Psychologist rabbi’s self-help book offers ‘authentic’ take on Kabala, past-life therapy

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Madonna and Shirley MacLaine have met their match.

An Israeli-trained rabbi and clinical psychologist, Abner Weiss is hoping to reclaim the seriousness of two phenomena — the study of Kabala and past-life regression therapy — from the New Age bookshelf and the tabloids.

His new book, Connecting to God: Ancient Kabbalah and Modern Psychology, a self-help guide for the general reader, is fashioned from the crossroads of his two professions. A student of Kabala, he believes the Jewish mystical tradition has therapeutic potential for Jews and non-Jews alike.

“I believe this is the first thoroughgoing exploration of the psychological system built into Kabala and the use of that system for healing as a step to wholeness,” he told NJ Jewish News in a phone interview.

In addition to leading readers through the fundamentals of kabalistic thought and structure and providing a guided meditation (also available on an accompanying CD), Weiss in Connecting to God describes successful clinical examples of how he has helped patients and congregants and makes a case for why he believes we are entering a pre-messianic age.

Weiss will speak locally at Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex in Caldwell and Temple Sholom of West Essex in Cedar Grove on Dec. 13 and 14, respectively. (Weiss’ stepdaughter happens to be married to the son of Agudath Israel’s Rabbi Alan Silverstein.) The talks are free and open to the public.

A licensed marriage and family therapist, Weiss is rabbi of the Westwood Village Synagogue in Westwood, Calif.

Weiss’ book joins long shelves at libraries and bookstores laden with works on Kabala, many inspired by the pop singer Madonna’s embrace of the version of the Jewish mystical teachings taught by the controversial Kabbalah Centre.

Yet Weiss said he has something new to offer beyond the synthesis of psychology and Kabala: authenticity.

“My reaction to so much of what has been written about Kabala is that it is written by people who cannot read it,” he said, referring to the Zohar, Kabala’s foundational text, and other Hebrew and Aramaic sources. “That makes it inauthentic.”

Asked whether it is therefore appropriate to offer its precepts to readers who may be non-Jewish or do not live an observant Jewish lifestyle, he answered, “Can you separate it from its roots in Judaism and Halacha? No. No great kabalist has ever not been a great halachist. But can someone benefit without committing themselves to the whole theoretical and practical background? The answer is you can gain many things from Judaism without observing all of the mitzvot…. But you cannot call yourself a kabalist.”

Past-life regression therapy is just one of the tools he uses with patients in an approach that, according to his publicity materials, helps liberate them “from their dysfunctional behavior, empowering them to achieve spiritual growth.”

One of the book’s many examples includes Betty, who is about to convert to Judaism but has some irrational reluctance.

Weiss, her rabbi, uses hypnosis to take her back “before she was born, to another life, in another place.” She describes, in detail, a shtetl in Poland, and she even speaks to Weiss in Yiddish, a language she claimed not to speak in her “current” life.

His description continues: “Finally, she relived the pogrom…. She described how a huge man lifted her up by one hand and hurled her, head first, at the wall of the house, scarcely waiting for her to lose consciousness before shooting her dead. Betty’s terror of becoming Jewish now made sense: the memory of her experience had lingered in the recesses of her unconscious.”

After asking her, while still under hypnosis, to see the little girl she was in that life next to the mature woman she is in this life, he “asked her whether she could see that her life in Poland was over, and that her soul was now in a different body, living in a place where being Jewish was a privilege rather than a curse. She answered that she could. When Betty awoke she was no longer afraid of converting.”

As for the messianic age, Weiss said he believes that the popularization of Kabala in an age of science and technology was predicted by earlier sages and marks the beginning of a pre-messianic age.

For more information about either of Weiss’ talks, contact the synagogues: Congregation Agudath Israel: 973-226-3600, Temple Sholom: 973-239-1321.

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.

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