Women and Hermetic Kabbalah: Dwelling on the Tree of Life

Kabbalah. The word itself is feminine, meaning “receiving,” yet women have long been excluded from the pursuit of this Jewish mystical tradition. âÂ?¦ For Kabbalah to be a living body of truth, Rabbi Firestone teaches, it must include women in its framework. (Sounds True)

To begin any English language paper addressing women and the Kabbalah, we must first ask what the Kabbalah is, and, in the interest of continuity, find an acceptable spelling from among the many possibilities. A search on Dictionary.com reveals that the fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary states:

1. often Kabbalah A body of mystical teachings of rabbinical origin, often based on an esoteric interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
2. A secret doctrine resembling these teachings
[Medieval Latin cabala, from Hebrew qabb l�¢, received doctrine, tradition, from qibb l, to receive. â�¦]

Usage Note: There are no less than two dozen variant spellings of kabbalah, the most common of which include kabbalah, kabala, kabalah, qabalah, qabala, cabala, cabbala, kaballah, kabbala, kaballah, and qabbalah. This sort of confusion is frequently seen with Hebrew and Arabic words borrowed into English because there exist several different systems of transliterating the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets into Roman letters. Often a more exact or scholarly transliteration, such as Qur’an, will coexist alongside a spelling that has been heavily Anglicized (Koran). The fact that the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets do not as a rule indicate short vowels or the doubling of consonants compounds the difficulties. Spellings of kabbalah with one or two b’s are equally “correct,” insofar as the single b accurately reproduces the spelling of the Hebrew, while the double b represents the fact that it was once pronounced with a double b

In the Usenet Kabbalah FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), Colin Low goes on to say that:

The word “Kabbalah” is derived from the root “to receive, to accept”, and in many cases is used synonymously with “tradition”.

No-one [sic] with the slightest interest in Kabbalah can fail to notice that there are many alternative spellings of the word, the two most common being Kabbalah and Qabalah. Cabala, Qaballah, Qabala, Kaballah (and so on) are also seen. The reason for this is that some letters in the Hebrew alphabet have more than one representation in the English alphabet, and the same Hebrew letter can be written either as K or Q (or sometimes even C). Some authors choose one spelling, and some choose the other. Some (the author for example) will even mix Q and K in the same document, spelling Kabbalah and Qlippoth (as opposed to Qabalah and Klippoth!). A random selection of modern Hebrew phrase books and dictionaries use the K variant to represent the letter Kuf, so anyone who claims that the “correct” spelling is “Qabalah” is on uncertain ground.

There has been a tendency for non-Jewish books on Kabbalah published this century to use the spelling “Qabalah”. Jewish publications are relatively uniform in preferring the spelling “Kabbalah”.

The author takes the view (based on experience) that the spelling “Kabbalah” is recognized by a wider selection of people than the “Qabalah” variant, and for this purely pragmatic reason it is used throughout the FAQ (Q.1.2).

Finding more sources that seem to use this spelling, I also settle for “Kabbalah.” I have already come to the understanding, that there are many aspects of this path that I cannot study directly without the knowledge of Hebrew. Hebrew – the language which my Egyptian-past-life-self once called “the language of the slaves.” While dancing a Dance of Universal Peace with Hebrew words, that part of me had gotten physically sick hearing the language spoken by “the murders of our children.” After years of living in an area with a relatively small percentage of Jewish people, is my being surrounded by people who claim this ethnicity and/or religion now part of my own process of healing, integration and understanding? I find that I am worried in looking at something that is inherently Jewish, because I know that I lack many years of exposure and knowledge, and I do not want to offend because of my own ignorance. I understand the need to honor any tradition that I choose to examine. And just as with many of the Native American Nations, I see the need by these people, and those of every faith, to make sure that the truth and depth of beliefs are understood and held sacred. Yet, I also believe that the color of our skin does not necessarily define the color of the spiritual path that best suits us in this life. Interested in interfaith dialogue, I also inherently have the desire for all religions to be open to authentic study by outsiders, so that we can get past the “us” and “them” stereotypes in order to see both the similarities of our traditions, and the beauty of our diversity.

