It's safe to say that Americans know more about Madonna’s marriage than they ever hoped to. It has become all but impossible to log into one’s Google reader without being flooded with a barrage of he-said, she-said posts about what appears to be the biggest and strangest purported love web of the year.Madonna: sometimes she fuels her own rumors

The Jewciest element of the complicated narrative is (surprisingly) not the supposed involvement of half-Jew Lenny Kravitz. Rather, it is the tossing around of the word “Kabbalah,” usually in tandem with the words “lure” and “brainwash.”

And while Kabbalah was once reported to be the marriage-saving element within the whole situation (back in the good old days when the story was just about Madge, her husband Guy Ritchie, and a simple divorce rumor), Kabbalah has of late become more synonymous with the terms “home wrecker” and “relationship destroyer.” Some have even gone as far as to call the current era “Kabbalah -Gate.”

So it might be time for a brief refresher on exactly what Kabbalah is, and isn’t. Who is to say that A-Rod is not, in fact, on his way to becoming a Kabbalah zombie (can’t you see the Post cover now? A-Rod with his arms out in a Night of the Living Dead pose, red bracelets exposed.) But at some point, the Kabbalah scapegoat is no longer sufficient for explaining the one (potentially two) love web divorces. After all, a marriage is only as good as the people in them, and the effort they exert into making things work.

Spokeswoman of the faith: Madonna leaves the Kabbalah Center Kabbalah is over. It was over before Daphne Merkin's two-year-researched, impeccably well written report on the Kabbalah Center last week in the Times. It was over before the JCC in Manhattan started offering a "Day of Kabbalah" and independent teachers like me put up websites like learnkabbalah.com and kosmic-kabbalah.com. It was over, I think, the moment red strings became a sign of spiritual consumerism, rather than spiritual search.

Here's the point. Real spirituality messes you up. It transforms the ego, beats your inner swords into plowshares, and disrupts your sense of priorities. Fake spirituality, on the other hand, builds you up. It caters to what you want, rather than challenges what you think you want. It tells you that, yes, you can have everything you desire -- and all that desire is just fine.

As a spiritual salesman myself -- did I mention learnkabbalah.com? -- I've wrestled for years with the clear opposition between truth and advertising. I know how to fill a room; I've done it many times, and I have gotten good enough at it that I can produce a real spiritual experience in workshops, auditoriums, even bars. (Did it most recently last week in Boston, at a music dive called the Middle East.) I also know what sells: sex, drugs, and mystery. I know how to market myself, my work, and my message.

But I also know that the true spiritual power of my teaching is in inverse proportion to how easy it is to advertise. Because the unadvertisable truth is, if you really want to study Kabbalah, you have to be prepared to give something up. And not just anything, but your sense of self, your priorities, even the ways that you love.

Of course, none of that will happen at the first few classes, at which I'll explain the concept of the sefirot and teach you something about meditation, or reincarnation, or whatever. Most likely, that'll be all you'll come for anyway, and you'll leave refreshed, inspired, informed -- and fundamentally unchanged. Baruch hashem. But if you start doing the real work, whether with the tools of Kabbalah or meditation or energy or a host of other spiritual technologies, you'll see that this "you" you wanted to make happy, enlarge, and empower -- is a mirage.

So yesterday: A kabbalah bracelet plus hamsa The Kabbalah Center, it seems, has made an institutional choice to stay on the side of sales. They've got a great racket going, charging $25 for a $1 bracelet (free on the streets of Jerusalem), and $1000 for a $250 set of the Zohar. Why mess it up? They provide a product that people want. Hell, if 150,000 people visited learnkabbalah.com every month (did I mention the website yet?), I probably wouldn't tinker with the formula either.

I give the Center the benefit of the doubt. Associates tell me that Michael Berg is a sincere learner, and a true scholar. And there is no question that the Kabbalah Center has brought more people to Kabbalah than any other institution in history -- a feat they couldn't have accomplished with a more scholarly, or pious, approach. So, if you believe that Kabbalah will bring about redemption, all that salesmanship is in the service of the highest good. And I think it's possible that many at the Center do believe that.

