Observations placeholder
Gershom Scholem – On the Kabbalah and its symbolism - The Messianic Age
Identifier
014899
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Gershom Scholem – On the Kabbalah and its symbolism
In regard to the new interpretations of the Torah that God will reveal in the Messianic Age, we may say that the Torah remains eternally the same, but that in the beginning it assumed the form of material combinations of letters which were adapted to the material world.
But some day men will cast off this material body; they will be transfigured and recover the mystical body that was Adam's before the fall. Then they will understand the mystery of the Torah, its hidden aspects will be made manifest. And later, when at the end of the sixth millennium [that is, after the true Messianic redemption and the beginning of the new aeon] man becomes a still higher spiritual being, he will penetrate still deeper into the hidden mystery of the Torah.
Then everyone will be able to understand the miraculous content of the Torah and the secret combinations and will thereby learn much concerning the secret essence of the world.
For the fundamental idea of the present disquisition is that the Torah, like man himself, put on a material garment.
And when man rises up from his material garment [that is, his corporeal condition] to a more subtle, spiritual one, so also will the material manifestation of the Torah be transformed, and its spiritual essence will be apprehended in ever-rising degrees. The veiled faces of the Torah will become radiant, and the righteous will study them.
And yet in all these stages the Torah will be the same as it was in the beginning, its essence will never change.