FINDING MEANING IN THE STUDY OF HARLAN.
n
ita Lowe-Schwartz, a
West Bloomfield art
historian, has been
on a mystic quest for
most of her life. Mar-
ty Goodman, a Southfield
restaurant owner, wanted to
explore the world outside his
Orthodox upbringing.
Andy Zack, a Huntington
Woods lawyer, had an intel-
lectual curiosity about Ju-
daism. He went looking for
answers to some of life's
toughest questions, like why
bad things happen to good
people.
All three found them-
selves traveling the road of
Kabbalah, the most com-
monly used term to describe
the esoteric teachings of Ju-
daism and Jewish mysti-
cism.
The Hebrew word for tra-
dition, Kabbalah encom-
tain the secrets of creation.
The other major work as-
sociated with Kabbalah is
the Zohar, the book of splen-
dor, which is widely regard-
ed to be the discipline's
centerpiece. Accredited to
Shimon Bar Yochai, the Zo-
har is arranged according
to the weekly portions of the
Torah, up to and including
Pinhas. Written in Arama-
ic, the Zohar is a midrash,
passes a vast array of Jew-
ish thought and writing that
evolved from the end of the
Second Temple through the
Middle Ages.
Since then, Kabbalah has
grown to include thousands
of books and essays. One of
the earliest works, the Sefer
Yitzira, the book of creation,
is believed to have been
written by Abraham 3,800
years ago. It is said to con-
BY AMY J. MEHLER / ILLUSTRATION BY BOB LYNCH
TI
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