Kabbalah
Kabbalah is the name applied to the whole range of Jewish mystical activity. While codes of Jewish law focus on what it is God wants from man, kabbalah tries to penetrate deeper, to God’s essence itself.
There are elements of kabbalah in the Bible, for example, in the opening chapter of Ezekiel, where the prophet describes his experience of the divine: “… the heavens opened and I saw visions of God…. I looked and lo, a stormy wind came sweeping out of the north-a huge cloud and flashing fire, surrounded by a radiance; and in the center of the fire, a gleam as of amber” (1:1,4). The prophet then describes a divine chariot and the throne of God.
The rabbis of the Talmud regarded the mystical study of God as important yet dangerous. A famous talmudic story tells of four rabbis, Azzai, Ben Zoma, Elisha ben Abuyah, and Akiva who would meet together and engage in mystical studies. Azzai, the Talmud records, “looked and went mad [and] Ben Zoma died.” Elisha ben Abuyah became a heretic and left Judaism. Rabbi Akiva alone “entered in peace and left in peace.” It was this episode, the later experiences of individuals who became mentally unbalanced while engaging in mystical activities, and the disaster of the false MessiahShabbetai Zevi that caused seventeenth-century rabbis to legislate that kabbalah should be studied only by married men over forty who were also scholars of Torah and Talmud. The medieval rabbis wanted the study of kabbalah limited to people of mature years and character.
The most famous work of kabbalah, the Zohar, was revealed to the Jewish world in the thirteenth century by Moses De Leon, who claimed that the book contained the mystical writings of the second-century rabbi Simeon bar Yochai. Almost all modern Jewish academic scholars believe that De Leon himself authored the Zohar, although many Orthodox kabbalists continue to accept De Leon‘s attribution of it to Simeon bar Yochai. Indeed, Orthodox mystics are apt to see Bar Yochai not so much as the Zohar’s author as the recorder of mystical traditions dating back to the time of Moses. The intensity with which Orthodox kabbalists hold this conviction was revealed to me once when I was arguing a point of Jewish law with an elderly religious scholar. He referred to a certain matter as being in the Torah, and when I asked him where, he said: “It’s in the Zohar. Is that not the same as if it was in the Torah itself?”
The Zohar is written in Aramaic (the language of the Talmud) in the form of a commentary on the five books of the Torah. Whereas most commentaries interpret the Torah as a narrative and legal work, mystics are as likely to interpret it “as a system of symbols which reveal the secret laws of the universe and even the secrets of God” (Deborah Kerdeman and Lawrence Kushner, The Invisible Chariot, p. 90). To cite one example, Leviticus 26 records “a carrot and a stick” that God offers the Jewish people. If they follow his decrees, He will reward them. But if they spurn them, God will “set His face” against the people: “I will discipline you sevenfold for your sins….” and “I will scatter you among the nations” (26:28, 33). At the chapter’s conclusion, God says: “Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them, for I am the Lord, their God” (26:44).
On this series of admonitions, the Zohar comments: “Come and see the pure love of the Blessed Holy One for Israel. A parable: There was a king who had a single son who kept misbehaving. One day he offended the king. The king said, ‘I have punished you so many times and you have not [changed]. Now look, what should I do with you? If I banish you from the land and expel you from the kingdom, perhaps wild beasts or wolves or robbers will attack you and you will be no more. What can I do? The only solution is that I and you together leave the land.’ So . . . the Blessed Holy One said as follows: ‘Israel, what should I do with you? I have already punished you and you have not heeded Me. I have brought fearsome warriors and flaming forces to strike at you and you have not obeyed. If I expel you from the land alone, I fear that packs of wolves and bears will attack you and you will be no more. But what can I do with you? The only solution is that I and you together leave the land and both of us go into exile. As it is written, ‘I will discipline you,’ forcing you into exile; but if you think that I will abandon you, Myself too [shall go] along with you.”‘
There are many strands of teaching in the kabbalah. Medieval kabbalists, for example, were wont to speak of God as the En Sof(That Which Is Without Limit). The En Sofis inaccessible and unknowable to man. But God reveals Himself to mankind through a series of ten emanations, sefirot, a configuration of forces that issue from the En Sof. The first of these sefirot is keter (crown) and refers to God’s will to create. Another sefira, binah (understanding), represents the unfolding in God’s mind of the details of creation, while hesed (lovingÔö¼┬íkindness) refers to the uncontrolled flow of divine goodness. Most of the sefirot are regarded as legitimate objects for human meditation; they represent a way in which human beings can make contact with God. Through contemplation and virtuous deeds, human beings can also bring down the divine grace to this world.