But when sales is the goal, it's hard not to be craven. I cringed when I read Merkin's account of talking about her mother's death with the Bergs, because here was a real emotional-spiritual moment, played out in the context of the marketplace. If only Merkin would've visited (or mentioned) one of the many real neo-Kabbalists out there today, an Ohad Ezrachi or David Ingber, a Tirzah Firestone or a Jill Hammer, someone who both knows her stuff and knows the human heart. Someone who's not in it for the money.

Again, I'm not claiming that Michael (or even Yehuda) Berg has such low motives. I have no idea, and have good reason to think otherwise. But visiting the Kabbalah Center for spiritual advice is like visiting McDonald's for a salad. Sure, it's on the menu, but there are deeper, heartier, and more sincere options away from the strip malls. Reading Merkin's article, I felt sad that she didn't know any better.

The spiritual seekers I know have, at this point, all gotten over the novelty of Kabbalah. I don't teach "Kabbalah 101" anymore myself, although I do regularly use Kabbalistic language and imagery in my work. Kabbalah itself is not, of course, "over" -- it's thriving in both traditional and radical contexts, and incorporating new voices (of women, non-Westerners, heretics) at an astonishing rate. But the gee-whiz phase is over, yesterday's news like the Da Vinci Code or Rudy Giuliani.

And I think that's a good thing. By now, anyone who's sincerely interested in Kabbalah has a bevy of courses, books, and teachers to choose from -- all of which are way better than the Kabbalah Center's fast-food spirituality -- and can do the serious work of kabbalah ("receiving") the truth of infinite being (ein sof). Meanwhile, those who want something quick and off the shelf will find the teachers they deserve.

And the twain will never, I think, meet.

Though they often behave like godless heathens, the stars are "just like us," as the old saying goes. They, too, search for divinity and meaning in their lives--a quest that can sometimes lead to trouble. The latest spiritual superstar pitfalls:

• Cruise: he's number 2Madonna has been accused of using her charity, Raising Malawi, as a front to raise funds for the Kabbalah Center. Her reps are calling said accusations "outrageous, incorrect, inaccurate, hurtful and malicious."

• The internet is all a-twitter with rumors of Britney's possible conversion to Islam.

• Soccer star Kaka, Fifa "World Player of the Year," may be in some hot water due to his ties to an apparently corrupt evangelical church.
  

• Andrew Morton, author of the unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, which paints him as "Scientology’s de facto second in command," is standing by his book despite threats of legal action. It's in bookstores today.

• Better yet, check out Cruise's terrifying Scientology Indoctrination Vid, over at Gawker.

In 1954, Aldous Huxley published "The Doors of Perception," a famous essay observing that the effects of mescaline were remarkably similar to the unitive mysticism of the world's great religions, particularly Vedanta, the philosophical-mystical form of Hinduism which Huxley practiced. It caused an immediate sensation. Because He Got High: Aldous Huxley's classic essay, "The Doors of Perception"Many in the public were outraged by its pro-pharmacological spirit, and many in the academy accused Huxley (like William James before him) of flattening different mystical traditions, and of disregarding distinctions between "sacred and profane" mystical practice.

But many more were inspired. Huxley's essay, and other works like it, set the agenda for 1960s spirituality, and what later came to be called the New Age movement. He provided a philosophical explanation of what was important about mescaline—that our perceptive faculties filter out more than they let in, and that mescaline, like meditation, opens those doors wider—and a personal account of what a "trip" was like. He showed how entheogens (as they later came to be called) could be a part of a sincere spiritual practice. And he perhaps unwittingly imported a certain Vedanta agenda of what the "ultimate" mystical experience was like: union. As has been argued by many scholars over the last few decades, this claim of ultimacy—that unio mystica is the peak form of mystical experience, with others defined by how close they approach it—is actually a rather partisan one. Why is "union with the All" superior to, or more true than, deity mysticism, visions of Krishna/Christ/spirits, and the text-based mysticism of the Kabbalah? Sure, for Vedanta it is—but that's just Vedanta's view.

Two generations of spiritual seekers have been influenced, for better and for worse, by this hierarchy. From the naive hippie to the sophisticated yogi, Jewish Renewalniks to Ken Wilberites, hundreds of thousands of spiritual practitioners have implicitly or explicitly assumed the prioritization of the unitive over all else: the point is that All is One.