Yet, even without those brief flashes of memory, as a White (English, Scotch-Irish, French and German) woman, on a very eclectic Pagan path, do I have the right to study or write about the Kaballah?

I take a break from stressing about my papers long enough to take a few deep breaths. How long has it been since I did my usual daily practices? No Taoist healing meditation for me this week. It isn’t the same without the tape, which is still with most of my stuff in Point Arena. I have decided to stay here, in order to try to get things done, but find myself missing books and tapes that I left there, or that are even more distant, stored with a Priestess friend in North Carolina, who has decided to drop off the face of the earth – or more likely go into a retreat of seasonal Winter depression – since before Thanksgiving. If she had only sent them before she went anti-social. ‘Just hope that she is alright. Ironically, it is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) that I choose today. I saw one version of it on a Kabbalah FAQ that I found while doing research last night – or was it the night before? It’s all running together. It’s all too overwhelming. I remember how the LBRP, a staple introduction to High Magick, which has also been used and adapted by many followers of Low Magick as well, has helped me deal with being in strange places and difficult circumstances in the past. It is this very ritual which first directed my attention to the Kabbalah earlier this year, as I sought a better understanding of the language and imagery within it. Tonight, it doesn’t matter that I have trouble with the Hebrew on the second Kabbalistic Cross, because I remember the form and visualize the energy.

To think that I came here to this place of looking at the Kabbalah through reading the first several chapters of Donald Michael Kraig’s book Modern Magick: Eleven Lessons in the High Magickal ArtsâÂ?¦ Or, perhaps I got here through performing the LUX ritual form with Joey all those year’s ago, when we were leading the Samhain (Halloween) ritual together for the Society of Paganism and Magic (SP&M). Or, was it my love of divination? It is part of the traditional of Tarot that the symbols in the Waite deck are tied to the Kabbalah, including something as subtle as the number of each color of red and white roses that appear in a particular card. (Both the Rider-Waite and Universal Waite deck have the same images – the coloring in the later Universal deck is simply more soft, and uses a wider palette.) I rarely use the Waite-based Tarot anymore, preferring “non-traditional” decks for divination and meditation, but the way that this system of cards fits on the sephirot (spheres) and pathways of Kabbalistic Tree of Life has intrigued me ever since Dave, an forty-something friend of my spirit brother, Eric, and I performed ritual together one night. We were the old, experienced ones, in the company of Eric and several other college-aged friends, as Dave explained the system. I was the only one who came close to “getting it” and that was only after many repetitions. Later, he diagramed it for me on poster board, a piece that I kept near my altar until my recent move, even though I had since found similar verison in books. He also came to speak on the Tarot for my divination class, and once again flew over everyone’s heads, but, as always, I was entranced. I have been carrying the angel card that he glad me for the house blessing of my place in my notebook ever since I started thinking about this subject. It calls in the Shecheinah [sic] to bless my home in at least three languages, only one of which I understand, and the one of the spiral symbols that he used has been “haunting” me recently, appearing in my own doodling.

Hmm – angels – it was angels that brought me to Modern Magick, via Silver Ravenwolf’s book, Angels: Companions in Magick. I was at Carolina Spirit Quest (CSQ), (an annual Pagan festival in North Carolina
of which I have always been a part,) working with my friend – Reiki master, healer and massage therapist, Bart Wendell -days before he choose to leave this world. As part of his workshop on Otherkin, those of us who have had past lives as beings other than human, he was using a device of his own creation to help reveal our previous forms. I was more than a bit skeptical of this part of his work, but as each person stood by the strange contraption, I could easily “see” elven ears or a furry tail, with the accompanying form overlaid on their own human one. Bart was using me as a check-in for most of what he was seeing, but there were no moments of “but I sawâÂ?¦” We were in synch, seeing the same things.

