Atlas›Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements›Guide 069
Guide XIV-069

Kabbalah Centre and Bnei Baruch

Philip Berg, Michael Laitman1965New York
A 34 · L 54 · M 1221 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Kabbalah Centre as it describes itself through Kabbalah Centre International's own app listing and as profiled for the World Religions and Spirituality Project (Bauer 2017); Bnei Baruch as it describes itself on its "About Bnei Baruch" page and in a 2011 interview with its founder in the Jüdische Allgemeine, with scholarly framing from Introvigne (2017) as summarised by Religion Watch. Where the two organisations' accounts differ from each other or over time, this is noted.

This entry covers two separate organisations that teach Kabbalah (Jewish mystical teaching, centred on the Zohar) to a broad public, including non-Jews, as a path of personal and social transformation. Neither is a therapy. The guide describes each as it publishes itself, then sets out the psychotherapist's work with a client who belongs to, is leaving, or is affected by either organisation. Traditional Jewish Kabbalah within observant communities is covered separately (cross-refer XIII 147, Jewish Kabbalah).

The Kabbalah Centre. Philip Berg (born Feivel Gruberger, 1929; known to students as "the Rav") founded the National Institute for Research of Kabbalah in New York in 1965, renamed the Research Centre of Kabbalah in 1970 and later the Kabbalah Centre; its main base moved to Los Angeles around 1995 [source: Bauer, WRSP timeline]. The Centre's own app listing says Berg became Director in 1969 and that he and his wife Karen Berg opened teachings once limited to "scholarly, married religious men over the age of forty" to all, regardless of "race, gender, or religious belief" [source: Kabbalah OneHouse app listing]. After Philip Berg's death in 2013, Karen Berg led the organisation [source: Bauer, WRSP]; a 2011 news report described her running it with her sons Michael and Yehuda Berg [source: JTA 2011]. WRSP describes roughly forty centres, no formal membership roll, and estimates of 60,000–200,000 adherents [source: Bauer, WRSP].

Core idea of change, as the Centre teaches it: the Creator's light is received through vessels with a "desire to receive"; human suffering follows from self-centred, "reactive" behaviour (the ego, which the Centre equates with Satan); transformation means turning reactive into "proactive" behaviour and cultivating a "desire to share". The "Bread of Shame" principle holds that nothing is truly received without being earned. Study, the Zohar and "spiritual tools" are presented as means to this transformation [source: Bauer, WRSP, drawing on Myers 2007 and Berg's writings].

Bnei Baruch ("Sons of Baruch"; also Kabbalah La'am). Michael Laitman founded it in 1991 after the death of his teacher Rabbi Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (the Rabash, 1906–1991), son of Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), whose Sulam commentary on the Zohar it treats as authoritative. It calls itself a non-profit and "the largest group of Kabbalists in Israel and around the world", whose message is unity of people and nations and "love of man" [source: About Bnei Baruch]. A scholarly estimate is about 50,000 participants in Israel and 150,000 worldwide [source: Religion Watch, summarising Introvigne 2017; religjournal abstract]. Laitman presents Kabbalah as a universal wisdom, close to a science, rather than a religion, and says religious observance is not needed for the "inner correction" Kabbalah aims at [source: Jüdische Allgemeine 2011; religjournal abstract].

Core idea of change, as Bnei Baruch teaches it: "correction" of egoism towards altruism through study and "connection" with others in a group, extended towards society as a whole (Laitman calls this "altruistic communism") [source: Religion Watch; Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified].

Criticism from Jewish communities, as sources state it. Mainstream Jewish leaders and scholars have criticised the Kabbalah Centre for simplifying, universalising and commercialising Kabbalah; one Kabbalah scholar, Rabbi Immanuel Schochet, called its practices "a distortion of Jewish mysticism" [source: Globe and Mail; Bauer, WRSP; JTA 2011]. Ultra-Orthodox critics hold that Kabbalah should be taught only to Jews; some academics dispute Laitman's readings of the texts; Israeli groups that campaign against new religious movements have also opposed Bnei Baruch [source: religjournal abstract; Religion Watch]. These criticisms are part of the client's context: a Jewish client may feel caught between family or community and the organisation.

