Huss, New Age of kabbalah

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THE NEW AGE OF KABBALAH

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Journal of Modern Jewish Studies Vol 6, No. 2 July 2007, pp. 107–125ISSN 1472-5886 print/ISSN 1472-5894 online © 2007 Taylor & Francishttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/14725880701423014

Boaz Huss

THE NEW AGE OF KABBALAH

Contemporary Kabbalah, the New Age

and postmodern spiritualityTaylor and Francis LtdCMJS_A_242185.sgm10.1080/14725880701423014Journal of Modern Jewish Studies1472-5886 (print)/1472-5894 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis620000002007Dr [email protected]

In recent years, a remarkable revival of interest in Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism has taken

place in Israel, the United States and other, mostly Western, countries. This revival, which

includes a resurgence of kabbalistic and hasidic doctrines and practices and an integration

of kabbalistic themes in various cultural fields, coincides with the emergence of the New Age

and other related spiritual and new religious movements in the Western world in the last

decades of the twentieth century. New Age themes appear in various contemporary kabbalis-

tic and Neo-hasidic movements, and there are significant similarities between these move-

ments, the New Age and other recent spiritual and religious revival movements. This article

will examine the contemporary revival of Kabbalah and investigate the relationship between

contemporary Kabbalah and New Age phenomena. It will demonstrate that central charac-

teristics of the new spiritual culture appear not only in contemporary Kabbalah and Neo-

hasidic groups that explicitly use New Age themes, but also among kabbalistic and hasidic

movements that are perceived as presenting more traditional forms of Jewish mysticism. The

shared characteristic of contemporary Kabbalah and New Age, it will be argued, are not

dependent only on the direct impact of the New Age movements on contemporary Kabbalah,

but rather on the postmodern context and nature of both these phenomena. The emergence

and constructions of contemporary Kabbalah, the New Age and other related new spiritual

movements, which can be described as “postmodern spiritualities”, is dependent on the global

economic and social changes in the late twentieth century. This article will claim that these

new cultural formations reflect the cultural logic of late global capitalism and respond to the

new social conditions in the postmodern era.

The emergence of contemporary forms of Kabbalah

Since the early thirteenth century various cultural formations—texts, oral traditions

and ritual practices—were produced, transmitted and perceived as belonging to an

ancient, sacred, body of theoretical and practical knowledge called “Kabbalah”.

Kabbalah gained considerable symbolic power in Jewish communities, first in Spain, and

later in other Jewish centres around the world, and became universally accepted as

sacred and authoritative in the eighteenth century. Yet, since the late eighteenth

century, Kabbalah and the traditional Jewish circles that adhered to it—mostly the East

European hasidic movement that emerged at the same period—were vehemently criti-

cised by some of the central figures of the Haskalah and its successors in the nineteenth

century. Within the framework of building a modern, Western, Jewish identity, the

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J O U R N A L O F M O D E R N J E W I S H S T U D I E S108

maskilim rejected Kabbalah and Hasidism, portraying them as backward, irrational and

Oriental traditions that impede the integration and acculturation of the Jews to modern

European society. Under the impact of the “enlightened” perspective, which became

more influential in Jewish cultures of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

Kabbalah lost its predominant statues in many (mostly Westernised) Jewish communi-

ties (Huss, “‘Admiration’”, 205–212). In the same period in which Kabbalah lost its

positive cultural value in Jewish enlightened circles (but retained it in traditional

circles), its symbolic value increased among non-Jewish Romantic and Western esoteric

circles, which, in the context of a Romantic and Orientalist fascination with mysticism

and Eastern religions, discovered an interest in both Christian and Jewish Kabbalah.

Following the growing interest in Kabbalah in non-Jewish European culture, and

within the framework of emerging Jewish nationalism, some Jewish intellectuals in both

Western and Eastern Europe (such as Martin Buber, Micha Yosef Berdyczewsky,

Shmuel Aba Horodedsky and many others) expressed a renewed interest in Kabbalah

and Hasidism. These scholars, who identified Kabbalah and Hasidism as Jewish forms of

mysticism, affirmed their philosophical, literary and especially, historical value, but

usually did not embrace kabbalistic practices and articles of faith. Presenting a typical

modernist perspective, and an Orientalist ambivalence, they found significance and

value in Kabbalah and Hasidism as historical phenomena, but showed no interest in them

as living culture traditions. This stance was adopted by Gershom Scholem, who settled

in Jerusalem in 1923 and established the study of Kabbalah as an academic field at the

Hebrew University. Scholem, who affirmed the historical value of Jewish mysticism and

regarded Kabbalah as the expression of Jewish national vitality in the diaspora, believed

that traditional forms of Kabbalah lost their historical relevance in the modern period

(Huss, “‘Admiration’”, 212–237).

In the same period in which Scholem began his historical research into Kabbalah, it

was still practised in traditional circles, especially in Jerusalem, which became a centre

of kabbalistic activity (Meir 595–602). In the early twentieth century, some important

kabbalists arrived there, including Yehuda Fataya from Bagdad, Shaul ha-Cohen Dweck

from Haleb (Aleppo), Shlomo Eliashov from Lithuania and Yehuda Ashlag from Poland.

Similarly, Abraham Yizchak Kook, who became the first chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel, inte-

grated many mystical and kabbalistic themes in his writings. These kabbalists, as well as

others who were active in this period, both in Jerusalem and elsewhere, engaged in

Kabbalah according to the main systems developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries—the Kabbalah of Shalom Shara‘bi, various hasidic trends and the Lithuanian

Kabbalah. Apart from the study of canonical kabbalistic texts (mostly the Zohar and the

Lurianic corpus) and the practice of meditative prayer (kavanot), some early twentieth-

century kabbalists developed innovative doctrines that combined kabbalistic themes and

modernist principals. The most influential doctrines were created by Abraham Yitzhak

Kook, who integrated kabbalistic ideas within a national Zionist ideology, and Yehuda

Ashlag, who integrated communist principles in his interpretation of the Lurianic

Kabbalah.

