The good Kantian that Hirsch was he could never accept all these other world that Jewish mystics dream up, to escape to.
What should have been eternal, progressive development was considered a stationary mechanism and the inner significance and concept thereof as extra-mundane dream worlds. . . Practical Judaism which comprehended in its purity, would perhaps have been impregnated with the spiritual became in it, through misconception, a magical mechanism, a means of influencing or resisting theosophic worlds and anti-worlds (N.L., p. 187).
Oh, but for those extra-mundane dream worlds! I must say, I can't be against them as much as R' Hirsch albeit that my sentiments being rather the same. In fact, I'm always quite clear the problem is not with kabbalistic, mystical or chassidic ideas themselves. Then again, maybe it is with those, but not against the sources and beliefs they derive from. The problem is when these original beliefs are taken out of context and turned into something quite alien. They are shorn free of their halachic or aggadic context and made into pseudo-philosophical beliefs. Same words, different beliefs. But anyway, the point is that 'in their place' they... well.. have a place.
The problem that I do have with these beliefs, in common with R' Hirsch, is not simply theory but how it affects the Jewish attitude to the to man, to the world, to G-d and thus, to our task:
A perverted intellect comprehended the institutions which were designed and ordained for the internal and external purification and betterment of man as mechanical, dynamical, or magical formulas for the up-building of higher worlds, and . . . thus the observances meant for the education of the spirit to a nobler life were but too frequently degraded into mere amuletic or talismanic performances (N.L., pp. 9-100).
Kabbalistic views of other worlds, as expounded through current Chassidic and Charedi Judaism, takes away from Halachic Judaism. This is not to say practically, because shemura matzot and all, mystics tend to be extremely strict in halacha (or at least ritualistic elements anyway). They do the acts, as R' Hirsch says above, but what is the quality of the acts? Halachic Judaism frames our attitudes and world-view in a particular way. Now, in this, sense Kabbalah often leads away from what Halachic Judaism teaches us is the main focal point of G-d's will for us: THIS WORLD. As R' Wurzburger (tzatzal) says:
Since, according to Halakhic Judaism, it is our task to seek to encounter God’s presence primarily in the lower realms of being (ikkar shekhinah ba-tahtonim), we must not escape from this world by a flight into transcendental spheres. The human task is to create an abode for God in the here-and-now
Thinking of mitzvot in terms 'other worlds' makes them 'mere amuletic or talismanic performances'; perhaps ways to get our seventy virgins in heaven!
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