Most of these constituencies are also, like Huxley, influenced by the psychedelic experience, primarily that of mushrooms and LSD. While most contemporary spiritual teachers have long since given these substances up, in favor of meditation and other mystical practices which afford the same experiences in a more reliable container (and one greatly enriched by self-examination and introspection), if you ask them, as I have, they'll admit that the psychedelic experience formed an important part of their spiritual initiation.Do You See God?: Psychedelic experience can initiate a lifelong spiritual journey Whether it's what got them on the road in the first place, or confirmed their earlier intuitions, psychedelics have set the agenda for a huge percentage of contemporary spiritual teachers, across religious and spiritual denominations, and many of their followers as well.

These two trends — that "all is one" is the point, and that it accords with the psychedelic experience—have occasionally led to a distortion of religious and spiritual traditions. In the Kabbalah, for example, unitive mysticism is only a small part of a wide panoply of mystical experiences. Yes, there are texts which speak of annihilation of the self (bittul hayesh) and a unification with God (achdut). But these are, truthfully, in the minority. Many more are visionary texts, describing theophanies of all shapes and sizes; or records of prophecy or angelic communication; or less explicitly unitive accounts of proximity to the Divine. Yet there's a sense, among teachers of contemporary Kabbalah —and I'm not referring here to the Kabbalah Centre (where Madonna goes), which does not teach Kabbalah proper, but rather a unique and sometimes weird synthesis of Kabbalah, the Human Potential movement, and New Religious Movements like Scientology—that unitive mysticism is the summum bonum, the ultimate good.

Some Kabbalistic texts agree, but many others do not. For example, Rabbi Arthur Green, today one of progressive Judaism's leading teachers, in 1968 wrote an article (under a pseudonym) called "Psychedelics and Kabbalah," explicitly analogizing the psychedelic experiences to aspects of Kabbalistic teaching—but selecting those aspects of Kabbalah and Hasidism which fit the experience. Naturally, Green was also influenced by the many forms of non-Jewish mysticism popular at the time, most of whom asserted that "All is One," but in that essay, he makes clear that the psychedelic experience affected how he understood Kabbalah. Green, and a fellow practitioner-academic Daniel Matt, have been enormously influential: their anthologies of Hasidic and Kabbalistic texts are read far more widely than the texts themselves, and are widely assumed to represent the mainstream of their respective traditions.

I am not taking a position on whether this "distortion" is for good or ill; in my own practice, the nondual/unitive perspective plays a central role, and I am grateful for it, whatever its sources. But I have a hunch that it is about to change.

The reason it is changing is that more and more Jewish spiritual seekers are pursuing non-unitive paths. This includes earth-based ritual, shamanic ritual, and other disciplines which, while they may hold the view that "all is one," provide experiences of differentiation (energies, elements, visions, etc). But perhaps more importantly, it includes drinking ayahuasca, smoking DMT, and visionary shamanic-entheogenic practices which offer different experiences from the unitive one. The ayahuasca trip, unlike the mescaline one, is not especially unitive: indeed, one of its hallmarks is the sense of communication with other life forms or consciousnesses. And while a sense of "all is One" is sometimes reported in the midst of the ayahuasca experience, it's more common to read reports of visions of phenomena—manifestation, not essence.

Some of these accounts are strikingly similar to texts from the Hechalot and Merkavah schools of Jewish mysticism, which flourished between the second and ninth centuries. In the texts from this period, we read detailed accounts of heavenly palaces, Divine chariots, and angels; of ascents to other realms which seem somehow to be in outer space or an extraterrestrial locale; of a sense of great danger, but also great awe, beauty and love; and of beings which travel on some kind of cosmic vehicle. The descriptions are visionary and auditory, much like the accounts of ayahuasca visions. They are "shamanic" journeys, both in the sense of being journeys of the soul to other realm and in the sense of a transformation of the self. They yield information, prophecy, revelation, theophany. And they are not really about "all is one."

Hechalot and Merkavah mysticism is studied in the academy, but it is little known in the contemporary spiritual world. It's complicated, arcane, and literally other-worldly. But just as the unitive moments of Hasidism appeal to those who have had a unitive experience on mushrooms, so too the visionary aspects of Hechalot and Merkavah mysticism appeal to those who have had a visionary experience on ayahuasca. The similarities are striking.

