Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Kabbalah, a major school of thought in Jewish mysticism.
Kabbalah
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of David Bowie
David Bowie died of cancer on Sunday after a glittering five-decade career in pop music. The rocker won millions of fans across several generations by constantly reinventing himself, but who knew he had such a strong link to the Tribe? Madonna had nothing on David Bowie when she came out as a devotee of Kabbalah…
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Culture Redemption of the First Shorn
Forward reader Susan Rogol writes: “I receive many invitations to the ceremony of cutting the hair of a boy who has reached the age of 3, and I do not understand why it is referred to as an ‘upsherenish’ rather than an ‘upsheren.’ I always associate the Yiddish suffix “-nish” with something negative, as in…
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Culture In Praise of New Age Judaism
New Age Judaism gets a bad rap. It’s namby-pamby, critics say — indulgent, narcissistic. Maybe it’s not even Jewish. Never mind the fact that the Havurah movement, Jewish Renewal and Neo-Hasidism have significantly shaped mainstream Jewish prayer life (chances are, your mainline synagogue’s Friday night tunes were first sung by a hippie in Birkenstocks) as…
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Culture Man in Search of God
Man Seeks God: My Flirtations With the Divine By Eric Weiner Twelve, 368 pages, $26.99 I’ll be honest: I normally hate books like this — memoirs of spiritual tourism, jauntily retold by trustworthy but neurotic narrators who are careful never to be more knowledgeable than the reader. I have read about two dozen of these…
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Culture Giving Voice to Kabbalah Masters
The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse From the Jewish Tradition Translated and annotated by Peter Cole Co-edited and with an afterword by Aminadav Dykman Yale University Press, 544 pages, $30 ‘There among the trees of God / … I’d enter the sacred shrine of the woods / … And as I sat at the edge…
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The Schmooze Demi Moore: From Kabbalah To Rehab
We’re not sure what Jewish mystics had to say about Red Bull and Adderall, but actress Demi Moore apparently immersed herself in Kabbalah to stay on track with her recovery from addiction, gossip site TheFix reports. The approach was not entirely successful; in February, Moore ended up checking herself into “an undisclosed location” from which…
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Recipes The Spiritual Significance of the Seven Species Silan Cake
From Tu B’Shvat (Jewish Arbor Day), we may develop a clearer understanding that the well being of trees is intimately connected to the well being of all creation. From the point of view of practical Jewish philosophy and everyday living, the “Tree of Life” symbolizes the wisdom of the Torah: “Man is like a tree…
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News Sandra Bernhard Shows Her Softer Side
Her followers on Twitter know that Sandra Bernhard shares a dizzying number of missives. “I mix it up, honey, tomorrow night is a vegan potato kale enchilada. That’s how we roll,” said a recent tweet. Another said simply: “7:20 is the new 10:30.” To some, the domesticity might seem surprising. After all, Bernhard is a…
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