KABALA on 20/20 Friday

[Exporter]

One interesting comment about American Kabala by the Chairman of the Dept. of Hebrew Studies at Hebrew Ubiversity was this" If one were to open a school for Astronomy and Astrophysics and they taught only the song “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” they would be approximating what the family is doing with the subject of Kabala".
NonJews are paying to learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

Where is the Professor wrong? Heve any of you aligned yourselves with the singer Madonna? How much money has Madonna made from Kabala?

 

[deb1]

I wanted to start a thread on this, but you beat me to it. One thing that struck me was the almost pentecostal feel to the Kabbalah services. There was a lot of emotions, with some people breaking down into tears. I felt very sad for the followers.

 

[Shinobu]

They may or may not mean well but all in all they are taking a religion and retarding it. It would be like taking Catholocism and making it into a tea party. It may be fun, but it’s not truely worship. It may also be misleading people. People look for hope and it seems this bastardized Kabbalah is leaving them with empty pockets.

On a side note, from what Madonna said, it sounds like she is doing it because it is contraversial.

How is it okay for them to file it as a non-profit religious organization then buy themselves lavish houses with the funds?

 

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

:banghead:

I’ll repost the following:

I’m an orthodox Jew. I know very little about Kabbalah & as committed as I am to orthodox Judaism, I feel no need whatsoever to delve into Kabbalah. In terms of my faith, I am an unlettered bumpkin & have nowhere near the requisite levels of learning & holiness to delve into Kabbalah.

Kabbalah (i.e. esoteric Jewish mysticism) is, quite properly, the province of very few Jews (only). Only the most pious, learned & saintly need delve into kabbalah in any depth. When I see what is being done by the clowns who are responsible for prostituting one of my faith’s most treasured (and misunderstood!) concepts, I get an inkling of how Catholics must have felt what that “artist” in New York a few years back had the unmitigated gall to put a crucifix in a glass of urine and call it “Piss-Christ” (remember that?); ugh!-Suffice to say that that chain of so-called “Kabbalah Centers” has as much to do with real kabbalah as a Twinkie has to do with real pastry. See tinyurl.com/2smgx, tinyurl.com/65mn8, and tinyurl.com/5s6m3.)

jewfaq.org/kabbalah.htm is a very good intoductory read on this subject. I’ll cite one sentence:

Today, many well-known celebrities have popularized a new age pop-psychology distortion of kabbalah (I have heard it derisively referred to as “c/rap-balah”) that has more in common with the writings of Deepak Chopra than with any authentic Jewish source

Kabbalah is a very holy & precious concept to we Jews; we treasure it and we guard it very closely. I once went to lecture here in Jerusalem by a noted Hasidic rabbi who said that he always found it amusing that Jews and non-Jews who had no knowledge whatsoever of the most basic Jewish concepts, want to study Kabbalah. He said that it’s like someone who hasn’t even studied basic anatomy immediately delving into advanced neurosurgery.

I saw this in the Toronto Star back in late September when Madonna was here:

Ethereal Girl seeks cheap grace

COLLEEN CARROL CAMPBELL

OPINION

As Madonna soared out of Israel on her private jet last week, she left behind her trademark trail of controversy and chaos. Secular Israelis were intoxicated by her five-day trip to the Holy Land; Orthodox Jews were repulsed. Palestinians protested. Israeli police arrested two of her bodyguards who had assaulted photographers outside her hotel.

By Sunday evening, the entertainer famous for commandeering the spotlight by any means necessary seemed tired of the attention. Reporters noted that her voice trembled as she spoke at a fundraising dinner for the American foundation that promotes her New Age version of Kabbalah (pronounced ka-BA-la in North America and ka-ba-LA in Hebrew), a strain of Jewish mysticism. The singer who now answers to “Esther” said she represents no particular religion and is only “a student of Kabbalah” who wants to “put an end to chaos” in the world.

As she did in Israel, Madonna has spent most of her career adding to the world’s chaos, not ending it. From her early days of mocking the Catholic faith, to her later forays into sadomasochism and the onstage kiss she shared with barely legal Britney Spears last year, the 40-something pop diva has built her fortune on scandal and sleaze.

So it’s no surprise that the Orthodox Jews at the Western Wall did not roll out their welcome mats when the self-professed Boy Toy pulled up in her SUV one night to join them at prayer. And it’s no wonder devout Jews question the sincerity of Madonna’s newfound faith, since six years of Kabbalah studies apparently have had little influence on her outrageous public behaviour.

