You Can'T Do Kabbalah Poem by gershon hepner

You can’t do kabbalah until
you do your Bible and the Talmud first,
but if of it you get your fill
before you are completely versed
in texts of Talmud and of Bible,
and ignorantly quench your thirst
thus prematurely, you are liable
to emerge from kabbalah the worst,
instead of being, as you should,
the best, and likely to be cursed,
because without them it’s not good
to be in kabbalah immersed.

Inspired by an article on a new Israel movie, “The Secrets, ” by Neil Amdur in the NYT, November 28,2008 (“Israeli Film Causes Second Looks at the World of the Ultra-Orthodox”) :
The film, “The Secrets, ” which opened Wednesday at seven theaters in the New York area, treads some touchy and sometimes uncharted territory for the ultra-Orthodox: women’s rights, lesbian love and kabbalah, the arcane mystical teachings that Madonna has helped popularize and, some say, trivialize… Co-written and directed by Avi Nesher, “The Secrets” follows two young students in an all-female Israeli seminary, the kind of place where an ultra-Orthodox woman might study for a year before marrying. Naomi, the diligent daughter of a rabbi, and Michelle, who has been sent by her Parisian family for disciplinary reasons, meet an ailing, older Frenchwoman, Anouk, who has been shunned by the community for a crime of passion…At Anouk’s urging, the young women try to purge her sins through a series of rituals that Naomi culls from ancient kabbalistic texts — a vigil by flickering lights, the donning of sackcloth and a nude bath. The two students also fall in love. But their passionate explorations in romance and religion get them expelled, and near the film’s end they are drifting apart — Michelle toward marriage, and Naomi toward declaring her independence in a society dominated by men…One subject Americans may recognize is kabbalah, which has been introduced to the mainstream by celebrities, even as critics deride its concepts of selfless devotion as “McMysticism.” The director, Mr. Nesher,55, who was born in Israel, grew up in Manhattan and studied at Columbia, said in an interview that he researched kabbalah during visits to the Jewish Theological Seminary. The characters in “The Secrets, ” he said, were based on extensive interviews with many women who had attended an all-female seminary in Safed, one of Israel’s holier cities and the setting for the film. The rabbis were less convinced that young women in so strict a setting would embrace extreme practices like nude bathing. “This whole kabbalistic bit is to me somewhat suspect, ” Rabbi Ungar said. “For one thing, even men shouldn’t study before they’re 40 and mature, and in private, one on one.” ”You can’t do kabbalah, ” he said, “unless you do Bible and Talmud first.” Yet for all of the film’s exploration of law and tradition, Rabbi Kiel said its real power lay elsewhere. “This is a movie about desire, ” he said. “Frustrated desire. Fulfilled desire. And it played very well with my emotions.”

11/28/08