A Different Kind of School. Kabbalah Experience
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A different kind of school. Course Catalog 2012/2013 Kabbalah Experience Engage your spirit. Contents Welcome to 1 Year One Core Curriculum 2 Year Two Core Curriculum Kabbalah 3 Year Three Core Curriculum Experience 4 Year Long Courses Engage your spirit. 5 Electives 6 Faculty It’s about Transformation. While Jewish in its origin 7 Registration Form 2012-13 and language, the Kabbalah Experience curriculum has 8 Registration Form Fall 2012 a universal spiritual message. Our classes are specifically designed for people seeking a deeper understanding about Mission Statement life’s purpose and meaning. Kabbalah Experience is an open and Kabbalah Experience classes consist of small groups inclusive learning community committed in which questions and dialogue facilitate learning the to encouraging individual spiritual growth principles of Kabbalah and help students apply them to through the study and application of personal growth. This adult-centered method of learning Kabbalah’s insights into the parallels appeals to people who learn best when their own thinking between physical and spiritual reality. process is encouraged and engaged. The Kabbalah Experience curriculum draws upon Officers selections from the major texts of the Kabbalah, including the Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah, the teachings of Isaac Luria, Ilana Erez, President the Ba’al Shem Tov and his disciples, and more contempo- Elliott Husney, Past President rary Kabbalah teachers. The curriculum also draws from Dr. Martin Dubin, Vice President the sciences — quantum physics and biology, as well as the Sharon Ripps, Vice President spiritual wisdom of other cultures and insights from various Malena Fernandez, Treasurer schools of psychology. Ken Diamond, Secretary Kabbalah Experience students deepen their understand- ing of themselves and the universe through exploring the Board of Directors ancient wisdom of Kabbalah. It’s not about information, it’s Gwen Crawford, Ken Diamond, Dr. Martin about transformation. Dubin, Ilana Erez, Malena Fernandez, Dr. Andrew Freeman, Dr. Anne Goldberg, Richard Greenberg, Elliott Husney, Amy Karpas, Bethanne Nowak, Nancy Steele, Sharon Ripps, Robert Weinberger Our Community Partners Staff Dr. David Sanders, Executive Director Patti Levine, Operations Director Saskia Kelly, Administrative Assistant For More Information Phone 303.758.8996 www.kabbalahexperience.com [email protected] 3599 So. Ivanhoe Street Denver, CO 80237 Year One Core Curriculum The Year One Core Curriculum consists of three classes: Soul, Space and Time. It is recommended to start with Soul but the Year One Core classes can be taken in any sequence. They are a prerequisite for Year Two and Year Three classes. New students can take In Tune with Time or any elective class not listed as ‘Advanced.’ Soul In Tune with Time The basic teachings of Kabbalah illuminate The celebration of the new month in the Jewish the parallel realities between the physical and calendar begins with the new moon. According spiritual dimension. Students learn the history of to Kabbalah, the Jewish calendar is a guiding Kabbalah and teachings from the Zohar and the light for personal transformation. Each of the Kabbalisitc masters of Tzfat. Students open up to twelve new moons offers different and unique a new awareness of the interconnectedness of energies that give us opportunities to understand souls and common miracles. and realize our own potential. For women only, this class meets twice each month. Space Mystical Hebrew Letters All of physical reality is layered and flows down from higher worlds. The Tree of Life is the basic The early Kabbalah focused on the Hebrew map of spiritual reality unique to the Kabbalah. letters and language and how this code It describes the process of the infinite becoming underlies creation. The beauty of the letters is manifest as finite reality. Students learn to expressed through their meaning, shape, name apply the Tree of Life as a tool to change the and numerical value. The Hebrew letters are metaphors of their lives. containers for the energies of time, including the months of the year and the 12 Spiritual Senses Time of Soul explained in Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation). Quantum physicists debate what time is or whether it even exists. Kabbalah penetrates the mystery of time by asserting that it is God’s first creation. Students learn the concept of living in the present moment through Kabbalah’s insights into the Sabbath and Passover and making each day count. (Offered in Spring.) Take the Leap – Discover the Mystery! Free Introductory Kabbalah Class — Soul: Unseen Reality Tuesday, September 11, 5-6p with Dr. Anne Goldberg (GC) Monday, September 24, 1-2p with Dr. David Sanders (GC) and 6-7p with Dr. Ivor Garlick (JCC) Wednesday, October 3, 11:15a-12:15p with Dr. David Sanders (GC) (GC) The Goldberger Center is located at 3599 So. Ivanhoe