Although various forms of Kabbalah were still practised, created and revered in

traditional Jewish communities in the twentieth century, and notwithstanding the inter-

est in Kabbalah and Hasidism in Jewish Zionist circles, Kabbalah occupied a peripheral

place in modern Jewish and Israeli cultures during most of the twentieth century,

especially after the Second World War and the foundation of the State of Israel. Israeli

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T H E N E W A G E O F K A B B A L A H 109

hegemonic culture, which aspired to establish a predominantly socialist, secular and

Western society, as well as the dominant Jewish movements in the United States, which

strove to integrate in American Western culture, did not find much interest in kabbal-

istic and hasidic traditions, and marginalised the traditional circles—haredi and mizrahi

communities—in which Kabbalah was still revered and practised (Huss, “Ask No Ques-

tions”, 147). Although the academic study of Kabbalah established by Scholem was

highly esteemed, it was limited to philological-historical research practised by a small

circle of scholars.

Beginning in the 1970s, a renewed interest in Kabbalah and Hasidism took place in

Israeli society, as well as in Jewish communities in the United States and, to a certain

degree, in Western culture in general. During the 1970s and 1980s, and especially from

the 1990s onward, traditional kabbalistic yeshivot and hasidic movements became more

active and new Kabbalah and Neo-hasidic institutes, synagogues and study groups were

established, mostly in Israel and in the United States. In the last three decades, thousands

of people have been studying and practising various forms of Kabbalah, hundreds of

books about Kabbalah have been published and numerous Kabbalah-related webpages

can be found on the Internet. In these contexts, canonical kabbalistic and hasidic texts

are re-printed, translated and interpreted, and various kabbalistic rituals and practices

such as ritual Zohar readings, meditations, amulets, healing, exorcism, visitations of the

tombs of saints and so on, are performed, revived and re-invented.

In contradistinction to earlier decades in the twentieth century in which Kabbalah

was practised mostly in marginalised hasidic and mizrahi communities, producers and

consumers of contemporary Kabbalah are found in all segments of Israeli Jewish society,

in all the major Jewish denominations abroad and among various non-Jewish circles

around the globe. While most contemporary kabbalists and kabbalistic movements

operate in a Jewish framework, some also cater to a non-Jewish public, and some (such

as those related to the Order of the Golden Dawn) are manifestly not Jewish.

Many of the contemporary forms of Kabbalah emerged from, or are related to,

earlier forms. Several contemporary kabbalists (such as Benayahu Shmueli of Yeshivat

nehar shalom, David Basri of Yeshivat hashalom and Yaakov Moshe Hillel of Yeshivat ahavat

shalom) continue the traditions of the early twentieth-century yeshivot of Jerusalem in

which Kabbalah was practiced mostly according to the system of the eighteenth century

Yemenite kabbalist Shalom Sharabi (Hareshash). The most famous contemporary kabbal-

ist who belonged to these circles was Yitzhak Kaduri, nicknamed “the eldest kabbalist”

(Zekan hamekubalim), who died recently, aged over a hundred. Kaduri, who was a

marginal figure in the kabbalistic circles in Jerusalem during most of his life, from the

late 1980s became a highly popular figure who exercised considerable political influence

in Israel until his demise in 2006.

Other present-day forms of Kabbalah are related to North African kabbalistic and

saint veneration traditions. Prominent (and competing) kabbalists of North African

descent are the sons and relatives of Rabbi Israel Abu Haziera (Hababa sali), who resided

in Netivot after his immigration, and the upcoming young kabbalist Israel Yakov Ifargan,

also from Netivot, who is know as “the X-ray” (Harentgen), because of his prognostic and

healing powers.

Many present-day kabbalistic movements emerged out of, or are related to hasidic

traditions, mostly to the Habad and Breslov movements that are active in the present

kabbalistic and hasidic revival. Yitzhak Ginsburgh, one of the leading kabbalists in Israel,

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is a habad hasid, and the two founding figures of the American Jewish Renewal movement,

Shlomo Carlebach and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, were formerly habad emissaries.

Other contemporary kabbalistic movements are related to the school of Yehuda

Ashlag. Philip Berg, a student of Ashlag’s principal disciple, Zvi Yehuda Brandwein,

founded the largest contemporary kabbalistic movement, the Kabbalah Center, in the

1970s. Another rapidly growing movement based on Ashlagian Kabbalah is Bnei Baruch,

which was founded in the 1990s by Michael Laitman, who studied with Ashlag’s eldest

son, Rabbi Baruch. Many other contemporary Kabbalah groups are related to Ashlag,

including Mordechai Scheinberger (a student of Brandwein) and his followers in Or

haganuz, a communal kabbalist village in the upper Galilee. Other new Kabbalah

formations are derived from the mystical doctrines of Abraham Yitzhak Kook, with

interest in Kabbalah and Hasidism growing in recent years among his National Religious

followers in Israel. Other sources of contemporary Kabbalah are Christian kabbalistic

traditions, particularly the Western esoteric and occult kabbalistic groups of the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the influence of these traditions is

prominent especially among non-Jewish contemporary kabbalistic movements, they

also exercise some (direct or indirect) influence on movements that operate mostly in a

Jewish context.

Apart from these various kabbalistic traditions, one of the major sources of

contemporary Kabbalah is the modern academic discipline of Jewish mysticism. Many

contemporary kabbalists derive their knowledge of kabbalistic doctrines and practices

from the work of scholars, and they adopt some of the major perceptions about the

history and significance of Kabbalah from the academia. The reliance on academic schol-

arship is especially prominent in the American Jewish Renewal movements, some of

whose activists are scholars of Kabbalah and Jewish studies. The impact of Kabbalah

scholarship can also be discerned in many other contemporary kabbalistic movements.

The reliance on themes and practices derived from the writings of the thirteenth century

kabbalist Abraham Abulafia, for instance, that can be discerned in many contemporary

kabbalistic groups (Garb, The Chosen, 218–219) is dependent to a large degree on the

work of scholars who called attention to Abulafia’s Kabbalah, which had been rejected

by most traditional kabbalists until recently.

