Red string bracelets are thought to ward off evil eye' in Kabbalah
Q: Madonna and other celebrities have taken to wearing red string bracelets as part of something called Kabbalah. Is Kabbalah some new movie-star religion? And what's the red string for? Mary, Oklahoma City
A: The easiest part of your question to answer is about the bracelet. The red string that forms it comes from a much longer piece of string that is wound around the Tomb of Rachel, one of the biblical matriarchs. Such string is wrapped around the tomb as certain prayers are said. Because of the matronly love that Rachel exhibited in the Book of Genesis, the bracelets are thought to ward off the power of the "evil eye.
Kabbalah is a form of Jewish mysticism. It's not new. Various threads of mystic thought came together about 750 years ago in Provence, France, to form Kabbalah. These mystic practices quickly moved into Spain, where kabbalists published "Sefer ha-Zohar or "The Book of Radiance. Today, the book is known as the Holy Zohar, or simply Zohar. It serves, with the Hebrew Bible, as the canon for Kabbalah.
Taking their cue from the first chapter of Genesis, in which God begins the creation of the universe simply by saying "Let there be light, kabbalists believe that God brought all things into being through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. That alphabet was also used to compose the Hebrew Bible; therefore, kabbalists teach that study of the hidden meaning of the letters in the Bible, especially the Torah, reveals God more fully than conventional reading.
In Hebrew, letters also serve as numbers. Kabbalah finds 10 divine numerical entities or "sefirot through the alphabet. These 10 entities are not separate gods but aspects and manifestations of God. In some ways, they may be analogous to the three divine persons of the Christian Trinity.
The first of the 10 sefirot is Nothingness from which God comes. The next two are Wisdom and Understanding through which God creates the rest of the universe, including the remaining sefirot.
The first two created sefirot are Love and Power. Love contains God's free-flowing grace, and Power contains God's judgment and limitations on humanity. These two must remain in balance because any listing in one direction or the other creates evil, as kabbalists understand it. Out of properly balanced Love and Power comes the sixth sefirot, Beauty, which is the part of God we may visualize. The seventh and eighth sefirot are Splendor and Eternity. Together they provide prophecy, God's way of directing and correcting humankind.
The ninth sefirot is Foundation, which is the procreative force of the universe.
The final sefirot is Presence, referring to God's availability to us. For a kabbalist, Presence and Beauty are the focus of religious life. These aspects of God are what they mediate on to achieve a fuller relationship with God.
As with mystics of every religion, the personal relationship with God is the kabbalist's foremost goal.
Because Kabbalah is difficult to understand and challenges many long-held religious beliefs, teachers of the mystic practice generally limit students to people who have had previous religious training, are married and more than 40 years old, and who exhibit emotional stability and high moral standards.
Andrew Tevington, a graduate of Tulsa's Phillips Theological Seminary, is an assistant pastor at the United Methodist Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City. His column is published twice a month in the Religion section. To contact him, e-mail [email protected].
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