Street (JCC) The Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center is located at 350 So. Dahlia Street Call 303.758.8996 or email [email protected] to RSVP. 1 Year Two Core Curriculum The Year Two Core Curriculum is called Inner Transformation. It consists of three classes: Who Are You, Why Are You, and When Are You. Year Two classes parallel Year One classes as students apply the insights of Kabbalah to personal transformation. Who Are You Upon completing Year One and Two Who we are at our essence is addressed as we curricula, students can choose to continue look at the Kabbalah’s insights into the structure with the Year Three Core Curriculum called of our souls. The Kabbalah teaches that there Holding Opposites, take any year-long are five levels of soul. This study engages us course or enroll in one of many Elective to consider the masks we wear and who we classes, including Kabbalah Review. are within those masks. Through this process students come to an awareness of soul. Why Are You We return to the Tree of Life (Space) and focus Semester Dates: on the “abstract” story level of our lives through Fall 2012 October 15-December 19 engaging in metaphor work. The key to this Winter 2013 January 7-March 20 inquiry is the realization that we are all living Spring 2013 April 3-June 12 inside of the metaphors (stories) we have created Summer 2013 July 8-August 28 or have been created for us with the practical implication of choosing, modifying or changing Classes are held at the Goldberger Center, those stories. 3599 So. Ivanhoe Street, Denver, unless otherwise noted. When Are You Time is revisited—and at this time we work on a personal relationship with living in the present moment. The Kabbalah teaches us to find a balance between our memories of the past and living in the present and to not live in the future. “This hour and this moment in which you stand never existed before. Who knows what can be attained now?” (Rebbe Nachman) Inner Transformation 2 Register online at www.kabbalahexperience.com or call 303.758.8996 Year Three Core Curriculum The Year Three Core Curriculum consists of three classes in which we apply the concept of Holding Opposites to the Kabbalistic worlds of our experience. Holding Opposites teaches us to have a more honest and direct relationship with all aspects of ourselves and our lives. Examples of opposites include: expansion and contraction, attraction and aversion, light and dark, inside and outside and separ- ateness and oneness. Each successive world includes and contains the others and represents increasing levels of integration. World of Action – Asiyah focuses on the physical manifestation and verbal The concept of non-duality is often misunder- expression of our world and ourselves. Babies stood. To live free of duality does not mean we are born through the contraction and expansion no longer differentiate between things. To live of the cervix and universes are formed through beyond duality means we embrace the whole contractions and expansions. In each set of of reality, including its parts. This concept opposites our physical bodies and the material of Wholeness is large enough to embrace world serve as a reference point to the holding of wholeness and separateness and all other opposites. paradoxes and pairs of opposites. In Kabbalah the concept of non-duality is referred to as Holding Opposites. World of Emotion – Yetzirah shifts the focus to the interior world of our emotions and psychology. Using the example of contraction and expansion, we explore emotions and mind states that are expansive and those that are contracted with the goal to hold both — to experience the full range of our emotional capacities and enable a broader range of choice. World of Thought – Briah expands holding opposites to the conceptual arena of metaphoric and allegoric interpreta- tion and the possibility that mystery and paradox hold the deepest truths. The worlds of Action and Emotion are integrated into a larger context of both personal and universal syntax — exploring the story level of our experiences. Holding Opposites Registration forms on pages 7-8 3 Year Long Courses We have designed year long classes for all those interested in studying a topic area in Kabbalah or another spiritual tradition. Some classes are marked Advanced and require students to have completed Year One and Year Two Core Curricula or a particular prerequisite. A student can choose to participate for one semester with permission of the instructor. The Messiah and Messianic Age World Mystics – Survey Class What is the Jewish perspective on the Messiah and what has Kabbalah innovated in our under- The mystics testify to the profound scope and standing of the Messianic Age? effect of the mystical experience that open Fall Semester*: Introductory concepts and us to a sense of wonder and freedom and an distinctions between the Messianic Age as a identity far greater than anything we intuit restorative or evolutionary process, overview of with our ordinary consciousness.