Then I stepped up to the machine, uncertain, but willing to give it a try. Suddenly I felt my energy flickering, “clicking” like a slide show, with the projector switching images as fast as it could possibly go. I had no idea that I had ever been anything but human âÂ?¦ well, perhaps a cat. But the fact of the matter was that I had not even believed in past lives until a few years before, when I found that had had so many flashes of myself and other people that I felt that I could not deny them any longer. I decided that even if my memories where in fact just my own fantasies, it would still be better to explore and embrace them as part of who I am, but I had never even considered this. He asked me to try to slow it down and hold one of the forms, but I couldn’t maintain them. I wasn’t even sure what any of them were; I just had a feeling of this “clicking,” and of having impressions of various body parts that did not physically exist. He finally slowed it by shifting around and then removing one of the gemstone spheres that were held within the metal matrix of the mechanism. (I have found out since that the same thing happened when a friend of mine, Litz, had been in one of his earlier workshops, but he had not known what to do to slow it down at that point.) Once it slowed down, I was still changing, just not as fast, and with effort, I finally settled into a being with wings. I could feel where they attached on my back, and as Bart moved around me, he said that he could feel something before I told him that they were there. He moved around to view me again from the front, and in an instant of profile view, I saw that he had wings as well. In that instant, I knew that we both shared the experience of this form, even though I did not have the feeling of knowing him then. Bart was well known for his otherkin dragon form, which had harsh pointed wings covered with a tough, skin-like membrane, but these âÂ?¦ these were soft and feathered angel wings!

I never told him. Having turned my back on Christianity, I had always felt uneasy with my continuing attraction to angels. And it felt too egotistical to say that I was once an angel. But I know that we were. Since then I have seen him beyond the veil that lies between the worlds, helping those that died on September 11, 2001. And others have seen my own wings. And I have been trying to make sense of it all. Seeking to read about angels from a Pagan or ecumenical perspective brought me to Ravenwolf’s book. Coincidentally, Silver had sent me a promotional postcard showing the cover of the same book while corresponding with me while my old ‘zine, The Web, was a member of the Wiccan/Pagan Press Association (WPPA), which she heads. When I went looking for angels, the card was right in front of my face, displayed among the collage of inspirational images surrounding my enormous bathroom mirror. Upon finally reading the book, I found myself being drawn to the pieces of High Magick, dealing with the Archangels, that she had included. This lead me to Kraig’s Modern Magick which claims to be the first book to look at and teach Ceremonial Magick from a perspective which is accessible to modern Pagans and followers of many Eastern, New Age and other traditions.

The terms High Magick or Ceremonial Magick are generally associated with the structured workings of organizations such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its subsequent forms, as well as other traditions whose magickal work is toward the pursuit of the betterment of oneself so as to bring about the building of a deeper connection with Spirit. This practice is traditionally called “The Great Work,” one view of which Colin Low describes nicely:

‘When someone stands in the light but does not give it out, then a shadow is created.’

This is a modern restatement of an old Kabbalistic idea. In this view, God gives life to the Creation: from second to second the Creation is sustained by this giving, and if it were to cease even for an instant, the Creation would be no more. If someone wants to know God then they have to resemble God, and this means they must give to others. Kabbalah is not a self-centred pursuit; it pivots around the Kabbalist’s relationship with all living beings (Q2.1).

Inversely, Low Magic(k) is a term used by practitioners of High Magick to describe traditions such as Wicca and other forms of Paganism whose rituals deal with concerns of the material world, or building and celebrating a deeper connection to the Earth and the cycles of Nature. A student of “Low Magick,” I had first scoffed at the intense structure of High Magick, as is often the attitude within our community. But when I had the opportunity, both privately and publicity, to blend the two syles together, working side by side in ritual with Priestly friends, I found that it held great beauty and strength, and that I greatly admired my friends, both male and female, who practiced it. I am also well aware of, and support, the theory that Gerald Gardner developed Wicca from his own experience with the Golden Dawn and its members, in particular Aleister Crowley and MacGregor Mathers. So, in that vein, it is also historically a part of my path as well.

