This page is a souvenir... various advertisements of the Department of Mysticism and Spirituality at Safed Academic College - car stickers, digital flyers, banners, and more.
The Department of Mysticism and Spirituality has held open free events for the general public, on its fascinating study topics, for years - both at Zefat Academic College and throughout the country. This page presents flyers for most of these events and photos from them.
A variegated and rich collection of newsletters sent to those interested in the contents of the Department of Mysticism and Spirituality, during the years of its existence at Zefat Academic College. The newsletters included news of the department, as well as news from Israel and the worldwide in the fields of mysticism and spirituality, columns dealing with academic concepts and content related to the department, descriptions of academic literature and academic events, inspirational quotes, and more.
This lecture presents a surprising and innovative spiritual-alternative strategy of Israeli-Jews to refer to the Jewish tradition - an interpretation of the tradition while identifying with the anti-heroines of an ancient Jewish legend. In this way, the characteristic approach of the "spiritual-but-not-religious" (SBNR) trend that criticizes the religious establishment is expressed, while adopting the criticism inherent in the ancient Jewish sources. In our case it's the retelling of an ancient Jewish legend - about a witch hunt conducted by Rabbi Shimon ben Shatach in Ashkelon in the second century BC.
This page presents concentrated information about the research project of the liturgical poem Im Nin’alu (lit., “if were locked”), carried out by Omri Ruah-Midbar and Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro. The research…
What is the relevance of religion and spirituality to the current digital culture and gaming world? This lecture waas included in an internation workshop on Societal and Value-related Aspects of Online Gaming in MENA (Middle Esat and North Africa) Region.
Is there a place for spirituality in the business world, or do the two necessarily contradict each other? In this article, published in a special issue of TheMarker on pioneering management, Ruah-Midbar analyzes the contradiction from a critical research angle, and clarifies that they mustn't contradict.
Yes, the liturgical poem (piyyut) “Im Nin'alu” signifies orientality. But what is Orientality? Is this traditional, perhaps even religious, Yemenite Judaism? Is this Yemen similar to exotic India? Is this a symbol of the mystical/spiritual "other" (as we already mentioned India...)? And maybe it is a symbol of Kabbalah, another contemporary "Other" that turns out to be similar to all the other "Others", including the "Other East"... In this article we follow the change process of “Im Nin'alu” as a symbol, which symbolizes different things each time. The peyote has - it turns out - gone a long way, erasing traditional Yemenite Judaism into the contemporary universal and spiritual-alternative space.
The liturgical poem “Im Nin'alu” got various popular musical adaptations in recent decades. These adaptations raise questions - and provide different answers - regarding authenticity, identity, tradition, and more. Each of them embodies a different way of coping with the postmodern situation. The article presents three different models of relation to traditional materials, which are different ways of dealing with the problems of individuals in relation to these questions.
For the west, the oriental is an object to project upon desires and fantasies. This is similar also in the spiritual context: New Age orientalism molds the "orient" (especially India) in its spirit, as an "Other" significant culture. Kabbalah undergoes a similar process, as an "Other" of the west. This lecture presents the meeting between the "Orient" and Kabbalah in a Yemenite (also "oriental") version - through an inquiry of contemporary performances of the liturgical Poem "Im Nin'alu".