Kabbalah Centre: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Kabbalah Centre is an international for-profit private enterprise founded in Los Angeles in 1984 by Philip Berg (born Feivel Gruberger), dedicated to teaching Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism) as understood by Berg and his disciples.

The Kabbalah Centre is now run by Berg, his wife Karen, and their sons Yehuda and Michael. It has over 50 branches worldwide, with major ones in New York City, Los Angeles, London, and Toronto.

Target audiences

With a carefully targeted message mixing astrology, numerology, psychology, and themes from New Age teachings, intermingled with Jewish rites and observances, the group has attracted many secular and assimilated Jews and non-Jews, including entertainment celebrities such as Demi Moore, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger and Britney Spears. Their most fervent devotee is the singer Madonna who, joined by her husband Guy Ritchie, studies regularly with a personal Kabbalah Center rabbi, no longer gives concerts on Friday night (which is the onset of the Jewish Sabbath), wears red band around her wrist to ward of the "Evil Eye" (Ayin Hara), has introduced Jewish ritual objects such as tefilin into her videos, and claims to have changed her name to Esther (named for the ancient Jewish queen Esther of Persia) and she donated several million dollars towards the opening of a new Kabblah center in London.

Reactions from organized Jewish groups have been almost uniformly negative, and other critics have accused it of being a "cult".

One well-known rabbi went so far as to say:

"'Earth to Phillip Berg: Do us all a favor and dump Madonna as your principal spokesperson,' [Rabbi] Shmuel Boteach writes. 'Sorry to be so crass, but Madonna is a slut. Yes, she may sing, and she may dance. But she is famous for being a slut. And no religion dare have a slut as its principal representative.' He goes on to say:'[I]s the Kabbalah Center really so desperate that it is prepared to promote itself through a vulgarian whose main contribution to the culture is porn rock?'" [1]

Philip Berg claims to have a doctorate, and many of his books are listed as being by "Dr." Berg. However, in different interviews he has offered different explanations of what type of Ph.D. he earned. He claimed to have a Ph.D. in comparative religion, at another time he claimed to have a Ph.D. in jurisprudence in biblical law, and later claimed that his Ph.D. was given as part of receiving semicha, traditional rabbinic ordination. He has never shown his Ph.D. to investigative reporters, and refuses to name the organization that gave him the Ph.D.

Berg used to call his center "Yeshiva Kol Yehuda," and claimed that it was affiliated with a genuine Orthodox Jewish yeshiva, Yeshivah Kol Yehuda, in Jerusalem, Israel. The Yeshiva in Israel was founded in 1922 by Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag, and later led by Rabbi Yehudah Tzvi Brandwien. Berg claimed to be a disciple of Rabbi Brandwein, and alleges that he received rabbinical ordination at this yeshiva. However, investigative journalists have interviewed this Yeshiva; they deny any relationship between his group and theirs, and deny that Berg ever received rabbinical ordination.

The Kabbalah Centre advertises Berg as being "the greatest Kabbalist in the world" and "the world's foremost authority on the Kabbalah." However, outside of his organization he is not accepted as an authority on Kabbalah, nor as a rabbi, by any of the Jewish denominations.

An expose in the Canadian Jewish News (March 18, 1993, pp. 2, 6-7 and 9.) discussed the case of Berg's claims to be able to cure diseases. He sells untranslated sets of the Zohar, an ancient Jewish mystical text written in Aramaic, and claims that by merely opening the book and running one's fingers along the lines, one can be cured of disease