I should have made myself more clear that the Rabbi (usually on YouTube) are Hasidic or Conservative Judaism. They do have beliefs that differ from what we believe as a Christian. But if we want to learn from them they are willing to teach us.
This doesn't change the fact that the Kabballah is Jewish Mysticism. Mysticism is a known part of Hasidic/Chasidic Judaism. Mysticism by definition is a belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be gained through a intuition, insight, altered states of consciousness, hidden truths, esotericism, direct communication with spirits, meditation, magic practice, and often times rebuffing rigid doctrine and guidelines of the original belief systems they branch off from. It is primarily based on experience but this doesn't mean that those practicing any form of it are not into reason or evidence, but as I said the goal of any rationalities in mysticism is to justify their hidden truths, supposed direct connections to spirituality, etc.
One of the problems with Christian Mystics, for example, in history was that while yes, Christians can and do have what we might call mystical experiences with God (communication directly with Him, the Holy Spirit, visions, dreams, speaking in tongues, etc.) we have a guideline to align these things with. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 14, for example, regarding the usage of speaking in tongues that if done in the midst of people there should be interpretation for the edification of those listening otherwise "Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue." (1 Corinthians 14:19) The point is that the Bible gives us a guideline to measure these experiences whereas the mystics often overemphasized spiritual experience without lining up the truth of these experiences with the Bible. So, in the past (and present) this is the reason some weird traditions that seem far more esoteric and magical found their way in churches.
Also some people believe that during a 7 year tribulation period they will be God's witness and testimony on the Earth. (144,000)
Rev 7
4And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel:
5From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,
from the tribe of Gad 12,000,
6from the tribe of Asher 12,000,
from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000,
from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000,
7from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,
from the tribe of Levi 12,000,
from the tribe of Issachar 12,000,
8from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,
from the tribe of Joseph 12,000,
and from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.
I'm not looking to derail this topic by getting into eschatology.
In Bible school learn we the meaning of a word by context and the way that word is used. IN Hebrew we go far beyond that. The letters are more then phonics. Each letter has a meaning. We can better understand a word by looking at the meaning of the letters in that word.
Again, many alphabets in the Ancient Near East (Middle East) were based on early hieroglyphics which were developed by using common meanings by utilizing pictographs to communicate information. Many of these alphabets have moved beyond this and many of the words still retain some form of their original meaning or concept. Much of this is the same in Hebrew. Even with the pictographs, some of the alphabets had multiple meanings as I said. What became the Aleph was an Ox Head that meant Ox, strength, leader. You couldn't or can't just randomly assign any definition to the Ox Head without context. So, either way you have to practice proper translation and linguistic understanding to gain the right meaning.
The other problem here is that there are several Middle Eastern or Semitic languages that come from that early hieroglyphic script. I've been severely oversimplifying everything here for the sake of conversation, but many of the languages (and their alphabets) from that area come from what is academically called a Proto-Semetic/Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite script. It went on to influence Paleo-Hebrew, Phoenician and South Arabian scripts and even modern alphabets. So, if it's the case that we should incorporate the meanings of these letters based on their ancient meanings into understanding the Bible, then why don't we do that with everything since the early scripts influenced, also some of the current English alphabet
(by way of Latin and Greek)?
We don't do that. We don't get into for example, based on the aforementioned early script that the "L" in my first name originally meant "authority" and the "E" in my first name originally meant "Look" and the "R" in my first name originally meant "head" so that means I'm an "Authority-Look-Head." I mean, what does that even mean without context or putting it in something to form a word or phrase, which I can assure you is what people did with these hieroglyphs. But continuing the point, my first name comes from Old Norman and Old French, "
Le Roy" and means the King based on that phrase. Proving, as I said, many words retain their some form of their original connotations, thoughts, intentions, or meanings even without getting into the alphabet meanings of the earlier scripts. Etymology shows us the history of a word and is a better way of understanding the origins, meanings, and evolution of a word throughout history.
Even now, no one with my name walks around calling themselves "The King" when they introduce themselves to anyone. No one calls says, "Hey, that's The King over there. Hi The King!" No, that wouldn't make sense. No one even puts in their mind the original meaning of the word and anyone with my name simply says, "My name is Leroy" because we practice communication we can understand with words that have clear meanings in the context that they're used. It's no different for the Hebrew that was used to write the Bible. It was no different with the pictograph/hieroglyphic languages. They were used within a context and should be understood and translated as so.