tive energy."
Ms. Lowe-Schwartz sees
the Tanya as a blueprint for
living.
"You have to let it help
you grow," she said. "I'll be
learning and studying for
the rest of my life."
ONE JOURNEY HOME
Marty Goodman found
his way back to religious life
seven years ago through the
teachings of Kabbalah.
Raised in a strict Ortho-
dox household, his lessons
about God were "full of fire
and brimstone."
"I was taught there was
only one way to get to God
— through fear and awe,"
Mr. Goodman said. "I
learned through the Kab-
balah that the two ways to
get close to God are through
love and awe."
Mr. Goodman tells a sto-
ry about his 5-year-old son
who, when asked where peo-
ple go when they are good,
responded "to heaven." How-
ever, his son had no re-
sponse when asked where
people go when they are
bad.
"That's the kind of edu-
cation I prefer," he said. "I
want my children to love
God, not fear Him."
If Kabbalists could teach
one premise in the whole of
Kabbalah, Rabbi Silberberg
said, it would be this: "That
God is all inclusive, that God
lacks nothing, that His
essence is the desire to im-
part."
Mr. Goodman, looking to
fill a void in his life, was
drawn to this concept.
"I study to emulate God,"
he said. "When you realize
everything God does to move
the universe, you realize
how small you really are."
It is all right, Mr. Good-
man said, not to immedi-
ately understand every-
thing. The most important
factor in learning is to find
a good teacher, someone
who can guide a student
through the Kabbalah's of-
ten murky waters, he said.
"If I walk into a perfume
store and I don't buy any-
thing, I still walk out
smelling better," Mr. Good-
man said. "Even if you don't
understand, you come out a
better person."
Alon Tolwin, education-
al director of Aish HaTorah,
who holds local classes on
Kabbalah, said the teach-
ings of Kabbalah are not
supposed to be confined to
the realms of the abstract.
"They should lead direct-
ly to application in the
realm of action," he said.
"Kabbalah teaches man
about the workings of high-
er systems in order to un-
derstand their applications
and implications in the
physical world."
The Kabbalah says God
operates through four levels
of the universe. There is the
world of action, the lowest
world — our world; the
world of creation; the world
of formation; and the world
of emanation — the highest
world.
God manifests Himself in
these worlds through some-
thing called the sefirot, or 10
special aspects of God. The
sefirot are understood by
one school of Kabbalists as
the vessels or instruments
through which God acts.
Other Kabbalists believe the
sefirot are God's essence.
They adopted this position
to avoid suggesting Jews
pray to sefirot different from
God.
To better understand the
sefirot, most Kabbalists
chart these attributes in the
form of a human body.
The first three sefirot —
the crown, understanding
and wisdom — represent
the human intellect and are
depicted by the head. The
second — kindness, judg-
ment and beauty — corre-
spond to human moral
actions associated with the
hands and are regulated by
the heart. The third — vic-
tory, splendor and founda-
tion — are agents of God's
governance and providential
guidance of the world and
are symbolized by the hu-
man thighs and sexual or-
gans, the seat of power.
"The theory of the sefirot
is an attempt to explain how
God, who is infinite, can
have a relationship with
something finite," Rabbi Tol-
win said, "and how an un-
knowable God can be known
to man."
UNANSWERED
QUESTIONS
Andy Zack, who studies
Kabbalah with Rabbi Tol-
win, does not describe him-
self as mystic.
"Anyone who knows me,
knows me as a rationalist,"
he said.
Mr. Zack and the rabbi
study Derech Hashem, a
Kabbalistic work by Rabbi
Moses Chaim Luzzato, an
Italian Kabbalist and poet
also known as the Ramhal.
"I have questions I want
answered," Mr. Zack said. "I
am very interested in the re-
lationship between good and
evil.
Mr. Zack said the book,
Derech Hashem, is logical if
you accept its religious be-
lief system. "I'm kind of in-
different to the fact that the
author is a known Kabbal-
ist," he said. "That is not a
selling point for me."
Mr. Zack has a limited
knowledge of the Kabbalah's
explanation of sefirot as well
as some understanding of
other Kabbalistic terms. But
that is not his goal in study-
ing. He is consistently both-
ered by the problem of
physical evil.
"How do you square the
evil in the world with the no-
tion of a God who created
man and sustains creation?"
Mr. Zack wonders. "What
causes a child to be born
with birth defects or to be
stricken with cancer?"
Mr. Zack has not found all
the answers he seeks
through Kabbalah. "That
doesn't mean they are notC_1.
there," he said, "but I'm not c_i
sure I'm at the level to dis-
cover them. I do know that
I want to keep trying."
Rabbi Tolwin said people
study Kabbalah to make a
spiritual connection.
"We all have a yearning,
and that yearning expands
the more you delve inside
the Kabbalah," he said. ❑ cc:
0
STUDIES IN FIRDBAL111.1
Famous Works
Of Kabbalah:
The Zohar — The Zohar is
the central work of Kabbalah
and is arranged according to
the weekly portions of the
Torah, up to and inclUding
the portion, Pinhas. From
Deuteronomy there are only
Va-Ethanna,n, and a little on
Va-Yelekh and Ha'azinu.
Written in Aramaic, it is ba-
sically a kabbalistic midrash;
an explanation, on the Torah,
mixed with stories of Simeon
bar Yohai and his compan-
ions. No one is certain of its
authorship. Some credit it to
Rabbi Yohai, others to a Rab-
bi Moses de Leon, a Spanish
Jew in the 11th century.
Sefer Yetzira, The Book of
Formation -- The first book
of Kabbalah. Written by
Abraham 3800 years ago in
code. Deals with the myster-
ies of the universe. The se-
crets inside were first
revealed to Moses on Motmt
Sinai along with the Torah.
The Tanya — The Tanya is
the most widely studied and
revered of Lubavitch texts. It
is the writing of the first
Lubavitch Rebbe, Schneur
Zalman of Liadi. It is the
backbone of the Chabad
philosophical system, which
integrates Kabbalah, Jewish
mysticism, and Halachah, ra-
tional law. The Tanya is a
practical manual on Jewish
ethics.
Sources: Ariel, David S., The
Mystic Quest, 1988. Berg,
Philip S., The Wheels of A
Soul, 1984. Kabbala)? For The
Layman, 1981. Enttunce To
The Zohar, 1.974.
- .Encyclope-
r,
dia Judaica, Keter Publish-
ing House Ltd., 1971. Mindel,
Nissan, Rabbi Schneur Zal-
man of Liadi, 1973. Scholem,
Gershom, Kabbalah, 1974.
Weiner, Herbert, 9 1/2 Mys-
tics, The Kabbalah Today,
1969.
Art on page 28: When Israel
was under Roman control,
Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai was
forced to hide or forfeit his life.
Anyone caught studying or
teaching Torah was tortured
and executed.
He and his son, Eleazar,
hid inside a cave in the
Galilee for 13 years, where
according to legend, they
were visited daily by an an-
gel. When the rabbi emerged,
he took with him the secret
knowledge of the Zohar, hid-
den codes found within
Torah.
For centuries, the Kabbal-
ah has remained virtually in-
accessible.
Today, ordinary Jews are
seeking the answers once re-
served for the holiest of
men. ❑
c",