With the story of Abraham there is a shift in the bible from myth and legend to history. From here on the bible weaves esoteric principles with actual events. Abram, a well educated urban man from the trade, industrial and cultural city of Ur (in todays Iraq) who learnt about the most advanced religious, philosophical and scientific ideas of the time, did not believe in the idols his father sold in his shop. After studying the array of Mesopotamian gods, Abram concluded there must be an Absolute Deity who governed the whole of Existence. Triggered by a dream telling him to go to a distant country, Abram moves out to discover the Ultimate. This beginning of a journey symbolises the first step on a very long spiritual search. Whilst Abram reaches far away places, he started to realise the journey is not a horizontal (from one place to the other), but a vertical (deep into himself). When this realisation occurs, an individual is ready for an initiation into what is called the "Way" or "Path". Abram meets Melchizedek (Enoch), a supernatural being, who awakens Abram's soul by giving him the theory and practice of the Teaching ("Hidden Wisdom") around 4000 years ago. After being given the secrets of Existence, Abram was renamed Abraham, which means "Father of many people".
The significance of the twelve tribes was their representation of the twelve types of soul that make up humanity. Abraham, who was familiar with astrology as a study of the psyche and its destiny, knew that the Sun, Moon and planetary gods were just angelic servants of the Absolute and not the ultimate arbiters of fate (=Lenker des Schicksals).
(Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi, Introduction to The World of Kabbalah)
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