It’s the day after Christmas (or, for purists, the second day of Christmas), and I’m getting into a routine that will occupy me for the next ten days or so.
I taught 20 classes at Pasadena City College in 2007: three in winter, seven in the spring, three in the summer, seven in the fall. I’m taking the winter intersession of ‘08 off to take a couple of trips, the first of which will be for both business and pleasure.
On January 8 and 9, I’ll be giving lectures on Christianity and Kabbalah in the Philippines. More details are available by clicking here. The first lecture will focus on Kabbalah’s interpretation of the life and ministry of Jesus; the second will discuss the compatibility of Christian and kabbalistic practice. If you live near Manila, come and hear.
I’ve got a fairly good idea of what I’ll be covering in these two talks, but I need to bang out an outline over the next few days. I’ll share details — both of the trip and of the content of the lectures — after we get back from the Philippines. Blogging will be light but regular over the next ten days or so until we leave.
i’d be interested in hearing your lectures — if only they weren’t in manila!
I’m trying to figure out how to say this in a nonoffensive way, let me apologize in advance if I fail.
I am Jewish but almost entirely ignorant of Kabbalah. However, my understanding is that it is fairly firmly rooted in a Jewish worldview — monotheism, awaiting a future messiah, acceptance of large parts of the oral law, Jews playing a unique role as a holy people. Now, I can understand studying Kabbalistic influences on Jesus’ thought or on later Christian thought, although I’m not sure you’ll find any until the twentieth century. And I suppose you could try to discuss Christian thought using the vocabulary of Kabbalah. But I’m having trouble with the phrase “Kabbalah’s interpretation of the life and ministry of Jesus”. We Jews don’t need an interpretation of the life of Jesus; as much as we may respect many aspects of Christianity, it simply isn’t an issue for us. I realize that there are a lot of non-Jews who are interested in developing some form of mystical practice based on Kabbalah but incorporated into their own religions and, if they do not violate the precepts of their own religions in doing so, I have no problem with this. But I am bothered by calling this Kaballah, or referring to applications of Kabbalistic ideas to other religions as “Kaballah’s interpretation” of that religion.
Maybe another way to phrase this is that you say you will be speaking about “the compatibility of Christian and kabbalistic practice”. I have no idea whether or not kabbalistic practices are compatible with the precepts of Christianity but I have trouble believing that being Chrsitian is compatible with the worldview of Kabbalah.
To close on a positive note, I am nonetheless looking forward to reading your lectures. I know almost nothing of Kabbalah, and this might be a useful start.
However, my understanding is that it is fairly firmly rooted in a Jewish worldview — monotheism, awaiting a future messiah, acceptance of large parts of the oral law, Jews playing a unique role as a holy people…
And of course, exactly the same thing could be said about early Christianity. Just as the Jesus movement suddenly expanded the worship of Yahweh beyond the Jews, so too has the Kabbalah Centre — in the last century — moved the study of Kabbalah from an exclusively Jewish idea to one that is available for all peoples and all faiths. Jesus was a Jew, all of his closest earlier followers were Jews — and yet He is followed by over a billion non Jews today. Kabbalah was transmitted from generation to generation through a largely Jewish line (though there were Christian Kabbalists in the renaissance); today, it is moving beyond its confines within one group to become a global force increasingly disconnected from its Jewish roots.