What's more, Hechalot and Merkavah mysticism, related as it is to gnosticism, provides one of world literature's richest libraries of other-worldly mystical experience. It's eerie how similar some of these millennia-old texts are to the records contemporary journeyers provide of the ayahuasca trip: the sense of being in "outer space," the tenuous links to consensual reality, the sense of danger, and above all the colorful descriptions of chambers, angels, songs, palaces, ascents, descents, fire, music, and so much more. It also provides a sense of history, context, and "belonging" to those who affiliate with Judaism, Christianity, or gnosticism; like unitive experiences, non-unitive visionary/ ecstatic experiences have a lineage within these traditions. Perhaps, too, it might offer guidance for those seeking to integrate such experiences into their lives.

To reiterate, I am taking no position on whether unitive or non-unitive experiences are "better," and see nondual essence and dualistic manifestation as two sides of the same ineffable unity. My point, simply, is that much of contemporary Western spirituality derives from a particular psychedelic experience and a particular form of mysticism it approximates. With the increasing popularity of ayahuasca and similar medicines, the former element has changed — and I think the latter will too.

In the esoteric world, this kind of change and interchange has always been with us. Hechalot mystics learned from the gnostics, who learned from the Jews, who learned from the Babylonians. Medieval Kabbalists learned from the Sufis, who learned from the Hindus, who learned from the Buddhists, who learned from other Hindus. One need not make the facile, and false, claim that all mysticism is the same thing in order to recognize that mystics across space and time have understood themselves to be gesturing toward the same truths, albeit in very different ways. And those differences advance, not obstruct, the progress of realization. After all, when one can ultimately know nothing, it helps to learn from everything.

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NEXT: Drugs mix with spirituality. But can they mix with parenting?

Impure and evil, apparentlyBad press for Madonna, who spent Rosh Hashana at a Kabbala conference in Israel and toasted the new year with Shimon Peres, no less. However, the director of one of the most respected Kabbala yeshivot in Jerusalem, who insisted on anonymity, was far from starstruck, and had some strong words for the Material Girl. The Jerusalem Post takes up the story:

"It is a known fact in Kabbala that impurity and evil are inherently attracted to sanctity", said the unnamed director. "That's why people of Hollywood, a place of iniquity and lasciviousness, are naturally attracted to the holiness of Kabbala."

 And explains why they vote Democrat, of course.

The director of the yeshiva said he was explaining a basic Kabbalistic concept according to which "sparks" of holiness tightly connected to "shells" of impurity are waiting to be let free. These "shells" [klipot] are naturally attracted to their polar opposite - holiness.

"Wherever there is holiness and sanctity there is also evil," added the director, who said that during her last visit to Israel three years ago, Madonna repeatedly tried to contact his institution, but her calls were not returned. "That's why someone like that lady - I don't even want to mention her name - is so attracted to the Kabbala." [...] 

During her trip to Israel, Madonna toasted Rosh Hashana with President Shimon Peres and declared herself an "ambassador for Judaism."

  Because you haven't suffered enough... 

Madonna arrived in Israel Wednesday night, the eve of the New Year, with her film director husband, Guy Ritchie, to attend a Kabbala conference. Other celebrities who flew in for the event included movie star Demi Moore and her husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, ex-talk show host Rosie O'Donnell and fashion designer Donna Karan.

Just think: Hamas could have transformed their lousy public image overnight. One well-aimed rocket…

"You don't know how popular the Book of Splendor is among Hollywood actors," Yediot quoted Madonna as telling Peres. "Everyone I meet talks to me only about that."

I find that incredibly bloody hard to believe, to be entirely honest with you. Only about that? Really? What about global warming, or the new PETA campaign, or getting the Republicans out of the White House? Don't tell me there's only room in the average actor's brain for one right-on fad at a time, because that would shake my faith in the power of celebrity to its foundations.

Either way, for effortless satire, it’s hard to top Ashton Kutcher’s earnest endorsement of Kabbalistic teachings:

Kutcher was quoted by an Israeli daily as telling a group of Israeli businessmen and entertainers on Saturday that Kabbala had answered fundamental questions in his life and made him a better actor.

I shudder to imagine what he was like before.

