage and the Savant; because, like Freemasonry, it incessantly tends toward spiritual perfection, and the fusion of the creeds and Nationalities of Mankind. (ibid. p. 625)
The website mastermason.com includes Kabbalah on its links page.
It is, therefore, interesting to read what Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok has to say about the topic. In an article sent in by a reader titled "The Role of Kabbalah in the founding of the United States of America", he writes:
...one group has played a key role in the development of western civilization. Their vision of social justice and human rights (which they borrowed from the true Kabbalah) has served as the foundation of western democracy since the 18th century. The group to which I refer is the fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons, or the Freemasons.
He goes on to tell us of the many Masons who were instrumental in founding America, and that "Kabbalah and covert political action go hand in hand," and that "the Masons themselves say that their symbolisms are derived from the Kabbalah."
Rabbi Tzadok claims that:
Masonic rituals and prayers never mention the name of Jesus Christ. This [is] completely unheard of in any Christian order", yet "Masonic Cabbala is Christian in origin, though with many Jewish elements.
He believes that Thomas Jefferson, via his rewriting of the Gospels "leaving out certain aspects of the life of Jesus and simply leaving in the moralistic code that all scholars agree Jesus took from the Talmudic Rabbis" was attempting to create what, in Judaism would be called, a country for 'righteous Gentiles'."
"Righteous Gentiles" describes people who are attempting to live by the commandments given by God to the children of Noah after the flood. In other words, the Noahide Laws.
The Grand Lodge of North Carolina lists Jefferson as a Mason.
Freemasonry promotes the Noahide Laws. In the DICTIONARY OF FREEMASONRY, Robert Macoy's entry for "Noah, Precepts of" reads:
Certain comandments transmitted to the present time, in documents of the ancient stonemasons, bear this name. They require 1. The renunciation of all idols; 2. The worship of the true God; 3. The commission of no murder; 4. Freedom from the crime of incest; 5. The avoidance of theft; 6. The practice of justice; 7. The abstaining from flesh with blood in it.(p. 268)
Macoy also has an entry for "Noachite", the 21st degree of the Ancient and Accepted rite.
Rabbi Tzadok cites Albert Mackey's reference to the Noachide Laws. He writes:
According to the authoritative work, THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY by Albert Mackey, Masonic writers as early as 1723 have specifically written about this connection. On page 410 of this most revealing book, Mackey quotes the following from an old Masonic work entitled: "The Laws of Obligations laid before his Brother Masons by Prince Edwin"..."The first obligation is that you shall sincerely honor G-d and obey the laws of the Noachites, because they are divine laws, which should be obeyed by all the world."
Rabbi Tzadok writes further:
Masonic interest in the laws of the Noahide also explain why the Church would be so vehemently opposed to them. After all, the first Noahide law forbids idolatry. Any prayer other than to G-d the Father is considered to be idolatry.(emphasis mine)
Who is Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok? Let him answer it with his own website. He is an ordained Haredi Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi who has studied with "renowned Mekubal, Rabbi Meir Levi zt'l". He has studied Jungian psychology in New York. He is a Rabbinic/Life Coach counselor, and a practitioner of Chinese martial arts. He "actively teaches military style fighting systems". He established Yeshivat Benei N'vi'im in 1992 as an "anti-missionary, anti-cult organization to address the growing concerns of spiritual misguidance and misinformation that is pervasive in the Jewish community at large." He teaches Kabbalah.
The following quote is taken from another page in his Kosher Torah website:
Kohelet says (3:8) that there are both times for war and times for peace. Not for naught is the time of war written before the time of peace. War comes before peace. The plagues came to Egypt before the exodus and the apocalypse will come before Mashiah. Wars conquer enemies and only when the enemy is conquered can there truly be peace.
When Mashiah comes there will be plenty of time for peace. Until then, each and every day, it is time for war.
