![]() While the teachings are filled with jargon-about opening curtains, plugging in, and becoming vessels-the message, in its purest form, is old and simple: giving makes life better. From coast to coast, film-industry people, members of the chattering classes, and creative icons are becoming more generous, calmer, and, well … nicer. But, for thousands of people-especially those with short fuses and the conviction that the world revolves around them-the new Kabbalah has achieved some remarkable results. Its philosophy has little resemblance to the ancient Jewish mysticism whose name it bears. The Kabbalah Centre, which opened in Los Angeles in 1984 and in Richmond Hill, New York, a year after, can seem frivolous-a Jewishy New Age emporium selling “Sexual Energy” and “Dialing God” candles, magic amulets, and elaborately tarted-up common sense. By the end of the week, I could laugh about it.” “Before, I would’ve not been able to get out of bed. Here is how he handled life’s hard knocks thrown at him this particular week: “I was stood up by a guy, my dog was discovered to have a mass, and my computer crashed,” he says. Then he found Kabbalah, and something amazing happened: his tendency to get snippy and all bent out of shape disappeared. ![]() Given his Sikh doctor, his yoga instructor, his nutritionist, his dermatologist, and his almost daily lunches at Fred Segal, you’d think he would have been well taken care of. Consider Wes Stevens, a type-A talent agent for voice-over actors. “*Seeexxy!*”Īs they have in other imperial capitals around the world for millennia, the rabbis are finding the jaded rich eager for their wisdom. ![]() A boxy woman wearing a red wig and silk blouse, she glides her hand down Maples’s delightful figure and gives her the thumbs-up. Karen, 62, sends out a vibe that you’d expect more from the wife of a shopping-mall magnate than that of a religious guru. “Gorgeous!” she exclaims, abruptly dropping her conversation with the frump next to her as Maples comes over to say hello. Among the somewhat bold-faced names are the men’s-wear designer Bijan, former Nicole Brown Simpson intimate Faye Resnick, and Donald Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples, whose entrance causes Karen Berg, wife of the Rav, to crumple with joy. The seekers of Jewish mystical wisdom here tonight include a smattering of girls in micro-minis and Ugg boots, checking out the Juicy Couture and eating red-dyed sushi, and several Colin Farrell look-alikes, wearing Kabbalah chic: beat-up T-shirts with suit jackets, cords, cool sneakers, and newsboy caps. It was written by Yehuda Berg, elder son of Rabbi Philip Berg (generally referred to as “the Rav”), founder and top guru of the Kabbalah Centre. ![]() The occasion is a publication party for The Red String Book, a pocket-size work about wool bracelets said to ward off the Evil Eye. Tonight the store is teeming with paparazzi and frantic camera crews, jostling as if this were the Emmys. Now they have found themselves at Kitson, a superhot store on Los Angeles’s Robertson Boulevard that sells “Betty & Veronica” baseball caps and tight little T-shirts that read, HILTON LOHAN 2004. Over the course of 5,000 years, wandering Jewish teachers have brought their ancient wisdom to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, Caligula’s Rome, and Ivan the Terrible’s Moscow.
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