(via the Croydonian blog)

I feel like Oprah Winfrey. 48 hours without food, and I must've dropped five pounds already. More, probably -- I don't actually own a scale. And all this with only slight mental discombobulation, a few confused numbers and lapses of cognitive function? Sign me up.

Actually, I found out today that Beyonce Knowles and Robin Quivers (of Howard Stern fame) have each done the Master Cleanse, which I started yesterday morning. First Kabbalah and now this -- it seems like each New Age path I pursue has already been trod by a diva. Is this a gay thing?

The Master Cleanse Lemonade It is remarkable, really, how little nutrition we really need to survive. I love food; though I keep kosher and thus restrict my diet somewhat, within those bounds I'm an amateur gourmet. I cook French, South American, Southeast Asian; I eat out a lot. But I've always assumed that at the heart of my gastronomic adventures lies a basic human need: to be fed. But aside from a few moments of fatigue -- most of which are attributable to not religiously drinking my Cayenne/Maple Lemonade; if I stop drinking for half an hour, I start to get woozy -- I've really been doing fine. Yes, my sex drive is down, I'm not running around Central Park, and I start to fade around 8:00 in the evening, but hours can go by without my even noticing that the fast is happening.

I should say a little more about the Master Cleanse, and about my motivations; I don't want to give the impression that it's purely adventure on my part. The Master Cleanse, in the form I'm following it, was pioneered in 1976 by alternative health pioneer Stanley Burroughs. It is mostly about purging the body from toxins, and there are all kinds of New Agey theories about how that works and why it's important. But as anyone who's ever fasted on Yom Kippur knows, depriving the body of nutrition also affects the mind and heart, and this is where, for me, it begins to get more interesting. I find that when I fast, there's less energy for multitasking, lots of rational thought, anxiety, and running around. I become more patient, more yielding. I literally can't be bothered. And many other people report insights, openings, even realizations. This is really why a lot of people, to some extent myself included, go to all this effort. At least on the level of the mind, it does work.

As with psychedelics, going without food can also bring on a side-show of hallucinations and visions, though I've never fasted long enough to see any. But, as with psychedelics, the main event is not the bells and whistles but the shifting of the mind that takes place when it's not so easily carried away by ephemera of scheduling and plans. Simply put, I find that I like myself more when I'm fasting, and, in addition to the curiosity I described in yesterday's entry, I am partly doing this to experiment with being the kindler, gentler Jay for an extended period. Meditation is still my primary path -- I find seven days of silent retreat more emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually clarifying (not the same thing as deluding, exciting, relaxing, or inspiring -- here's an article I wrote on that subject a couple ofyears ago) than just about anything else I know. But I am interested in exploring some of that usefully altered state within my ordinary life.

Even during last week's run-up to the Master Cleanse, it was clear to me that exotic nutritional practices are scarcely different from obsessive eating disorders. Are my adzuki beans both organic and locally grown? Has my distilled spring water absorbed toxins from its plastic bottle? It's really exactly like kashrut, another borderline-OCD food behavior which requires equal parts diligence and chilling out -- or maybe unequal parts. As with kashrut, I found myself judging people for eating unhealthily (i.e., normally), giving myself guilt over little slips of discipline, and exceeding the advice even of my nutritionist, who, to her credit, is quite accepting of little indulgences.

In the last two days, the distinction between myself and the normally eating world has grown more stark. I'm not just keeping vita-kosher; I've become a vita-monk. And so I've become less tempted by, and judgmental of, the ordinary world. I did have to go to a cocktail party last night (my editor at the Forward just launched her new book), and I felt a bit melancholy walking across Central Park during picnic season. But in general, this rather total renunciation is easier than being of the world, but apart from it. And it's not like I'm living in a cave. Today, I took my nephew to the park to play football, drove up to my house upstate to check in on some renovation work, and even had a long conversation with my editor here at Jewcy over an essay I'm told is being published tomorrow. I'm just not eating anything.

There's more to say, but I need to leave something for tomorrow. Besides, do you really want to hear about the effects of a "Salt Water Flush" laxative?

Maybe you do, and maybe I'll tell you. Or maybe not. Tune in tomorrow.

