Re: Fwd: Spiritrave "Dancing the Tree of Life": February 20

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>Dear Ari:
>
>While, even though as a Torah-observant Jew (of the non-aggressive
>variety), I wasn't offended by your advertising of the "spiritrave",
>having long ago participated myself in some pretty zany events of a
>similar nature, I found your characterization of the kabbalah fairly
>surprising, i.e.  "the codified drug- (or alcohol-) induced ravings of
>earlier Jewish non-conformists" (?!). Somebody correct me if I'm
>mistaken, but I was under the impression that the Kabbalists throughout
>Jewish history were highly involved members, if not leaders, of their
>communities and were thoroughly entrenched in the normative halachic
>tradition, certainly not outside it. Most were noted as much, if not
>more, for their contributions to the "meat and potatoes" of Jewish
>scholarship, i.e.  Torah commentary, Talmudic law, Jewish ethics, etc,
>as they were for their "mystical" writings, e.g. Shneur Zalman of Liadi,
>the Vilna Gaon,  the Ramchal, the Maharal of Prague, the Arizal, Yosef
>Caro (of Shulchan Aruch fame), the Ramban, the Rambam, R' Akiva, Shimon
>bar Yochai, to name a few.

That's an interesting list, Gary, and surely deserves discussion on
a list more focused on rabbinics than this one. But you need not go
very far, even to the excommunication of hassidism by the above-mentioned
Vilna Gaon, and the ongoing descriptions of hasidim in Jewish literature
of the past couple hundred years in which they are referred to by mitnagdim
as drunks and worse to realize that in their time, they were described in 
much the same way as some have characterized the "spiritravers" of today.

I did not intend this as a slap against kabala, but rather a slap against
the intolerance directed at those who are exploring new edges. I apologize 
for the ill-considered wording that would have had it appear otherwise.

ari

Ari Davidow
The klezmer shack: http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/
owner: jewish-music mailing list
e-mail: ari (at) ivritype(dot)com

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