Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

KABBALA 375
H. (Heb ., 5, Caph, signifying hollow of the
hand .) This is the eleventh letter of the English
alphabet and in Hebrew
has the numerical
value of 20 . In the Chaldaic
or hieroglyphic it is represented
by a hand .
Haaba . The name of the holy temple of
Mecca, which is to the Mohammedans what
the Temple of Solomon was to the Jews . It is
certainly older, as Gibbon admits, than the
Christian era, and is supposed, by the tradition
of the Arabians, to have been erected
in the nineteenth century B .c ., by Abraham,
who was assisted by his son Ishmael . It derives
its name of Kaaba from its cubical form,
it being fifteen feet long, wide, and high . It
has but one aperture for light, which is a door
in the east end . In the northeast corner is
a black stone, religiously venerated by the
Mussulmans, called "the black stone of the
Kaaba," around which cluster many traditions .
One of these is that it came down from Paradise,
and was originally as white as milk, but
that the sins of mankind turned it black ; another
is, that it is a ruby which was originally
one of the precious stones of heaven, but that
God deprived it of its brilliancy, which would
have illuminated the world from one end to
the other. Syed Ahmed, who, for a Mussulman
has written a very rational History of
the loly Mecca (London, 1870), says that the
black stone is really a piece of rock from the
mountains in the vicinity of Mecca ; that it
owes its black color to the effects of fire ; and
that before the erection of the temple of the
Kaaba, it was no other than one of the numerous
altars erected for the worship of God, and
was, together with other stones, laid up in
one of the corners of the temple at the time of
its construction. It is, in fact, one of the
relics of the ancient stone worship ; yet it reminds
us of the foundation-stone of the Solomonic
Temple, to which building the temple
of the Kaaba has other resemblances . Thus,
Syed Ahmed, who, in opposition to most
Christian writers, devoutly believes in its
Abrahamic or n, says that (p . 6) "the temple
of the Kaaba was built by Abraham in
conformity with those religious practices according
to which, after a lapse of time, the descendants
of his second son built the Temple
of Jerusalem ."
Kabbala. The mystical philosophy or
theosophy of the Jews is called the Kabbala .
The word is derived from the Hebrew 5Z7,
Kabal, signifying to receive, because it is the
doctrine received from the elders . It has sometimes
been used in an enlarged sense, as comprehending
all the explanations, maxims, and
ceremonies which have been traditionally
handed down to the Jews ; but in that more
limited acceptation, in which it is intimately
connected with the symbolic science of Freemasonry,
the Kabbala may be defined to be a
system of philosophy which embraces certain
mystical interpretations of Scripture, and
metaphysical speculations concerning the
Deity, man, and spiritual beings. In these
interpretations and speculations, according to
the Jewish doctors, were enveloped the most
profound truths of religion, which, to be comprehended
by finite beings, are obliged to be
revealed through the medium of symbols and
allegories. Buxtorf (Lex. Talm.) defines the
Kabbala to be a secret science, which treats in
a mystical and enigmatical manner of things
divine, angelical, theological, celestial, and
metaphysical ; the subjects being enveloped
in striking symbols and secret modes of teaching
. Much use is made of it in the high degrees,
and entire Rites have been constructed
on its principles . Hence it demands a place
in any general work on Masonry .
In what estimation the Kabbala is held by
Jewish scholars, we may learn from the traditions
which they teach, and which Dr . Ginsburg
has given in his exhaustive work (Kabbalah,
p . 84), in the following words :
"The Kabbalah was first taught by God
himself to a select company of angels, who
formed a theosophic school in Paradise .
After the fall, the angels most graciously communicated
this heavenly doctrine to the disobedient
child of earth, to furnish the protoplasts
with the means of returning to their
pristine nobility and felicity . From Adam it
passed over to Noah, and then to Abraham,
the friend of God, who emigrated with it to
Egypt, where the patriarch allowed a portion
of this mysterious doctrine to ooze out . It
was in this way that the Egyptians obtained
some knowledge of it, and the other Eastern
nations could introduce it into their philosophical
systems . Moses, who was learned
in all the wisdom of Egypt, was first initiated
into it in the land of his birth, but became
most proficient in it during his wanderings in
the wilderness, when he not only devoted to it
the leisure hours of the whole forty years, but
received lessons in it from one of the angels .
By the aid . of this mysterious science the lawgiver
was enabled to solve the difficulties
which arose during his management of the
Israelites, in spite of the pilgr~mages, wars,
and the frequent miseries of the nation . He
covertly laid down the principles of this secret
doctrine in the first four books of the Pentateuch,
but withheld them-from Deuteronomy .
This constitutes the former the man, and the
latter the woman . Moses also initiated the
seventy elders into the secrets of this doctrine,
and they again transmitted them from hand to
hand . Of all who formed the unbroken line
of tradition, David and Solomon were first
initiated into the Kabbalah . No one, however,
dared to write it down till Simon ban
Jochai, who lived at the time of the destruction
of the second Temple . Having been condemned
to death by Titus, Rabbi Simon man-