The greatest scholar and historian of kabbalah in this century was the late Professor Gershom Scholem of HebrewUniversity in Jerusalem. Scholem, himself a nonobservant Jew, was fond of explaining how he became attracted to so esoteric a discipline: “My decision to study Jewish mysticism came the day I visited the home of a famous German rabbi, a person with a reputation for scholarship in the kabbalah…. Seeing on his shelf some mystical texts with intriguing titles, I had, with all the enthusiasm of youth, asked the rabbi about them. ‘This junk,’ the rabbi had laughed at me. ‘I should waste time reading nonsense like this?’ It was then . . . that I decided here was a field in which I could make an impression. If this man can become an authority without reading the text, then what might I become if I actually read the books?”
As a rule, mekubbalim (people who actively study and practice kabbalah) are skeptical of men like Scholem, who studied kabbalah as a university discipline and not from a personal conviction of its truth. One mekubbal, Rabbi Abraham Chen, declared on one occasion before a seminar of Scholem’s students: “A scholar of mysticism is like an accountant: He may know where all the treasure is, but he is not free to use it.” A precisely opposite view on the value of kabbalah was taken by the late Professor Saul Lieberman, the great Talmud scholar of the Jewish Theological Seminary. In an introduction to a lecture Scholem delivered at the seminary, Lieberman said that several years earlier, some students asked to have a course here in which they could study kabbalistic texts. He had told them that it was not possible, but if they wished they could have a course on the history of kabbalah. For at a university, Lieberman said, “it is forbidden to have a course in nonsense. But the history of nonsense, that is scholarship.”
Lieberman’s caustic comment aside, kabbalah has long been one of the important areas of Jewish thought. Ideas that many contemporary Jews might think of as un-Jewish sometimes are found in the kabbalah, most notably, the belief in reincarnation (gilgul neshamot). Between 1500 and 1800, Scholem has written, “kabbalah was widely considered to be the true Jewish theology,” and almost no one attacked it. With the Jewish entrance into the modern world, however-a world in which rational thinking was more highly esteemed than the mystical-kabbalah tended to be downgraded or ignored. In recent years, there has been an upsurge of interest in kabbalah, and today it is commonly studied among Hasidic Jews, and among many nonÔö¼┬í-Orthodox Jews who are part of the counterculture.
THE KABBALAH:
“Received Tradition”
The Kabbalah comes from a 2nd century AD writing, TheZohar (Book of Splendour.) Although Cabalism (sometimes spelt with a c) goes way back to Babylon and is also linked to witchcraft.
The reader may be interested to know that from the birth of Jesus Christ to the day He died, God accepted no atonement from the Jews in their temple.
“Our Rabbis taught that throughout the forty years that Shimon the Tzaddik served … the scarlet cloth would become white. From then on it would sometimes become white and sometimes not…Throughout the last forty years, before the Temple was destroyed…the scarlet cloth never turned white” (Yoma 39a-39b.)
At the precise moment when Jesus gave up the Ghost, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matt 27:51.)
With this supernatural event, evident for all to see, God would now allow the Jewish nation 40 years (always symbolic) to turn to His Son’s New Covenant.
When this time came (70AD) the Temple was utterly destroyed and has remained so (due to the Church age) and will only be rebuilt during the Great Tribulation.
This brief Biblical history is needed to help the reader understand, that whilst these events were occurring, the Jews who refused to accept God’s new and final Covenant, were thrown into disarray. Because of this they had to redefine what Judaism now stood for and subsequently new books were written like the Zohar, even though the Jewish Tenach (the Old Testament) had long been closed and accepted as so, as far back as 400BC.
