Rabbi Ben & the Kabbalah

That night I had the first of what was to be many strange dreams. I came to call them journeys through dreamland in honor of the many-volume set entitled Journeys Through Bookland. My grandfather bought the first two volumes when they were hot off the press in 1922. Thirty years later when I was five years old, my mother or father would read to me at bedtime. I would lie there mesmerized. Etched in gold and framing the title Journeys Through Bookland on the cover of each volume were the words: imagination, wisdom, character, truth and beauty.

The books had such beautiful illustrations—they possessed an otherworldly grandeur. There were timeless tales from all over the world. My eyes grew wide with wonder at such stories as: The Snow Queen, with her magic sleigh and Tom, The Water Baby, with his underwater adventures. I cringed at the bloodthirsty cruelty of Bluebeard with his secret room for the bones of his former wives. As a child, I never imagined how the words of this story might in some symbolic sense become the flesh of my adult love life.

Tonight, during this my first journey through dreamland, I found myself transported to some cave near ancient Jerusalem. It was in this cave that I met Rabbi Ben. When I first saw him, I was spellbound by his powerful presence. He was dressed in a brownish-maroon robe trimmed in gold. Around the waist of the robe there was a gold rope-like tie. He was tall with thick and curly dark hair that nearly matched his robe. His hair reminded me of the rich color of cordovan shoe polish. He looked at me in such a knowing and loving way. His round face and ebony eyes reminded me of the face of the classic snowman with chunks of shiny coal for eyes.

His countenance catapulted me back in time to my childhood when my friends and I made snowmen. There was nothing like a snow-day when you would awaken to learn there was no school. That thrill has never left me. Something about Rabbi Ben lifted me to a timeless place of carefree reprieve from the worries and toil of the everyday world.

In our first meeting, Ben deepened my appreciation of the Hebrew language. As an aside, silently in my mind, I thought of him as Ben but when I spoke to him I always maintained the proper decorum and addressed him as Rabbi Ben.

Being in the presence of such a holy sage as Ben, I was grateful to have been introduced to the strange shapes that comprised the Hebrew letters—strange to me because they in no way resembled the English alphabet.

Ben schooled me in the teachings of the Kabbalah. He took much of what he taught me directly from the Zohar, the twenty-two volumes that present the core teachings of the Kabbalah. He told me that it would not be until a few years after the beginning of the new millennium that the Zohar would be made public and translated into English. He told me that according to the sages of old, humankind would not be ready to receive its wisdom until then.

All of our meetings were in this well-lit cave before a fire. The light of the fire and numerous candles flickered against the backdrop of ancient stone walls. The cave was a perfect place for us to meet.
After all, Ben told me that the Zohar was the product of the thirteen years Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai lived in a cave circa 130 a.d. It was in this cave that Moses and the prophet Elijah came to him in spirit and dictated the teachings of the Zohar to him. He was forced to seek refuge from the Romans who wanted to execute him for spreading the teachings of the Torah also known as the Five Books of Moses. Later on, I would learn from Ben that the Hebrew word Torah meant Truth with a capital “T”—God’s Truth.

More on Rabbi Ben and the Kabbalah when I erun from Brazil on the 22nd of September.