Wisdom of Kabbalah, part II

Language of branches

It is a major part of Kabbalah, pure Kabbalistic texts are not understandable without knowledge of language of branches.

The point is quite simple, you cannot talk about spiritual experience because spiritual world is beyond physical world and although we have words for physical objects and events, we don't have suitable words for spiritual objects and events.

Because Kabbalah believes that lower origins in higher (hermetic As Above, So Below) the system of deriving meaning was created, the system is the language of branches.

Usage is simple, if we consider that lower origins in higher, we can easily use same words we would normally use for the lower manifestation to specify the higher meaning. In other words, when a Kabbalist talks about a kiss. He doesn't mean the kiss as the physical touch of lips of two people. He speaks about the things that are above this physical output. If we go above, we will find emotions, emotions leading to physical kiss, if we go above emotions, we will find a reason, a cause that invoked these emotions. If we go above this reason, we can jump to many more layers of these factors till, in the end, we will get to the spiritual plane, a place where two spirits shared the same wish to interact, to interact in the manner that went down the layers to the physical one where it manifested as the kiss.

Of course we could go even above this layer, and above and above, till we would lose the feeling of duality and arrived at the place where everything is truly one, place of unity, place of singularity, Kether of Adam Kadmon world.

Of course that this solution still has its limitations. For example you can hardly talk about spirituality with someone that doesn't know the language of branches and sometimes you cannot even communicate well with a fellow Kabbalist because his level of understanding is a bit different than yours.