Although many contemporary groups are related to earlier kabbalistic and hasidic

schools, and emerged from the ethnic and ideological communities in which Kabbalah

was practiced in earlier decades of the twentieth century, it is difficult to classify

contemporary Kabbalah according to clear-cut national, ethnic, social or ideological

parameters. Most contemporary kabbalistic groups are hybrid in their social composi-

tion, and include members from various ethnic, social and economic backgrounds

(Garb, The Chosen, 191–192). Many members, as well as some of the prominent leaders

of contemporary kabbalistic and hasidic movements, come from non-religious

backgrounds or from communities in which Kabbalah was not practised.

The hybrid and eclectic nature of contemporary kabbalistic movements is expressed

not only in their heterogeneous social composition, but also in their doctrines and

practices. Most contemporary kabbalists incorporate themes that are derived from

diverse kabbalistic and hasidic traditions, as well as from the scholarly writings. Many

contemporary kabbalistic movements combine in their cultural productions themes and

practices derived from other religious traditions, popular culture and scientific sources

(Huss, “All You Need”, 620; Garb, The Chosen, 148–149). Despite the eclectic and

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hybrid nature of the New Kabbalah, there are some themes that are common to many

of its manifestations. While some of these themes (such as the notion of the sefirot, the

sanctity of the Zohar and so on) are dependent on the common sources of contemporary

Kabbalah, other common themes are derived from, or related to, contemporary New

Age culture.

New Age characteristics of contemporary Kabbalah

The connections and resemblance between New Age movements and some contempo-

rary kabbalistic movements have been observed by the media (usually in condemnatory

terms), as well as by scholars (Myers, “New Age Religion”; Dan 48; Garb, The Chosen,

185–212), some of whom regard the New Age nature of contemporary Kabbalah in

critical and disparaging terms (Dan 285). While accepting that there are significant simi-

larities between contemporary Kabbalah and the New Age, I will avoid analysing these

relationships in judgmental (neither disparaging nor laudatory) terms. As Fredric

Jameson (46–47) observed, conceptualising historical phenomena in terms of moral or

moralising judgments is a category mistake. Instead of criticising the New Age charac-

teristics of contemporary Kabbalah, I will attempt to analyse the historical underpinning

and cultural significance of these characteristics.

It should be emphasised that the New Age (as with contemporary Kabbalah) is not

a unified movement, but rather a segmented network of groups, without central author-

ity or leadership or a set of common teachings (Arweck 266; Lyon 118). Furthermore,

some of the major characteristics of the New Age also appear in contemporary forms of

institutionalised religion, as well as in many New Religious Movements (Arweck 265),

and even, as Catherine L. Albanese (348–350) has demonstrated, in fundamentalist

groups. As Paul Heelas (New Age Movement, 361) has suggested, the New Age is the most

visible expression of a wider spiritual revolution that thrives both outside, as well as

within, institutionalised religions in advanced industrial-commercial societies.

Scholars of the New Age and contemporary religious movements have enumerated

several characteristic themes that recur in New Age movements, as well as in some

other contemporary religious and spiritual formations. Many of these themes, such as

the anticipation of a spiritual cosmic transformation, the use of meditative and healing

techniques to achieve such a transformation, psychological renderings of religious

notions and the sanctification of the self, as well as the belief in the compatibility of spir-

ituality and science, recur in many contemporary kabbalistic and hasidic formations.

Such themes appear not only among neo-hasidic and neo-kabbalistic groups and individ-

uals who adopt explicitly New Age doctrines and practices, but also among orthodox

kabbalistic and hasidic groups who are regarded as presenting more traditional forms of

Kabbalah.

One of the major characteristics of the New Age movement is the expectation or

experience of a profound transformation, which is perceived as the dawning of a New

Age, identified frequently as the “Age of Aquarius” (Hanegraaff, New Age Religion,

331–361). As Gordon Melton observed:

The New Age movement can be defined by its primal experience of transformation.

New Agers have either experienced or are diligently seeking a profound personal

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transformation from an old, unacceptable life to a new, exciting future. (Melton

et al. xiii)

The expectation of a New Age of profound spiritual transformation and the dawning of

a new form of consciousness recurs in many contemporary kabbalistic movements,

some of which identify the New Age with traditional Jewish and kabbalistic messianic

ideas. From his very first writings in the 1970s, Philip Berg, the founder of the Kabbalah

Center, offered a New Age interpretation of the kabbalistic ideas of Yehuda Ashlag

(Myers, “New Age Religion”). In his recent introduction to the Kabbalah Center’s

English translation of the Zohar, Berg states that the spiritual transformation of the Age

of Aquarius is related to the dissemination of the Zohar by the Kabbalah Center. In terms

that are typical of what Hanegraaff (New Age Religion, 341–344) described as the radical

“Age of Light” perception of the “New Age”, he declares:

Today, we are witnessing the beginning of a new age of revelation. Today, more

than at any other time in history, the Lightforce is demanding to be revealed. This

is the secret of the Age of Aquarius… The awesome power of the Lightforce to

which we are connected by the Zohar, is the ultimate connection. During the Age

of Aquarius, humankind can again connect with the Lightforce. Through this

connection we can achieve an altered state of consciousness in which we, the past

and the future are here now, where our youth is again upon us, where we will

benefit from the Fountain of Youth, where death has been terminated. (Berg, The

Zohar, vol. 1, lxi–lxvii).

The sense of transformation into a new era is prevalent in the American Jewish

Renewal movement and affiliated groups who present, quite consciously, a form of

“New Age Judaism”. The notion of a “paradigm shift” (a term borrowed from Thomas

Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) to a new pantheistic age in which the Divine

is discovered in the person, is central to the neo-kabbalistic theology of Zalman

Schachter-Shalomi, the father figure of Jewish Renewal (Magid 40). This is based on the

prevalent idea in New Age sources, which were described by Hanegraaff (New Age Reli-

gion, 117) as representing the “new paradigm variety” of the New Age movement.1

Schachter-Shalomi (Paradigm Shift, 22) calls for an integration of holistic New Age

psychology in Judaism: “Beside the challenge of past history we also face the challenge

of the present New Age… I maintain that Judaism without holistic Aquarian psychology

will be farther from the divine intent than Aquarian psychology alone”. Similarly,

Leonora Leet, a professor of English literature who became a practicing neo-kabbalist

under the influence of Aryeh Kaplan, asserts: “[W]e are now in a new age of Judaism,

and in these changed circumstances it behooves us to seek the new forms of Jewish

observance that will enable a transformed Judaism to survive and flourish in the remain-

ing two thousands years of the Aquarian Age” (Leet, Renewing the Covenant, 21). Melinda

Ribner, a student of Shlomo Carlebach expresses similar notions in her New Age Judaism:

Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World.

