Posted on 02/22/2010 4:41:23 AM PST by pinochet
Voodoo Dialogue
by Jonathan Mark, Associate Editor
[...]There is Jewish-Christian dialogue; Jewish-Muslim dialogue; Jewish-Hindu dialogue; Jewish-Buddhist dialogue; rabbis have met with the pope, the Dalai Lama and imams, but Voodoo dialogue is the ecumenical stepchild. An informal round of phone calls to rabbis turned up nothing. Voodoo gets a laugh; to most Jews it’s a punchline.
Even Clal-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, an organization that, decades ago, was one of the pioneers in serious interfaith understanding, has yet to meet its first houngan, mambo or manbo (Voodoo priests).
And yet, out on the street, there is more of a Jewish-Voodoo intersection than one might think.
Up in the Bronx, on Webster Avenue, Jason Mizrahi, son of a Turkish Jew, sells around 100 Voodoo dolls each week at his Original Products Corp. The emporium, founded by his father in the 1950s, sells potions, amulets, herbs, oils and varied accessories for the occult, on the site of an old A&P supermarket.
“We sell books on kabbalah,” says Mizrahi. “In Spanish.”
We telephoned Martha Ward, professor of anthropology at the University of New Orleans. Are there Jews involved with Voodoo in America’s capital of Voodoo?
She laughs out loud. “The largest [Voodoo] congregation here in New Orleans, La Source Ancienne, is headed by a nice Jewish girl from Maine, Sallie Ann Glassman.”
Glassman, who also operates a New Orleans spiritual emporium, fittingly on Piety Street, didn’t return our calls, but her Web site says she was ordained as a manbo in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1995.
“She got into this out of the kabbalah,” says Ward. “Mysticism crosses all artificial boundaries. The Spirits choose whom they will, it is said, picking out people with special abilities and qualities and the Spirits contact them.”
Ward, a Methodist who practices Voodoo, explains that Voodoo, though a braiding of African shamanism and Catholicism, allows dual citizenship with other religions and doesn’t require conversion.
[....] Has she met Voodoo Jews other than Manbo Sallie? “My God,” laughs Ward. “Are you kidding? Of course, I meet Jews” in Voodoo. “Half my relatives are Jewish! Hell, this is America!” They practice Voodoo “on various levels. Some are curious, some are sweet tempered, nobody says awful things to my face.”
“Above all,” says Ward, “is a God who looks exactly like the one you might have heard about in synagogue. When you write about us,” she adds as if praying, “do us well, and kindly.”
Clal’s co-president, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, who just returned for a meeting with Islamic leaders in Indonesia, said, “Do you want me to tell you Voodoo is magic and forbidden and contrary to Jewish tradition? OK, I can tell you that.
“But I can also tell you that there’s a deep theurgic impulse in kabbalah, meaning attempts to manipulate the Divine. There’s a distinction between magic and ritual, which is that ritual tries to influence God; magic believes that it can influence God, whether God wants to be influenced or not.
“Now, that’s a very fine distinction,” says Rabbi Hirschfield. “So I don’t make fun of Voodoo, because anyone who prays to God in the hope of shaping what God does shouldn’t be making fun of Voodoo.
“We all love to tell the story of the Golem. If that isn’t shamanic,” continues the rabbi, “I don’t know what is. Some guy goes into an attic, recapitulates the Genesis story, making a person out of dirt, slaps [the Holy Name] on its forehead and it comes to life. Change that ever so slightly and you have a guy with a doll in Haiti.”
“Voodoo is one more spiritual mechanism for both bridging worlds, between life and death; for people to feel empowered in their relationship with God,” says the rabbi. “We shouldn’t confuse the rituals we reject, and the theology we reject for the underlying human impulses that are part of all of us.”
Rabbi Irwin Kula, co-president of Clal, adds, “Does Voodoo help people get through the night? Does it give them hope? Does it let them still believe that it pays to be good and to love, though at any moment the earth can open up under your feet? Does it give them a sense of continuity with generations at a moment in which all seems lost?
“If the answer is yes, then I am all for Voodoo, and the onus is on the interfaith specialists who see Voodoo as pagan, demonic, heresy, to look at their own systems.
“My tradition,” says Rabbi Kula, “teaches that the moment when the dead are still before us is not the time for theology; it is the time for kavod hameit and nichum aveeilim,” respecting the dead and comforting the mourners, “two acts that trump theological differences.”
