Thanks to the Puddletown Publishing Group in my old hometown of Portland, Oregon, USA, a new and improved edition of The Oracle of Kabbalah is now available.

You can purchase it through the iTunes Store, at Amazon.com, or at Barnes and Noble.

For more information, visit www.oracleofkabbalah.com.

The preface to this revised version of the book begins:

This edition of The Oracle of Kabbalah is a revised and expanded articulation of the mystical teachings of the Hebrew letters first published in 2001.

I wrote the original edition between 1997 and 1999. Since 1999, much has changed for me personally and, of course, for all of us who were alive back then.

Just three days after The Oracle’s publication, “9/11” took place when the two towers of the World Trade Center in my hometown of New York City were destroyed by terrorists. The book found its way into the world during this time of collective trauma and sorrow, and then during the violent reaction of the misguided war in Iraq, which proved once again Martín Prechtel’s point that grief, un-metabolized, inevitably turns to violence.

I remember the people who have passed away during these past thirteen years. There’s an African proverb that elders are wise because they know more dead people. By that standard, I have gained in wisdom since the original publication.

My mother, Phoebe Seidman, died in August 2008. My brother and I and our wives were blessed to be with her as she took her last breath. Her final words to me were, “Have a good trip.”

A few months later, a friend from early childhood took his own life.

And a few months after that, Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, the main inspiration for my book and my connection to Jewish mysticism, drowned, leaving hundreds of students and friends and congregants, as well as his family, suddenly bereft.

Even though I wasn’t young in the 1990s when I wrote the first edition, when I look back to that period of my life, I seem to myself naïve, acting as if I had all the time in the world. Now, with both of my parents dead and my beloved rabbi no longer in this world, and my being closer to eighty years old than to thirty, I have a more acute sense of the passage of time and of the strangeness and preciousness of life.

It’s a great honor to share with you, in the midst of the strangeness and preciousness of life, my musings on the Hebrew letters and how they might influence and inform our lives today. I hope you enjoy the new and improved Oracle.

Hello everyone,

I’m happy to announce that a new, revised and updated version of The Oracle of Kabbalah e-book will be published next month by Puddletown Publishing Group of Portland, Oregon. Stay tuned for more details soon.

This morning, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by how many projects I am simultaneously juggling right now, I turned to The Oracle of Kabbalah to see what insight it might provide me.  I chose the letter, Resh.  

The chapter on Resh (which incidentally was the hardest chapter of all the ones in the book for me to write because of the traditionally negative commentaries regarding this letter) quotes from “Return Again,”  a song made popular by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, of blessed memory. The song goes, “Return again, return again, return to the land of your soul.  Return to who you are, return to what you are, return to where you are, born and reborn again.” 

The Oracle of Kabbalah comments, “To return is to turn again, to come back.  Have we lost our way in this confusing world?  Have we lost sight of who we are or who we want to be?”   

The letter inspires me to breathe deeply, to step back from the tasks that seem so pressing and take a broader view, a deeper perspective.  All of a sudden, the many projects I am dealing with don’t seem so burdensome.  The mystery of life seems more imminent. I feel refreshed. 

The Oracle of Kaballah says, “The twenty-two letters of the Aleph Beit are the primordial building blocks of creation.  As one of these twenty-two building blocks, Resh, with its meaning of ‘new,’ shows that the power of renewal is built into the very structure of existence.  Ra’ananut, ‘freshness,’ is present at every moment.” 

 Blessings,                                                                                                                                                  Richard Seidman 

To learn more about The Oracle of Kabbalah: Mystical Teachings of the Hebrew Letters, visit http://www.oracleofkabbalah.com.

The Hebrew word for letter, ot, also means “sign” or “wonder” or “miracle.” For thousands of years, Jewish sages have taught that the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, the Aleph Beit, embody wonderful and miraculous powers. This blog, along with my book, The Oracle of Kabbalah: Mystical Teachings of the Hebrew Letters will explore the ancient teachings regarding the Hebrew letters and how these teachings can be made practical in our contemporary lives. Welcome!

To kick things off, I will now choose at random one of the 23 cards and see how the letter selected illuminates the launching of this blog.

And the letter chosen is…Kaf!

Here is a little of what The Oracle of Kabbalah has to say about this Hebrew letter:

“The characters in fairy tales, as in dreams, embody archetypes that point to qualities within each of us. Kings and queens are key figures in stories around the world. Sometimes in these tales, princes or princesses wander lost in the world, unaware of or cut off from their royal heritage. They must undergo various trials and deepen in wisdom and life experience before they can claim their rightful place on the throne. The letter Kaf is the dream, the fairy tale, of inner kingship and queenship. Kaf calls us to claim, in our own lives, sovereignty and majesty .”

Ah, this is indeed a dignified letter with which to inaugurate this blog.

May you all find your rightful place of sovereignty.

Goodbye for now,

Richard Seidman

To learn more about The Oracle of Kabbalah: Mystical Teachings of the Hebrew Letters, visit http:www.oracleofkabbalah.com.