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Kabbalah Centre
The Kabbalah Centre International is a non-profit organizationworldwide located in Los Angeles, California that provides courses on the Zohar and Kabbalistic teachings online as well as through its regional and city-based centers and study groups worldwide. The Kabbalah Centre's presentation of Kabbalah was developed by its director, Philip Berg, along with his wife, Karen Berg. Traditionally, rabbis in Europe believed that the mysteries of Kabbalah were so complex and so easily misunderstood that it could only be taught to devout students (mostly males) only after age 40. History The Kabbalah Centre was founded in the United States in July 1965 initially as a publishing house called "The National Institute for the Research in Kabbalah" by Philip Berg (born Feivel Gruberger) and Rabbi Levi Isaac Krakovsky. It is likely that Berg was encouraged by his ''Rebbe'' and former wife's uncle Yehuda Tzvi Brandwein to establish the publishing house to aid the funding of Brandwein's Yeshiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Berg
Philip S. Berg (original name Feivel Gruberger, he, שרגא פייבל; August 20, 1927 – September 16, 2013) was an American rabbi and dean of the worldwide Kabbalah Centre organization. Berg was a great populariser of Ashlagian Kabbalah. Having written a number of books on the subject of Kabbalah, Berg expanded its access to a greater audience than traditionally permitted, one which included secular Jews, non-Jews and women. Berg initially aimed at returning alienated Jews to their heritage through the teachings of Yehuda Ashlag, however he later adopted a more universalistic approach. There is disagreement about whether Berg's teachings, as relayed through the Kabbalah Centre, have sufficient grounds and/or genuine authority according to ''halakha'' (Jewish law), as they include some dogmas and translations differing markedly from those of more-traditional Kabbalists. Some Jewish scholars emphatically reject such teachings, deeming them as foreign to both the Kabbalah in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. Born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire (present-day Spain), on Passover eve, 1138 (or 1135), he worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt. He died in Egypt on 12 December 1204, when his body was taken to the lower Galilee and buried in Tiberias. During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on Jewish law and ethics with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the Jewish community in Egypt, his writings also had vociferous critics, particularly in Spain. Nonetheless, he was posthumously ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrology
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamic world, and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beit Alpha
Beit Alfa ( he, בֵּית אַלְפָא; also Beit Alpha, Bet Alpha and Bet Alfa) is a kibbutz in the Northern District of Israel, founded in 1922 by immigrants from Poland. Located at the base of the Gilboa ridge, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gilboa Regional Council. As of its population was . Geography The kibbutz was founded near an abandoned Arab village, Khirbet Bait Ilfa, at the bottom of the northern steep slopes of Mount Gilboa, on the eastern edge of the Harod Valley, between the Jezreel Valley and the Beit She'an Valley in the Lower Galilee. The Gilboa mountain range stretches to its west, with the closest peaks Har (mount) Barkan (497 m) and Har Gefet (318 m). The area north and east of the kibbutz is flat, but falls to the east towards the Jordan Rift Valley. To the north of the kibbutz flows the Harod Stream , whose waters are used to fill numerous ponds. Adjacent to the kibbutz to the west is kibbutz Heftziba and Beit Alfa Synagogue National Park; Ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ein Sof
Ein Sof, or Eyn Sof (, he, '; meaning "infinite", ), in Kabbalah, is understood as God prior to any self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm, probably derived from Solomon ibn Gabirol's ( 1021 – 1070) term, "the Endless One" (''she-en lo tiklah''). ''Ein Sof'' may be translated as "unending", "(there is) no end", or infinity. It was first used by Azriel ( 1160 – 1238), who, sharing the Neoplatonic belief that God can have no desire, thought, word, or action, emphasized by it the negation of any attribute. Of the Ein Sof, nothing (" Ein") can be grasped ("Sof"-limitation). It is the origin of the Ohr Ein Sof, the "Infinite Light" of paradoxical divine self-knowledge, nullified within the Ein Sof prior to creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the first act of creation, the Tzimtzum self "withdrawal" of God to create an "empty space", takes place from there. In Hasidic Judaism, the Tzimtzum is only the illusionary concealment of the Ohr Ein Sof, giving ris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Klippot
