JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ergamo
Wide Web. The Kabbalah Centre publishes popular literature
on Kabbalah and translations of classic works in 10 languages.
The Bergs’ sons, born during their parents’ 10-year sojourn
in Israel, are important contributors to the Kabbalah Centre
mission. They were educated at the Hafetz Hayyim and
Shaar Hatorah yeshivot in New York and received ordination
at Knesset Yehezkel in Jerusalem. In addition to writing
popular literature, YEHUDAH (1972– ) produced (with his
father) a prayer book according to the Lurianic tradition that
includes meditations from later kabbalists; MICHAEL (1973– )
authored a full English translation of the Zohar with Ashlag’s
commentary Ha-Sulam.
Distinctive Kabbalah Centre teachings acknowledge
that God designed Kabbalah as a gift to all humanity, even
though it was preserved by and limited to Jews for centuries
and was embedded within a Jewish society that advocated
strict adherence to biblical and rabbinic Judaism. According
to Philip Berg, the scientific advances of the 20th century
and the beginning of the astrological Age of Aquarius fulfilled
the preconditions for the inevitable worldwide spread
of kabbalistic knowledge. Kabbalistic knowledge, he teaches,
contains the foundation principles of all science, the structure
for achieving spiritual perfection, the path to world peace,
and the means to success in such earthly pursuits as business,
personal relationships, and health. The mitzvot of the Torah
are tools designed by God for humanity to achieve these
ends, as are special kabbalistic devices (holy water, the red
bendel) and ritual practices (meditations using divine names
and Zohar texts). The Kabbalah Centre ignores the traditional
Jewish context of these concepts and practices, as well as the
many restraints upon and critiques of these practices voiced
by Jewish teachers over the centuries. Kabbalistic teachings
are synthesized with modern, particularly New Age, themes
such as astrology, reincarnation, holistic healing, and spiritualism.
In its effort to reach the widest possible audience, the
Kabbalah Centre uses mass-market advertising and showcases
its celebrity followers, the most prominent of whom is
Madonna.
[Jody Myers (2nd ed.)]
BERGAMO, city in northern Italy; ruled mainly by Venice
between 1430 and 1797. Jewish moneylenders in Bergamo
are mentioned in the 15th century. The anti-Jewish sermons
preached there by the Franciscan Bernardino da *Feltre
in 1479 led to the temporary expulsion of the Jews. By the
beginning of the 16th century, Jews in Bergamo still owned
houses and real estate. When Louis XII of France captured
the city in 1509 the Jewish inhabitants were expelled, but they
were permitted to return when it reverted to Venice in 1559.
There has been no Jewish community in Bergamo in recent
times.
Bibliography: Milano, Italia, 208, 277. Add. Bibliography:
G. Antonucci, “Per la storia degli ebrei in Bergamo,” in: Bergomum
15 (1941), 52–54.
[Umberto (Moses David) Cassuto]
BERGEL (Abergel), Moroccan family. The Bergels came from
Safi. They settled in Tangiers, Marseilles, and Gibraltar, where
before 1810 MOSES founded a powerful commercial organization.
His son YOM TOV (1812–1894), an outstanding figure
in western Mediterranean Jewry, served as president of the
Gibraltar community from 1860. He helped the Péreire family
in establishing the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
in Morocco. Yom Tov and his son MOSES of Marseilles obtained
the monopoly for the sale of specialized Moroccan
products in Europe.
Bibliography: JC (Oct. 26, 1894); Miège, Maroc, 2 (1961),
121, 250, 511; 3 (1962), 487.
[David Corcos]
BERGEL, BERND (1909–1966), Israel composer. Bergel was
born in Hohensalza, Germany, the nephew of Sammy *Gronemann,
one of the principal leaders of the Zionist movement
in pre-World War II Germany. He studied at the Berlin Music
Academy where he was a student of Arnold *Schoenberg.
He settled in Tel Aviv in 1938. Bergel was invited by the Music
of the Twentieth Century Festival 1954 in Rome to compose
his Prayer of a Man in the Year 2100 for solo voice and 11 instruments.
His works include Divertimento for small orchestra,
Variations for orchestra (Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Prize), and the opera Jacob’s Dream (1961) based on text by
Richard Beer-Hoffmann.
[Ury Eppstein (2nd ed.)]
BERGEL, JOSEPH (1802–1884), physician, poet, and author.
Bergel, who was born in Moravia, was a practicing physician,
publishing papers in medical journals. He was a Hebrew poet
of note and his poems appeared in the journals Bikkurei ha-
Ittim and Kokhevei Yiẓḥak and in a collection Pirkei Leshon
Ever (1873). In these poems he was the first to scan by Ashkenazi
word accent. He also translated German and Latin
poems into Hebrew, including those of Goethe and Schiller.
Probably his most important contribution to Jewish scholarship
was Medizin der Talmudisten (1885), with an appendix
on Anthropologie der alten Hebräer. He also wrote Studien
über die naturwissenschaftlichen Kentnisse der Talmudisten
(1880); Eheverhältnisse der alien Juden im Vergleich mit den
griechischen und römischen (1881); Der Himmel und seine Wunder…
(also published under the title Mythologie der alten Hebräer,
1882); and a history of Hungarian Jewry, Geschichte der
Juden in Ungarn (Ger. and Hg., 1879).
Bibliography: Carmilly-Weinberger, in: Aresheth, 4 (1966),
400–1.
BERGELSON, DAVID (1884–1952), Russian Yiddish writer.
Born in Okhrimovo (Sarna), near Uman, in the Ukraine, Bergelson
was the son of a pious Talner ḥasid and prominent lumber
and grain merchant, who died when Bergelson was only
nine; his mother died five years later. He then went to live with
older brothers in Kiev, Odessa, and Warsaw. His traditional
ḥeder education was supplemented by private instruction in
418 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3