| I have read and known certain kabbalistic triflers, whose insanity provokes my unceasing as astonishment. |
| It was a kabbalistic mystery which some writings had announced beforehand. |
| Among these kabbalistic treatises inspired by the Zohar, the commentary on the Pentateuch by Menahem of Recanati, the first representative of the new movement in Italy, must be mentioned. |
| In spite of the fervor which kabbalistic studies had engendered, they had never reached beyond the circles of initiates. |
| Imbued with the quasi-monistic tendency of much kabbalistic and hasidic teaching, Kook understands Teshuvah as the drive of all existence to return to its source in the One. |
| After this digression, let us now return to the historic development of the kabbalistic movement. |
