Practical Kabbalah

It was considered permitted white magic by its practitioners, reserved for the elite, who could separate its spiritual source from qlippoth realms of evil if performed under circumstances that were holy (Q-D-Š) and pure, tumah and taharah (טומאה וטהרה).

[2] In Talmudic and Gaonic times, rabbinic mysticism focused around exegesis of Ezekiel's vision of the divine Chariot-Throne, and meditative introspective ascent into the heavenly chambers.

[citation needed] In the 13th century, one problem which intrigued the Ashkenazi Hasidim (literally "the Pious of Germany") was the possibility of the creation of life through magical means.

They used the word "golem" (literally, shapeless or lifeless matter) to refer to an hypothetical homunculus given life by means of the magical invocation of Divine names.

[7] The identification of the ancient Sefer Yetzirah concerning the creative force of the Hebrew letters as the means to create a golem was derived from interpretation of two statements in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin.

The practitioners of this tradition were described by Moshe Idel as "interested in demonology and the use of coercive incantations to summon demons, angels, and even God"[11] in order to hasten the Messianic Age.

While this led to the displacement of magical formulas and rites by contemplative exercises, the old forms of practical Kabbalah continued to exert broad appeal.

He taught that in our generations, without the Temple in Jerusalem and its ashes of the Red Heifer to purify, the pursuit of the realm of practical Kabbalah by a person with an impure body is very detrimental.

The leader of Mitnagdic Lithuanian Judaism, the Kabbalist Vilna Gaon (1720–1797), related that in his youth he had attempted to make a golem, but stopped when he perceived a spirit of impurity involved.

[18] Rabbi Yhitzak Ayhiz Halpern, a practitioner of practical Kabbalah, and baal shem, was said to have saved a ship from capsizing, and to have exorcised a dybbuk.

[19] Rabbi Hirsch Fraenkel was sentenced to imprisonment in Germany in 1713, on the basis of having a library of books said to contain examples of sorcery, such as how to use oaths, and amulets to overcome demons, see the future, and speak to the dead.

[16] A traditional story relates that on one early occasion the Baal Shem Tov resorted to practical Kabbalistic names of God, to cross a river and save his life.

There are various arguments for this; one stated by the Medieval Rabbi Yaakov ben Moshe Levi Moelin is that the person using it may lack the required grounding, and the ritual would be ineffective.