Kabbalah
June 25th, 2023
When I say that my life picked up speed after starting work at BBC, it truly did. At that time, I was closing one chapter of my life and opening another.
2008.
One day I was walking across Central Park and a woman gave me a flyer for a free seminar at the Hilton hotel in Midtown for the Kabbalah Center. I remember the flyer said “The Best Kept Secret” so I walked over to Sixth Ave and 53rd Street. They talked about numerology and astrology and names and words having deeper meanings - that there is spiritual significance behind absolutely everything. And all of these secrets could be deciphered within the text of the ancient Zohar - the jewish books of mysticism founded around the 15th century and said to be the mystical interpretation of the Torah, the jewish bible.
The seminar tapped into what I had instinctively known as a little girl - that there was something beyond what we see in our daily lives. And it instantly brought me back to my childhood of trying to decode the spiritual world that I knew existed around me. I used to try to talk to God by writing little notes on a piece of paper, folding them up, and burying them in the backyard. I figured this was the best way to get a direct line of communication going with God in heaven. Later, my mother introduced me to the i-Ching, the chinese book of changes. This was ancient chinese text tracing back at least to 500 BC, used by seers to give insights on moral decision-making. It utilized the throwing of sticks or special coins that created sixty-four different patterns correlating to specific messages found in the book. She also taught me the tarot and astrology as other tools to gain deeper insights into my many questions. Tarot and astrology both have deep connections to Kabbalistic study.
I’ve spent the decades of my life exploring different spiritual, psychological, and philosophical teachings through books and seminars. The teachings I resonated with the most were the chinese spiritual wisdom of Taoism (letting go of control and going with the path of least resistance), and Carl Jung in psychology (to understand dreams and relationships), and the Greek/Roman philosophers of Stoicism (for fostering an inner equilibrium). Interestingly, the Kabbalah Center teachings seemed to incorporate a lot of these concepts, along with more of the mystical aspects such as astrology, which had been a missing piece for me in others. I thought, this could take me deeper into what I was already sensing and believing.
STUDIES.
Someone I was quite close to at BBC at the time advised me against going to the Kabbalah Center saying it was known to be a cult and so I should probably stay away. He came from an Orthodox Jewish Family and the Kabbalah is based in ancient Jewish wisdom so I definitely took his opinion to heart. But at the end of the day I needed to explore it. It was just too interesting not to. By the end of my studies, years later, I definitely noticed some signs about the Center that he was trying to warn me about, but nothing can take away the undeniably valuable mark this experience left on my life. When I walked away I took some amazing insights with me.
The New York Kabbalah Center was just one block away from the BBC headquarters where I worked so it seemed sort of meant to be. I signed up for the classes and I’d go there on my lunch breaks and on the weekends. Each student was assigned to their own personal teacher so we would meet a couple of times a week. I volunteered there. I started study groups with students in order to discuss the lectures outside of the Centre. We’d meet at Central Park’s Sheep Meadow or at my apartment and do meditations and things like that. I went there as often as I could. I couldn’t get enough of it at the time.
COLLIDING WORLDS.
So I started Kabbalah studies while I was working at BBC and continued on while I was working at HBO, yet there always seemed to be enough time and energy for all of it. And that made me realize that when you’re really into things, time and energy are never an issue. And interestingly it was there at the Kabbalah Center that I met more people in the entertainment industry - from producers to actors, to Hollywood icons. This was the New York Center and so I would occasionally see Madonna over the years but we never met. I did meet her lovely daughter though. I was first asked by one of the members of the Center to hang out with her - kind of to look after her because all the boys were trying to hit on her. She was only about fourteen years old at the time. She was a sweet child. She introduced me to a song she loved, a cover of the song Skinny Love by a new singer songwriter. It was really beautiful. A film producer I met at the Center introduced me to director Doug Liman. He was not part of the Kabbalah Center but the producer was, and she introduced me to him, we went out on his boat on the Hudson, attended a dinner party at his place, and then I worked researching archival war footage for his upcoming movie, Fair Game, about Valerie Plame the CIA agent involved in the 2003 Leak Scandal. Liman was also producing and directing commercials for veterans, and at one particular shoot I met Vincent Piazza who had been in several episodes of The Sopranos on HBO. I also then worked at HBO. It seemed all corners of my life were interconnecting in those days. Also at the Center I met Adam Neumann and he was just starting his WeWork empire at the time. I found him very cordial and cool, asking me for feedback on two of his new locations in the making, one in SoHo and the other in Midtown by the Empire State Building. I had visited them both. I also worked with his lovely wife Rebekah Paltrow on her reel. She is lovely, with very spiritual and innovative ideas, and I connected with her passion to bring more authenticity into the education of children, with the understanding that the future of humanity is very much about independent thought, freedom of movement, and connecting with the environment. Rebekah and Adam also have a striking, even uncanny, resemblance to Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorp, and we played with the idea of making a movie based off of Patti Smith’s book, Just Kids, which had just come out recently.
HEBREW.
It was through studying Kabbalah that I began to teach myself hebrew. I managed to learn the basics in reading, writing and speaking. It is a fascinating language with relatively few words at about 70,000 compared to english at approximately 170,000 words. The Zohar books were printed in hebrew, and we would scan the pages of the books. I loved the symbology and the numerology attached to the letters and the deeper meanings into the words. For example, the numerology of the letters for love, ahava, אהבה, add up to #13 which is also the numerology for the word for “one” echad, אחד, meaning that love is the same as oneness, and this speaks to the love connection that happens when two halves of one soul come together.
SOULMATES.
And the Kabbalah Center spoke a lot about soulmate connections. It’s a connection that expands the heart so that the two can heal each other, and heal the world. It is very beautiful and unique because this kind of connection rarely appears in most individuals’ lifetimes. But when it does, the two come together and heal the last bits of the soul’s wounds together, through true unconditional love. The two halves have worked so hard to get to this spiritually elevated place, their love is impenetrable by the outside world. This is why it’s important to spiritually expand.
DO THE OPPOSITE.
Another great insight I learned from Kabbalah was to make it a practice to go against your own individual default nature. For instance, if you are naturally shy, quiet, reserved - be the opposite. Try to occasionally step outside yourself and be outgoing and social. Simply going against your default way of being ushers in miracles from the divine.
2012.
I stayed at the Center for about four years and although my time there was very rich and full and it was a beautiful part of my spiritual story, it did not last. The process brought me in touch with myself on a deeper spiritual level and brought me friendships that will last forever.
Amen!
Love, Käla
“Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” - Deuteronomy 6:5