KABBALAH – JEWISH MYSTICISM AND PERSONAL GROWTH (ONLINE)
There are many ways to deepen and widen Jewish learning, Jewish wisdom and Jewish way of life – for personal growth. Some like to study, some to find ways of engaging with and caring for our community. Some like to practice religious and traditional rituals including prayer, song, dance, and celebrations. And some of us search for deeper, more spiritual meaning – supported with study and practice in our life.
Kabbalah offers us a way to study both modern and ancient mystical texts and philosophy. And it guides us to test and apply many beautiful concepts, models, rituals and meditations in our own lives, to help us deepen our own spiritual journey.
The Hebrew word Kabbalah means to receive. Kabbalah supports and guides us to study and reflect deeply, to meditate and to explore their meaning and practice together. When we study Kabbalah, we carve out a time and place to develop our awareness, understanding and readiness to receive insights from the mysteries of the universe and the mysteries in the Jewish mystical tradition – and to share them together.
The expected learning outcomes of the course are:
- To get to know each other in our group – who we are, what our intentions are and our motivation for studying Kabbalah, what is our background and experience in Jewish knowledge and spiritual development.
- To learn and to get insights in the history of Kabbalah, who the various leaders, scholars and mystics were, to be introduced to the key literary sources of Kabbalah.
- To explore and be introduced to the Tree of Life and its dynamics, The 10 Sephirot, the 4 worlds, and the 5 modes of the soul.
- To apply kabbalistic sources and philosophy to Jewish holidays.
The course is organized by the Jewish Community of Gothenburg and Paideia folkhögskola, in collaboration with Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden.
Course structure
Kabbalah is both a theoretical philosophy and a practice.
During this course – we will take time to:
- read and study texts.
- discuss, test and explore the meaning of the texts and models we are reading.
- develop and practice rituals, meditations.
- apply the learning and insights to our lives.
Prior knowledge
The course is given in English.
The teacher understands both English and Swedish. Participants are welcome to speak in Swedish in the smaller group meetings if all members of the group speak Swedish.
No prior knowledge about the subject is needed.
To apply for this course, you need basic computer skills and knowledge of how to use the digital platform Zoom. The school offers Zoom manuals and a training opportunity before the start of the course.
Course material
Course material is included in the cost for this course.
About the teacher
Sari Scheinberg was born and raised in New York City where she attended Yeshivat Ramaz for 13 years (learning Hebrew, Torah, Talmud and so on) and continued her education and development as a gestalt and organisation psychologist. Sari moved to Sweden in 1990 for love and has been working as a teacher and action researcher in Sweden and around the world. In Sweden she has been dedicated to developing and leading programs to work with issues concerning well-being, human rights and integration. And she has been working with Swedish and European AID programs for over 40 years – designing and leading research, development and innovation programs around the world.
Sari has always been very active in living and developing her Jewish life. In Sweden she has been part of the team developing and now leading the Egalitarian – Masorti Section of the Jewish community. Sari has been fascinated by Kabbalah since she was young – reading and studying Kabbalah with various teachers. Sari designed and started teaching her own Kabbalah classes in Göteborg – leading one group for nearly 18 years. Now after a short pause, she is looking forward to continuing her teaching, exploring and guiding a new group in Kabbalah again.
Photo: Pixabay/Canva.