The notion that we are at the beginning of an age of radical transformation of

consciousness is also central to the doctrines of Michael Laitman, the leader of Bnei

Baruch, who, similar to Berg, offers a New Age type of interpretation to the Kabbalah

of Yehuda Ashlag. Laitman, who does not use explicit New Age terms such as “the Age

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of Aquarius”, declares that a “conscious ascent of the souls” began at the end of the twen-

tieth century:

Have a look once more at the curve of the redemption. Mankind has been

advancing unconsciously toward the goal of creation for thousands of years. Since

the end of the 20th century, the conscious ascent of the souls began—exactly as

it was foretold in the book of the “Zohar” and in the writings of all the greatest

kabbalists such as the Ari, the Gaon of Vilna and Ba’al hasulam. We are the first

generation obliged to begin the conscious process of correction. (Laitman,

“Interview”, 203)2

This expectation of a new transformative age of is also central to the teaching of

Yitzhak Ginsburgh, who integrates traditional kabbalistic and hasidic themes, the

messianism of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe and an active, right-wing political ideology

(Harari 167–174, 201–236). Ginsburgh’s emphasis on redemption as dependent on the

transformation of human consciousness (Harari 228–230) reflects a common New Age

perception:

Thus far we have explained that diaspora (golah) is transformed into Redemption

(ge’ulah) by the addition of the letter aleph, from above downwards. This signifies

that Divinity descends in order to enter our consciousness and that such a transfor-

mation of consciousness brings forth the correction of the world (tikkun ha’olam).

(Ginsburgh, Muda‘ut tiv‘it, 152)

The sense that we live on the threshold of new spiritual era is also reflected in the

notion that the teaching of Kabbalah and the Zohar are permissible today, in contradis-

tinction to former times. This perception is central not only in the activities of Jewish

Renewal, the Kabbalah Center and Bnei Baruch, but also in the activities of traditional

orthodox kabbalistic groups such as the followers of the ultra-Orthodox kabbalist Daniel

Frish and the kabbalists of Yeshivat nehar shalom, headed by Benayahu Shmueli, who are

actively engaged in disseminating the Zohar.

The New Age perception of the expected cosmic transformation as entailing prima-

rily a transformation of human consciousness is related to the idea, which, according to

Hanegraaff (New Age Religion, 229) is “one of the most central concerns of the New Age:

the belief that we create our own reality”. The belief in the power of consciousness to

shape reality is central to teaching of the Kabbalah Center. Thus, Berg declares in his

introduction to The Zohar:

Kabbalists have always engaged in what has come to be called the power of mind

over matter. They suggest that more than being a participator in the scheme of

things, man, utilizing the power of thought, can act as a determinator of both

physical and metaphysical activity. (vol. 1, xli)

A similar idea is expressed by Michael Laitman, the leader of Bnei Baruch:

We are chosen in that our souls have the powers of thought and desire which, if used

correctly, can induce an immediate change in reality. The collective power of our

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thought, which will change to appreciate spirituality instead of corporeality, will

change the entire reality in our favour. (Laitman, “Interview”, 72)

A related idea is expressed by Schachter-Shalomi who, in Wrapped in Holy Flame: Teaching

and Tales of the Hasidic Master, writes (through the voice of the Baal Shem Tov):

I am the Baal Shem Tov and I am about to interpret Torah. What am I trying to do

by interpretation? I am trying to modify reality… How we interpret something will

make a difference in reality. It is almost as if to say that this interpretation that I am

going to give determines how the world will come out. (40)

The recent prominence of Israeli kabbalists (such as Rabbi Kaduri, Harentgen and many

others) who are believed to possess supernatural powers that enable them to predict the

future, diagnose spiritual and health problems and offer potent blessings, can be seen

also as related to the New Age perception of the power of the mind to influence physical

reality, and its prevalent belief in psychic powers (Lewis 7).

As George Melton observed above, the expected, or experienced, transformation

in New Age spirituality is primarily a personal transformation (Melton et al. xiii). New

Age expectations and experience of personal transformation, the perception of the

mind’s control over body and the belief in psychic powers are all related to the spiritu-

ality of the New Age, which is centred in psychology. As Wouter Hanegraaff (New Age

Religion, 224) observed, New Age offers a “psychologization of religion and sacralization

of psychology”. This feature is considered by Paul Heelas (“Spiritual Revolution”, 19) as

the defining characteristic of the New Age, which he aptly names “self-spirituality”. The

sacredness of the self is central not only to New Age movements, but also to many other

contemporary American and Western religious movements. According to Wade Clark

Roof (57): “[T]he turning inward in search of meaning and strength… is happening with

people both inside and outside the churches, synagogues and temples”.

