{"id":610,"date":"2010-12-13T19:12:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T19:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/kabbalistic-woo-hoo-for-a-monday-afternoon.html"},"modified":"2010-12-13T19:12:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T19:12:00","slug":"kabbalistic-woo-hoo-for-a-monday-afternoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/kabbalistic-woo-hoo-for-a-monday-afternoon.html","title":{"rendered":"Kabbalistic Woo-Hoo For A Monday Afternoon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Oh HuffPost Religion Page, what would I do without you?\u00a0 On days when I\u2019m feeling neither sufficiently cantankerous nor inspired enough to write a post, I just turn to your pages of crapalicious silliness and I find something to write about.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s gift came from Levi Ben-Shmuel, economic developer, singer-songwriter, Tai Chi practitioner and Kabbalist extraordinaire.\u00a0 As he considers what happens to patients during open heart surgery, he teaches us that<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Judaism and Kabbalah provide one answer as to how the essence of an open-heart surgery patient (as well as the rest of us) stays connected to the body: each of us has a soul that is transcendent to the physical body and is connected to the Divine. The soul has five levels intertwined with the human body in varying degrees. Nefesh, or vital soul, is the densest level and is most connected to physicality. It can be thought of as the life force, or chi, in the Taoist tradition. Ruach, wind or spirit, is related to the breath and is identified with emotional awareness. Neshamah, also related to breath, can be thought of as a defining quality of consciousness. Chaya, living essence, is a more refined level of soul connected to a transcendent level of consciousness. Yechidah, unity, is the soul in its essence; a spark of God beyond the plane of duality and in some sense is beyond the body.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These teachings, minus the Taoism, are from Rabbi Isaac Luria<\/a>, the founder of Lurianic Kabbalah.\u00a0 From his center in 16th century Tzfat (Safed) his teachings spread to Europe and became the basis for Hasidism.\u00a0 Then, sometime in the twentieth century, a bunch of new agers grabbed ahold of it and the rest is nutbag history.<\/p>\n

Luria lived and taught in the traumatic century following the Spanish Expulsion.\u00a0 It shouldn\u2019t surprise us that there was a primal attraction to the kind of belly-button gazing provided by Jewish mysticism.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I have no idea how to explain contemporary adults who takes this stuff seriously.\u00a0 If they presented it as a metaphor for human psychology, then maybe I could see the attraction.\u00a0 But for many, like Ben-Shmuel, it\u2019s all so very real:<\/p>\n

This perspective of levels of soul implies that even as an indispensable part of the physical body and one\u2019s consciousness is out of commission, there is a level of connection to the body that is maintained on planes beyond normal consciousness.<\/p>\n

He goes on to cite the very weird work of two physicians, Larry Dossey and Allan Hamilton, who have made second careers out of \u201cproving\u201d supernatural piffle like this and the \u201cpower\u201d of prayer.<\/p>\n

So now, in all sincerity, could someone please explain to me how people smart enough to earn an M.D. could push this kind of thinking?\u00a0 I\u2019ve read Michael Shermer\u2019s book, Why People Believe Weird Things<\/i><\/a>, and I still don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 I can understand the attraction to Oprah, but these guys?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh HuffPost Religion Page, what would I do without you?\u00a0 On days when I\u2019m feeling neither sufficiently cantankerous nor inspired enough to write a post, I just turn to your pages of crapalicious silliness and I find something to write about. Today\u2019s gift came from Levi Ben-Shmuel, economic developer, singer-songwriter, Tai Chi practitioner and Kabbalist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,29],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-liberal-judaism","tag-new-age"],"yoast_head":"\nKabbalistic Woo-Hoo For A Monday Afternoon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Oh HuffPost Religion Page, what would I do without you?\u00a0 On days when I\u2019m feeling neither sufficiently cantankerous nor inspired enough to write a post, I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/kabbalistic-woo-hoo-for-a-monday-afternoon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kabbalistic Woo-Hoo For A Monday Afternoon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oh HuffPost Religion Page, what would I do without you?\u00a0 On days when I\u2019m feeling neither sufficiently cantankerous nor inspired enough to write a post, I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/12\/kabbalistic-woo-hoo-for-a-monday-afternoon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-13T19:12:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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