<\/p>\n
The entire 2012<\/strong> \u2014 This year of my mother’s ‘passing’ I haven’t written a word here, as you can see. But we have met each month, and that has been a blessing. Our Study Group is soon to celebrate its 18th year: \u05d7\u05d9 \u2014a magical year, signifying life<\/em>. May it be so. There’s been way too much of passing. We studied Freud. Moses and Monotheism<\/em>. I found it terribly 19th century. The others were much more charitable. We went back to Zohar, all too briefly. Ovid suggested Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus Trilogy<\/em>\u2014but I’m not ready. And then we studied Pesach, with various haggadot. The Study Group spent a session going over my new script for the film I’m working on for the Birth of God Project<\/em>. \u00a0Very helpful, indeed! Later, we explored Eviatar Zerubavel’s The Seven Day Circle<\/em>, on the invention of the week, and how it neither follows nor respects natural cycles. \u00a0And we are closing the year with a contemplation of shabbat, each of us engaging with quite different sources. \u00a0We have not yet gotten back to Rosemary Zumwalt’s folklore of Sephardi women, but I can’t wait. \u00a0I’ll say it again: \u00a0maybe in the springtime…<\/p>\n January, 2012<\/strong> \u2014 The plan is to return to fundamentals, with Joshua Trachtenberg’s Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. Turns out I have two copies of this one, if anyone wants to join us. Originally published in 1939, it’s been reprinted a number of times. Looks impressive\u2014from Jewish sorcery to abracadabra, amulets, spirits of the dead, medicine, divination, dreams, the works\u2014 Which makes me think, the place to head after that is Rosemary Zumwalt’s wonderful volume on Sephardi women’s magic and folk medicine. Maybe in the springtime…<\/p>\n December, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 Return to the life of the Rebbe, and his shockingly secular aspirations. Engineering, no less! Something as Malkhutian and Pshat as that! And yet, by the time he left Germany and entered university in France in order to be able to study science and engineering, he was already a rabbi. Already married. And married to the Rebbe’s ‘willful’ daughter, and it sounds like it was a brilliant match. Thus it is with Divine will and Cosmic laughter. The would-be engineer transformed Chabad, engineered it, I suppose, into a worldwide network of Chassidut. The more I read about the Rebbe, the more impressed I become. He reminds me so much of my own father that a longing sets in. He just had wider pockets. With more people in them.<\/p>\n November, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 Seems we’re hooked on Reb Schneerson. Ovid introduced the premise of the Schneerson biography, The Rebbe<\/em>, and it’s exactly the opposite of Wolfson’s book. We’ll focus on this more in December. Instead, we got sidetracked onto Chabad. Easy to do. And on whether Chabad may be becoming a religion of its own. Shocking thought, and curious direction to take. Or, on the other hand, is Chabad really effective at all? Is Chabad creating Chabadniks or it it ‘merely’ opening its doors to those who get lonely on shabbes? Do those who even go to study at Chabad take it seriously in terms of becoming<\/em> Chabad? Or do they just need a little kabbalah to spark up their lives?<\/p>\n October, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 We had our October gathering in Ovid’s family sukkah, which was formidable. \u00a0After our lulav and etrog ritual, we got to work on Elliot Wolfson’s new book, Open Secret: Post-Messianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menachem Mendel Schneerson<\/em>. Oh my, oh my. This is a book worth taking along next time you’re stranded someplace really terrible. It will just pluck you up into the ether and you’ll just float away beyond the realm of the physical world. Wolfson enters Schneerson’s kabbalistic cosmology (and takes us there) at the same time as he analyzes what on (or off) \u00a0earth is going on. We decided that Wolfson is worth another month of study and plan to revisit his latest at our next meeting, which will be in December, given all the conferences and holidays in November. Next meeting, we’ll also be considering other recent books on the Rebbe’s life, influence, and philosophy, as well as examining sections of the Chabad siddur.<\/p>\n September, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 As the high holidays approach, we’ve found the need to look at local options: What kind of experience do we each need for our Rosh HaShanah and our Yom Kippur? And so, before we embark into Wolfson’s Schneerson in October, we spent September looking at the diversity of approaches our region has for community and prayer. \u00a0The range \u2014 from Mizrachi\/Sephardi Orthodoxy to Queer to Renewal to Chabad \u2014and everything inbetween\u2014 makes the Bay Area both a place of ritual riches, as well as (perhaps) a community of both too many and too few choices. The boys have chosen their ritual places of worship. I, on the other hand, can’t bring myself to choose a congregation. And not for want of trying. Because what I want most of all is Beit Malkhut: a place to study and not a place to pray. Although who is to say that study is not the finest form of prayer itself?<\/p>\n Summer, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 We’ve been focused on Sabbatai Sevi and the Donme movement, using Gershom Sholem’s biography of the proclaimed messiah, as well as chapters out of Sholem’s book on Messianism and messianic movements in Judaism. \u00a0What struck us the most was Sholem’s claim that Sabbatai Sevi was a precursor to the Enlightenment. \u00a0The notion that you could (not his words) step out of paradigm from a religious tradition and innovate wildly, according to Sholem, allowed the possibility of heretical and even secular constructions of knowledge. \u00a0I’m fairly sure that in the Fall we will continue looking at messianism in Judaism, perhaps focusing on more modern movements. \u00a0There are a number of good articles and new reads on Reb Schneerson, and I’m hoping that’s where we go. \u00a0One of these that I’d like to propose focusing on is Elliot Wolfson’s Open Secret: Post Messianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Reb Schneerson.