Self-spirituality is central to many contemporary kabbalistic and neo-hasidic

movements. Jonathan Garb observed the centrality of psychological discourse in twen-

tieth-century Kabbalah and the New Age, and the attempts to reconcile psychological

theories with kabbalistic and hasidic doctrines by the Israeli scholars Micha Ankori and

Mordechai Rotenberg, the American neo-hasidic thinker Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

and the English kabbalist Ze’v ben Shimon Halevi (Garb, The Chosen, 205–206; see also

Hellerstein 69–72; Magid 47). Similarly, Chava Weissler noted in her lectures on

Jewish Renewal that self-spirituality is central to the Jewish Renewal movement: “[T]he

self/soul and spirituality are deeply intertwined in Renewal; for some, spirituality is

‘psychologised’; for others, psychology, in the form of ‘transpersonal psychology’ is

spiritualised”.3 Self-spirituality, a psychologisation of Kabbalah, and a “kabbalisation” of

psychology has been expressed in many titles published by authors of different kabbalis-

tic orientations in the last two decades.4

Wouter Hanegraaff described New Age as “the healing and personal growth move-

ment” (New Age Religions, 42–61). According to Hanegraaff: “[T]he proliferation of what

may loosely be called ‘alternative therapies’ undoubtedly represents one of the most

visible aspects of the New Age Movement” (New Age Religions, 42). Similarly, Catherine

L. Albanese (75) suggests that “the discourse and related action promoted by the New

Age have emerged as a new healing religion”. Spiritual techniques, healing, alternative

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therapies and meditation—the most prevalent contemporary spiritual technique—are

also central in the various forms of contemporary Kabbalah. Meditation is probably the

most widespread kabbalistic practice today. Some forms of meditation are based on

earlier kabbalistic techniques (many of them drawn from the writings of the thirteenth-

century kabbalist Abraham Abulafia), while others offer new techniques that integrate

non-Jewish spiritual practices with Jewish and kabbalistic themes (Ophir 408–418).

Many of the present forms of kabbalistic meditation, especially those practiced in the

United States, are based on the influential books of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.

As Weissler observed in her lectures on Jewish Renewal, meditation is central to

the practices of the Renewal movement: “Renewal Jews seek this experience of the

divine chiefly through two time-honored paths, found among mystics of all traditions:

contemplative meditation and ecstatic worship”. Kabbalistic meditation is discussed and

prescribed in numerous books written by Jewish Renewal and neo-Kabbalah authors in

the United States, such as, for instance, Fisdel (The Practice of Kabbalah) and Ribner

(Everyday Kabbalah). Arthur Green, a Kabbalah scholar and neo-hasidic theologian,

advises the readers of his Eheyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow:

[T]o pause for a period of meditation, a time to absorb this teaching in an experien-

tial way. Laying out the path of sefirot in sequence bears the danger of just imparting

information, and that is precisely what the sefirot are not. We are talking here about

inner stages of the mind’s reality that should correspond to something within our

own experience. Let us try then, to appreciate this language in the form of guided

meditation. (45)

Meditation is also central to the teaching and practices of the Kabbalah Center (Berg

Using the Wisdom, 211–225) and online meditation can be practised on their website

(Kabbalah Center, Meditation). Kabbalah meditation is practiced in Or haganuz, the

communal village based on Ashlag’s teaching, and guided video meditation can be found

on their website (Or Haganuz, Movies). Similarly, meditation is prescribed by Yitzhak

Ginsburgh in Living in Divine Space, Kabbalah and Meditation and Kabbalah and Meditation

for the Nations, and can be practised, following his audio instruction, on his website (Inner

Dimension, Meditation).

Contemporary kabbalists adopt other New Age spiritual techniques and healing

practices. The members of Or haganuz operate a college for alternative medicine,

Elima, in which they offer courses in Chinese medicine, reflexology, Shiatsu, Chi Kong

and Bach flower remedies (Elima). Although Yitzhak Ginsburgh rejects New Age

practices such as yoga, Reiki and Tai Chi (Inner Dimension, Responsa), his interest in

healing is highlighted in his Body, Mind, Soul: Kabbalah on Human Physiology, Disease and

Healing, as well as in discussion of The Healing of Body and Soul on his website (Inner

Dimension, Healing).

The growing interest in Practical Kabbalah, the proliferation of kabbalistic practices

aimed at attaining personal wellbeing, and the popularity of kabbalists with prognostic

and healing powers in Israel, are New kabbalistic equivalents of the interest in healing

and personal growth in New Age movements. Although the amulets of Yitzhak Kaduri

or the Tikkun ceremonies of Yakov Ifargan (Harentgen) may seem distant from typical

New Age practices, some of their consumers recognise the similarities between them.

Zvi Alush, an Israeli journalist who recently published a hagiography of Ifargan,

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described his supernatural powers as “alternative medicine” (Alush 156), and compared

a house-cleansing ritual he performed to Feng Shui:

One day, the Rabbi [Ifargan] visited the house of a well know attorney and his wife

in the South [the Negev]. The couple asked him to bless their new home and expel

from it the “evil eye”—which is known today in Feng Shui as “negative energies”.

The women related: “The Rabbi walked over the rooms and scanned them closely.

It was as if he ‘gathered’ negative energies from the walls and cleansed the house

from them”. (12)

The last shared characteristic of New Age and Contemporary Kabbalah I wish to

examine before turning to investigate the postmodern context and nature of these

cultural constructs is the interest in science and the claim that spirituality and modern

science are compatible (a claim that is derivative of the New Age holistic belief in the

monism of mind and matter). Hanegraaff (New Age Religions, 62) observes that “one of

the notable characteristics of New Age thinking is its high regard for modern science”.

Proponents of the New Age tend to use modern scientific vocabulary and integrate

scientific themes in their teaching (Heelas, “New Age”, 5). A central motif of the New

Age is the belief in the compatibility of modern science and spirituality, and “a desire to

reconcile religious and scientific worldviews in a higher synthesis that enhances the

human condition both spiritually and materially” (Lucas 192).

