In Jerusalem, while a student at the Torat Yisroel Yeshiva (The Diaspora Yeshiva in the Old City), I sat in the beit-midrash, the yeshiva study hall, for many hours a day .  I studied the Talmud and its commentaries and eventually learned to study the sód ha-Torah, the esoteric Torah, the Kabbalah.  The Zohar, is the main source text for Kabbalah. Another text, however, is the source of Jewish Astrology and its unique astrological ideas.  That text is the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation[1]), a treatise that correlates the Hebrew alphabet with the forces that define the dimensions of the universe, i.e., space (the six directions) and time (the 12 months of the lunar year) as well as an astrological dimension identified with the seven planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac.  The Sefer Yetzirah, composed in a aphoristic style, and less than 100 pages in length, has engaged its students for over 1000 years as a subject for commentary[2] and must be considered as the foundation of Jewish (and Kabbalistic) astrology .  But I digress.   Suffice it to say, that at the beginning of my Kabbalah studies, it soon became clear to me that Kabbalah was no stranger to astrology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Alternatively, ‘Book of Creation’

[2] A recent translation into English with a commentary, notes, and bibliography is by Aryeh Kaplan, Weiser Books.