The divine word appears wherever one cares to read and divine its meaning; say, in the Torah.  But the word is not limited to sacred text. We may decipher, for instance, a recent full-page advertisement in The Miami Herald, proceeding with:

FREE Yourself  Be Yourself KABBALAH FEST

Apparently something stands in the way of freedom and that something must gotten rid of as soon as possible. Freedom is freedom from something or the other: absolute freedom is nothing. Nothing is free, not even lunch, or so it is said. And freedom would be worthless unless something could be had with it. According to this planet's natural law, we must make an effort, however slight that might be, to get something; we hope our efforts are not in vain, for nothing is enough. Of course there exists rare birds who neither toil nor spin, who give everything up: wanting nothing, they want for nothing.

But we are afraid of that sort of nothing. We must get up and go to the Kabbalah Fest to get free seminars, free magical red strings for the first 25 persons, free refreshments,  free lessons in how to get stuff, like the answers to all our questions; such as, most importantly, "What is the secret to success?"

No doubt success is variously defined and takes tangible and intangible forms. Sometimes we want to be free of the law of cause and effect; we want magic to dispose of means, we want miracles for instant success to obtain; hence the question must, "Where do miracles come from?" will be answered at the Kabbalah Fest.

The hard work necessary for the perfection of Man was not advertised in the Herald; for instance, the study of the Torah and the fulfillment of its 613 injunctions.

Sometimes it is best not to ask for anything in order to receive everything. If we do not receive the paradise we pray for in this life, we may get it in the next, and the belief that we can get it keeps us going in this life; wherefore we are moved to ask, "Is there reincarnation?" 

Yes, but of course, there is reincarnation, for we differ from one another and each one of us needs sufficient time to fullfill the 613 laws and become gods on earth - when the sparks are recovered, the vessels repaired, and everyone is aboard, universe and man are restored to absolute perfection in yogic unity.

We certainly would not want to be alone in paradise nor be wed to someone with whom we have irreconcilable differences; therefore the question arises and will be answered at the Kabbalah Fest, "How do you find your true soul mate?"

Perchance you might find him or her at the Kabbalah Fest. Yet the mystics at the occult core of the exoteric structures say nothing is there, that the golden trees laden with diamonds and pearls and the like baubles do not really exist, not to mention lions sleeping with lambs by rivers of milk and honey. But such inducements are needed because people are afraid of nothing.

Nothing is nondenominational because nothing is perfect. We do not mind if people have fun and believe in the efficacy of magic strings and instant or miraculous success. We hope they do not lose faith when the fun passes, for only nothing is permanent. Nothing makes some of us happy enough, wherefore we say that nothing is better than the Kabbalah.

"Nothing is nonsense," you might say, "we want to study the Kabbalah." Professor Saul Lieberman, a great Talmud scholar at the Jewish Theological Seminary, was asked by students for a course in Kabbalah.

"It is forbidden to have a course in nonsense," he responded. "But the history of nonsense, that is scholarship." That history provides the historical answers to such serious questions as, "What is the essence of the Supreme Being?" "How did the universe originate?" "How was man created?" "What is the destiny of man and the universe?" "What is the significance of the Torah?"

Metaphysics used  to be a ladder to Heaven, a rational scheming that Muslim scholars believed to be superior to popular religion. But today we neoterics may not take an interest in those grand questions unless there is something immediately and specifically in it for us. Like free refreshments, free soul mates, free red strings, free miracles, free secrets, and such stuff.

We do not mock the Kabbalah, for the best things in life are free.

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