Is Kabbalahism Mainstream Judaism?
When I first set out to write on this cult, I really didn’t know where to start, for my knowledge about Kabbalah was limited. However, as you will discover, the Kabbalah is very similar to Scientology and the Moonies, with their aggressive proselytising and emphasis on the need for the new convert to distance themselves from family and friends, something former members of this movement can confirm.
Rabbi Marcus, a member of the chief Rabbis UK cabinet, said: “They isolate people from their families, getting them to stop their careers and dedicate themselves to selling books or living as virtual serfs within the centres. They’re using methods that I saw the Moonies using in South Africa.”
One former member said she worked from 9am-1pm, sometimes all night, was paid 19 a month and shared a one-bedroom apartment with four other young women. She went on to conclude, “I was a slave.”
So serious and worried are the mainstream Jewish community about this group, that they were forced to put out this careful and very diplomatic statement:
“In the light of issues which have been brought to our attention relating to the Kabbalah Centre in the UK, we wish it to be known that this organisation does not fall within the remit of the Chief Rabbinate or any other authority in the UK recognised by us” (Jonathan Sacks, Chief UK Rabbi and the London Din.)
This was later echoed in South Africa:
“We advise congregants to have nothing to do with the Kabbalah Centre” (South African Chief Rabbi, 1993.)
So with the above statement warning people not to join Kabbalahism, it should come as no surprise that people are still joining Kabbalahism, even though the mainstream and liberal wing of Judaism has tried to distance themselves from this cult!
Some figures purport the number of people practising in this ancient Jewish cult to be 3.4 million worldwide.
Their declared assets are $23,362,976, for the year of 2002. Contributions received – $1,515,399. Wages and salaries paid – $94,999.
This religion is rather modest in its declared income, when compared to other cults like the Moonies and the Mormons. It should also be pointed out that the Kabbalah, like all charities, is tax-exempt.
Feivel Gruberger, now Dr Philip Berg
(1929-)
Gruberger was a Brooklyn insurance salesman and was married with seven children, yet he would later go on to leave them and his normal secular life, and become a very successful ace guru.
He studied in Jerusalem and controversially and allegedly would succeeded rabbi Yehuda Brandwein. However, according to Brandweins son, (now dean at the Kol Yehuda seminary in Jerusalem), Berg and his organisation is not recognised by the university, in any way, shape or form.
Apparently he was ordained a rabbi, but evidence as to where he obtained his doctorate isn’t clear.
Kabbalah’s Most Famous Disciple!
The pop star Madonna has earmarked Friday out from the rest of the week as being “sacred.”
According to numerous press reports and interviews, she now likes to be called Esther; celebrates the Sabbath, and refuses to perform any shows during this past Jewish rest day. Yet the rest of the week she returns to her secular life, and when rehearsing for her immoral shows, she uses an exclusive earpiece to receive advice from a Kabbalah rabbi, who watches her from a distance.
Her recent book The English Roses was based on Kabbalah stories.
Before each of her live concerts, she holds hands with all of her singers and dancers, and leads them all in a ‘prayer.’ Some times obscene and vulgar language will be used when praying to her god.
During her ‘religious’ songs, pictures of Jesus and Mary are used in the background, with one of a man on a cross (if she knew anything about the Old Testament, she would know that you CANNOT create ANY visible image of God.)
Subsequently she, like Catholicism and unfortunately many Christian denominations, have broken the 2nd Commandment (Ex. 20:4-7.)
When her tribute to Kabbalah comes on, Hebrew words and names are rotated behind her on a huge giant screen.
Madonna, is very much an ‘ecumenical’ minded individual. She seems to have kept much of her Catholic superstition and at the same time, incorporates this into mystical Judaism, a sure recipe for disaster. If she really believes the Old Testament, then she would believe in the Lord Jesus, for did He not say the following: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: FOR HE WROTE OF ME” (John 5:46.)
Beliefs & Facts
Red: Kabbalah
Black: Traditional Christianity
Financial gifts donated to the Kabbalah can help cleanse dead people’s souls and help progress one’s spiritual and materialistic life (Saturday Times, 3 Apr. 04.)