Reincarnation: Looks nothing like thisI was planning to blog about Gehenna today, but in my search for information on that lovely vacation spot, I stumbled on this:

Each individual soul is dispatched to the physical world with its own individualized mission to accomplish. As Jews, we all have the same Torah with the same 613 mitzvot; but each of us has his or her own set of challenges, distinct talents and capabilities, and particular mitzvot which form the crux of his or her mission in life.

At times, a soul may not conclude its mission in a single lifetime. In such cases, it returns to earth for a "second go" to complete the job. This is the concept of gilgul neshamot--commonly referred to as "reincarnation"--extensively discussed in the teachings of Kabbalah.12 This is why we often find ourselves powerfully drawn to a particular mitzvah or cause and make it the focus of our lives, dedicating to it a seemingly disproportionate part of our time and energy: it is our soul gravitating to the "missing pieces" of its Divinely-ordained purpose.13

Wow! Really?

I had no idea reincarnation was a part of Judaism at all.  And I find that it makes me really happy to discover. Inexplicably happy.  I think because so much of our Jewish concept of the afterlife is hard for me to grasp or visualize.  But this… this is a pretty simple idea.  That if I have work left to do on this earth, I’ll get to come back and finish it.

A safety net of sorts.

Of course, my unobservant self can’t help but extend the idea into dangerous realms. I can’t keep from turning the idea of my soul’s need to fulfill my personal mitzvot… into a selfish desire to see my son grow old, or my desire to write an incredible novel, or my hunger to live abroad.  And I get that those things are unlikely to buy me a second trip to earth.

But there’s something in me that finds comfort in this idea overall. 

Maybe because my insane phobia  of death actually stems from the fear I’ll not have finished my life.  Not have done enough, lived well enough.  I’m someone who wakes up every day with a humongous “to do” list, and there’s a constant nagging worry in me that my life will be too short. 

So I find this reincarnation idea really settling, and I wanted to share it with you, in case you might find it settling too.

There’s a much more complete explanation of Gilgul Neshamot over here, and I find it interesting.  In particular, the idea that we aren’t supposed to know much about the reincarnation clause, because:

 God wants man to be completely free to do whatever he wants, so that he can be totally responsible for his actions. If a person were to be explicitly told that he will surely reincarnate if he fails to rectify his actions, he might remain indifferent and apathetic. He might not do all he could to accelerate his personal evolution.

And this rings true to me.  It makes sense that a person needs to live well for the sake of living well.  But now and then, it’s nice to find a little security blanket, to hold on to for a minute.

The Zodiac: According to a 6th century synagogueI have to be honest, I’m a little obsessed with magic.  I’ve always wished for special mutant powers, and I know that Judaism makes room for magic.  As a child I read stories about Golems and Dybbuks and such. 

But I don’t really know the “rules” about Jewish magic. 
Do you?   

Although we’ve all heard about Kabbalah, which sounds awfully magical, according to some, Judaism strictly forbids astrology, tarot cards, ouija boards, cultic practices, etc.  They all fall under the catch-all  “idolatry” heading.    

But then Judaism does recognize that non-Jewish psychics are real and stuff.  That their powers are real.   Real, but bad.

See… 

 “… G-d created the Dark Side, and allowed Man to access His power through it, just so Man could choose between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong.”

Okay, that’s cool.  I get that.  Sure.

But at the end of the article, someone smarter then me has written in and asked, “What about rituals like those found in the Sefer Raziel and Sefer Ha-Reziem ?”

And the editor has responded, “They are not magic, they are conduits for holy energies.”

(In case you’re wondering, I looked up these terms, since I didn’t know what they were.  And it would seem that the Sefer Raziel and the Sefer Ha-Reziem discuss, among other things, Jewish astrology, numerology, and other fun stuff about angels.)

But I have to say this distinction seems awfully arbitrary.  Astrology is out, but Jewish astrology is in?  I’m not sure how one is supposed to know the difference between magic and holy energy.  Besides the fact that “holy energy” appears relatively early in texts belonging to the Jewish tradition and gets discussed by rabbis. And “magic” belongs to cultures outside Judaism. 

Wow. Now I’m really confused.  But I still wish I could fly and talk to the dead.

I'm going to hunt down a guest blogger who claims to know something about Kabbalah. Maybe they'll be able to clear this up.