In the Zohar, Lurianic Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah, the ''qliphoth/qlippoth/qlifot'' or ''kelipot'' ( ''qəlīpōṯ'', originally Aramaic: ''qəlīpīn'', plural of ''qəlīpā''; literally "peels", "shells", or "husks"), are the representation of evil or impure spiritual forces in Jewish mysticism, the polar opposites of the holy Sefirot. The realm of evil is also termed ''Sitra Achra'' (Aramaic: ''sīṭrāʾ ʾaḥrāʾ'', the "Other Side") in Kabbalah texts. In the Zohar The ''Qlippot'' are first mentioned in the Zohar, where they are described as being created by God to function as a literal nutshell for holiness. The text subsequently relays an esoteric interpretation of the text of Genesis 1:14, which describes God creating the moon and sun to act as "luminaries" in the sky. The verse uses a defective spelling of the Hebrew word for "luminaries", resulting in a written form identical to the Hebrew word for "curses". In the context of the Zohar, interpreting the v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sense
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system receives signals from the senses which continuously receive information from the environment, interprets these signals, and causes the body to respond, either chemically or physically.) Although traditionally five human senses were identified as such (namely sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing), it is now recognized that there are many more. Senses used by non-human organisms are even greater in variety and number. During sensation, sense organs collect various stimuli (such as a sound or smell) for transduction, meaning transformation into a form that can be understood by the brain. Sensation and perception are fundamental to nearly every aspect of an organism's cognition, behavior and thought. In organisms, a sensory organ co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 terahertz, between the infrared (with longer wavelengths) and the ultraviolet (with shorter wavelengths). In physics, the term "light" may refer more broadly to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not. In this sense, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are also light. The primary properties of light are intensity, propagation direction, frequency or wavelength spectrum and polarization. Its speed in a vacuum, 299 792 458 metres a second (m/s), is one of the fundamental constants of nature. Like all types of electromagnetic radiation, visible light propagates by massless elementary particles called photons that represents the quanta of electromagnetic field, and can be analyzed as both waves ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weekly Portion
It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion to be read during Jewish prayer services on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. The full name, ''Parashat HaShavua'' ( he, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ), is popularly abbreviated to '' parashah'' (also ''parshah'' or parsha), and is also known as a Sidra or Sedra . The ''parashah'' is a section of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) used in Jewish liturgy during a particular week. There are 54 parshas, or ''parashiyot'' in Hebrew, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Jewish year. Content and number Each Torah portion consists of two to six chapters to be read during the week. There are 54 weekly portions or ''parashot''. Torah reading mostly follows an annual cycle beginning and ending on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, with the divisions corresponding to the lunisolar Hebrew calendar, which contains up to 55 weeks, the exact number varying between leap years and regular year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passage Of The Red Sea
The Crossing of the Red Sea ( he, קריעת ים סוף, Kriat Yam Suph, parting of the Sea of Reeds) forms an episode in the biblical narrative of The Exodus. It tells of the escape of the Israelites, led by Moses, from the pursuing Egyptians, as recounted in the Book of Exodus. Moses holds out his staff and God parts the waters of the Yam Suph (Reed Sea). The Israelites walk on dry ground and cross the sea, followed by the Egyptian army. Once the Israelites have safely crossed, Moses drops his staff, closing the sea, and drowning the pursuing Egyptians. Biblical narrative After the Plagues of Egypt, the Pharaoh agrees to let the Israelites go, and they travel from Ramesses to Succoth and then to Etham on the edge of the desert, led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. There God tells Moses to turn back and camp by the sea at Pi-HaHiroth, between Migdol and the sea, directly opposite Baal-zephon. God causes the Pharaoh to pursue the Israelites ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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