Kabbalah and The Politicis of

Inauthenticity

Boaz Huss

Maran Ovadia YosephConcerning the information

about the foundation in Israel of

an institute for the dispersion of

the wisdom of the Kabbalah,

headed by people who are not

held to be „those who revere the

Lord and esteem His name‟

(Malachi 3, 16) … we were

informed that students study

there together, males and

females of all ages … It is a

great merit to warn the public to

distance themselves from their

path.

We have already written about Philip Berg,

the head of the Kabbalah Research Center

and Kol Yehuda, that evidently his public

deeds are not according to the Torah.

Through his publications he convinces

innocent people that he is a Kabbalist, in

order to obtain wealth and influence, and

thus enlarge his deviant venture. He and

his followers are a sect and they are

dangerous to the Torah and to the faith,

because they harm the public that reads the

Kabbalah books he publishes, and disobeys

the prohibitions and decrees of the Torah

in public …we decree that all the books

that he, Kol Yehuda institute, and the

Kabbalah Research center print and

publish, in any language, including Sefer

ha-Zohar, should immediately be removed

from all the Kosher houses of Israel, from

Synagogues and from houses of study, and

be buried, as they are a danger to the house

in which they are found in, and it is

forbidden to read or browse in them.

Prof. Yoseph Dan

Prof. Dan … regards it as a

monstrous perversion of Jewish

spirituality, dissociated from the

613 commandments and seriously

distorting the historical nature of

Kabbalah, which was always

anchored in a life filled with study

of Torah and observance of the

commandments. These religious

sects that arrived here from

California and speak of “pure

spiritual life” or “mystical

contemplation of reality” offer the

masses the drug of false bliss

Prof. Alan Nadler[…] the recent emergence of

numerous mystical charlatans who

are peddling a deeply distorted

version of Judaism‟s most profound

spiritual teachings to rich and

famous Jews and non-Jews, from

rock singers to Hollywood stars. The

most dangerous of these trendy

purveyors of “Jewish mysticism” is

the Kabbalah Learning Centre, an

organization whose goal is to

transform Kabbalah from esoteric

theosophical teachings into a vehicle

for New Age healing. […]

It‟s phony; it‟s manipulative; it has no spirituality whatsoever, it‟s not related to the authentic Kabbalah.

Rabbi Immanuel Schochet

Rabbi Raphael Afilalo

It is well known in Jewish

rabbinical circles that what

Berg and his colleagues from

the Kabbalah Center are

teaching has nothing to do

with authentic Kabbalah. It is

also know they have no

credentials to teach Kabbalah

and are not accepted as

Kabbalists.

A distressing example of this phenomenon

is the vast enterprise of “kabbalistic”

publications initiated and directed by

“kabbalist Rav Berg”. Originally he based

his teachings on the work of one of the last

authentic Kabbalists of the twentieth

century, Rabbi Ashlag who wrote a

voluminous commentary on the Zohar,

based on the teachings of Isaac Luria. It was

heartbreaking to observe how this authentic

enterprise deteriorated into New Age

mishmash of nonsense. (p. 285)

Prof. Joseph Dan

Kabbalist Yehuda Berg Kabbalist Isaac Kaduri

(They are) using what I consider

some of the less attractive aspect

of the Kabbalistic tradition, that is

to say a certain amount of belief in

the power of holy men and the

power of blessing and the power

of holy objects … that‟s always

accompanied the Kabbalistic

tradition, but I consider that to be

the more trivial and superficial

forms of Kabbalah … Its precisely

the kind of thing that moderns

should not be attracted to … (I

was thinking) … modern people

would be turned away from

Prof. Arthur Green

Kabbalah and The Politicis of

Inauthenticity

Boaz Huss