Evidence status in one line: claims that study, "scanning" letters, blessed water or a red string bring protection, healing or luck are religious claims, not tested in controlled research [uncertain: not verified].

2. Framework

This is an organisation, not a treatment, so there is no published therapy protocol, session count or phase criterion. Two frameworks matter: how the organisations describe progression, and how a therapist structures the work.

How involvement progresses, as published.

  • Kabbalah Centre: introductory classes (the most often offered is "Power of Kabbalah") and online courses via its partly paid "Kabbalah University"; live-streamed events and on-demand lessons; personal guidance from teachers; Shabbat and holiday gatherings [source: Bauer, WRSP; Kabbalah OneHouse app listing]. WRSP describes rank tied to Kabbalistic knowledge, with advancement through lessons, events, regular contact with a teacher and integrating practices into daily life. An outer circle of "spiritual seekers" takes parts of the teaching; an inner circle of the Berg family, teachers and the Hevre (full-time volunteers) strictly observes Jewish tradition [source: Bauer, WRSP]. The Centre has recommended tithing 10% of income [source: Globe and Mail].
  • Bnei Baruch: free introductory courses and texts online (KabU; kabbalah.info) and weekly introductory courses at local centres; a daily lesson broadcast live from Israel in the early morning (3:15–6:00 am Israel time) and translated; study separated by gender in the daily lessons; congresses several times a year; funding mainly from students' voluntary tithe (ma'aser) plus book sales and donations [source: About Bnei Baruch; Jüdische Allgemeine 2011; Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified]. In 2011 Laitman said the organisation refuses donations and is financed by serious students' tithe; its current pages invite donations [source: Jüdische Allgemeine 2011; About Bnei Baruch; kabbalah.info library page]. Introvigne observed that members devote more time and resources than followers of other groups [source: Wikipedia citing Introvigne 2017, uncertain: secondary, unverified].

Therapist's working framework [synthesis; no session counts are sourced]:

  1. Engagement and meaning. Goal: understand what the involvement gives the client, in the client's own words, before any assessment of risk. Move on when the client feels their view is understood, not judged.
  2. Cultural and clinical assessment. Goal: Cultural Formulation Interview, mental state and differential assessment, a map of time, money and relationships tied to the group, safety and safeguarding screen. Move on when you can state a shared formulation.
  3. Focused work on the client's own goal. This may be deepening a chosen practice in a healthy way, setting limits on giving or time, deciding about leaving, recovering after leaving, or repairing family relationships. Review goals regularly.
  4. Consolidation. Goal: relapse-prevention plan for financial, relational and symptom triggers; social network outside the group; follow-up arrangements.

Urgent issues override the sequence: risk to self or others, disclosure of sexual exploitation, a child at risk, or medical care being delayed because of spiritual remedies.

