Follow the red thread

Last week I had the pleasure of going to Madonna's MDNA concert here in Helsinki. It was the Queen of Pop's second visit to Finland and this time over 40 000 enthusiats were gathered together to witness yet another spectacle by this American artist who has been in the business for longer than I have lived.

Madonna is long known for being pro-Israel. Her previous Sticky & Sweet tour ended in Tel Aviv and the current MDNA tour kicked off there in May 2012. Mind you, many artists, to their own loss, don't even bother going to Israel. Madonna on the other hand has stated that the country has some uncomprehensible energy to it – and I must agree...

At the Helsinki concert I was lucky enough to be very close to the stage, and paid attention to the red string Madonna was wearing around her wrist (unfortunately my cellphone camera wasn't as accurate, so I can't share a photo with you). All I know is that this string has something to do with Kabbalah, which I don't know much else about, so I decided to try and find out.

kbbala.info

In Judaism, many cosmological questions and areas of mysticism are left up for personal intepretation - and this is where Kabbalah comes in. Kabbalah is applied to a whole range of Jewish mystical activity and its main focus is to observe G-d's essence on a deeper level – not on what G-d wants from man (i.e.the laws, which quite strongly are present in some movements). More generically speaking, it is a method for studying the spiritual world by other means than physics or other concrete sciences.

Many sources also refer to the common misintrepretations of Kabbalah. It has nothing to do with ”the dark side” or reading Tarot cards - although there is some magic into it, as the story of Golem would suggest. And, uhhh... I must stop writing here because I have lost my red string thread with Kabbalah and what it is.

OK, so the above paragraphs are derived from various sources and at this point I stopped exhausting google.com. There doesn't seem to be any clear, spell-it-out-for-me explanation easily available. Maybe for a reason: dummies, don't bother – so perhaps I should take the hint :). But I won't be too hard on my-shiksa-self, as traditionally Kabbalah is taught only to those above 40 years of age and only after finishing their studies in Torah and Talmud. I am quite far from meeting either of those demands...