Coming from this background, when I think of Kabbalah, I inherently think of what Colin Low calls “Hermetic Kabbalah”:

Many people who study Kabbalah are not Jewish. This has been happening for 500 years or so. It is difficult to know what to call this variant of Kabbalah. “Non-Jewish” is inaccurate, as I have personally known several Jews who opted for Hermetic Kabbalah in preference to the traditional variety! At one time it was called “Christian” Kabbalah, but this is also very misleading.

The origin of this variant can be placed in Renaissance Italy in the last decade of the 15th. Century. It was an amazing decade. In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for . In that same year the King of Spain expelled all Jews from Spain on pain of death, bringing to an end centuries of Jewish culture in Spain, and causing a huge migration of dispossessed Jews through Europe, many of whom were welcomed by the Turkish sultan, who is reputed to have observed that the King of Spain had enriched Turkey by beggaring his own country.
At around the same time, at the court of the great banking family of the Medicis in

Florence, Marcelio Ficino had established the Platonic Academy under the patronage of the Medicis and was translating the works of Plato. A bundle of manuscripts, lost for centuries and dating back to the 1st. and 2nd. centuries A.D. was discovered; this was the Corpus Hermeticum, a series of documents relating to Hermes Trimegistus, identical with the Egyptian god Thoth, god of wisdom. Cosimo de Medici told Ficino to stop translating Plato and to concentrate on the Corpus instead.

At the time it was believed that the Corpus really was the religion of the ancient Egyptians, and that Hermes was a kind of Egyptian Moses. The fact that they were written much later, and heavily influenced by Neoplatonism, had the effect of convincing readers at that time that Greek philosophy was founded on much older, Egyptian religious philosophy – this had a huge influence on liberal religious and philosophical thinking at the time. Into this environment came the Kabbalah, brought in part by fleeing Spanish Jews, and it was seized upon as another lost tradition, the inner, initiated key to the Bible.

Two figures stand out. One was Giovanni Pico, Count of Mirandola, who commissioned several translations of Kabbalistic works, and did much to publicize Kabbalah among the intellectuals of the day. The other was Johannes Reuchlin, who learned to read Hebrew and became deeply immersed in Kabbalistic literature. It must be said that Jews were suspicious of this activity, finding that Christian scholars were using the Kabbalah as a bludgeon to persuade them to convert to Christianity.

It was out of this eclectic mixture of Christianity, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Kabbalah and Renaissance humanism that Hermetic Kabbalah was born. Over the centuries it has developed in many directions, with strong influences from Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, but continued input from Jewish Kabbalah has meant that many variants are not so different in spirit from the original. Its greatest strength continues to be a strong element of religious humanism – it does not attempt to define God and does not define what an individual should believe, but it does assume that some level of direct experience of God is possible and there are practical methods for achieving this. In a modern world of compartmentalized knowledge, scientific materialism, and widespread cultural and historical illiteracy, it provides a bridge between the spirit of enquiry of the Renaissance (the homo universalis or – in Hebrew – hakham kolel) and the emergence of a similar spirit of enquiry in our own time (Q.1.9).

The following diagram is what Low calls “The Big Picture”. Used with permission, it finally helped to begin to put the different traditions in perspective for me. I would personally add a line going down from “Hermetic Kabbala” to a new box labeled something along the lines of “Wicca, Paganism and Modern Witchcraft.” I reviewing this I have also found myself accidentally using the term “Kemetic Kabbalah” rather than “Kermetic Kabbalah.” Kemet is the proper name of the actual religion of the ancient Egyptians, hence Kemetic Kabbalah would be a style of Kabbalah which incorporates the true magical teachings of ancient

See “The Big Picture” from Hermetic Kabbalah
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/bigpicture/bigpicture.html

Low also addresses the Question of whether Hermetic Kabbalah is legitimate Kabbalah:

On the basis of my own beliefs and practice I would say yes, but others might contradict me, and ultimately it is a matter of definition.

