Soul's Code » The New York Times puts down the Jewish mystical tradition, the Kabbalah — from the right. SARAH SILVERMAN got there first

The New York Times puts down the Jewish mystical tradition, the Kabbalah — from the right. SARAH SILVERMAN got there first — from the left

The New York Times Magazine threw 5,000 words at the subject of the kabbalah, which its freelancer labels “an esoteric occult offshoot of Judaism dating at least to the 13th century.”

It’s actually a hit-piece on The Kabbalah Centre: The World’s Leader in Kabbalah Education, which has more than two dozen locations on four continents and its flagship in Beverly Hills, CA . . .

They have succeeded in boiling down an attenuated, arcane and often tedious system . . . into an accessible lifestyle philosophy offering succor to the unaffiliated and disheartened of whatever racial or ethnic origin. Theirs is a canny reading of the infectious malaise of secular life and the widespread yearning for a transcendent context as well as an up-to-the-microsecond sense of branding.

Sounds good to us

It’s true that the Kabbalah Centre has branded itself by jumping into bed with self-serving and stridently-secular celebs like Madonna. But that critique was articulated by the LA comedian Sarah Silverman months ago — and with a far funnier voice (see the video above).

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