Such false and unbiblical doctrines, as these, are also mirrored in Roman Catholicism.
The Bible has always been clear that faith in Christ alone is sufficient for salvation and this cannot be purchased with money or gifts, it is FREE (Eph. 2:8-10.)
Their courses start at 151 UK pounds.
Their attractive and glossy brochure makes some remarkable claims:
“You’ll learn how to find the perfect mate, how to remove illness from your life, and even before illness strikes, prevent it. You’ll also learn how to reverse the ageing process and prolong life.”
Clearly this religion is only for people with money. And what would happen, I wonder, if somebody couldn’t afford this? For according to them, one’s life would benefit from this, yet with no money, one goes without.
The late Donald Barnhouse would say: “The death rate is still one-per-person, and were all going to make it.”
How true this is.
(For the record one doesn’t need to go on any course, whether it be Berg’s or the apostate Anglican vicar, Nicky Gumbel’s 12 week Alpha Course, to find God. Just get on your knees and cry out to Him in total repentance and sorrow for your sins. If it was good enough for the Philippian jailer it is good enough for anyone.)
The Jews would have survived the holocaust, had they studied the Kabbalah (Berg)
Today’s modern and reformed rabbis cite Isaiah 53 (if they read it – for many years the Jews skiped this chapter altogether) as referring to Israel and the holocaust.
Two things must be said on this. First, while some verses do have plural pronouns, others have singular pronouns, and the Person to whom this singular pronoun speaks of, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, Jewish scholars, pre-70AD, universally understood this Old Testament book to be Messianic, therefore nothing in this scared Scripture could have, in any way, been used to assist the Jews from escaping the horrors of the holocaust.
Drinking Kabbalah water can cure cancer, or wearing the red string Kabbalah bracelet protects against evil. According to some reports, children of the Kabbalah members were threatened with illnesses if money was not forthcoming via their tithing system, and for members that left, dark forces would bring them personal tragedy.
As with all false religions and man-made doctrines, such fables and immotional blackmail ultimately profit the member of a cult to no avail, and should be dismissed as simply ludicrous.
The only One who can protect and guarantee the life of sinners, is the Lord God of the Bible, and no amount of money would be an incentive for Him to do this. Only faith and repentance in His Son will do (Mark 16:16.)
Some people suffer from Klippah, which means negative energy stops light coming into ones life. Thus some people cannot have relationships or children (Berg.)
Yet according to the Times, if one has enough money (in this case $110,000) than Berg would eliminate this unfortunate barrier to a member of his cult!
If one walks close to God, one’s soul might obtain the light that can lead to immortality.
When the word light appears in the Scripture it refers to Christ, Who said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12.) And only through faith in Him, can one have eternal life (John 3:16.)
Kabbalah can be used as a tool to improve ones life in the world today. Whether one is Jewish or not, simply understanding these unseen spiritual laws can bring one happiness and material fulfilment (Berg.)
Again, the Old Testament in silent on such claims. Also the word sin, repentance and faith in the Messiah/Saviour, is never mentioned.
Apparently other benefits from joining this religion are: relationships, business, health and more.
In the charismatic movement today (apostate Christianity) this is called “The Prosperity Gospel.” Again, Scripture is silent on such amazing promises.
Conclusion
The great tragedy, with this shadowy Jewish movement, is the fact that they and their members, not to mention all Jews for that matter, are unable to see that Jesus Christ is Israel‘s Messiah.
The apostle Paul spoke about a spiritual blindness that Israel has long suffered from and will continue to do so, until she repents and believes in her Saviour. And because all branches of Judaism are theologically lost as well, and are still wandering in the wilderness (but this time without Moses or their Great Shepherd), they too, are unable to reach out to this group and rein them in.
The good news is, however, that the number of Jews which are coming to faith in Jesus Christ is continually growing, and has probably not been this high since the Day of Pentecost, some two thousand years ago.
My prayer is that this will continue and men like Berg would find themselves made redundant and they too would call on the Name of the Lord and abandon this nonsensical religion.