[talleyman]

Madonna's new release will be "Like a Golem".

[martin_fierro]

"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" -- one of the funniest movies I've seen.

"Snatch" -- one of the most incomprehensible movies I've ever seen.

"Swept Away" -- nobody wanted to see.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Kabbalah is seen as a kind of cult in some circles."

Kabbalah as such is not viewed as a cult, but rather the specific group with which Madonna is affiliated, under the direction of a man named Berg. Kabbalah is an extremely obscure form of Jewish mysticism which - like many esoteric forms of spirituality - has become popularized in rather shallow forms, hence the appeal for people such as Madonna.

[ClearCase_guy]

Kabbalah is an old and respectable facet of Judaism. That being said, it was also an important part of the rebirth of Ceremonial Magic in the nineteenth century. Eliphas Levi, A.E. Waite, Aleister Crowley and many others put Kabbalah at the center of their magickal workings.

When you hear someone deeply invovled in Kabbalah, you should ask yourself: fan of Judaism, or fan of witchcraft?

[StatesEnemy]

The Wisdom of Kabbalah

[Alouette]

Whatever stuff Madonna and her crew are into, Kabbalah it ain't. In order to study the real Kabbalah you first have to study the Torah, the Mishna, the entire Talmud and all the commentaries. Then when you are an expert in all of nigleh (revealed Torah) you are qualified to study nistar (secrets of the Torah)

These people couldn't understand a page of Zohar if they stared at it until their eyeballs fell out. They would also quite after the first "lesson" because they would all be bored to tears.

This "Kabbalah" cult is just someone who has taken all the "naughty bits" out of context from the Zohar and presenting it to celebrity suckers like some kind of Jewish "Kama Sutra."

There is a form of Kabbalah that Chabad Hasidim are required to study, called "Tanya." But these "kabbalah celebrities" wouldn't like "Tanya" because it would bore them to tears.

[DonQ]

He was apologetic but felt he had to go to Caa - where Madonna's agent (Bryan Lourd) was ...

Where is this Caa, in what state or country??

Madonna and the other glitterati are attracted to the Kabbalah Center, run by a Rabbi Berg, in the Los Angeles area. Reportedly, Berg is making a nice living teaching people with more money than sense a sort of comicbook version of Kabbalah, something very very different from the real thing, which involves a lot of study and analysis (and still doesn't make a lot of sense to me).

[dfwgator]

Kabbalah is Jewish for Scientology.