I am simply trying to clarify the Catholic position as best I know it, and to learn something from you in the process.
Judaism is not a salvational religion. It is primarily a legal/statutory religion that has ancient traditions of both intellect and mysticism.
Like Catholicism, Judaism has a "four-fold sense" when it comes to Torah interpretation. These four senses are peshat (the simple meaning), remez (allusions found in the sizes, shapes, and mathematical value of the letters, in acrostics, unusual spellings, etc.), derash (the moral/homiletic meaning), and sod (secret).
So far as I know, one can be a perfectly good Jew without knowing the esoterica. One is only supposed to begin studying Qabbalah at age forty after having mastered the Miqra'ot and Talmud, and there are still those rationalist schools that reject it.
As I understand it, the secrets contained in Leviticus 18 (not the mitzvot incumbent on every Jew, but secret knowledge encoded at a very deep level) is to be expounded before no more than three people at once; ma`asey Vere'shit (the mysteries of Creation) before no more than two people, and ma`asey haMerkavah (the mysteries of the Chariot) before only one person.
I can only tell you so much, because I only know so much.