Madonna’s purported transition from Material Girl to Ethereal Girl has all of the hallmarks of her previous spiritual kicks, and few signs of authentic conversion. Once again, this sometime-devotee of Catholicism, Anglicanism, Hinduism and now, Judaism, has latched on to a faddish form of a venerable religious tradition.

Her new spiritual home is the Kabbalah Centre of Los Angeles, which peddles a Jewish mysticism unmoored from Judaism’s monotheistic roots and biblical morality. It is a trendy spirituality, popularized in the 1960s by an American rabbi and now sold to celebrities whose most obvious sign of religious commitment is the red string they wear around their wrists to ward off the so-called “evil eye.”

(cont.)

 

[stillsmallvoice]

(cont.)

Like many Americans today, Madonna has turned her back on traditional religion and morality, opting instead to make her own rules. Her meandering spiritual search suggests that her self-referential beliefs have repeatedly failed to satisfy her. But she is unwilling to fully embrace a religious tradition that makes real demands - demands that go beyond wearing a bracelet or making a quasi-pilgrimage overseas.

Madonna wants spirituality without religion and salvation without repentance. She wants cheap grace. And try as she might, she cannot find it.

She cannot find it because authentic spirituality is always rooted in conversion, commitment and community. It always comes with strings attached - not the strings of a bracelet donned for good luck but the strings of objective moral standards that require the believer to conform her life to God rather than the other way around.

The holy women whose names the singer bears knew this. Queen Esther was a devout Israelite who risked her life to do God’s will, and plead to the Persian king on behalf of her people. Her faithfulness helped deliver the Jews from genocide, and they celebrate her memory each year during the feast of Purim. Christians also consider Esther an example of great holiness, and the early church fathers saw her as a biblical forerunner to Mary, mother of Jesus, who Christians consider a model of purity and obedience to God’s will.

Through the millennia, Esther and Mary have been revered by their respective traditions for doing God’s will and following God’s rules rather than their own. Their character was shaped not by feel-good spiritual fads but by revelation and religious tradition. And the faithful say that their reward was peace - a peace that seems to have bypassed their famous namesake.

Perhaps Madonna realized that something had eluded her when her trip to Israel concluded on the same notes of chaos and controversy that follow her everywhere. Perhaps someday, after so many years spent on the fringes of Judeo-Christian tradition, this aging star will experience the joy of embracing full-fledged religious commitment and worshipping someone greater than herself - a joy that Queen Esther and the true Madonna probably knew well.

---

Colleen Carrol Campbell, a fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, is author of The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy.

Religion News Service

Be well!

ssv

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Exporter:

One interesting comment about American Kabala by the Chairman of the Dept. of Hebrew Studies at Hebrew Ubiversity was this" If one were to open a school for Astronomy and Astrophysics and they taught only the song “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” they would be approximating what the family is doing with the subject of Kabala".
NonJews are paying to learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

Where is the Professor wrong? Heve any of you aligned yourselves with the singer Madonna? How much money has Madonna made from Kabala?

I saw that show too and it was what I expected. A new religion was made up, ignorant idol worshippers of madonna and other worthless ignorant celebrities are joining that cult. Same idea with Scientology with TomCruise and Co. I dont know anything about the actual historical Jewish teachings on it, but it is very clear this is not the same teachings but a desecration none the less. In the interviews they were openly supporting ignorace of facts and childs play worship.

Its pretty clear that those people have no god, and that they take on an “anything goes” mentality. Its just another sign of where protestantism has taken us with this new store opening up selling all this junk. I couldnt believe those red strings, its almost as bad as those rubber bracelets that people are going around with. Its sad to see people going around involved in that trash.

 

[Psalm45_9]

Kabbalah is one of those movements that secularizes true devotion. It has strayed so far from its roots that I doubt it really could be called Kabbalah. It kind of reminds me of what Christmas has become. Ask a little kid what Christmas is today and they’ll probably say, “The tree, wreaths, holly, garlands, hot chocolate, Santa and his reindeer, all of those fun songs like frosty the snowman, and PRESENTS!!!”

