What is kabbalah all about

Add to GoodReads. Today, many people from all faiths are exploring the Kabbalah. What were once controversial and esoteric teachings from medieval Jewish mystics now is becoming one of the latest spiritual trends sweeping across America. Ariel beautifully presents the complex elements of Jewish mysticism's major ideas in clear, understandable, and accessible language for Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike. Hailed as "brilliant" by Publishers Weekly, the book has a completely revised Introduction that sets a contemporary context for understanding Jewish mysticism, given the current fascination with Kabbalah in today's culture.

Several chapters are substantially revised, making key ideas less abstract and more comprehensible to readers. Our job is to bring content to people, content that wasn't there before. Nothing we do comes from our brain," said Yehuda Berg, one of the couple's sons, who runs the Kabbalah Centres with his mother and brother, Michael Berg. Indeed, the Kabbalah Centres' approach to the Zohar is a far cry from the rigorous intellectual pursuit of Jewish scholars.

The Bergs teach that merely to have the Zohar in your possession offers one protective powers, a claim scholars say is ridiculous. Ellis has spent thousands of dollars buying complete sets of the Zohar for his home, office and family. All you have to do is plug it in and you're connected," said Ellis, who admits he doesn't know what the ancient Hebrew and Aramaic text he's reading means.

But anyway, that doesn't matter. This is powerful stuff," he said. Karen Berg said the message of the Kabbalah text transcends language barriers "because your brain, your subconscious has a way to pick up what -- they're almost like a scanner in a supermarket.

You know it's just a code, a bar code. In his hands was The Zohar, the chief text of the Jewish Kabbalah. Neilson told Newsweek that "the separation is a healthy thing for Raising Malawi and the Kabbalah Centre. That goes a long way toward explaining the appeal of the Church of Scientology and the Kabbalah Centre. Written in medieval Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, the Zohar is intended to guide Kabbalists in their spiritual journey, helping them attain the greater levels of connectedness with God that they desire.

Kabbalistic thought often is considered Jewish mysticism. Its practitioners tend to view the Creator and the Creation as a continuum, rather than as discrete entities, and they desire to experience intimacy with God.

This desire is especially intense because of the powerful mystical sense of kinship that Kabbalists believe exists between God and humanity. Even mystics who refuse to describe such a fusion of God and man so boldly, still find the whole of Creation suffused in divinity, breaking down distinctions between God and the universe. It exists in each existent.

There are three dimensions to almost all forms of Jewish mysticism, which are likely to be understood by only small numbers of people who possess specialized knowledge or interest in the topic:. In Jewish tradition, there are three ways esoteric knowledge can be obtained:. The experiential dimension of Kabbalah involves the actual quest for mystical experience: a direct, intuitive, unmediated encounter with a close but concealed Deity.