I must admit that I was amazed by the article, in that the largest congregation of Voodoo followers in New Orleans, is led by a Voodoo Priestess who happens to be a white Jewish woman, who was trained in Haiti. I understand that Native American and New Age religions are chic and fashionable among whites, but this is ridiculous.
snip-
In 1492 the Jews of Spain were expelled by royal decree; five years later the Jews of Portugal faced a similar fate. It is hard to overestimate the impact of this disruption. Iberian Jewry had lived in comparative peace with its Muslim and Christian neighbors for hundreds of years. These were the most stable and prosperous Jewish communities since the glory days of Judah and Israel. Suddenly, they were swept into exile like every Jewish community in history before them.
The Sephardic Jews who were forced to leave the Iberian peninsula could carry little in the way of concrete riches, but the treasure of intellectual achievement they took with them was immense.
In no field was this truer than in the realm of Jewish mysticism. And the results of that involuntary exodus could be seen almost immediately. By the 16th century, the Zohar was an integral part of Jewish religious thought, and kabbalistic thinking was becoming part of the mainstream, spurred by the dispersion of its principal adherents. New intellectual centers sprang up in Italy, Turkey, and, most of all, Safed (Tz’fat in Hebrew) in Palestine.
-snip
Madonna and other celebrities have been attracted to offshoots or imitations of practical Kabbalah. That’s the kind of popular indulgence that we should stay away from.
Analytical Kabbalah is not the same. Its knowledge about Creation and being good (no instruction in magic, etc.). It’s part of Chassidus (learning about Judaism). There’s a little information here and there behind the following. It’s for everyone who’s interested.
http://www.asknoah.org/HTML/q&a_practical.html
http://www.asknoah.org/forums/showthread.php?tid=354&pid=85#pid85
http://www.asknoah.org/html/elevating_creation.html
Answers to Frequent Questions
http://www.asknoah.org/SiteMap.html#QandA
I’m not Jewish and was not very rich in meaning with the explanation above, BTW. ...only one who has been interested in learning a little with proper guidance. Follow the links, if you’re interested.
AskNoah (front page)
http://www.asknoah.org/
FWIW, the few references to the Kabbalah which might have veracity, consider it a spiritual study in mysticism, which is most likely only authorized for advanced learning by men.
Whenever you see a woman professing to be an expert in the Kabbalah, odds are great that the woman is simply practicing witchcraft and seeking to distract the unknowing with esoteric knowledge.
On the other hand, some assert any and all efforts in Kabbalah are studies in witchcraft. IMHO, if there are holy elements of Kabbalah which are provided by God to man through Christ, then I am not aware of them, and if there were, I would anticipate they would only be studied by qualified gifted men, not women.
And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Isreal, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Isreal, and in the midst of them stood Jazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.
Then he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Isreal do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.
Ezekiel 8:9-12
Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the the east; and they worshipped the sun towards the east.
Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.
Ezekiel 8:15-18
My suggestion is to stick with the basics, cling only to God’s word as it is taught by the righteous and trust only in the Lord.
Voodoo is forbidden to Jews, period. End of discussion.
The ‘rabbis’ cited are New Age-American and do not represent traditional Judaism.
There are traditional Jews that do not accept the Zohar, but real kabbalah (not the Madonna type) is universal accepted.
The Old Testament gives inadequate information for actual practice. Therefore, someone’s explanation must be accepted. One is not ‘orthodox’ if one does not adhere to traditional understandings.
Jews have a yearning for spirituality. When Jews abandon Torah, they inevitably are drawn to every kooky alternative out there.
Seriously, this crap has been going on since Shabattia Zvi and the Frankists. The problem is that no Beit Din will denounce these apostates.