I’ll ask my grandma the same question and she’ll say, “The birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

What disturbs me most about the Kabbalah Centers is that they seem (as is indicated in the posts above) to be making a religion out of these teachings that were intended to complement traditional Judaism. Outside of a religious context, the concepts become unmoored, allowing one to indulge in free-wheeling speculations and craziness.

It’s often the same way in Christianity (and in many other religions). There is an esoteric current in Christianity. There are esoteric teachings–they’re not hidden, they’re not the domain of some secret society, they’re not kept in the Vatican vaults–They’re procalimed from the rooftops, really. I can think of no greater esoteric conceptual pair than the Incarnation and the Resurrection. There are also some sacred sciences alive in Christianity, and some are not unrelated to Kabbalah (use of number-symbolism in John’s Apocalypse, for instance–and the favor with which Kabbalah was received by the Popes and other faithful Christians during the rennaissance certainly says something about capatability). But when you attempt to divide a religion’s sacred sciences from the body of its belief and when you attempt to remove the esoteric teachings of a religion from the religion that informs their meaning–when you get it into your head that you can speak of the Logos without knowing or having first spoken of Jesus, or manipulate numbers without knowing the One, or speak of angels without knowing their Queen, or talk of supernatural powers without knowing the Love from which all power comes–then you skip some important steps and risk watering down these ideas, turning them into theological mush. While there is a point at which the language of the great mystics of the world religions begins to sound alike, you can’t begin to speak this language until you’ve learned the grammar. You can’t extrapolate from this a “one world” tradition–which seems to be the impetus often times. It doesn’t work–you wind up paying huge disrespect to the religions involved.

But I think this is the impulse that gives rise to Kabbalah Centers, or New Age seminars that treat Theresa of Avila as an “Ascended Master” and lump her in with some false guru of the theosophical society who may have said something interesting once.

Forgive my ire. But our many religious traditions are too valuable to be treated as interchangeable–but I think that’s the impulse behind the Kabbalah Center, repudiating both Judaism and true Kabbalah as it goes along.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

Deo Gratias!

 

[Zooey]

I have to say that I agree with pretty much all that has been said here…I think that the comparison with scientology is valid–“making up your own religion as you go along”. Basically these people seem to want to be able to claim to be “religious” without having to have an actual religion.
I think that the saddest thing is that, in the case of Kabala, there is an actual perversion of the Jewish faith going on. I can almost take scientology better–as dreadful as that group is, at least it is based on science fiction, not somebody else’s religion!!!

 

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!
I’m reviving this old thread because:

Some Rabbis Criticize New Madonna Song

By RACHEL HOAG, Associated Press Writer

Sun Oct 9, 9:59 PM ET

A song on Madonna’s upcoming album dedicated to a Kabbalist rabbi is drawing criticism from other rabbis, the Israeli Maariv daily reported Sunday.

The album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” is to be released on Nov. 15 and features a track entitled “Isaac” about Yitzhak Luria, a 16th century Jewish mystic and Kabbalah scholar.

Rabbis who oversee Luria’s tomb and a seminary in the northern town of Safed are unimpressed with Madonna’s musical tribute and see the inclusion of the song about Luria on the album as an attempt by the pop star to profit from his name.

Rabbi Rafael Cohen, head of a seminary named after Luria, suggested Madonna’s actions could lead to divine retribution.

“Jewish law forbids the use of the name of the holy rabbi for profit. Her act is just simply unacceptable and I can only sympathize for her because of the punishment that she is going to receive from the heavens,” Cohen told the newspaper.

Another rabbi called for Madonna to be thrown out of the community.

“Such a woman brings great sin on kabbalah,” Rabbi Israel Deri told Maariv. “I hope that we will have the strength to prevent her from bringing sin upon the holiness of the rabbi (Yitzhak Luria).”

Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment Sunday.

The singer and actress was raised a Roman Catholic but has become a follower of Kabbalah in recent years and adopted the Hebrew name Esther. She made a much publicized visit to Israel in 2004, when she visited many sites important to Kabbalah, but didn’t travel to Luria’s grave.

Link: news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20051010/ap_en_mu/israel_madonna_10

:banghead:

Is nothing sacred to this ditz/tramp and the shameless money-making cult with which she associates? How dare Madonna (who is neither as talented nor as good-looking as she seems to think she is) desecrate the sacred memory of the great and holy Rabbi Luria (ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/ari.htm)? Do she and her “Kabbalah Center” mentors have any idea what they’re messing with and what they are risking?

