Kabbullshit
March 30, 2004 | 15 Comments
Kabbalah, according to this recent Newsday article, is the “Jewish philosophy [that] speaks to the big picture — and to the details of everyday life.” But, as the article describes there’s a growing rift between serious scholars who are trying to protect the meaning and dignity of Kabbalah, and those unscrupulous hucksters who are trying to capitalize on its celebrity chic to sell it to the unwashed masses. Shimon Shokek, professor of Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah at Baltimore Hebrew University is alarmed that notables such as Madonna, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are practicing Kabbalah, and is “not sure they are being taught the way it should be taught.” He’s “really sorry that it was popularized to that extent” and doesn’t “want to see Kabbalah as another mumbo jumbo.”
According to Shokek, Kabbalah is a “philosophical theology that seeks to understand the mystical dimensions of God, the deeper meaning of existence and being and the ways through which the human being can commune with God.” More particularly, he explains, it’s “based on the belief that every word, letter, number and accent of the Torah, or Five Books of Moses, contains keys to understanding the nature of the universe and the human soul.”
One need only take a peek at the First Book to see what he means. There, the omniscient deity instructs us that “unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.” (Genesis 4:18). The words, letters, numbers and accents get deeper in Genesis 10:13, where “Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim.” And nothing could be more infused with meaning than Genesis 10:26: “Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah.”
Yet con men such as Yehuda Berg — who is not a University Professor but directs Kabbalah centers in Manhattan, L.A. and six other cities — is deliberately misreading the letters, numbers and accents of the Torah (and mixing them with yoga or reiki) to make matters more palatable to the public. For example, Berg asserts that “[i]f you read correctly in the Bible, you see that Moses, not God, split the sea,” and accordingly suggests that the same mystical forces Moses harnessed can be used to “split our own red seas” — including anger, excessive ego and childhood trauma. But Orthodox Jewish Kabbalist Rabbi Shneur Wolowik, who has a proper beard and teaches at the distinguished Worldwide Chabad Lubavitch Resource Center in Brooklyn, issues this devastating retort: “When Torah says that God himself has created a strong, stern wind, and with that he split the Red Sea, who are we to say otherwise?”
Like Shokek, Wolowik disdains the mass marketing of Kabbalah. It’s a complex, sophisticated, nuanced, discipline capable of comprehension by only the greatest of human minds. Wolowik explains that he’s not “looking to convert others to Torah” but is simply teaching it to those who meet the almost impossible standards of his highly exclusive club: “we are looking to introduce those born to a Jewish mother to their heritage.”
One of Wolowik’s students, Paula Friedman, is an observant Jew who says she is using Kabbalah to “improve my praying.” She’s also learned that Jewish babies can be protected from spiritual harm by “a little red bendele” — a string worn around the wrist to insure that “no bad eye should harm you.” And yet because of the influence of pretenders like Berg, adults such as Britney Spears and Madonna are now wearing them. Berg claims, without substantiation, that the bendele “protects children and adults alike from “negativity from other people who are jealous and want our energy.”
It’s a shame that the once-respected intellectual property of academicians is being corrupted, diluted and fed to the populace like corn to swine. But it’s heartening that scholars such as Shokek and Wolowik are speaking up to set the record straight on how very serious Kabbalah truly is.
REMINDER: Don’t forget to enter the Atheist Jesus Poetry Contest! (Deadline for entries: Friday, April 2, 2004, 11:59 p.m. EST)
March 30th, 2004 @ 2:36 pm
Better that than Scientology, eh?
March 30th, 2004 @ 4:01 pm
speed, oh sure you say that now, but wait until you attain the scientological level: AHS 7 or whatever, at this point you apparently realize that about a billion years ago an evil space emperor created life on earth, or something like that. Then you give them more money, makes sense right?
March 30th, 2004 @ 5:47 pm
I like Scientology. It’s like the punchline to a really long joke.
March 30th, 2004 @ 6:56 pm
What does “intellectual property” have to do with it? Hollywood celebrity fadsters getting into The Latest Thing(tm)! Oh my, I shudder to think what else might be new. Besides, If you had a relationship to Kabbalah as a student of it outside the Judaic framework, you would realize that, had the supposed “intellectual property” of the rabbis been protected, none of the many great contributions and contaminations that influenced the Kabbalistic body of work over the last few centuries would have been possible.
“It
March 30th, 2004 @ 7:11 pm
will never be neither mainstream
Once it runs downstream a ways, it should hit the mainstream. I just hope there’s no draining into the ground water.
March 30th, 2004 @ 9:19 pm
You are brilliant.
March 31st, 2004 @ 1:21 pm
Thank you
April 1st, 2004 @ 12:41 am
brilliant?
April 1st, 2004 @ 12:41 am
brilliant?
April 1st, 2004 @ 12:31 pm
Define “brilliant”!
April 2nd, 2004 @ 11:17 pm
Cmndr. Killjoy. How have you been? If I could use your last
statement to me as reference.
Define ” fuck off” Your a self proclaimed Christian basher and I
would welcome you to
!!bash me!! I would be more than happy to take you on.
RU up to the task?
April 3rd, 2004 @ 1:28 pm
Did somebody fart?
April 3rd, 2004 @ 7:03 pm
Hey thats a good one!
I was expecting better,,,,,,,,, but now that I think about it, I don’t know why.
Oh well :- (
April 4th, 2004 @ 2:54 pm
OOO, Ya got me! I’m down! Somebody call a WAA-MBULANCE!!!
Oh 2 cents, I bow to your superior cunning and obvious omnipotence.
Question:
So I guess you masturbate in the closet, and afterwords feel almost suicidal with remorse, ci?
Not me, I love it. Takes away the day’s tension… IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN??!! (wink, nudge, wink). Guilt-free sexual expression… why, back in the ’20′s (the 1820′s) – WHO’DA THUNK IT?!
So, are you repressed or what? Answer honestly now.
April 9th, 2004 @ 3:04 pm
I think I scared him away!!