Some historians have argued that widespread Jewish acceptance of the legitimacy of the Kabbalistic doctrine of the Sefirot in the late Middle Ages opened the door for Jewish acceptance of the legitimacy of Christian Trinitarian teaching—at least as a potential form of monotheism.  Those who saw no conflict between Kabbalah and biblical monotheism could not easily categorize Trinitarian doctrine as polytheism.

Since the late fifteenth century, many Christian scholars have found a fertile ground of spiritual insight in Kabbalah. Some even championed what they called “Christian Kabbalah,” and awarded great respect to post-biblical Jewish texts in general and to the mystical texts in particular.

Kabbalah remains repugnant to many evangelical Christians and rationalist Jews—and for good reasons.  Jewish mysticism has often been associated with magic and superstition.  The faddishness, superficiality, and syncretistic excesses of “pop Kabbalah” rightly disturb thoughtful people.

Despite these liabilities, Jewish mysticism has much to teach us.  We should take as our guides those who have esteemed the precious metal in the midst of the dross: Renaissance Christian scholars who learned from Kabbalah the value of the Jewish tradition as a whole; Jewish thinkers who obtained from Kabbalah a new respect for Christian theological tradition; and twentieth-century historians who have studied the mystical texts critically and sympathetically, and have found in them spiritual insight and a bridge to the mind of those Jews who first hailed the Nazarene as the human bearer of the divine Name.