ARRGHHH!!!

Be well!

ssv

 

[aisb23]

Hi SSV

As one of the Fora’s semi-regular Jewish posters I was wondering when this would come up.

Unlike you I am not orthodox but for the past several years I’ve been in an absolute froth about celebrity Qabbalah. I know enough to know what I don’t know, and I know that if Qabbalah is far beyond my grasp, I very much doubt Madonna (oops, excuse me Esther) really understands what she’s doing even on the most basic level.

Heck, even my father, who is far more religious than I and has a generally better grounding in Torah and Talmud, has tried to study Qabbalah and he gave up after a couple months.

And now apparently Ashton Kutcher married Demi Moore in what is being described as a “Qabbalah ceremony”. Since when has there been separate Qabbalsitic marriage rites?!?

We as Jews need to take back our heritage from these Hollywood yahoos. And I hope our Catholic friends here will support us.

–arthur

 

[mark_a]

stillsmallvoice:

Is nothing sacred to this ditz/tramp and the shameless money-making cult with which she associates? How dare Madonna (who is neither as talented nor as good-looking as she seems to think she is) desecrate the sacred memory of the great and holy Rabbi Luria (ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/ari.htm)? Do she and her “Kabbalah Center” mentors have any idea what they’re messing with and what they are risking?

She doesn’t care. But as a Catholic, I’ve alway felt a little ashamed that she was a Catholic.

She is even (not totally unfavorably) mentioned in a book “Catholicism for Dummies”.

All I can say is: Sorry about that whole Madonna thing that Judaism is now plagued with.

I’m terrible, I know. She has no respect, plain and simple.

 

[Seagyrl06]

I recently have been going through a hard time. Im 21 and at the age of finding out who I am and who I want to be and how to get there and how to get there and obtain peace, love, and happiness as well as wisdom. I was raised Catholic, and am very proud of my Catholic heritage. I became interested in what the Kabbalah was all about because of all the hype, and I figured there was no harm and I wasn’t straying from my true beliefs because we as Catholics are also half Jew, that’s what my dad always said. Well in reading some things about it I discovered that really it’s nothing different from what we are taught with our own book, The Bible. The talk of magic and mysticism, isn’t really talking about magic it’s the interpretation and a different way of saying mysteries. Kabbalah has been deeply misunderstood for centuries upon centuries. I finally came to the revalation that what I was looking for ultimatly was still right there in the Bible and that the Kabbalah needs to be left to the experts who truely know how to interpret it’s true and actual meanings. These meanings, I’m sorry to say, have not been justified in today’s “Kabbalah” crazed world.

 

[Jaypeeto3]

A very dear lady friend of mine for nearly 30 years, is Jewish and is into Kaballah.

She told me that the kind of Kaballah being practiced and promoted by the Hollywood crowd, is NOT true Kaballah but a bastardization of it. For example, Madonna allows hunters to hunt FOR SPORT (not food) on her estate in England. My friend says that such sport-killing of animals is forbidden to those who want to practice true Kaballah, as also is having tatoos put on your body. And she told me that the sale of Kaballah water and red strings (and at exhorbitant prices, by the way) is also utterly unrelated to genuine Kaballah.

Just my two cents.

Love,
Jaypeeto3

 

[teresa613]

To my background, I was raised catholic and became an orthodox Jew in my early 20ies, and at the moment a little bit torn between my religion I grew up in and the religion I chose 20 years later.

Madonna and all her followers ridicule/mock Jewish Tradition. Even if I read in a English Translation of the Zohar, I doubt that anybody not knowledgable in Talmud and Jewish Tradition could understand even a word.

Non Jewish friends come up and say Kabbalah, I take an English translation out of my bookshelf, read to them, to show them, Kabbalah (a very broad term) is a serious, intense subject - definitively worth studying - but I compare it to the whipped creme we put on cake - without the cake, it makes you “dizzy”. Without deep rooted knowledge and practise in jewish religion, it is just a “mocking” of a sacred text.

I don’t even know what Kabblah she studied, I read honorabe kabbalistic texts - it is worth studying - but I doubt anybody will understand its beauty if you don’t understand the beauty of Torah beforehand and have a solid base.

the rabbis knew why they advise no kabbalah before you turn 40!!!.

Brigitte Shira