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Quick Facts about Kabbalah:

Kabbalah is not something easily defined; in fact, its beliefs often defy description. Contrary to popular thought, it is not a single book, nor is it a single belief system. Perhaps the best description of it is based upon its historical roots, which place Kabbalah firmly in the realm of Jewish mysticism (spirituality).

The Tanakh is the Hebrew Bible and the first five books of it are known as the Torah or Pentateuch. Simply put, the Tanakh is the Divine revelation of G-d to His people, and Kabbalah is the occult, or secret interpretation, of this revelation. Just as there is a public written Torah, there is also a hidden version that came to be known as the secret Torah, passed down through the centuries through oral tradition and recorded in writing for the first time during the twelfth century. This tradition teaches the meaning behind the written words-the inner Torah-contemplating aspects of God and the nature of man, as well as the truth about creation and other key questions of life. But the heart of Kabbalah, the driving force behind all Kabbalistic teaching down through the centuries, is the quest for secret supernatural power: the belief that it is possible for them to access the power of God and use it to transform themselves and the world around them.

Hollywood Kabbala
A world phenomenon born of a rock star's need for inner peace, Hollywood Kabbalah began as the philosophical creation of former insurance salesman Shraga Feivel Gruberger, who left his wife and eight children, married his ex-secretary, Karen, and changed his name to Philip Berg. As part of this new beginning, Rabbi Berg did what many rabbis had done before him: he took the essence of traditional Kabbalah and combined it with his thoughts and ideas, producing a New Age version of Kabbalah embraced by Hollywood stars and millions of their fans, and contemptuously dismissed by Jewish leaders across the globe. According to Orthodox Rabbi and Cabala teacher Yitzchok Adlerstein, chairman of Jewish law and ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, "What the Kabbalah Centre is, is equal parts of nonmystical and traditional Jewish wisdom and one part snake oil and hokum."

The Bergs and their two sons, Michael and Yehuda, now run the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles, California (kabbalah.com) along with fifty centers worldwide-a marketing jackpot of blessed water, red string, and baby sheets with Hebrew lettering. John Lawrence Reynolds in his book, Secret Societies, observes the modernization and marketing of ancient mysticism: Marketing extravaganza or mystical solution, there is no doubt that Philip Berg's followers revere him-even to the point where they believe he can bring the dead to life. Now virtually worshiped as "the Rav" by thousands of students, Berg is a multi-million dollar success with the power to influence the world. "His followers have been promised that Kabbalah can find their lost children, cure their illnesses, replenish their pocketbooks, and bring them true love." It is no wonder, then, that Philip Berg's new version of Kabbalah has spread through Hollywood society like a spiritual virus, infecting celebrities like Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Elizabeth Taylor, Roseanne Barr, and many other high-profile, entertainment industry personalities.

For his teaching authority, (essential for credibility in Kabbalah), Rav Berg claims the blessing of the now deceased Israeli Rabbis Ashlag and Brandwein (his first wife was Brandwein's niece, Rivkah), but Rabbi Ashlag's grandson and Rabbi Brandwein's son , have publicly denied any transfer of rabbinical authority between Berg, Ashlag, and Brandwein.

"There isn't a shred of truth in his claim," says Rabbi Ashlag's grandson with anger. "They are degrading the Zohar." Rabbi Brandwein's close associate, Baruch Horenchik, goes on to say, "He is far removed from Rabbi Brandwein. He is a zero. The Rabbi [Brandwein] never acknowledged him."

The Bergs tried to answer this criticism publicly by sending the online magazine Radar copies of correspondence (in Hebrew) between Berg and Brandwein, but Radar's examination of the English translations of these letters paints a different picture than the one Philip Berg portrays as fact. The Kabbalah Centre disseminates the information that Rabbi Brandwein acknowledged Philip Berg as his heir, a claim of immense importance in Kabbalah for historically, without the blessing from a student's rabbi, a student could never inherit legitimate teaching authority. But according to Radar Magazine, this supposed blessing from Brandwein to Berg is vague and certainly questionable. "The position he [Brandwein] blesses Berg for accepting is most likely an administrative post in America." Brandwein goes on to state that "only Jews can receive" the wisdom of Kabbalah-the traditional Jewish position that Philip Berg and the Kabbalah Centre reject.