Jewish writers on the subject tend to downplay aspects of Kabbalah which conflict with orthodox rabbinical Judaism, so that we do not see the heretic Nathan of Gaza classed as an important Kabbalist, despite the fact that he was very influential for almost two hundred years. We hear little about the non-rabbinic “Baal Shem” or “Masters of the Name” who used Kabbalah for healing and other practical purposes. There is ample evidence that many magical practices currently associated with Hermetic Kabbalah were widely used and well understood by some of the most famous rabbinic Kabbalists.

It is the author’s opinion that Hermetic Kabbalah has preserved up to the current day many practical techniques, and R. Aryeh Kaplan makes the following significant comment:

‘It is significant to note that a number of techniques alluded to in these fragments also appear to have been preserved among the non-Jewish school of magic in

Europe
. The relationship between the practical Kabbalah and these magical schools would constitute an interesting area of study.’

A more difficult question is whether Hermetic Kabbalah conforms to the spirit of Jewish Kabbalah. One of the most visible distinctions is that between theurgy and thaumaturgy, between the attempt to participate in the workings of the divine realm for the betterment of the creation, and the attempt to interfere with its workings for personal betterment. Modern Kabbalah outside of Judaism appears in many guises, and is often associated or combined with ceremonial or ritual. It may be mixed with a wide range of theosophical traditions. This does not in itself set it apart from historical Kabbalah. Ritual has always been an integral part of Kabbalah, and Kabbalah has absorbed from cultures and traditions all over Europe and the

Middle East
. Even the distinction between theurgy and thaumaturgy may be meaningless, as similar techniques can be used for both – only by examining intention could one begin to judge which was which.

Given the lack of a dogmatic tradition in Kabbalah it is not clear that the question about the legitimacy of Hermetic Kabbalah is meaningful. Even within Judaism it is unclear what the authentic spirit or tradition is – there are large differences in outlook between someone like Abraham Abulafia and Isaac Luria.

There is no good answer. One person will be reassured that the tradition is alive and going off in many different directions – that is the sign of a living tradition. Another person will feel threatened by outsiders and dilettantes who are bringing the tradition into disrepute. About the only thing which can be said with complete certainty is that there is a great deal of prejudice. Just about everyone who studies Kabbalah seems to be certain that someone else hasn’t a clue what Kabbalah is about! (Q.1.10).

As an outsider, this is reassuring, but brings me back to my question, “As a White woman, what right do I have to study the Kabbalah?” and the question which started the research for this paper, “What were the pathways by which the study of Kabbalah has opened to women?”

We have already found the first: the study of the Kabbalah by “outsiders.” MacGregor Mathers and several of his contemporaries founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn shortly after his publication of The Kabbalah Unveiled. Women were involved with the Dawn from its very beginning, with Mina Bergson, who later became Mathers’ wife, being it’s first initiate (Greer, xvi, 56).

Looking again at Colin’s chart on the history and development of the Kabbalah, I see only one name that I know to be female, that of Dion Fortune, an author and one of the best known women of the Golden Dawn.

Another name that I would add is Pamela Coleman Smith, illustrator of the various Waite Tarot decks. (Rider was the name of the original publisher of the Rider-Waite.) Designed by Arthur Edward Waite, it is based on symbolism from the Kabbalah. While Smith drew the cards based on the descriptions from Waite, detailed instructions were only provided for the major arcana, leaving the majority of the deck up to her own interpretation, causing many to postulate that she herself might have been a knowledgeable member of the Golden Dawn (Greer, 405-409). Mary K. Greer herself is one of the women to help carry on these teachings today, and her book, Women of the Golden Dawn, goes on to profile four of more of these historical women and their accomplishments:

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in London in 1888 by three Rosicrucian Masons. For the first time mean and women worked together as equals in magical ceremonies who purpose was to test, purify, and exalt the individual’s spiritual nature so as to unify it with his or her ‘Holy Guardian Angel.’

