We Told You The Kabbalah Centre Is Over: Jewsweek vs. Newsweek
Rabbi Avi Shafran frets in Jewsweek about the "mad rush to embrace " the celebrity-powered Kabbalah Centre. But he tells us what we already knew: Real Jews don't do the Kabbalah Centre.
True Kabbalah, though, is comprehensible only to initiates and has never been offered to uncomprehending masses. That hasn't changed; the Kabbalah Centre has about the same relationship to the true Jewish mystical tradition as Barney has to Tyrannosaurus Rex. And yet Jews with respect for authentic Judaism would do well to ponder the brisk business the Centre does in its snake oil for the soul. Why, we might ask ourselves, would anyone pay $84 for a "Knitted Blanket Protection" package consisting of "a set of sheets and a knitted blanket" with Hebrew lettering (in blue or peach)?
He can't even bring himself to utter the name of the Kabbalah Water-swilling elephant in the room in his 752 words. You-Know-Madonna-Who.
But the rabbi needn't fear the Centre. Didn't he get our memo re: Kabbalah is over? If the NYT's trend piece is the sound of a shovel digging the KC a shallow grave, then this week's Newsweek brief is the dirt hitting the top of its evil-eye repelling coffin. While Rabbi Shafran doesn't even mention Madonna, NW's item starts with "Madonna" and drops "Demi" and "Britney" in the first two sentences of its 262-word Idiot's Guide To The Kabbalah Centre. "If a person decides they're going to wear the red string, then more power to them...Some people will take it to the next level, some people won't," says Rabbi Michael Berg, codirector of the Centre. And those people get a seat in the back with the other C-listers from the OJ trial.
