Keeping Kabbalah Jewish

A few years ago I appeared on a TV talk show whose celebrity host was involved with the Kabbalah Centre, the international organization committed to promoting the ancient Jewish mystical tradition. The show offered "Kabbalah mineral water" to the guests, accompanied by literature claiming that the water had been blessed in some way as to alter its atomic composition. I remember thinking how sad it was that many of the influential people who appeared on the show had their first introduction to Judaism through this kind of garbage.

The Kabbalah Centre deserves applause for having taken one of the most significant, yet ignored, disciplines of Judaism and bringing it to the thirsty masses. As an author who has published books on the kabbalah, I consider this a singular and outstanding achievement. No doubt, much of the opposition to the Kabbalah Centre from the established Jewish community is animated by jealousy at the center's having garnered thousands of members studying a subject once considered too abstruse for the public.

Nevertheless, the Kabbalah Centre presents some troubling issues that need to be addressed.

First and foremost, the Kabbalah Centre seems to promote superstition as religion. The two are not the same. Whereas religion inspires, superstition alarms. Religion connects man to the heavens. Superstition focuses him on the grave. And while religion helps us to transcend human limitations, superstition traps us in a prison of anxiety and fear.

The Kabbalah Centre, with its use of ridiculous red strings to ward off the evil eye, is preying on people's fears. Judaism has always believed in the evil eye. But its meaning is that people should maintain a meek and contrite spirit so as not to elicit jealousy. Societies are undermined through boastfulness, which sows enmity and slowly erodes human cohesiveness. Humility is only way to ward off the evil eye. The red string is pure snake oil.

Listen to 'the kabbalist' on the Kabbalah Centre's website: "The Red String protects us from the influences of the Evil Eye. Evil Eye is a very powerful negative force. It refers to the unfriendly stare and unkind glances we sometimes get from people around us. Kabbalah teaches us that we can remove intrusive negative influences by using tools such as the Red String!"

This, of course, is pure drivel and the writer robs kabbalah of a moral or ethical dimension. Are we really to believe that we ward off people's envy not by living modestly, but by driving our overly expensive cars while wearing a red string?

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