In addition to Berg's disputed teaching authority and a doctorate whose source is difficult to trace, there is the constant barrage of spiritual literature flowing from the Centre whose authorship and intent is unclear. Radar notes that literature produced by the Centre is similar to other popular spiritual works and aimed at specific groups of people. "According to an internal marketing memo obtained by Radar, the target audience for True Prosperity, by Yehuda Berg, is 'Christian, Bible Belt.'" The Kabbalah Centre's response to this was that the Bergs and the Centre would not have authorized such a memo.

David Rowan in his article, Secrets of a Celebrity Sect, describes an even darker side to Philip Berg's Kabbalah Centres, noting that former Kabbalah followers and their relatives experienced high pressure sales techniques and personal threats that included a warning their children, "might fall ill unless they donated money; and . . . 'dark forces' would bring them personal tragedy if they ever left." Most disturbing of all, however, is the teaching that people are responsible for all things that happen to them-good or bad-a belief central to Philip Berg's theology. This unbiblical and cruel line of reasoning is reflected in the strange songs that children (products of the Kabbalah Centre's Spirituality for Kids classes) sing during Jewish holiday celebrations like those conducted on Purim. According to Yossi Halevi of The Jewish World Review, Gloria Gaynor's pop mega-hit "I Will Survive" received a theological makeover courtesy of the Kabbalah center: Jewish Journal reporter David Rowan confirms Berg's teaching that people are responsible for their own pain and suffering, "The centre has also caused outrage by claiming that Jews died in the Holocaust because they had failed to read the Zohar." A close examination of Philip Berg's theology as set forth in his little known but most enlightening book, Immortality, reveals one of the most important things Rav Berg is trying to achieve in this world-immortality; he is working on defeating death-first and foremost, his own. Rav Berg teaches that each of the 72 Hebrew names of G-d provides access to the divine light and has supernatural power to change lives.

A Centre teacher chanted before a crowd at a recent meeting, "The technology of the name is going into the stem cells, stimulating the immune system, reducing cellular blockage, back to the condition of receiving light." The Centre teaches that simply looking at the names or chanting them can cause actual cell structure to change. Immortality and the defeat of Satan (chaos) is possible for all to accomplish if they follow Philip Berg's Kabbalah or as the Centre calls it, "Technology for the soul." This "technology" also includes scanning the Zohar with your fingertips in order to magically gain something from it; it's not necessary to read Zohar to benefit from it. New York Times Reporter, and former Kabbalah Centre student, Daphne Merkin, investigated Philip Berg's Kabbalah Centre and summed it up as "hokum, a brilliantly shrewd commercial enterprise, playing on the existentially orphaned state . . . of many people today."

And finally, there is Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri's warning about Philip Berg to be considered. Kadouri was a Kabbalist rabbi so revered in modern Israel that a simple comment from him is credited with handing the presidency of Israel to Moshe Katsav. "Katsav won a shocking victory after Kadouri said he had a 'vision' that Katsav was favored by the heavens. . . ." Rabbi Kadouri pronounced, in language impossible to misinterpret, that Kabbalah is only to be studied by "Jewish men who have completed full study of the Talmud" and that any follower of Berg "is endangering his soul."

Nevertheless, "The Rav" has managed to sell his ideas and products to millions-with the help of his Hollywood friends. When confronted by reporter Dina Rabinovitch on the questionable character behind her Kabbalah beliefs, Madonna told her legions of fans to listen to the message Berg preached and disregard the messenger-an answer so illogical that Rabinovitch kept reviewing her notes to make sure Madonna had said it.

