take a look here:

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/index.html

it’s a very big question. perhaps one of the big questions. remember the sefirot are not G!D, but rather an “interface”.

“ten and not nine, ten and not eleven.”

– sefer yetzirah, the “book of creation”

b’shalom

bananabrain

Thanks for telling me.

” i personally think it there’s a fine line between symbolism and ‘idolatry’ – it depends on the attitude”

I agree it depends on ones inner intention and motive.

Talking of Kabbalah, BB what is meant by the concept of Kether. Once a long time ago I was taken to what I was told was a meditation class. It turned out to be Kabbalah where we did tree of life meditations that were complex visualisations called path workings or something. Only went for a few weeks. Just went back to doing my oh so simple Buddhist meditations.

The Chinese try to protect themselves from the evil eye, so better not compliment your chinese friend’s baby.

This is getting weirder by the minute.

(It isn’t really spitting though these days. You just say “p-p-p”. You don’t actually spit stuff out.)

Talking of “nazar” or the evil eye, I waas very surprised to see this tradition in Egypt and Turkey. They have the shape of an eye painted either on a turquise or a blue stone, and they are hung in shops and homes and tied around the wrists of children. In Turkey they are available in all sizes, but all on blue background. People give them to you as a gesture of good will.
It is funny how some traditions are found around the world.May be the mankind has more in common than they realisee.

kabbalah. hmmm. well, i have been a student of this myself for some time. in fact it is kabbalah, or “hokhmat nistar” (hidden knowledge) as it is also called (“kabbalah” meaning “received tradition”) that is responsible for my being as religious as i am nowadays. all that mad stuff we jews have to do – it is nistar that provides the substructure that makes it all actually make sense. it is fearfully clever stuff. in my experience, without a knowledge of the kabbalistic side of what is going on, it is sometimes extremely hard to understand the point of some of the weirder customs and traditions. once you do know what is supposed to be going on, it is kind of life-changing and has indeed changed mine.

basically, it is a really big subject and one which would take a multitude of lifetimes to cover, to say nothing of the huge number of books that are available nowadays. in fact, i’m writing one myself; can’t tell you what on (and wish i could finish the bloody thing, four years in) but the main thing is how to tell the good stuff from the bad and the horrible – like madonna’s “kabbalah centre” lot, who are nothing but a bunch of money-grubbing charlatans in the opinion of all who know anything about the subject.

kabbalah is our mysticism. it is our tantra and our yoga. it is our qi gong and our tao. it is our kung fu, our sufism, our zen, our meditative, visionary and prophetic tradition. it is our shamanism. it is our new age, too unfortunately, as well as a prime driver of some of the looniest of our fundamentalist nationalists, not just the chasidim, but many of the most unpleasant settler rabbis. it is also an integral part of judaism. people who say you can do kabbalah without judaism (e.g. madonna’s lot) are kidding themselves.

it is also very complicated. for those who are interested, i can provide some links but the best place i have found for most non-jews (and some jews) to start is here: http://www.ecauldron.com/kabbalah.php

if you would like to discuss this in a more appropriate setting, i encourage you to step over to my office on the judaism board at http://www.comparative-religion.com/forum/judaism.html
where i moderate.

and, yes, red strings and the evil eye – this is on the superstitious end of the spectrum but is extremely common these days. if you’re sephardi, like me, we mention the “‘ayeen ha-r’a” a lot in prayer – but then, kabbalah never got the bad name for us that it did in europe…

b’shalom

bananabrain

I am sure that bb will tell you more as he knows EVERYTHING.

I do know that when I was a child my grandmother made me wear a red ‘bendel’, which is like the red string that Madonna’s crew wear, to ward off the evil eye (I was considered to have rather nice hair, and Grandma thought that someone would covet it and ill-wish me). But then Grandma tended to be superstitious, my mother said that when she was a child the ‘kishev machor’, a woman who had the ability, among other things, to put curses on people, would sometimes come and call on her mother, who treated her with extreme courtesy, gave her food and money when she left, and then said a prayer of relief.

that’s an interesting point – I would say that ( in my opinion and observation ) that applies to a lot of people who want authority and power and use religion as the mechanism.

which is of course what makes the study of sociology of religion so fascinating!

What’s all this Kabbala business about then? Is it a genuine Jewish school or is it something you disagree with?

I just think that if monotheistic religion is going to take the piss out of other people engaging in similar sorts of symbolic representation in attempting to ‘commune’ with some concept of God – then they ought not to be so high and mighty about what they’re up to themselves.

b’shalom

bananabrain