Is God in the details? If so maybe Anna Wintour is in search of God, and not the devil incarnate!

I just read that the famous for being devilish editor is looking for a new word for 'blog'. The item implied that this was just another thing that made Anna Wintour soo evil. "The word 'blog' is ugly", she reportedly said, and so she's ordered her staffers to come up with a new word ASAPest!

Personally I like the word blog. It is to writing what clogs are to other shoes. Something uniquely shaped. A shoe but not a shoe. Then again Ms. Wintour may also loathe clogs. I respect that. I loathe flats. Whenever I see a girl in ballet slippers I stare the way drivers stare at car wrecks. Please never let that happen to me!

But what I love about Anna Wintour's desire for a new word is that it reveals a love of language, a demand for precision about language. A love of detail. And after all isn't God in the details? I suggest the word cournal to Ms. Wintour. If you happen to know her please pass it along. Cournal is for: computer journal. Also for kernel, as in kernel of an idea. Which is what a good blog is. (I'm always tempted to go for the whole ear of corn.) But if you do tell it to her and she likes it and she uses it, please tell her it is from me and that I would really would like to meet her. Now more than ever.

Because I am still trying to figure out "The Devil Wears Prada". She didn't seem that evil. I began to worry maybe there was something wrong with me. According to the Kabbalah worry is the devil. But of course you shouldn't worry about it, or the devil wins. And in this case the devil did. For me the devil often does.

Is it me or is it being Jewish? Is it possible to be a Jew and not worry? I am an optimist and so I say yes. And I have spent most of my so-called adult life working at converting my worrier nature into warrior nature. Every now and then I feel I've gotten it. A triumph! And always when I am feeling truimphant I start to worry that I am feeling triumphant and I will lose it all, which means that I have lost it all and I must begin again. High heels can be emotionally as well as physically uplifting at this point.

And so can yoga. Where I was yesterday. First, lots of warriors. Warrior 1, 2, reverse 2's. All good. Then I was laying in shavasana, corpse pose, (I consider it a great victory that I can even lay there and not worry about dying) and I noticed a great ball of worry. Despite my chanting to remove all negativity. Somehow I was able to really focus on it though. And my worry felt "fat". Hunh. I looked more closely and it was a fat old woman in a housedress. Wirey hair. Smoking. Her name was Bertha. I have always tried to be one of those people who name the parts of themselves. Never been able to. Well, ok. Results are not always immediate.

And here was big old fat Bertha. Literally sitting on my shoulder. Worrying. She was my devil. Wearing an awful shmata! My devil wears shamatas! I released her but like an ex-con committing crimes to get back in prison here she still is today. Maybe if I buy her some Prada she will behave.

The Anti-Defamation League is demanding an apology from Representative Ben Bridges for perpetuating "repugnant images of Jews" in a memo for proclaiming that the Big Bang Theory has its roots in Kabbalah. Bridge's memo specifically calls for all to visit this anti-evolution site and espouses that evolution is a byproduct of Judaism.

"Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate 'creation scenario' of the Pharisee Religion," the memo said. "This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic 'holy book' Kabbala dating back at least two millennia."

Bridges has long opposed the teaching of evolution in Georgia classrooms and has introduced legislation requiring only that "scientific fact" be taught in school.

This picture is so five years ago.Britney Spears, who recently underwent a mystical conversion of sorts for People, has been dumped by her Israeli beau of one month, Isaac Cohen. After dying her hair black and sporting a Magen David, Spears appeared to be aiming for a more subdued image, especially after insisting that the camera focus on her downward gaze and not her crotchless panties. Fortunately, the act is now up and Britney can go back to being the blond, trashy, red Kabbalah bracelet-wearing whore she's so convincingly played before.

 

Madonna a.k.a. EstherMadonna follows Kabbalah and believes in Jesus. MSNBC reports:

Saying that her adopted son, David, can be Christian and follow Kabbalah as well, Madonna told the BBC, “I believe in Jesus and I study Kabbalah, so I don’t see why he can’t too.”

David, of course, is the Malawian child Madonna a.ka. Esther (her Kabbalah name) just adopted. We agree, Madonna: why can't he look to you for confused religious and spiritual guidance? As long as he doesn't wind up with two fake names... Yours annoy us enough already.