Hekhalot - Kabalah - Merkabah

jmd

I various threads in Talking Tarot (especially), I refer to the differences to those three spiritual so important in the usage of Tarot, namely Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition.

Only the other day, I was in discussion with a friend on various Kabalistic considerations especially as they relate to the Zohar - a text I must admit that, out of the three deemed 'classical' Kabalistic essentials (together with the Bahir and the Sefer Yetzirah) I find the least appealing.

In the process of discussion, I also happened to make mention that, at least from my perspective, the term 'Kabalah' has broadened out to really include what are really three differing 'paths', namely Hekhalot, Kabalah, and Merkabah. In some ways, the three texts reflect these three distinct branches, and have their correlations with the three spiritual senses I mention earlier.

The Hekhalot tradition talks of the various Halls. That there may appear contradictions within various texts, or repetitions, is in some ways consistent with what it seeks to describe in imaginative ways. It is also here that the Sefer Zohar finds its home.

Kabalah is, true to its own etymology, the received wisdom - received not only from the verbal and human tradition, but from the spiritual realms. It finds its roots in inspiration, and its key text remains, of those three, that one in which the 'Sfer' itself is of central import: the Sefer Yetzirah.

With the chariot Merkabah work of ascent, it is the 'being-at-one' which is of greater issue, the path leading to an intuited merging in realms in which one risks losing oneself. Here the Sefer Bahir comes to mind.

Of course, each of these also has their own reflection in the central text from which they each arise, and in which they are united: the Tanakh.

I write this is didactic tone - even though the intent is of course for discussion :)
 

Fulgour

Ma'aseh Merkabah (Work of the Chariot, ascent mysticism)
and the Zohar, may not be seen as the only kinds of Qabala,
says The Revived Tarot website, adding (paraphrased):

Knowledge of some of the primary themes in Hekhalot, Merkaba
and Zoharic "theosophical-theurgic" versions of early Jewish mysticism
and later Kabbalah, counters inadequacies in other formulations and
traditions, like the Maaseh Bereshyt, the Sepher Yetsira or Abulafia's
ecstatic-prophetic Kabbalah. Likewise, some think that the astrological
symbolism at the heart of the Tarot is completely derived from the
Sepher Yetsira, citing this supposedly older tradition as oriented toward
the Work of Genesis (Ma'aseh Bereshyt) and the alphabet of autiot.