A Different Kind of School. Kabbalah Experience
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A different kind of school. Course Catalog 2013/2014 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 Text Study Engage your spirit. 5 Year Long Experiential Learning 6 Electives and Mini Courses It’s about you transforming. While Jewish in its 7 Faculty origin and language, the Kabbalah Experience curriculum 8 Fall 2013 Registration Form has a universal spiritual message. Our classes are specifi- cally designed for people seeking a deeper understanding Mission Statement about 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 more contemporary Kabbalah Elliott Husney, Past President teachers. The curriculum also draws from the sciences Dr. Martin Dubin, Vice President — quantum physics and biology, as well as the spiritual Malena Fernandez, Treasurer wisdom of other cultures and insights from various schools Ken Diamond, Secretary of psychology. Kabbalah Experience students deepen their understand- Board of Directors ing of themselves through exploring the ancient wisdom of Ken Diamond, Dr. Martin Dubin, Kabbalah. It’s not just about the information you learn, it’s Ilana Erez, Malena Fernandez, Dr. Andrew about the transformation you experience. Freeman, Dr. Anne Goldberg Wernimont, Richard Greenberg, Elliott Husney, Nancy Steele, Robert Weinberger Staff Our Community Partners 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, any mini course or any elective class except Kabbalah Review. 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 monthly. 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 Monday, August 26, 12:30-1:30pm with Dr. David Sanders Tuesday, August 27, 1:15-2:15pm with Dr. David Sanders Tuesday, August 27, 6:30-7:30pm with Dr. Anne Goldberg Wernimont Monday, September 9, 12:30-1:30pm with Dr. David Sanders Tuesday, September 10, 1:15-2:15pm with Dr. David Sanders Tuesday, September 10, 6:30-7:30pm with Dr. Anne Goldberg Wernimont Fall free into classes are held at the Goldberger Center, 3599 So. Ivanhoe Street Call 303.758.8996 or email [email protected] to RSVP. 1 New students receive a $50 discount off their first class. 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 you 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 look at the Kabbalah’s insights into the structure continue with the Year Three Core of our souls. The Kabbalah teaches that there Curriculum called Holding Opposites, are five levels of soul. This study engages us pursue a path of text study, explore a to consider the masks we wear and who we track of experiential learning or enroll are within those masks. Through this process in one of many Elective classes. students come to an awareness of soul. Why Are You We return to the Tree of Life (Space) and focus on the “abstract” story level of our lives through Semester Dates: engaging in metaphor work. The key to this Fall 2013 September 16-December 11 inquiry is the realization that we are all living Winter 2014 January 6-March 19 inside of the metaphors (stories) we have created Spring 2014 March 24-June 23 or have been created for us with the practical Summer 2014 July 7-August 27 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 introduce and then apply the concept of Holding Opposites to the Kabbalistic worlds of our experience. Holding Opposites teaches us to have a more direct and balanced relationship with all aspects of ourselves. Examples of opposites include: expansion and contraction, attraction and aversion, holy and defiled, and oneness and separateness. 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 form on page 8 3 Year Long Text Study Open to students who have completed Year Two Core Curriculum. Text study includes learning the classic books of the Kabbalah and special topic areas that are text based. This year we offer two of the formative texts of Kabbalah: Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah and special topics: Soul of Anatomy and the Messiah and Messianic Age. The Messiah and Messianic Age The Zohar: Book of Radiance What is the Jewish perspective on the Messiah While Jewish mysticism preceded the and what has Kabbalah innovated in our under- development of the Kabbalah by over a thousand standing of the Messianic Age? years, what we know of as Kabbalah emerged in Fall Semester: Introductory concepts and southern France and Spain in the 12th and 13th distinctions between the Messianic Age as a Century.