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scapularkid8
Guest
Is there one? I was reading about them and was curious if we had something in Catholicism similar to it…
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johnstown_johnn
Guest
Isn’t Kabbalah an occult practice? I read where singer Madonna had been part of a group into Kabbalah. It is something to steer very clear of from what I have read about it (Kabbalah).
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water
Guest
There are quite few things out there, by anti-Catholic, relating Catholic to some cults and alike. I just feel sorry for those people and pray for them.
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jrabs
Guest
Yeah we have something even better. The Miraculous Medal and the Scapulars.
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johnstown_johnn
Guest
Kabbalah is a Jewish cult practice spinoff.It supposes to overshadow Christian miracles. A kind of “instant” fulfillment.
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scapularkid8
Guest
Oh, that’s dumb. I thought it was like legitimate Judaism. Guess not.
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johnstown_johnn
Guest
From what I gather it (Kabbalah) is not commonplace in Jewish assemblies. Although it supposedly is an old practice it still is not rooted in Judaism.
Not all Jews are Talmudic Jews either. So it seems there are various factions among them like any other faith.
Madonna was strickly into the one facet (Kabbalah) which stands by itself.
Not all Jews are Talmudic Jews either. So it seems there are various factions among them like any other faith.
Madonna was strickly into the one facet (Kabbalah) which stands by itself.
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Biblioassistant
Guest
Kabbalah is a very old mystical system for gaining knowledge of God and His creation. The kind of Kabbalah that Madonna and the other Hollywood folks practice isn’t like that. Their Kabbalah is a mish mash of the original and New Age teachings.
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LilyM
Guest
Similar to the red string in what way?
There are certainly sacramentals (blessed items) that can go around the wrist. Such as a rosary bracelet or ‘wrist rosary’ (those ones with the beads of wood or semi-precious stone).
Or perhaps one could wear a medal or crucifix on a chain around the wrist too. Heck, you could wear a whole bunch of 'em like a charm bracelet.
There are certainly sacramentals (blessed items) that can go around the wrist. Such as a rosary bracelet or ‘wrist rosary’ (those ones with the beads of wood or semi-precious stone).
Or perhaps one could wear a medal or crucifix on a chain around the wrist too. Heck, you could wear a whole bunch of 'em like a charm bracelet.
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Hastrman
Guest
Kabalah or at least Kabalistic ideas are actually the majority opinion in Jewish theology, as distinct from Maimonideism (which is basically Jewish Scholasticism). It can be Orthodox–Hasidic Jews are Kabalists–but it’s not particularly *good *theology.
Were it Protestant, we’d have to call it fundamentalist. And not a very nuanced fundamentalism (most fundamentalists actually have a very subtle if informal understanding of scripture). Kabalah as found in the Zohar teaches that all statements about God in the Bible have literal truth: he really is named I AM, for instance, as well as Peace, Truth, and all the other titles. Maimonides understood that that’s impossible; humans cannot fully understand God because God is a pure, unalloyed concept and the human mind, being itself composite, can’t conceive of anything noncomposite.
Kabalah also teaches that God’s being has ten layers or “Sefirotim”, which are basically just aspects of Him or tasks he does. Of those, some Kabalists say that three are bad, three are good, and four are neutral, while the more Orthodox, thinking it blasphemy to ascribe any evil to God, merely say that three are dark and three are light. At the end of the day, though, all they’ve really come up with is the yin-yang-mu distinction of Taoist philosophy.
Fullblown Kabalah (as opposed to a Kabalist strain in more mainstream theology) probably didn’t become the majority view until the sixteenth or seventeenth century, when a famine and depression hit Poland (where most Ashkenazi Jews lived–also the only European country that let Jews become nobles) and the rest of Eastern Europe.
As is typical in times of despair, the Jews, and the Gentiles, too, turned to mysticism, not to say superstition; it was at that time, also, that the big Vampire scares happened throughout the Austrian Empire. In neighboring Bohemia, Rabbi Lowe of Prague was said to have made his famous Golem, using his Kabalistic knowledge of the Divine Name (I think he was a Ba’al Shem Tov). And in northeast Germany an alchemist by the name of Konrad Dippel, who had been born in a castle called Frankenstein, got chased out of his university for robbing graves and attempting to animate the dead. I’m not kidding.
That’d be why Kabalah’s so, well, odd, but it can be practiced (very carefully) by fully orthodox Jews. Its potential for misuse, as by Madonna, is the reason it was traditionally esoteric, forbidden to all but elderly, extremely learned and righteous rabbis.
Were it Protestant, we’d have to call it fundamentalist. And not a very nuanced fundamentalism (most fundamentalists actually have a very subtle if informal understanding of scripture). Kabalah as found in the Zohar teaches that all statements about God in the Bible have literal truth: he really is named I AM, for instance, as well as Peace, Truth, and all the other titles. Maimonides understood that that’s impossible; humans cannot fully understand God because God is a pure, unalloyed concept and the human mind, being itself composite, can’t conceive of anything noncomposite.
Kabalah also teaches that God’s being has ten layers or “Sefirotim”, which are basically just aspects of Him or tasks he does. Of those, some Kabalists say that three are bad, three are good, and four are neutral, while the more Orthodox, thinking it blasphemy to ascribe any evil to God, merely say that three are dark and three are light. At the end of the day, though, all they’ve really come up with is the yin-yang-mu distinction of Taoist philosophy.
Fullblown Kabalah (as opposed to a Kabalist strain in more mainstream theology) probably didn’t become the majority view until the sixteenth or seventeenth century, when a famine and depression hit Poland (where most Ashkenazi Jews lived–also the only European country that let Jews become nobles) and the rest of Eastern Europe.
As is typical in times of despair, the Jews, and the Gentiles, too, turned to mysticism, not to say superstition; it was at that time, also, that the big Vampire scares happened throughout the Austrian Empire. In neighboring Bohemia, Rabbi Lowe of Prague was said to have made his famous Golem, using his Kabalistic knowledge of the Divine Name (I think he was a Ba’al Shem Tov). And in northeast Germany an alchemist by the name of Konrad Dippel, who had been born in a castle called Frankenstein, got chased out of his university for robbing graves and attempting to animate the dead. I’m not kidding.
That’d be why Kabalah’s so, well, odd, but it can be practiced (very carefully) by fully orthodox Jews. Its potential for misuse, as by Madonna, is the reason it was traditionally esoteric, forbidden to all but elderly, extremely learned and righteous rabbis.
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scapularkid8
Guest
I just meant like a sacramental that asks for God’s protection upon the wearer or that wearing it is a prayer for protection from evil. I guess a crucifix or medal of st. benedict counts.
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dalesmom
Guest
my rosary bracelet means that to me. it has a miraculous medal and crucifix on it.
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dalesmom
Guest
I guess you could put a st. michael medal on it.
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scapularkid8
Guest
Yeah, St. Michael or the exorcism prayer of St. Benedict maybe
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LilyM
Guest
Or both
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