The Fire of Ancient Wisdom is Still Burning
On the Vedas, Kabbalah, and Roberto Calasso
Roberto Calasso was nothing if not polarizing. The Italian writer, publisher, and thinker, renowned for his erudite explorations of mythology, religion, and literature, is as beloved by some as he is reviled by others. I came to his work by way of The Emerald Podcast (which is easily one of the best podcasts I have ever listened to and definitely worth the listen)
Calasso’s work is hard to put into one box. He explores an intricate tapestry of ideas from across cultures and geographies in a quest to uncover the primordial truths woven into the myths and texts of antiquity. At times, his prose and ideas feel Talmudic in their intensity. Ardor, his elegant meditation on the Vedic texts of ancient India, embodies everything that makes his work so powerful.
The Vedas — among the oldest religious texts in existence — are not simple and Calasso refuses to make them so. Their poetry and philosophy are as vast and mysterious as the cosmos they describe. They encompass creation and destruction, desire and renunciation, cosmic order and ecstatic chaos.
In Ardor, Calasso does what few have dared: he attempts to inhabit the worldview of the Vedic seers. No simple task! It’s a worldview where every word, every ritual act, holds the potential to sustain the universe — or let it collapse into disorder. He guides the reader into a sacred world where human and divine, material and immaterial, fuse into an intricate web of connections.
I have long been entranced by the Vedas but have struggled to find a clear entry point into their complexity. Whenever I dip a toe, I feel consumed by the metaphysical intensity and complexity of the ideas. Listening to the Emerald has helped me push through the dense, interwoven ideas in the texts but I remain, in every sense of the word, a novice.
Recently, I finished my second reading of Ardor and something profound leapt out at me: the stark similarities between Vedic thinking and the Jewish Kabbalah. Like the Vedas, Kabbalah is deeply complex, resistant to easy explanation, and rooted in ancient texts. What surprised me —though perhaps it shouldn’t have — was how much these two systems of thought have in common.
The Cosmos of the Vedas
The Vedas, composed between 1500 and 500 BCE, are among the most intricate spiritual texts ever written. They are vast in scope, describing not only the nature of the cosmos but the rituals, sacrifices, and practices necessary to sustain it. The Vedic worldview hinges on ṛta, a cosmic order that binds all things. It is a delicate balance, and human beings play a central role in maintaining it through act and deed. If you are versed in Kabbalah, this will already start to sound similar.
Ritual, in the Vedas, is both science and art. Sacrifice (yajna) is not merely a symbolic act; it is a literal mechanism for sustaining the universe. Fire, the vehicle of the sacrifice, becomes a mediator between humans and the divine. Yet sacrifice also embodies a paradox: it is through destruction —burning offerings — that creation is sustained.
Calasso delves deeply into these ideas in Ardor, as well as in his earlier work, Ka. He is inspired by how the Vedas turn the ordinary into the sacred, the finite into the infinite. Through their rituals and poetry, the Vedic texts reveal a world where human desire, divine will, and cosmic order are inextricably linked. We could all use a little of this approach to life in 2025.
The Mystical Path of Kabbalah
Kabbalah, though emerging thousands of years later in medieval Jewish thought, shares a similar fascination with cosmic order and human agency. Rooted in texts like the Zohar (Book of Splendor) and the earlier Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation), Kabbalistic thought explores the divine structure of the universe through the concept of the sefirot, ten emanations of divine energy.
For Kabbalists, the universe is not a static creation but an ongoing process. Divine energy flows through the sefirot, which represent aspects of God’s being, from the unknowable infinite (Ein Sof, literally ‘without end,’) to the manifest world. Human beings, through their actions, thoughts, and prayers, influence this flow of energy. In this way, the Kabbalist is not merely an observer of the cosmos but an active participant in its maintenance and repair.
This idea always moved me more than almost any other aspect of Jewish thinking. For some reason, the notion that my actions have a way of keeping the universe in sync brought the observance of Jewish ritual to life in the most immediate way. Kabbalist thinking, however, remains mostly shrouded in mystery or Madonna-level misunderstanding.
Kabbalah also places a profound emphasis on language. The Hebrew letters are seen as the building blocks of creation, and the words of the Torah are imbued with divine power. Like the Vedic mantras, these sacred words are not just symbols but living forces, capable of shaping reality.
Threads of the Infinite: Linking Vedas and Kabbalah
Reading the Vedas with an eye on Kabbalah, I can’t help but marvel at the resonances between these two traditions. Both offer intricate, almost mathematical models of the cosmos, where every element is interconnected and every action reverberates on a cosmic scale. Here is a short list of the primary points of overlap I see between the traditions:
Sacred Language: Human beings stand at the center of the cosmic drama in both traditions. In the Vedas, the recitation of mantras is a sacred act that sustains the universe. In Kabbalah, the Hebrew letters and the Torah itself are seen as the blueprint of creation.
Cosmic Order: The Vedic ṛta and the Kabbalistic sefirot serve similar functions as organizing principles of the cosmos. Both systems emphasize the need for balance and harmony, whether through ritual (yajna) or through acts of spiritual repair (tikkun olam).
Human Agency: Both traditions place human beings at the center of the cosmic drama. In the Vedic tradition, humans maintain the balance of ṛta through sacrifice and discipline. In Kabbalah, human actions affect the flow of divine energy and contribute to the repair of the world.
Desire and Creation: In both systems, desire is both a creative and potentially destructive force. The Vedas explore this through the concept of kāma, while Kabbalah delves into the divine desire to create the universe and the human role in channeling that desire.
The Sacred and the Everyday: Perhaps most striking is how both traditions collapse the boundary between the sacred and the mundane. For the Vedic seer, every ritual act is cosmic in scale. For the Kabbalist, even the smallest mitzvah (commandment) has profound spiritual implications.
These are, of course, two distinct traditions, and I’m not suggesting that Hinduism and Judaism share some intrinsic or historical connection (though I can imagine Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu seizing on this idea as a branding line for deeper political cooperation). Rather, I’m highlighting how these fascinating concepts resonate across generations and cultures, underscoring their enduring power.
Ancient Thought for Modern Consciousness
If you have read this far, you might be asking what’s the point of all this. What are we to make of these ancient parallels and why should anyone care? On the surface, they might seem like academic curiosities that are interesting, but far removed from the challenges of modern life. This is true but there is something deeper.
Both the Vedic and Kabbalistic traditions remind us of the interconnectedness of all things. They insist that human beings are not isolated individuals but participants in a larger cosmic order. In a time when fragmentation — social, environmental, spiritual — seems to dominate all aspects of life, these ancient systems of thought offer a radically different vision of unity and responsibility.
The challenge, of course, is translating that vision into action. How do we, in a world dominated by technology and materialism, recover a sense of the sacred? How do we recognize our role in maintaining the balance of a universe that feels increasingly out of balance? I can’t answer these questions but they sure do weigh on me. These are questions that neither the Vedas nor Kabbalah can answer for us — but they can guide us as we seek our own answers.
Perhaps, as Calasso suggests in Ardor, the fire of ancient wisdom is still burning. We just need to draw close enough to feel its heat.