3. Guiding principles

  • Describe, don't adjudicate. The client's beliefs about the Creator, light, the Zohar or correction are theirs; neither endorse nor debunk. Practical meaning: use their terms with curiosity, and keep empirical claims (healing, protection) separate from spiritual meaning [synthesis].
  • Two organisations, not one. The Kabbalah Centre and Bnei Baruch differ in history, lineage, funding and style. Practical meaning: ask which group, which branch and which years; don't import news about one into the other [synthesis].
  • Respect Jewish religious context. Kabbalah is part of a living tradition whose authorities criticise popular forms [source: Globe and Mail; religjournal abstract]. Practical meaning: a Jewish client's conflict may be with family, rabbi or community as much as with the group; offer, not impose, contact with a community leader of the client's choosing [synthesis].
  • Attribute claims. "The Centre teaches that…", "Bnei Baruch holds that…". Practical meaning: never say "Kabbalah water heals" or "Kabbalah water is a scam"; say what is claimed and what evidence status is [synthesis].
  • Client autonomy over involvement. Staying, reducing or leaving is the client's decision. Practical meaning: the therapist's job is informed, uncoerced choice, not exit [synthesis].
  • Look at coercion as behaviour, not belief. Practical meaning: assess specific behaviours (pressure to give, isolation, punishment for doubt, sexual or financial misuse by a teacher) rather than the strangeness of beliefs [synthesis].
  • Money is a clinical topic. Both organisations have been described as relying on tithing; one has been the subject of a criminal tax investigation and fraud lawsuits [source: Globe and Mail; LA Times via HeraldNet; About Bnei Baruch]. Practical meaning: ask about giving, pledges, purchases and debt explicitly [synthesis].
  • Don't pathologise belief; do assess symptoms. Practical meaning: distinguish shared religious beliefs from psychosis, mania, OCD-type scrupulosity, dissociation or complicated grief using form, context and the client's community's view of what is normal [synthesis].
  • Medical care is never replaced. Practical meaning: blessed water, healing prayers or study are not to delay or replace medical treatment; route all medical decisions to the client's doctors; never advise on medicines [synthesis].
  • Stay in role. The therapist is not a Kabbalah teacher, reader of letters, healer or spiritual guide, and does not lead or teach the organisations' practices in session [synthesis].
  • Name people carefully. Leaders are named as wrongdoers only where courts or major news do; clients' fellow members and accusers stay unnamed [synthesis].
  • No secret or divine-name practice in therapy. Practices built on divine names (e.g. the Centre's "72 Names" meditation) are outlined only; the therapist neither teaches nor uses them [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

The inventory has two parts. Part A outlines the organisations' own published practices, so the therapist can recognise what the client describes. These are not therapeutic interventions, and the therapist does not teach, lead or perform them. Part B gives the therapist's procedures. The organisations publish no clinical procedures, so everything in Part B is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

Part A. The organisations' practices, as published (for recognition only)

A1. Introductory and ongoing courses

  • Purpose and when it matters: the usual way people enter either group. Ask about it when assessing how involvement began and how it escalated.
  • What it is: Kabbalah Centre classes and online courses ("Power of Kabbalah" is the most often offered) on everyday topics such as well-being, relationships, success and health, plus live-streamed and on-demand lessons and personal guidance from teachers [source: Bauer, WRSP; Kabbalah OneHouse app listing]. Bnei Baruch offers free introductory courses (KabU, kabbalah.info, local centres) and says it reaches people facing existential, situational or developmental crises, framed around "What is the meaning of life?" [source: About Bnei Baruch].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What drew you to the first course? What was going on in your life at the time?"
  • Watch for: joining during a crisis (bereavement, divorce, illness, migration); rapid movement from a free or low-cost course to paid study, regular teacher contact or volunteering [synthesis].

A2. Zohar study and visual "scanning" (Kabbalah Centre)

  • Purpose and when it matters: the Centre presents the Zohar as a text that embodies spiritual energy. Ask about it when exploring meaning, scrupulosity or purchases.
  • What it is, outline only: the Centre teaches that passing the eyes over Hebrew letters, as in the Zohar, can be beneficial even without reading the language; Berg calls the letters "sacred sequences, activated visually" [source: Bauer, WRSP; Globe and Mail]. Full sets of the Zohar have been sold to students; one former student reported being pressed to buy an expensive set when she asked to study more deeply [source: Globe and Mail].
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you scan the text, what do you hope happens? What happens in you if you miss a day?"
  • Watch for: fear-driven or rigid scanning, guilt or dread when it is missed (possible scrupulosity, see B5); purchases beyond means [synthesis].

A3. "72 Names" meditation and healing prayers (Kabbalah Centre), existence only

  • Purpose and when it matters: these are among the Centre's "spiritual tools" and may be used in times of illness or distress.
  • What it is, outline only: meditation on combinations of Hebrew letters which the Centre derives from a passage in Exodus and presents as divine names; Yehuda Berg calls this a "Hebrew technology" with effects for different life situations. Traditional prayers are also used as healing practices [source: Bauer, WRSP]. These are divine-name practices; no letters, combinations or procedures are given here.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You've said you use the meditation when you're anxious. Tell me about the times it helps and the times it doesn't."
  • Watch for: use in place of medical or psychological care; magical-thinking loops ("if I don't do it correctly something bad will happen") [synthesis].

