Saturday, December 20, 1997

Once-secretive Jewish mysticism gains popularity

By RACHEL GRAVES / Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) -- For Shirley Chambers, Christmas Eve will include the lighting of Hanukkah candles.

Ms. Chambers, who was raised a Catholic, is director of the Karin Kabalah Center in Atlanta, whose members practice a once-secret aspect of Judaism called Kabbalah. Students pray and practice meditation as the route to self-understanding.

Kabbalah was popular in Europe in the Middle Ages, when it was passed on to Jewish men over 40 who were deemed to have the maturity and pristine spirituality to handle mysticism's power. Its followers claim that, through studying Jewish texts and achieving a more intimate relationship with God, Kabbalists can understand the hidden meaning of the Torah and can call on God to alter nature on their behalf.

Today, Kabbalah centers are popping up throughout the United States, teaching a hybrid version of this Jewish mysticism with no restrictions on age, gender or religion. Orthodox Jews dismiss the trend as a New Age fraud.

At the Atlanta center, the mostly Christian members will celebrate Hanukkah -- lighting candles and saying Jewish prayers -- in conjunction with their Christmas Eve service, which also incorporates meditation and faith healing.

"Mysticism transcends religion," Ms. Chambers says. "It says, hey, whatever structure fits good for you, great, but let's look at the essence."

The walls of the Karin Kabalah Center, housed in an office building, reflect this, decorated with symbols of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as crucifixes and Jewish stars.

As does Ms. Chambers' use of the word Kabbalah, which means "to receive" and has dozens of accepted spellings. She uses the word, she says, to "honor the culture that preserved that understanding -- the Jews."

Jim Thornton, a Jewish student at the Atlanta center who also attends a synagogue, has no dispute with mixing other religions and Jewish mysticism. "Here you find an incorporation of truth," he says. "Kabbalah is the blueprint for everything in the universe."

But Orthodox Jews, who say they have been studying Kabbalah since God gave Moses its teachings on Mt. Sinai, think the new centers miss the point: complete devotion to God.

"We're talking about an individual who has, in a sense, transformed," says Rabbi Chaim Dalfin, who belongs to the ultra-Orthodox Lubavitch movement of Judaism headquartered in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. "Food, materiality, sexuality, honor plays no role, makes no difference."

Dalfin, who has written several books on Kabbalah and has a website that asks people to "Stump the Rabbi" with questions about Jewish mysticism, claims he is no Kabbalist. "I like to have a good piece of chocolate cake," he says.

The largest of the new Kabbalah groups is the Kabbalah Learning Center, which claims 10,000 students in eight countries. These include Catholic schoolgirl-turned-pop diva Madonna, Jewish comedians Roseanne and Sandra Bernhard, and Catholic actress Diane Ladd and her daughter, Laura Dern.

Students are taught that carrying around books of the Kabbalah's 24-volume primary text, the Zohar, brings good luck. Most can't read the Zohar, however, because it has never been translated into English.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg, a Jewish scholar and president of the Jewish Life Network in New York, said some of the centers are nothing but New Age imitations of Kabbalah. "People knock off Gucci and Armani because they're in," he says.

Mysticism, once dismissed by Westerners as irrational, is in vogue again because of Kabbalah's increased popularity within traditional Judaism, he said.

For many Jews, Hanukkah's religious significance pales in comparison to Passover or Yom Kippur. But the groups that study Kabbalah place far more importance on the eight-day Festival of Lights, which celebrates the ancient re-dedication of the temple in Jerusalem after victory over the Syrians. The Jews had only enough oil to rekindle the temple's flame for one day, but the oil miraculously lasted eight days.

At the Kabbalah Learning Center in Los Angeles, students celebrate Hanukkah by saying Jewish prayers and meditating over oil lights in an attempt to alter the future, says Rabbi Chaim Solomon, a teacher at the California center.

The Lubavitchers celebrate by putting up public menorahs in cities around the world to share Hanukkah's light. As Dalfin explains: "The light of the candles of the menorah are to brighten up the dark spiritual side that exists in the universe and in ourselves."