Madonna encourages millions of people to accept the message of a man who cannot even prove that he is who he says he is-a respected Kabbalist rabbi endowed with teaching authority from a revered line of rabbis. It is like telling a surgeon's patients they must only believe the best of him and allow him to operate-even if he cannot produce his diplomas. It is like promoting the showman Professor Harold Hill (from the great musical, The Music Man) who passed out instruments to all the children with instructions to use the "Think System"-just "think" the music and it will happen.

Berg apparently wants his students to "think" Kabbalah, and the power and energy will come to them. And, in the end, he may not be so far off the mark, for what the philosophy of Berg cannot supply, the kingdom of the occult stands ready and willing to provide. Berg's teaching method contains a well known hallmark of the occult; the constant mantra of open your heart and reach for the light. The only catch is that what may come to the Kabbalah searcher is not the light of Yahweh Elohim, but the false light of Lucifer, son of the morning. It is real, but it is far from right.

Many people caught in the web of Hollywood Kabbalah maintain they were drawn to it by its ecumenical nature: a convert can remain a Buddhist or Catholic and still practice Kabbalah. But Philip Berg's new idea of religious tolerance directly contradicts other Kabbalist leaders like the revered Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, who flatly refused to see Madonna on her pilgrimage to Israel. "I don't know her, I don't know of her and I won't see her," Kadouri said, reiterating his position that women and non-Jews should not be taught Kabbalah.

The Hollywood Kabbalah of Rav Berg and his family is a study in contrasts; New Age ideas and thoughts intertwined with the mysticism and tradition of the Zohar. Sweeping the globe at an alarming rate, it has now set it sights on the little country of Malawi and the children of the world. The Kabbalah Centre's Spirituality for Kids (SFK) curriculum is being taught to the children in orphanages Madonna built in Malawi and in the Kabbalah Centre's global kids summer camp program, Kids Creating Peace. The intent seems clear: reach as many children as possible, and you create an army of future Kabbalists-a force to be reckoned with. In view of the Bergs' track record, it is an alarming agenda.

Even more disturbing, though, are the personal stories of misuse and abuse so easily found in the history of the Bergs and their Kabbalah Centers." Hollywood celebrities may be protected by their financial assets, but ordinary people feel the power of the cult like influence the Bergs exert. There is no shortage of eyewitness testimony. In this respect, and several others, Hollywood Kabbalah appears to be following the controlling lead of another group that is often accused of being a glamorized money-maker, Scientology.

The Bergs appropriation of the word Kabbalah infuriated many in the Jewish community, but as with other cultic structures, a healthy measure of fear protects Hollywood Kabbalah from the censure it would most likely receive without its rich funding and entertainment prestige. A frightening example of this is the experience of Rabbi Abraham Union in 1992. Rabbi Union made the mistake of actively trying to warn the Jewish community about the actions and influence of the Bergs' Los Angeles Kabbalah Learning Center. He suggested the Rabbinical Council of California send a letter critical of the Kabbalah Centre to all Southern California Rabbis. The next day, Rabbi Union found a severed sheep's head on the doorstep of the Rabbinical Council of California. "Several young men appeared at his home that evening and asked, in Hebrew, "Did you get our message?"

Union said that he was certain the men were from the center. He filed a police report, and detectives visited the Kabbalah Centre. They found no evidence of wrongdoing. Union interpreted the incident as a threat to his life. "Of course, [Rabbi Philip] Berg didn't put it there," he said. "There's no proof anybody from the Kabbalah Center put it there. But we never sent out the letter." Michael Berg denied any connection between the Kabbalah Centre, the severed sheep's head, and the gang threats.

Although Rav Berg promises the light of Kabbalah to all who pay the hundreds and often thousands of dollars required to learn it, the dark side of the Hollywood Kabbalah sect has been consistently exposed by investigative reporters for more than a decade. It stands in stark contrast to the glitzy image of instant spiritual satisfaction, so prevalent in the mainstream media.
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