A4. Shabbat, holidays and communal meals

  • Purpose and when it matters: the main source of community and belonging, often the hardest part to lose when leaving.
  • What it is: the Kabbalah Centre celebrates Shabbat and Jewish festivals and in large cities invites Jews and non-Jews to pray and eat together; Berg describes Shabbat as a gift to all humankind [source: Bauer, WRSP]. Bnei Baruch holds daily lessons and several congresses a year worldwide [source: Jüdische Allgemeine 2011].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Who do you sit with on Friday nights? Who would you miss?"
  • Watch for: all close relationships located inside the group; withdrawal from family celebrations [synthesis].

A5. Tithing, donations and products

  • Purpose and when it matters: both organisations describe a 10% tithe; this is central to any financial review (B4).
  • What it is: the Kabbalah Centre has recommended donating 10% of salary; one former student reported pressure to tithe; the Centre has sold blessed water, red strings worn on the left wrist against the "evil eye", candles, books and Zohar sets [source: Globe and Mail]. Bnei Baruch says it is funded mainly by students' voluntary ma'aser (tithe), book sales at cost and donations, and that most activity is free [source: About Bnei Baruch; Jüdische Allgemeine 2011]. A 2012 Israeli press investigation reportedly described payment demands in Bnei Baruch [uncertain: secondary, unverified].
  • Evidence status: protective or healing effects of water or strings are not supported by controlled evidence [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Can we write down together what you've given or spent in the last year, including pledges?"
  • Watch for: giving beyond 10%; giving framed as proof of spiritual worth; pledges of property; debt [synthesis].

A6. Daily lesson, gender-separated study and dissemination (Bnei Baruch)

  • Purpose and when it matters: the daily rhythm of committed members; relevant to sleep, work, family time and gender roles.
  • What it is: Laitman's daily lesson runs in the early morning hours Israel time, live and translated; men and women study separately in these lessons; serious students also take part in spreading the teaching ("dissemination") and volunteering; there are about 170 staff and thousands of volunteers [source: About Bnei Baruch; Jüdische Allgemeine 2011; Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What time do you get up for the lesson? How is that working for your sleep and your family?"
  • Watch for: chronic sleep loss; volunteering displacing paid work or family; distress about gender separation in a couple where one partner is not involved [synthesis].

A7. Teacher relationship and the inner circle

  • Purpose and when it matters: closeness to teachers is how rank and belonging grow in the Kabbalah Centre [source: Bauer, WRSP]; Laitman's leadership is described as charismatic and members' devotion to him as intense [source: Religion Watch; Wikipedia citing Introvigne, uncertain: secondary, unverified].
  • What it is: regular contact with a personal teacher; for some, full-time volunteer work in the Hevre (Kabbalah Centre) or volunteering and staff roles (Bnei Baruch) [source: Bauer, WRSP; Jüdische Allgemeine 2011].
  • Example language (illustrative): "What does your teacher advise on? Are there areas of your life you'd rather they didn't?"
  • Watch for: a teacher's advice on marriage, money, medical care or leaving; private meetings with alcohol or medication; secrecy (see Harm account) [synthesis].

Part B. The therapist's procedures [synthesis unless a source is named]

B1. Client-led exploration of meaning

  • Purpose: understand what the involvement gives the client (meaning, community, hope, structure, a Jewish connection, a non-religious spirituality) before assessing risks. Use at intake and whenever the client brings the group up.
  • Steps:
    1. Ask permission to talk about the involvement and how the client would like it discussed.
    2. Ask for the client's own terms and note them: "desire to receive" and "desire to share", "reactive" and "proactive", "Bread of Shame", "light", "correction", "connection", "the ten" or "the group".
    3. Ask what changed for the better since joining, and what has been hard.
    4. Reflect back in their language, checking accuracy.
    5. Link the meaning to the client's stated therapy goal.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You described a shift from 'reactive' to 'proactive'. What does that look like on an ordinary day?"
  • Watch for: shame about being in the group (often from family or media criticism); idealisation that leaves no room for ambivalence. Working: the client talks freely about both benefits and costs.