The compatibility of science and Kabbalah, which was declared by kabbalists in the

early twentieth century, especially in the writings of Yehuda Ashlag, is a prevalent

theme in contemporary Kabbalah (Garb, The Chosen, 196). The desire to reconcile

kabbalistic and scientific worldviews is central to the teaching of the Kabbalah Center

and Bnei Baruch, who follow Ashlag. As Jody Myers (“Concepts”) has observed:

“Kabbalah Center literature, audio tapes, and lectures are interspersed with references

to the history of science and scientific metaphors”. Scientific themes are especially

prominent in the writings of the leader of Bnei Baruch, Michael Laitman, whose

Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life contains a section entitled “Quantum Physics

meets Kabbalah” (15–83). Interest in modern science and the claim of its compatibility

with Kabbalah also appear in other contemporary Kabbalah formations.5 Thus, for

instance, Yitzhak Ginsburgh begins his article, “Kabbalah and String Theory”, by stating:

One of the most recent theories in physics—able, in theory, to unify the four

known forces of nature (and thereby achieve a “unified field theory”) but as of yet

unable to be validated by experiment—is “string theory”. Its basic concepts and

images bring to mind most evident correlations to the teachings of traditional

Jewish Kabbalah. (Inner Dimension, String Theory)

Postmodern spirituality

In the previous section, I demonstrated that New Age characteristics can be found in

most contemporary forms of Kabbalah and neo-hasidism. Although New Age terminol-

ogy is instrumental in recruiting followers and attracting consumers, the New Age

characteristics enumerated above should not be seen only as part of an outreach

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strategy, but rather as essential features of contemporary Kabbalah. Indeed, as we have

seen, New Age themes appear not only in groups that consciously and explicitly

embrace New Age spirituality, but also among kabbalists who avoid using New Age

terminology and reject New Age culture.

The postmodern nature of the New Age was observed by David Lyon (117) who

suggested that the “New Age has strong affinities with emergent features contemporary

societies discussed under the rubric of ‘postmodernity’”. Similarly, Paul Heelas (“Limits

of Consumption”, 105) claimed that New Age “is the religion of what has been described

as the post-modern consumer culture” and Wouter Hanegraaff (“New Age Religion”,

249–250) observed that New Age is “a manifestation par excellence of postmodern

consumer society, the members of which use, recycle, combine and adapt exiting

religious ideas and practices as they see fit”.

Scholars have also observed the postmodern nature of some of contemporary New

kabbalistic phenomena. Shaul Magid (60) considers Jewish Renewal as a reinvention of

Judaism, “using courageous interpretative schemes in the syncretistic spirit of postmod-

ern spirituality”. In a previous study (Huss, “All You Need”, 620), I suggested that the

practices of the Kabbalah Center express several of the major characteristics of post-

modern culture. Yoram Bilu (55) has recently described Yakov Ifargan as “a resourceful

postmodern saint”.

Following these scholars, I would like to argue that contemporary Kabbalah, the

New Age, as well as other new religious and spiritual movements that emerged in the

last decades of the twentieth century, are part of a global network of new postmodern,

cultural formations, which can be best described as “postmodern spirituality” (see also

Hanegraaff, “New Age Religion”, 258; Huss, “All You Need”, 620). Although both

terms—“postmodernity” and “spirituality”—are overused (and many times, misused) in

contemporary discourse, the notion of “postmodern spirituality” has, to my mind,

considerable explanatory power. The use of the term “postmodern” in reference to

contemporary Kabbalah and the New Age highlights their connection to other contem-

porary cultural formations, and anchors them to the economic, social and technological

changes of the late twentieth century. The use of the term “postmodern spirituality”

rather than “postmodern religion” emphasises the distinction between the New Age and

contemporary Kabbalah and “religion” as perceived and constructed in the modern era.

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, major economic, technological,

political and social transformations took place around the globe that involved changes in

modes of production, the adoption of new technologies and the emergence of an

increasingly integrated global economy. The restructuring of late, post-Fordist capital-

ism, described by David Harvey (147) as a shift to a regime of “flexible accumulation”,

and the emergence of a new social structure described by Manuel Castells as the

“network society”, stimulated and shaped a new logic of cultural production, new intel-

lectual discourses and new forms of knowledge, which were defined by Jean-Francois

Lyotard, Frederic Jameson, David Harvey and others as “postmodern”. The emergence

and evolution of New Age culture and the various forms of contemporary Kabbalah in

the final decades of the twentieth century should be understood in the context of the

restructuring of post-Fordist capitalism, the emergence of a network global society and

the postmodern mode of cultural production.

Following the weakening of the major social institutions of modernity and the

decline of its fundamental narratives, including the grand narrative of modern Western

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secularism, various cultural traditions that were marginalised and suppressed in the

modern period re-emerged (and necessarily, reconstructed) in the postmodern public

sphere. As Stuart Hall (34) observed: “[T]he most profound cultural revolution has

come about as a consequence of the margins coming into representation—in art, in

painting, in film, in music, in the literature, in the modern arts anywhere, in politics, in

social life generally”.

The evolution of New Age culture, as well as of contemporary Kabbalah,

expresses the increasing cultural power of such marginalised narratives and cultural

themes. The New Age movement valorises, revives and reinvents a wide range of

traditions and practices derived from Western esoteric, Oriental, Native American

and pagan cultures. Similarly, kabbalistic and hasidic traditions that were margina-

lised by both hegemonic Zionist culture in Israel and the dominant Jewish denomina-

tions in the United States are now revived and reinvented in contemporary

postmodern Israeli and Jewish American cultures. Yet the marginalised cultural

themes, valorised and revived in postmodern spiritual movements, are not repre-

sented in their traditional forms and contexts, but are usually combined with other

cultural signifiers, creating a mélange of syncretistic cultural productions. As noted

above, both the social composition, as well as the cultural productions of contempo-

rary kabbalistic movements, are highly diversified and eclectic—a feature that is also

characteristic of other contemporary religious and spiritual movements. As Wade

Clark Roof (73) observed:

Religious symbols, teachings, and practices are easily “disembedded” that is, lifted

from out of one cultural setting and “re-embedded” into another. Meditation tech-

niques imported from India and repackaged in the United States; Native American

teachings extracted from their indigenous context pop up in other settings. A global

world offers an expanded religious menu: images, rituals, symbols, meditation

techniques, healing practices, all of which may be borrowed eclectically, from a

variety of sources such as Eastern spirituality, Theosophy and New Age,

Witchcraft, Paganism, the ecology movement, nature religions, the occult

traditions, psychotherapy, feminism, the human potential movement, science, and

of course, all the great world religious traditions.

