The JTA announced in May the opening of the Jerusalem Kabbalah Museum. It opened in June and its director is Rabbi Chaim Dalfin. Having the director’s name helped me to identify its website, because that was the main connection that made me sure it is indeed JewishCulturalMuseum.com (, which was the main result when I searched for it online.) The museum must have changed its name, because in Google’s cache the pages talk about Jerusalem Kabbalah Museum, while on the current and live pages I found only information about “Jewish Cultural Museum”. To make it even more confusing under chasidicjew.com and you would find the same site as well. It is less surprising that kabbalahmuseum.org also leads to it. On the website there is a list of areas the museum “will” feature: Kabbalah Timeline, Jewish Cultural History, Garments, Artifacts, Holy Books, Manuscripts, Amulets, Reincarnation, Non-Jews, Gift Store, Cultural Art, Youth Education. These are mostly mentioned in future tense, albeit the museum seems to be open, because they have tours. On the websiteit was impossible to find such details as opening hours and entrance fee and the museum’s well-designed brochure is more helpful in this regard.

An interesting debate is going on at Zeek magazine. Last December Boaz Huss argued in an article  that the word “mysticism” should not be used in relation to Kabbalah and it being a theological category should not be the subject of academic research. In the March issue of Zeek Shaul Magid posted  a detailed opposing opinion and Boaz Huss replied to that. It is worthwhile reading all four webpages (four because Magid’s is broken to two) to learn of the possible critical perspectives of this debate.

A few weeks ago the “Kabbbalah to Go” podcast restarted posting Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh’s lectures as podcasts. Last March the site posted 3 lectures in four parts. Then there was a big break and now, since early Feburary, a new podcast appears approximately every week. In the most recent one he explains “the prohibition to eat the blood and certain choice fats of a kosher animal.” The site can be reached both via http://kabbalahtogo.podbean.com/ and at http://kabbalahtogo.com/ Yes, I know that a podcats is not a book. But this Lubavitcher rabbi has been a long term teacher of Kabbalah and wrote a dozen books on the topic as well, so this deserved an entry here. His most recent book in English was The Art of Education: Internalizing Ever-New Horizons.

Rabbi Tzvi Leshem finished his PhD dissertation recently at Bar Ilan University The English title of his work (written in Hebrew) is Between Messianism and Prophecy: Hasidism According to the Piaseczner Rebbe and it can be downloaded from here. In another blog post he answers to the question why he even wrote a doctoral dissertation. The content of the explanation is apologetic and it shows that he felt he need to explain his unusual deed to his frum audience. But he also shows respect towards the academic institution he studied at. It is interesting, though that he does not name the professors he liked (nor the ones he avoided), with the exception of his advisor. He also critiques the academia’s Judaic Studies program for exposing young minds to the documentary hypothesis, a dangerous heresy in his view. The post gives an insight of the priorities and agendas of why and how a bright frum rabbi would study Kabbalah outside his regular setting.

Christopher Smith, a Master’s student in Christan History at Wheaton College, wrote a nice little introductory essay to Kabbalah an posted it on his blog. This is a thorough work if one would need to summarize in a limited amount of space the major points (and history and reception) of Kabbalah. He talks a little bit too much for my taste about angles and demons. Also he quotes Leo Schaya more extensively than I think his work merits compared to the other authors Smith covers: Scholem, Matt, Dan, Buber, Cooper. Overall though this a is a great summary.

This is old news, but I like the image so much that wanted to share it. John Coulhart designed a variation on the classic depiction of the ten Sephirot. It is using the look and feel of the well-known map of the London underground system. He made the design available on CafePress, a company which prints your design on mugs, t-shirts, sweaters and other objects. However CafePress pulled his item, because the “Transport for London provided [them] with a notice stating that the use of the London Underground Roundel infringes upon their intellectual property rights.” So the artist reworked the piece. I still think it looks fun. But if Kabbalah is esotericism, i.e. a hidden art, then isn’t it a bit counterproductive to ware it outside?

TheStar.com from Canada had a descriptive article about Tzfat and the tourism industry aimed to study to Kabbalah there. Most of the article follows Rabbi Eyal Reiss, the director of The International Center for Tzfat Kabbalah. Their website is a well of resources about Tzfat and how it is immersed into Kabbalah. Plus they have nice pictures of local sites and art pieces too. There Kabbalah is more of an experiential  than a book/reading based practice,.

The Jewish Literary Review checked out what were the best selling Jewish books at Amazon in 2007. In the Jewish American section Rabbi Lawrence Kushner’s “Kabbalah: A Love Story” was at fourth place.

ARIFilms is Bnei Baruch’s multimedia branch. A year ago they made a three minute movie about Kabbalah books. It is up on YouTube. I noticed that a few weeks ago it showed up on sevenload too. That made me curious where else it has been posted. Here are some other sites I found it, besides the ones embedding the YouTube version:

• CryoSites
• DailyMotion
• Flix55
• Vidilife
• Vimeo
• VSocial

Kabbalahtogo seems to be a clearing house of Chabad podcasts. Today Sholom Ber Dubov posted on the “Ancient Books of the Kabbalah.” I will listen to it (61 minutes) after Shabbat, but wanted to mention it here, so I would remember.