<\/em>\u00a0 See you in September.<\/p>\n April, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 We’re meeting in April instead of March because we’ll all be out of town for conferences and the like in March. \u00a0A couple of us promised to meet in New York, since we’ll overlap. \u00a0Time for a pilgrimage to those great bookstores together. \u00a0So. \u00a0The other reason to give ourselves more time, is that (finally) we’ll be looking at Shabbatei Sevi \u2014 reading Gershom Scholem’s tome. \u00a0Scholem’s book is just the opposite of February’s Rabow book. \u00a0Scholem, after all, is a real scholar, whose gone into the archives and has pieced together an authoritative history of the messianic figure who, when faced with the hard choices converted to Islam. \u00a0A good solid rational decision, in my opinion. \u00a0And his followers and detractors both had to decide exactly what that might mean. \u00a0So. \u00a0April. \u00a0We’re looking forward to it…<\/p>\n February, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 Exploring 50 Jewish Messiahs: The Untold Life Stories of 50 Jewish Messiahs since Jesus and how they changed Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Worlds <\/em>\u2014 by Jerry Rabow. \u00a0 Ovid came upon this one by accident, but it looks like it will be great fun connecting the dots, so to speak. \u00a0 With any luck, this book will continue the theme that we covered in January: \u00a0common influences on Jewish and non-Jewish approaches to spirituality. \u00a0(I’m ordering my book tonight). \u00a0Okay\u2014 we all recommend this book. \u00a0It’s downright hysterical in a very very tragic sort of way. \u00a0Read this one not just for the examples you’re familiar with and the ones that you’re not, but also for the patterns and themes that run through each proclamation of the arrival of the mashiah. \u00a0The waves of desperation that bring about waves of messianism that \u2014 and here’s the point \u2014 that backfires each and every time, with tragic consequences to the entirety of the Jewish community. Rabow walks a fine line between the storytelling of these fantastic tales, and hitting us hard with why it all matters. \u00a0As the night wore on we began to consider what maybe could be called the ‘secular’ messiahs, Karl Marx for example \u2014 and compelling arguments were given for his inclusion in the pantheon. \u00a0We decided to continue on the messianic path for next time.<\/p>\n January, 2011<\/strong> \u2014 Ovid will be introducing Idel’s article (which he is translating from the Romanian) on the relationship between kabbalah and Balkan shamanism.\u00a0 If anyone else were writing about this, I’d be less than excited.\u00a0 Although, truth be told, Gershon Winkler did a fine job in Magic of the Ordinary<\/em>.\u00a0 Idel’s forthcoming book will be on this topic as well. \u00a0The argument Idel makes is that Turkik shamanic practices in Moldova influenced both the Ba’al Shem Tov and Velicikovski within ten years of each other in the region of the monastery at Neamtz. \u00a0This in turn influenced Hassidism and Hesychasism, emphasizing the role of prayer and invocation over study and law in both Judaism and Christianity. \u00a0We’re greatly looking forward to Idel’s book on the topic, although it appears that it may well be another couple years before the research is complete. Curiously, we still have not covered Idel’s Kabbalah and Eros \u2014 and worse still, my autographed copy (that the tzaddik got for me when I couldn’t make Idel’s talk on the book because I was teaching that particular night) disappeared the night of our last meeting and two months searching has not uncovered it. \u00a0Very curious indeed.<\/p>\n December, 2010<\/strong> \u2014 we will be considering Moshe Idel’s Kabbalah and Eros<\/em>.\u00a0 Well, that was the idea \u2014 but we’ve all been overwhelmed with end of the semester\/year overload.\u00a0 We’ll be postponing Kabbalah and Eros<\/em> for the moment until the secular New Year has settled down.\u00a0 which is a good thing, since my book has completely run off somewhere.\u00a0 Todd insists I put it back in the kabbalah bookcase last time we gathered together, but no, it’s not there.\u00a0 I’m pretty sure that it’s run off with another Idel lover. I’ve looked all over Beit Malkhut, and it’s nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n November, 2010<\/strong> \u2014 we focused on the Kaddish \u2014 the resulting summary post on Mira’s blog, and this part is true \u2014 alternate teachings and letters from beit malkhut<\/em> \u2014 led to the creation of this site and our kaddish in two-part harmony<\/em> project.<\/p>\n Previous Topics and Schedule<\/strong> \u2014 You will not be at all surprised\u00a0 if I choose not to post the topics that we’ve covered over the past fifteen years. \u00a0Ovid has kept a lot of this on his website \u2014 so please check http:\/\/mishkan.com\/kblgp.html.<\/a> In addition, see also \u00a0about beit malkhut<\/strong> for our approach and philosophy \u2014 and I promise to get around to including a lot more on pedagogy in that section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The entire 2012 \u2014 This year of my mother’s ‘passing’ I haven’t written a word here, as you can see. But we have met each month, and that has been a blessing. Our Study Group is soon to celebrate its 18th year: \u05d7\u05d9 \u2014a magical year, signifying life. May it be so. 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