Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Kabbalah, a major school of thought in Jewish mysticism.
Kabbalah
The Latest
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Food Making Your Dinner Table a Temple
For my 33rd birthday back in 1992, I received a book from our best friends and frequent dinner partners, a book that changed my life. It was the Hebrew edition of the collected writings of Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher, a 13th-14th century kabbalist and biblical commentator. It included what has become a constant companion over…
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The Schmooze Hebrew Is Guy Ritchie’s Secret Language of Love
Hebrew seems to be the language of love for Guy Ritchie and girlfriend Jacqui Ainsley. According to Hello magazine, the ex-Mr. Madonna and Ainsley speak to each other in Hebrew when they are out in public and want to keep their conversation private. Ritchie is already fluent in Hebrew (at least he got something out…
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Culture Discovering Kafka and Rabbi Nachman
Arts and culture editor Dan Friedman interviewed award-winning poet and author Rodger Kamenetz, whose new book about his physical and spiritual pilgrimage, “Burnt Books: Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and Franz Kafka” (Schocken/Nextbook), charts a path between literature and religion. The Arty Semite is now featuring excerpts and reviews from Kamenetz’s Psalm 151 series. Dan Friedman….
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The Schmooze Naomi Campbell Takes Up Kabbalah
Better get out your book plates, Madonna. Model Naomi Campbell wants to borrow your copy of the Zohar. According to this JTA report, the hot-tempered supermodel has taken up study of the mystical Jewish tradition in order to calm her emotions. Of course, she is but the latest of a (red) string of non-Jewish celebrities…
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The Schmooze A Disappointing Dybbuk
It’s a pretty familiar theme — the Jew as a perpetual wanderer, forever a foreigner, friendless and reviled by all. Is there anyone else so existentially homeless, utterly without place on the planet as the Jew? Who, besides the Jew, is so intolerable to his host that he becomes the target of violent threats, which…
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The Schmooze ‘King’ LeBron James Consults Kabbalist
In the wake of his much-maligned primetime special announcing his move to the Miami Heat, is hoops superstar LeBron James desperate for some good advice? That’s James’ ghostwriter Buzz Bissinger’s take on gossip blog TMZ’s scoop that the Heat’s new forward sought the advice of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, the kabbalist guru we covered in…
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The Schmooze Fusing Indian and Jewish Worship With the ‘Kirtan Rabbi’
Kirtan, a Sanskrit call-and-response form of worship from India, and Rabbi, are two words not often found in the same sentence. Rabbi Andrew Hahn, better known as the “Kirtan Rabbi,” is on track to change that. Hahn’s spiritual innovation was on display at the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York’s Battery Park last week, as…
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The Schmooze Naomi Campbell Finds Kabbalah
Supermodel Naomi Campbell, who two year ago compared Kabbalah to Alcoholics Anonymous, has done a 180 and gotten on the wagon. The star was sighted having secret meetings with with Eitan Yardeni, the Kabbalah leader who first got Madonna hooked, at the Kabbalah Centre in Manhattan, according to the New York Post. In 2008, reports…
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