B2. Cultural Formulation Interview, with the spirituality, religion and moral traditions module

  • Purpose: structured understanding of cultural and religious identity, explanatory models and supports. Use in assessment, especially with Jewish clients for whom family, community and group views may conflict.
  • Steps:
    1. Use the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview core questions on the problem, its causes, stressors, supports, identity and help-seeking [uncertain: not verified].
    2. Add the supplementary module on spirituality, religion and moral traditions [uncertain: not verified]: religious upbringing, current practice, what the group's teaching says about the problem, and conflicts between traditions (e.g. family Orthodoxy versus the Centre's teaching, or Bnei Baruch's stance that observance is not required).
    3. Ask how the group, family and any rabbi or other religious leader would explain the problem.
    4. Record the client's explanatory model alongside clinical formulation.
  • Example language (illustrative): "How would your teacher explain what's been happening to you? And how would your parents explain it?"
  • Watch for: the client attributing all distress to their own "reactive" ego or lack of sharing, which can block help-seeking; conflict with a family rabbi. Working: a formulation the client recognises as theirs.

B3. Involvement map: time, money, relationships, decisions

  • Purpose: an even-handed picture of the place the group has in the client's life. Use in assessment and to review change.
  • Steps:
    1. Draw a timeline from first contact: course, regular classes, teacher contact, events, volunteering, inner-circle roles.
    2. For each period, note hours a week, money given or spent, friends inside and outside, and major decisions influenced by the group (marriage, work, moving, medical care, children's schooling).
    3. Mark points of pressure, doubt or conflict.
    4. Ask the client what they notice.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Looking at this, where were you happiest? Where did it start to cost more than it gave, if anywhere?"
  • Watch for: steady escalation without the client choosing it; shrinking outside network; decisions deferred to a teacher. Working: the client sees choice points and their own agency.

B4. Financial review and protection

  • Purpose: identify financial harm and protect against it. Use whenever tithing, pledges, purchases or volunteering instead of paid work are mentioned. Both organisations describe a 10% tithe [source: Globe and Mail; About Bnei Baruch]; former members of the Kabbalah Centre have reported pressure to give and pledges of homes [source: Globe and Mail].
  • Steps:
    1. List donations, tithes, pledges, purchases (books, Zohar sets, products) and unpaid work for the last year.
    2. Compare with income, debt and dependants' needs.
    3. Ask how decisions to give were made and what was said at the time.
    4. If giving feels compelled, agree a pause on new pledges and large gifts while thinking, and identify a trusted outside person to talk to before any gift.
    5. Refer to independent financial or legal advice for pledges, loans, property or tax questions; the therapist does not give legal advice.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Is there anything you've promised to give that you're now unsure about? Let's look at it without deciding anything today."
  • Watch for: giving framed as proof of transformation or "sharing"; shame about having given too much. Working: the client gives, or stops giving, by a decision they can explain.

B5. Differential assessment without pathologising belief

  • Purpose: tell shared religious belief and practice apart from mental disorder. Use when there is distress, impairment, or concern from others.
  • Steps:
    1. Establish what is normative within the client's group and tradition (ask the client; where the client agrees, a community member).
    2. Screen for psychosis (idiosyncratic beliefs beyond group teaching, hallucinations, disorganisation), mania (decreased need for sleep, expansive mission, spending sprees, pressured speech), OCD-type scrupulosity (intrusive fears about doing practices wrongly, compulsive scanning or prayer, reassurance-seeking from teachers), dissociation and complicated grief.
    3. Distinguish chronic sleep loss from early lessons from manic reduced need for sleep.
    4. Where a religious or spiritual problem is the focus without a disorder, consider ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances), whose inclusion terms list "religious or spiritual problem" [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine)].
    5. For scrupulosity, consider exposure and response prevention as OCD guidance describes it, adapted with the client's consent and, if wanted, with a religious adviser [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Many people in your group scan the text daily. What's different about how it feels for you lately?"
  • Watch for: labelling belief as delusion; missing real mania or psychosis because it is wrapped in group language. Working: clear differential, shared with the client in non-shaming terms.

