What brought me to the small, neat office in the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles at the tacky southern edge of Beverly Hills where the upscale ambience of Doheny Drive turns into a decrepit stretch that includes two gas stations and multiple Korean nail salons was Madonna, who doesn’t believe in death. And then there was my mother, who had recently died. Somehow, in an effort to reconcile divergent realities, I must have been looking for a resolution of the irresolvable, a way of navigating a path between the absoluteness of mortality and the lingering hope of something beyond it, between the immutable reality of personal loss and the promise of spiritual consolation.
In a world where everyone is angling for a piece of the kabbalah mystique an esoteric occult offshoot of Judaism dating at least to the 13th century the Los Angeles center has been attracting Hollywood glitterati since it first opened its doors in 1993. And who can blame the neighboring institutions the bevy of run-down ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and religious girls’ high schools with names like Torah Hayim and Ohr Haemet Institute, many of which have their own makeshift signs attesting to introductory kabbalah classes for trying to cut in on a share of the booty? It all looks so easy, not to mention remunerative, thanks to the pricey little doodads offered in the center’s store (ranging from red kabbalah bracelets at $26 a pop to bottles of kabbalah water at nearly $4 apiece) and to the hefty donations solicited from members old and new...
New York Times Magazine | April 3, 2008
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