Notes
to students:
If you read newspaper articles about
religion analytically, you can glean insights into certain basic
patterns. Newspaper articles should be
taken with a
grain of salt. But valuable factual information can be unearthed.
A yeshiva is a school of Jewish
religious studies.
Their are two major religious communities in
Israel. The Ashkenazim of European
origin and the Sephardim of Mediterranean origin. Each
group has their own "Chief Rabbi". (The
institution of "Chief Rabbi"
exists in Israel but not in the Diaspora.)
Bikur
Holim means "Visiting the Sick"
Har
Hamenuhot means Mount of Rest
An
amulet is an object, often inscribed with words, and
often worn around the neck, believed to have magical powers
to achieve practical ends or to endow the wearer with protection.
A
tsaddik is a very holy person,
On
the basis of the
newspaper article below you should be able to answer the following
questions.
What
is "practical kabbalah"?
Kabbalists are believed to have special powers.
Make a list of the types of problems that a
kabbalist might be able to solve for you.
What
amulets can kabbalists make? Is there any evidence in the article that
writing
is or is not important in Jewish amulets?
What
type of exorcism for what type of spirit occurs in kabbalistic Judaism.
How
do kabbalists trap and control demons?
Do
kabbalists make a living from their magic practices?
Or do they have ordinary occupations?
Even
those that doubt Kaduri had real magical powers still recognized he
excelled in
two domains. Which?
How
does kabbalistic knowledge get used in warfare and in politics?
Can
children inherit the magical powers of their father?
The Jerusalem
Post Internet Edition
Kabbalist Rabbi
Yitzhak Kadouri dies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew
Wagner and JPost Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan.
28, 2006
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rabbi
Yitzhak Kaduri, the legendary centenarian kabbalist, passed away
Saturday
evening due to complications caused by pneumonia.
photo of Rabbi
Kaduri
Nobody
knows precisely how old Kaduri was as the time of his death at
Bikur
Holim Hospital in Jerusalem. Estimates range between 106 and 115.
Kaduri's
funeral was scheduled to be held Sunday afternoon, with the
funeral
procession scheduled to leave Jerusalem's Bukharan neighborhood
for
Har Hamenuhot cemetery at noon.
Legend
has it that when Kaduri was 16 years old, Rabbi Yosef Haim, known
as
the Ben Ish Chai, one of the most influential Sephardi rabbis of the
19th
century, blessed Kaduri with a long life.
Kaduri
came to Israel from Baghdad at age 17 and studied under several
legendary
kabbalists, including Rabbi Yehuda Petaya, author of /Beit
Lechem
Yehuda/, and Rabbi Efraim Cohen, head of a group of kabbalists
who
studied at Porat Yosef Yeshiva. Other rabbis included in that study
group
were Rabbi Ezra Atia, head of Porat Yosef, Rabbi Mansour
Ben-Shimon
and Rabbi Salman Eliyahu, father of former Chief Rabbi
Mordechai
Eliyahu.
Kaduri
later studied at Rabbi Yehuda Hadaya's Yeshivat Beit El in
Jerusalem's
Makor Baruch neighborhood. Rabbi Shmuel Darzi, one of
Kaduri's
last students and study partners passed away in January. Darzi
was
in his eighties.
Kaduri,
known as "the senior kabbalist," is the last of a generation of
Sephardi
Jewish mystics. His close circle of friends and family say he
was
one of the few known living kabbalists who used "practical
kabbalah,"
a type of Jewish magic aimed at affecting a change in the world.
They
say Kaduri learned from the great kabbalists of previous
generations
the practice of writing amulets which heal, enhance
fertility
and bring success.
Also,
according to his son David, Kaduri was involved in the removal of
at
least 20 dybbuks, lost souls that stray into the hapless bodies of
living
people to torment them.
However,
according to sources close to the ancient mystic, even Kaduri
never
dabbled in the most dangerous types of Kabbalah that included
forcing
oaths on demons and evil spirits. Kabbalists believe that it is
possible,
in theory, to use holy names to trap demons and harness their
powers.
But those who do risk heavenly retribution.
More
rational schools of Judaism are skeptical about Kaduri's powers. In
contrast,
in certain Sephardi circles Kaduri is considered a miracle
worker.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of testimonials by Kaduri's
faithful
back up this claim to supernatural power. But even in the
Sephardi
yeshiva world, rabbis such as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef discounted
Kaduri's
ability to work miracles.
Nevertheless,
few doubted Kaduri's righteousness and vast knowledge of
both
conventional and more esoteric Jewish thought and law. For most of
his
life Kaduri was unknown to the general public. He led a modest life
of
study and prayer and worked as a bookbinder. During the past decade
and
a half he served as the head of Nahalat Yitzhak Yeshiva in
Jerusalem's
Bukharan quarter.
Kaduri's
reputation as supernatural mystic began during and after the
Yom
Kippur War. Families of soldiers missing in action came to Kaduri to
ask
him to use his powers to determine whether their loved ones were
dead
or alive.
Kaduri's
popularity reached an all-time high in the 1996 elections when
the
centenarian kabbalist's amulets helped Shas achieve an amazing
electoral
success. At the time, Shas was at an electoral low point. Shas
managed
to distribute 100,000 amulets before chairman of the Elections
Committee
Theodore Or prohibited their use. Soon after Ophir Paz-Pines
drafted
a bill ratified by the Knesset that anchored Or's prohibition in
legislation.
But the amulets did the trick: Shas mustered 10 mandates.
In
the 2003 elections Kaduri's grandson Yossi, who had demanded and been
refused
a realistic spot on the Shas list, attempted to use his
grandfather
to rekindle the electoral success of 1996 with his own
political
party called Ahavat Yisrael. But the party failed to gain the
minimum
votes needed to enter the Knesset.
Kaduri's
son David claims his father passed on to him the secrets of
amulet-writing.
However, others claim that Kaduri's metaphysical powers
cannot
be inherited.
"He
is the last of a lost generation," said one source close to the
Kaduri
family.
Rabbi
Ovadiah Yosef and the Shas council of Torah sages issued a
statement
mourning the loss of Rabbi Kaduri. "All of the people of
Israel
today are one family in mourning that the man who all of Israel
was
praying for went heavenward," Shas chairman Eli Yishai said on their
behalf.
Ashkenazi
Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger called Kaduri a great /tzaddik/, and
said
that he was the last survivor of the great Kabbalah giants.
Kaduri
is survived by two children, Rachel and David, and his second
wife
Dorit, in her fifties, who married Kaduri 12 years ago. Sarah,
Kaduri's
first wife, passed away 17 years ago.