While the history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is well documented and several of its male members have become famous, their female counterparts have received little credit. And yet, when one reads between the lines of the original documents, four women [Maud Gonne, Moina Bergson Mathers, Annie Horniman & Florence Farr] stand out as the true heart and soul of the magical Order. Their imaginative skills, determination, and belief in their own creative abilities worked a kind of great magic and changed the world around them (Greer, 1).

Question 1.6 of Low’s Kabbalah FAQ confirms what I have already observed, that the study of the Kabbalah seems to come much more easily to women outside of Judaism, who are unhindered by tradition.

Q1.6 : Is there an Obstacle to a Woman studying Kabbalah?

Within Judaism the answer is a resounding “Yes!”: there are many obstacles âÂ?¦ are largely grounded in traditional attitudes: it is less easy for a woman to find a Rabbi prepared to teach Kabbalah than it would be for a man. Persistence may rewardâÂ?¦

Outside of Judaism the answer is a resounding “No!”: there are no obstacles. For the past one hundred years women have been active both in studying and in teaching Kabbalah.

Books such as Jewish and Female, by Susan Weidman Schneider, and On Women and Judaism by Blu Greenberg, both published in the 1980s, speak of the struggles of Jewish feminists to simply have the same rights to worship in the temples and study the Torah as men have had for centuries, and the debate regarding whether it was a positive step for Jewish women to have these rights. In An Analysis of Rabbinic Hermeneutics, Rochelle L. Millen states:

The feminist struggle within Judaism over the last decades has moved from the battle for access to public ritual and leadership roles, to analyses of primary documents, to an examination of the broad theoretical and theological constructs affecting both feminist theory and Judaism. In the development of Jewish feminism, each aspect has been present simultaneously, yet one in particular has tended to dominate at specific stages (25).

“Access to primary documents” is one issue that underlies the ability of women to study the Kabbalah. While there were oral traditions, these could easily be lost in one or two generations, and traditionally Jewish women had no access to the documents underlying these traditions. Access to these, as well as a plethora of recent books on the Kabbalah is the second avenue of information for women. One story by Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins, authors of the Feminine Face of God, tells of how one of them kept hearing the word “Shekhinah” in her mind and began a search for what it meant. Her husband and friends, and a search of her local library all welded no results. It was only when a friend brought her a book on the Kabbalah that she was able to find the answer. A search of the index brought her quickly to her answer that the Shekhinah is “the feminine face of God,” the same energy that devout Jewish women call into them on Shabbat (62).

One of the better-known aspects of traditional Jewish Kabbalah is the study of the hidden meanings within the Torah, some of which are detailed in the Zohar. With strictures against reading these documents, women could not directly study this aspect of the Kabbalah and at some point were limited to the interpretations given to them by men. A married, male, Jewish Kabbalist friend, both surprised me, and made my point rather well in his email response to my questions:

Most women studied Kabbalic thought. Who do you think was responsible for a child’s first lessons in religion? There is a reason that the religion is considered to follow the mother’s line. Mothers give the primary structure of belief to their kids as they grew up. One of the reasons that the men have to be married to study kabballah is so they can pass on the teachings to their familyâÂ?¦

The best thing to do to learn traditional Kabballah is to understand the torah. Not reading the updated and reprocessed bible, but read the original manuscripts of torah and the Kabballic meanings and interpretations in the talmud. You can try learning from a Hassidic rabbi, but most likely any teachers you find will be ‘New Age’ or ‘Christian’ kabbalists. (Stone).