[i]I have some questions that Jewish or knowledgeable non-Jewish freepers may want to answer. Are the Kabbalah teachings accepted by all religious Jews? Or can one be a religious Jew without making reference to the Zohar - the religious books that contains the teachings of the Kabbalah? Also, can one be a religious Jew in good standing, based purely on his knowledge of the Old Testament, without any knowledge of the Talmuds and the Zohar?[/i]
[p]
Not all Orthodox Jews accept the Zohar. Western Sephardim and most Yemenite Jews reject the Zohar as a fraud. Many Ashkenazi non-Haredi Jews don’t explicitly reject it, but don’t teach it or rely upon it. Most Eastern Sephardim and Ashkenazi Hassidic Jews accept it. That being said, many who reject the Zohar accept — in principal — other Kabbalistic texts that have a greater pedigree, such as Sefer Yetzirah, and certain Talmudic teachings. Anyone who accepts Voodoo is a heretic. Voodoo is incompatible with real Torah Judaism and real Kabbalah. [p]
All Orthodox Jews accept the Talmud. That being said, the Talmud is divided between Halacha (law) and Aggadah (mostly stories). It’s only the law that all Orthodox Jews accept. The accompanying stories are largely viewed with a grain of thought. I guess it’s roughly comparable to how Chrisitans view Jesus’ parables. There might be some people who actually think there was a historical Good Samaritan. And there might be others who think Jesus made up the story to teach a lesson. The Aggadah works much the same way. [p]
There are a small number of religious, non-Orthodox Jews who reject the Talmud. They are known as Karaites. There are about 25,000 of them. For the most part, their practices are much stricter than those of Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews, for example, don’t start fires on the Sabbath but do use pre-existing fires. Karaites prefer to sit in the dark and freeze.
Traditionally Kabbalah study was esoteric and only for the select inner circles. 95% of Orthodox Jews would not mess with it
These days there are many attempts to make Kabbalah available to anyone. Maybe this is a beginners level of Kabbalah but it’s all ridiculous. It used to be you had to master Torah before you got to study Kabbalah also. But these days even Madonna and her friends can study it? The old Kabbalah masters would be amazed
To clarify my previous post, for someone who doesn’t have the background: Judaism lost its central governing body, the Sanhedrin, when the Romans abolished it in the 4th Century. With no central authority, Jews in different geographic regions developed slightly different traditions, much like — with no Roman Empire — vulgar Latin diverged and developed into Spanish, French, Italian and other Romance languages. But, for lack of a better term, each of these traditions are in “full communion” with the other traditions — they are all accepted as legitimate forms of Orthodox Judaism.
Today, the two most prominent traditions are the Sephardi (originating in Spain) and the Ashkenazi (originating in Franco-Germany). These traditions subdivide into many subgroups, again based largely on geographic region. Eastern Sephardim consist of Sephardi Jews who left Spain before or during the 1492 Explusion, and went to North Africa, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The term also includes (improperly) Jews who were never in Spain but adopted the Eastern Sephardi tradition, such as the Jews of Iraq and Persia. Western Sephardim are Jews who stayed in Spain after the Expulsion and pretended to adopt Christianity, then fled a few generations later to places like the Netherlands and Italy and began openly practicing their Judaism again. Hassidic Ashkenazi Jewry began in the 18th Century as a kind of rebellion against the rational, legalistic approach common in the Ashkenazi world. Hassidim emphasis studying the law less, and consider dancing, singing and mystical practices to be equally important means of worshiping God.
That’s not entirely correct. That was the approach of the non-Hassidic Ashkenazi world. Hassidim and Eastern Sephardim generally study Kabbalah their entire lives, albeit in an informal manner.
I defer to you on such matters...any day of the week. What I stated was partly what I got from my Orthodox relatives. When I asked about Kabballah they laughed and said it’s irrelevant to what they are doing
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Most Jews do NOT study Kabbalah. It is very peripheral. Jews are not supposed to study it altogether before age 40.
But beyond that, this so called Rabbi’s statements on it are absurd. He is apparently part of the latest trend - syncretism. Think of syncretism as the multiculturalism of religion.
Judaism and Voodoo have nothing in common. Judaism is a religion where free will is paramount.
“Orthodox Jews, for example, don’t start fires on the Sabbath but do use pre-existing fires. Karaites prefer to sit in the dark and freeze.”
I had a really good friend who was Karaite in Israel. He would go to the breaker box and turn off the power to his condo (did not want to “buy” electricity).
People whack on them as apostate, but, in practice, they end up well within Orthodox practices (except with dairy/meat issues and a few others).
I've heard that this aversion to kindling a flame extends to pressing elevator buttons etc. And there are silly ways around that too.
Oy
Just ------- oy
I have the greatest respect for Karaites, but I wouldn’t say they are “well within Orthodox practices.” There are just too many theological and practical differences.
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