[ Jeff
Wein , the workshop leader relates...]
From the time I was six years old, my parents sent me twice a week to a small school where I learned to read and
to write in Hebrew. Since this ability was necessary to accomplish the spiritual obligations of all orthodox Jews
(my family was observant), it was taken for granted that outside of my 'regular' school, I would also attend this
'other' school, whose classroom was poorly lit, whose desks dated from the end of the 19th century, whose books
had a musty odor.
I was fascinated by this alphabet that was written and read from right to the left, by these heavy but gracious
printed characters, by these symbols that, when pronounced out loud, formed the prayers that I had heard in the
synagogue.
Since that time, I am on very good terms with the Hebrew letters, the «letters of fire». They open doors inside
of me, they tell me stories, they sing to me melodies that were already old in the time of Jesus of Nazareth, they
astound me with their beauty. In the « letters of fire
» workshop, I will introduce you to my friends, the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew
alphabet. One by one you will get to know these twenty-two personalities, these twenty-two runes each with a unique
physiognomy, these twenty-two energies. To get to know you better, my twenty-two friends are going to ask you questions,
are going to throw light on many aspects of your life, are going to encourage you to assume your birthright as
a being conceived and formed 'in the image' of the Creator of the universe.
Along the way, my twenty-two friends are going to speak you of the Kabbalah, the mystical and and esoteric current
within the Jewish tradition. With the help and the parrticipation of the letters, we are going to touch on the
three major themes of the Kabbalah: the process of Creation, the nature of the divine consciousness, and the Merkabah,
themes to which the «
letters of fire » are intimately bound.
These explorations are naturally going to lead us to talk about the scientific discoveries of the twentieth century,
discoveries that seem to confirm and to support this ancient esoteric knowledge. Quantum theory, the most recent
cosmological discoveries, the use of computers to decipher messages encoded in the text of the Bible... modern
science only increases the brilliance of the light of the Kabbalah.
All modalities of learning, as well as all the senses, will be called into play: we are going to touch the letters
[calligraphy], to hear them [tales and legends], to speak them [songs], and to see them [multimedia presentations].
All the participants will receive a guide of over seventy pages that will permit them to deepen their knowledge
of and their friendship with the «
letters of fire » ... during the workshop, and long after.