But what happens, as in the study about the Shekhinah, when these words are not passed down, either from woman to woman, or from husband to wife, or each worse, when they are twisted by a patriarchy in desire of control? When women in a tradition lose, or are limited from access to, the knowledge that the divine has a female face, this has to color their own experience of themselves, as well as their interpretation of the universe around themselves. In the case of Anderson and Hopkins, the rediscovery was enough to inspire a book. For most women, it will change their entire worldview.

This limitation on studying the also acted conveniently acted to block women’s direct study of the passages that were interpreted in order to impose these and other limitations upon them. Inversely, the recent opening of doors in this area has allowed women not only to study these documents, but also to be able to become Rabbis in certain branches of Judaism. Women in these roles are then able to teach other women, and so forth.

This brings us to out third and final avenue of access: willing teachers, from both within, and outside of the Jewish tradition. While the Golden Dawn was a secret society, many modern teachers offer open classes. Probably the best known is the Kabbalah Learning Center (KLC), leaded by Rabbi “Rav” Berg and his wife, Karen Berg, and made famous by just students as Madonna, Barbara Streisand, Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Taylor, Laura Dern and Roseanne. “Though courses in kabbalah are offered by numerous organizations, KLC is the largest, richest and most star-studded group devoted to it in the . It is also the most controversial (Simon).” Their website states:

Kabbalah predates any religion or theology. It was given to mankind by the Creator, without any prerequisites or preconditions. According to kabbalistic teachings, the universe operates according to certain supremely powerful principles. By learning to understand and act in accordance with these precepts, we will vastly improve our lives today, and ultimately we will achieve true fulfillment for ourselves and for all humanity. Just as basic physical laws such as gravity and magnetism exist independently of our will and awareness, the spiritual laws of the universe influence our lives every day and every moment. Kabbalah empowers us to understand and live in harmony with these laws — to use them for the benefit of ourselves and the world.

Kabbalah is much more than an intellectually compelling philosophical system. It is a precise description of the interwoven nature of spiritual and physical reality — and it is a full complement of powerful, practical methods for attaining worthy goals within that reality. Simply put, Kabbalah gives you the tools you need to achieve happiness, fulfillment, and to bring the Light of the Creator into your life. It is the way to gain the peace and joy you want and deserve at the very core of your being.

According to another page on their site, their purpose is “to make accessible the ancient wisdom and tools of Kabbalah in order to illuminate the minds and hearts of individuals, groups, and organizations — regardless of faith, political belief, or race” and it was Karen Berg who “realized the power of Kabbalah to enrich and enhance lives, it was she who suggested that Rav Berg break with tradition and open up the study of Kabbalah to everyone. She is also a driving force behind the publishing of essential Kabbalistic resource materials in many languages, including English, Spanish, French, Russian, Farsi, and Chinese.” In an interview with Rabbi Yehuga Magen of the

Houston branch of the Kabbalah Learning Centre, “one half of the Kabbalah followers are not Jewish” (Lassin). While reviews are mixed, and they have been called a cult, accused of overpricing services and products, and of encouraging the dissolution of marriages, they continue to take in new students (Simon).

However, as Jewish women are allowed access to scripture, and a voice to speak their truth, there is also slowly emerging another breed of new female authors, teaching and writing from their traditions. These include women as diverse as the well known Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer, co-author of Heavenly Sex: Sexuality in the Jewish Tradition, and Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, founding Rabbi of the Jewish Renewal Community of Boulder, Colorado, and author of With Roots in Heaven: One Woman’s Journey to the Heart of Her Faith and The Woman’s Kabbalah, which contains a “treasury of meditations and practices especially for woman who are interested in this path to inner knowing (Sounds True)”. Economically an entirely new range of educational and career opportunities is already opening to women, and it will continue to blossom, as more women are drawn to this path, and socially empowered by the revelation of the equality and divine connection that the study of the Kabbalah gives them. And unlike the trends of past, both Jewish and Gentile, the voices of the leaders and teachers will be the voices of women; reading, studying and interpreting the Kabbalah through women’s eyes and finding new meaning from the heart of unique perspective of women’s experience.

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