News

When you're the world's biggest guru of Kabbalah, not even Britney Spears or Madonna can spoil your day.

Hollywood's version of the ancient Jewish teachings - or spiritual science, as Michael Laitman prefers to call it - is not the real thing. Pop-Kabbalah is like a designer philosophy, the religious equivalent to Manolo Blahniks.

Dr. Laitman, the controversial founder of Israel's Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Institute, believes it is time for the world to understand the true wisdom of Kabbalah, which has been kept hidden for 5,000 years. Traditionally, study of the mystic writings was limited to Torah scholars - male only - over the age of 40.

"Kabbalah is not mysticism. It's not red strings or holy water or anything like that," says the small, bespectacled, white-haired man, who sits squarely in his chair, dressed in a suit, shirt, tie and shiny shoes. He looks like a mystic who is out on a business trip.

Which he is, really.

Established in 1991, his is the largest group of Kabbalists in Israel, disseminating lessons in more than 25 languages to more than two million people worldwide. He has a television show in Israel that airs six hours a day. There's an online education centre, called the Ashlag Research Institute that provides no-charge, live, interactive classes. His website (kabbalah.info) features video clips and essays. His newspaper, Kabbalah Today, which is distributed free of charge, is published in Spanish, German, English and Hebrew.

But Dr. Laitman, who speaks through a translator, is not concerned about the recent trend of celebrity-driven

Kabbalah Lite, even if it is

incorrect.

"It's not a problem from my perspective," says Dr. Laitman, who is not a rabbi but uses the honorific Rav, meaning expert. "It's just arranged this way in the natural structure of things. [Kabbalah] wisdom has to appeal to the whole world, to the masses ... and so these people who bring the word to the masses are doing great work."

Even if it's not the right word?

Dr. Laitman's eyebrows twitch slightly as the translator feeds him the question. He answers in Hebrew, his blue eyes calm.

"Yes, absolutely," he says. "Because how do we grow? We always make mistakes, but that's how we learn and grow. So people search ... and because these celebrities evoke attention to Kabbalah, people find Kabbalah, and they [eventually] find real truth."

Dr. Laitman, who received a PhD and a master of science degree in his native Russia, explains: "I came to Kabbalah as a scientist. There are people who come to it out of all sorts of distress, but the majority of people, the millions, the masses, hear the word through such people as Madonna. ... She's like an adaptor. She suits us."

But it could also be said that Dr. Laitman contributes to this dumbing down of high-minded spirituality. His latest of 30 books on the subject is titled The Complete Idiot's Guide to Kabbalah. It's like Britney writing a book on opera.

"I'm making it easier, more accessible, just like people explain physics in an easier way. But I am not changing it. I'm not turning it into mysticism or magic," Dr. Laitman concludes, shooting me a stern, though silent, communication with his eyes.

The thing about being a guru - and there are a lot of spiritual leaders out there - is you can always be right. Contradictions can be smoothed over. A guru will never claim to be marketing his or her brand of spiritual balm for the world as an expression of ego because that's the very thing gurus purport to be erasing.

"I have no personal interest in selling the wisdom of Kabbalah," Dr. Laitman says. "It's free. I'm not selling anything. ... The only purpose is for people to open the book and see how the world is built. ... Kabbalah opens the picture of the world. It's like embroidery, and you can see the stitches behind," he says, repeating the simile that appears in much of his writing and in interviews he has given.

But he is selling it through fear. He prophesies doom for the world unless people understand its principles of balance. Is that useful?

His eyebrows rise again slightly. But he responds without skipping a beat. "I'm not fuelling the fears," he insists. "I see myself as a doctor who is exposing the illness in order to awaken the sick people's awareness so they take the medicine."

At this point, I'm starting to wonder if the balance the world needs for its ills - which are hard for anyone to ignore - is to have fewer gurus, less philosophy and more action.

But I say nothing, mostly because Dr. Laitman, who immigrated to Israel in 1973, is still proselytizing.

"As a scientist, I was searching for the meaning of life. I was hoping to find it through this profession, but I couldn't. I kept on searching and I ended up in Kabbalism, and I found it was a science, too."

Still, Dr. Laitman has his detractors. I mention Rabbi Byron Sherwin, a professor of Jewish philosophy and mysticism at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, who has publicly criticized him for his "entrepreneurial," Oprah Winfrey-like approach.

"Oh, the poor professor," Dr. Laitman sighs. "I studied Kabbalism with the greatest Kabbalist in the previous century [Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag]. He comes from a lineage of Kabbalists that goes thousands of years back. This is known, and it is also known that I was his prime disciple, his personal assistant and his secretary, and his successor. It's written about in circles of real, authentic Kabbalists. So a university professor cannot just erase my being an authority in Kabbalah. I can state it firmly and with confidence in front of the whole world."

Okay, no offence intended, I tell the translator. I was just asking.