Awakening to Kabbalah: The Guiding Light of Spiritual Fulfillment
By the author's own admission, this book may seem "dry, schematic... unemotional," more instruction manual than heart-moving guide. Laitman comes from a very specific school of thought regarding Kabbalah, originating from a belief that his mentor, Baruch Ashlag, carried a reincarnated soul that originated with the biblical patriarchs, passed to the rabbi known as the Ari and finally to Ashlag's father, Baal HaSulam. Kabbalah, as Laitman sees it, requires one to "rise to the spiritual world while living in this world," but this "can only be achieved through the right study, with the real books" written by rabbis in this particular lineage. Unfortunately, his efforts to make Baal HaSulam relevant to our current times result in thin and sometimes contradictory arguments. In discussing the importance of the numbers seven and 70, for example, he refers to 70 nations in the world today (there are nearly 200) and an average life span of 70 years, which is too low both in fact and for his schema of the Messiah's return to make mathematical sense. More revealing of the exclusive, myopic nature of interpretation than of the world of Kabbalah, this guide will serve few readers other the followers of Baal HaSulam.(Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.