The eclectic nature of postmodern spirituality involves a blurring of distinction

between science, religion and popular culture. Both New Age and contemporary

kabbalistic movements blur and challenge the accepted, modernist distinctions between

religion and magic, theology and science, religious ritual and show business. New Age

and contemporary Kabbalah combine diverse themes such as Tarot cards and quarks,

sefirot and chakras, pop culture celebrities and Nobel laureates. Hybrid social identities

and eclectic cultural formations are typical products of the accelerated globalisation of

late capitalism, which was characterised by Jan Nederveen Pieterse (45) as “hybridisa-

tion”. Collage, montage, bricolage and pastiche, which are the primary forms of post-

modern aesthetics, are also typical of postmodern spirituality. Paraphrasing Stuart

Hall’s observation concerning contemporary popular music, the aesthetics of the New

Age and of contemporary Kabbalah can be described as “the aesthetics of the hybrid, the

aesthetics of the crossover, the aesthetics of the diaspora, the aesthetics of creolisation”

(Hall 39).

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A major feature of postmodernity, which was highlighted by Jean-Francois Lyotard,

and is related to the weakening of the major social institutions of modernity, is the

collapse of the modernist belief in grand narratives. According to Lyotard (51), the

question asked today in the context of acquisition of knowledge is no longer: “Is it true?”

but rather: “What use is it?”—a question that is equivalent to “Is it saleable?” and “Is it

efficient?”. Lyotard’s observations about the acquisition of knowledge in the institutions

of higher education apply equally to postmodern spiritual movements, including the

New Age and contemporary Kabbalah.

In contrast to the centrality of “belief” in modern religious movements, postmodern

spirituality primarily consists of practical knowledge. It offers its consumers techniques

and spiritual experience rather than articles of faith, myths or grand narratives. Contem-

porary Kabbalah, like other postmodern spiritual movements, concentrates mainly on

practices such as meditation, spiritual and physical exercises, proper nutrition and heal-

ing. The emphasis on practice rather than doctrine in contemporary Kabbalah becomes

obvious in the revival of Practical Kabbalah in Israel (Garb, The Chosen, 219), as well as

in the prevalence of the term “practice” in recent kabbalistic literature, such as Kaplan’s

Jewish Meditation; Fisdel, The Practice of Kabbalah; Cooper, God is a Verb; Aricha, Practical

Kabbalah; Leet, The Kabbalah of the Soul and so on. The collapse of grand narratives in

postmodern culture enhances the eclectic and hybrid nature of many of the New Age

and New Kabbalah groups. The legitimacy and value of practices in postmodern spiritu-

ality, as in postmodern culture in general, is dependent on their perception as efficient

rather than on their belonging to a compelling and authoritative religious or ideological

system.

Clark Wade Roof (73) adds to his discussion of the eclectic nature of the contem-

porary American “spiritual marketplace” that “depth to any tradition is often lost, the

result being thin layers of cultural and religious meaning”. Indeed, a commonly

observed (and condemned) characteristic of New Age culture and contemporary

Kabbalah is their tendency to present ideas (sometimes derived from highly complex

and esoteric traditions) in a simplified and exoteric way (Garb, The Chosen, 219–220).

Contemporary kabbalists often declare that their mission is to reveal and publish the

secrets of Kabbalah to the wider public in a modern, comprehensible and easily digested

way. Thus, for instance, Philip Berg entitled one of his first books Kabbalah for the

Layman, and the cover of Michael Laitman’s The Kabbalah Experience reads: “Never has

the language of Kabbalah been as clear and accessible as it is here, in this compelling,

informative collection”.

The simplicity with which (most) contemporary Kabbalah and New Age move-

ments present their doctrines is related to the characteristic “depthlessness” of postmod-

ern culture. According to Frederic Jameson (9): “The emergence of a new kind of

flatness or depthlessness, a new kind of superficiality in the most literal sense, (is)

perhaps the supreme formal feature of all the postmodernisms”. Jameson demonstrates

that postmodernism rejects the major models of modernity that distinguish between,

and give positive value to, depth over surface, essence over appearance, authenticity

over inauthenticity (Jameson 12). This postmodern characteristic explains also the

decline of interpretive practices in contemporary Kabbalah. Commentary (to the bible,

Zohar, Lurianic Kabbalah, etc.), which was the central literary genre in previous forms

of Kabbalah, is almost absent from contemporary Kabbalah. The decline of interpreta-

tion is related not only to a different mode of authority construction (which is today less

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dependent on the authority of canonical texts), but also to the location of significance

and value on the surface rather than in the depth of canonical texts. This feature is noted,

for instance, in the practice of the Kabbalah Center of scanning the Zohar, as well as in

the emphasis Bnei Baruch places on the importance of studying, even without under-

standing, the writings of Yehuda Ashlag.

As I noted above, both contemporary Kabbalah and the New Age are not unified

movements, but rather a segmented network of groups. This network structure is a

common feature of contemporary society, which was defined by Manuel Castells as the

“network society”. As Castells (500) observed, the social logic of the network pene-

trates and modifies contemporary forms of life: “Networks, constitute the new social

morphology of our societies and the diffusion of networking logic substantially modifies

the operation and outcomes in processes of production, experience, power, and

culture.” This network logic is expressed in the social structure and cultural productions

of New Age and New Kabbalah movements. Both the eclecticism and depthlessness of

these movements, mentioned above, are part of the rhizome-like network morphology

of postmodernity.

Self-spirituality, which was described by scholars as the privatisation of spirituality

(Carrette & King 15–17; Garb, “Privatization”, 30–34), is part of the late twentieth

century cultural shift towards individualisation, which was described by David Harvey

(171) as “a general shift from the collective norms and values, that were hegemonic at

the 1950s and 1960s, toward a much more competitive individualism as the central

value in an entrepreneurial culture that has penetrated many walks of life”. “Entrepre-

neurialism”, according to Harvey (171) “now characterizes not only business action, but

realms of life as diverse as urban governance, the growth of informal sector production,

research and development, and it has even reached into the nether corners of academic,

literary and artistic life”. Both the New Age and contemporary Kabbalah can be added

to the list of realms of life governed by entrepreneurialism. The entrepreneurial nature

of postmodern spirituality is reflected not only in its emphasis on individualism and

sanctification of the self, but also in the structure of many kabbalistic and New Age

groups and “outlets” that have emerged and operate as private enterprises competing for

cultural power and economic profit in the contemporary spiritual marketplace.

