My humble reading tells me that kabaalah is from the Bible, but where can I find a clear reference? Is it something annexed and manipulated with the Bible?
Answer:
Although the wisdom of kabbalah is based on a "kabbalistic" reading of verses from the Bible, there is no explicit biblical reference to kabbalah. The kabbalah is generally regarded as a part of the Oral Tradition of Torah, which was only written in later generations.
Avnei Nezer (the Rabbi of Sochatchov; Avnei Nezer 1:2) wrote that the kabbalah is the "soul of the Torah," which infuses all of its laws. As the way of a soul, the actual wisdom of kabbalah is hidden, and is not made explicit in biblical verses themselves.
For more on the nature of kabbalah, please see the short response here.