New Age and contemporary Kabbalah entrepreneurialism are expressions of the

integration of postmodern spiritualities in the economic systems of the late twentieth

century. The spiritual practices and productions of these are marketable commodities,

integrated into the global commodity production of late capitalism (Garb, The Chosen,

206–208). Many postmodern spiritual movements, including kabbalistic ones, are

successful global business enterprises that market their spiritual services and products

for a considerable price, making the most of the advertising and marketing possibilities

of late capitalist technology and communication systems.

The impact of capitalist market economy on the domain of contemporary spiritual-

ity was observed by many scholars including Wade Clark Roof, who describes contem-

porary American religious culture as a “spiritual marketplace”, while Jeremy Carrette

and Richard King refer to New Age movements as “capitalistic spirituality”. According

to Wouter Hanegraaff (“New Age Religion”, 258–259):

[T]he New Age movement has taken the shape of a spiritual supermarket where

religious consumers pick and choose the spiritual commodities they fancy, and use

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them to create their own spiritual syntheses fine-tuned to their strictly personal

needs. The phenomenon of a spiritual marketplace is not limited to the New Age

movement only, but is a general characteristic of religion in (post)modern Western

democracies.

The commodification of Kabbalah can be seen in the stores of the Kabbalah Center,

the gift shops at the Renewal Movement retreats and the online shops that can be

found on the websites of almost all contemporary Kabbalah movements. Apart from

books and various kabbalistic objects (such as amulets, jewellery, meditation cards,

etc.), various movements and private entrepreneurs charge fees (or expect donations)

for kabbalistic services such as teaching, healing and spiritual consultations. The inte-

gration of contemporary Kabbalah into late capitalism, and the affirmation of the

values of capitalism, are emphasised by the close contacts some Israeli kabbalists have

with business figures (such as, for example, the relationship between Yakov Ifargan

and Nochi Dankner, the chairman of Israel’s largest private business enterprise or the

cooperation between Ohad Ezrahi and Israel’s richest woman, Shari Arison), in the

“Kabbalah and Business” course offered by the Kabbalah Center, as well as in books

such as Brazilian Conservative Rabbi Nilton Bonder’s The Kabbalah of Money or Yitzhak

Ginsburgh’s, The Dynamic Corporation.

The evolution of the contemporary spiritual marketplace and the commodification

of religion, spirituality and Kabbalah are part of the postmodern commodification of

culture. As Fredric Jameson (4) argued, the production of culture “has become inte-

grated into commodity production generally”. “Postmodernism,” affirmed David

Harvey (62), “signals nothing more than a logical extension of the power of the market

over the whole range of cultural production”. New Age, contemporary Kabbalah and

other forms of postmodern spirituality are included in this range. This commodification

and marketing of spirituality and Kabbalah is criticised, ridiculed and censured by the

opponents of New Age and contemporary Kabbalah. Yet this negative attitude is depen-

dent on a modernist perspective that aspires to separate the “religious” and the “spiritual”

from the economic and political spheres. The cultural logic of late capitalism, which is

expressed in postmodern spirituality, defies this division and does not see a contradic-

tion between economic and spiritual value.

David Lyon (121) observed that “both postmodernity and New Age are all about

a new era”. The notion of the “New Age” expresses a similar reflective sense of

change as the idea of the “postmodern”. I would like to conclude by suggesting that

New Age and New Kabbalah, like other postmodern cultural formations, respond to

the new forms of life created by the radical economic, social and technological

changes of the late twentieth century. As Fredric Jameson (44) commented, the post-

modern hyperspace we live in transcends our perceptual and cognitive capacities to

locate ourselves in the changing external world and to map the global de-centered

communicational network in which we are caught. This new hyperspace, writes

Jameson (39), “stands as something like an imperative to grow new organs, to expand

our sensorium and our body to some new, yet unimaginable, perhaps ultimately

impossible, dimensions”. Postmodern spirituality, including contemporary Kabbalah,

responds to this challenge by offering spiritual ideologies and a variety of meditative

and healing practices that aspire to expand our minds and bodies to new dimensions in

face of the complexities of life in the postmodern era.

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Notes

1. Such as Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), and Fritjof Capra’s The

Turning Point (1982).

2. Like Berg, Laitman identifies the emergence of a New Age with his own activities of

disseminating Kabbalah. Laitman asserts that a New Age started in the last decade of

the twentieth century (usually pinpointing the year 1995)—the period in which he

established Bnei Baruch (see, for example, Laitman, “Interview”, 168).

3. I am grateful to Chava Weissler who has kindly supplied me with a transcript of her

lecture.

4. Prophet, Kabbalah: Key to Your Inner Power (1995); Aaron, Endless Light: The Ancient Light

of the Kabbalah to Love, Spiritual Growth and Personal Power (1998); Ginzburgh, Trans-

forming Darkness into Light: Kabbalah and Psychology (2002); Leet, The Kabbalah of the Soul:

The Transformative Psychology and Practices of Jewish Mysticism (2003) and many others.

5. Such notions are prominent, for example, in Yigal Aricha’s Kabbalah in Clear Light

(1996) and Leonora Leet’s The Secret Doctrine of Kabbalah (1997). Parallels between

Kabbalah and science are also drawn in Daniel C. Matt, God and the Big Bang: Discover-

ing Harmony between Science and Spirituality (1996).

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Boaz Huss is a Senior Lecturer in the Goren-Goldstein Department of Jewish Thoughtat Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His forthcoming book Like the Splendor of the Sky:The Reception History of the Zohar and the Construction of Its Symbolic Value will bepublished soon by the Ben Zvi Institute Press. He is currently engaged in a researchproject “Major Trends in Twentieth-century Kabbalah”, funded by the Israeli ScienceFoundation. Address: Goldstein Goren International Center for Jewish Thought, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, PO Box 653, Beer Sheva, Israel. [email: [email protected]]

Documents

Huss, New Age of kabbalah