B6. Medical-care safety

  • Purpose: ensure spiritual tools do not delay or replace medical treatment. Use when the client or a family member has a physical illness or is using healing prayers, blessed water or study for health.
  • Steps:
    1. Ask what is being used for health and why.
    2. Ask whether doctors are involved and whether any treatment has been delayed, stopped or refused.
    3. If so, explore the reasons respectfully and encourage the client to discuss them with their doctor; never advise on medicines.
    4. If a child's care is affected, follow safeguarding procedures (B13).
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like the prayers give you strength. Is your doctor also in the loop about the treatment plan?"
  • Watch for: claims of healing from teachers; guilt framing illness as spiritual failure. Working: spiritual practice alongside, not instead of, medical care.

B7. Assessing coercive control and the teacher relationship

  • Purpose: identify high-control dynamics as behaviours. Use when the client reports pressure, doubts, or others are concerned. Critics allege excessive veneration of the leader and excessive payments in Bnei Baruch, and a small group of ex-members describe it as authoritarian and abusive, with "few reports of actual criminal misdoings" [source: Religion Watch; Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified]. A court found a former Kabbalah Centre co-director liable for emotional distress after sexual misconduct (see Harm account).
  • Steps:
    1. Ask about specific behaviours: pressure to give or recruit; discouragement of outside friendships or information; punishment, shaming or shunning for doubt; control over relationships, sexuality, work or medical care; private meetings with leaders involving alcohol or drugs; secrecy demanded.
    2. Ask how dissent is handled and whether people who leave stay in contact.
    3. Rate frequency and impact, not ideology.
    4. Share observations as questions the client can test.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What happens when someone in the group disagrees with a teacher?"
  • Watch for: the client defending the group before any criticism; fear of being seen talking to a therapist. Working: the client can name both supportive and controlling elements.

B8. Decision support: stay, reduce or leave

  • Purpose: an informed, uncoerced choice about involvement.
  • Steps:
    1. Clarify values separately from the group (what matters to you, in your own words).
    2. List what the client would keep, change or lose under each option, including community, routines, meaning and finances.
    3. Test smaller steps (fewer events, pausing giving, an outside friendship).
    4. Plan practicalities if leaving: housing or employment if tied to the group, pledges, social contact, online contact.
    5. Respect a decision to stay; agree warning signs that would prompt review.
  • Example language (illustrative): "If you kept the study but changed nothing else, what would that look like? And if you stepped back from the centre altogether?"
  • Watch for: the therapist steering towards exit; all-or-nothing thinking. Working: a decision the client owns.

B9. Working with religious trauma and loss after leaving

  • Purpose: address grief, shame, fear and identity loss after leaving either group.
  • Steps:
    1. Normalise mixed feelings: loss of community, routines (Shabbat meals, daily lessons) and meaning alongside relief or anger.
    2. Identify internalised beliefs that now cause distress (e.g. that leaving is "reactive" or selfish, or that misfortune will follow), and explore them with gentle cognitive and narrative work in the client's terms.
    3. Separate what the client wants to keep (study, Jewish practice, ethical ideals of sharing) from what they reject.
    4. Treat trauma symptoms with established trauma-focused methods where indicated.
    5. Rebuild an outside network and, if wanted, a new spiritual home (including mainstream Jewish community or study; cross-refer XIII 147).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Part of you misses Friday nights and part of you is relieved. Both can be true."
  • Watch for: abrupt loss of all spiritual life; self-blame for money given; contact from members urging return. Working: the client builds a life with meaning on their own terms.

B10. Working with family members

  • Purpose: support relatives worried about a member, and repair family relationships. Use with parents, partners or adult children.
  • Steps:
    1. Hear the family's concerns and separate disagreement with beliefs from concrete harms (money, isolation, health, children).
    2. Coach staying in contact with curiosity rather than confrontation; avoid ultimatums or deception.
    3. Where Jewish families are distressed by teaching they see as distorting their tradition [source: Globe and Mail; religjournal abstract], help them express this without severing the relationship.
    4. Address the relative's own distress (one partner's absorption in a group has been reported as ending a long marriage [source: Globe and Mail]).
    5. Signpost legal or financial advice for concrete harms.
  • Example language (illustrative): "What would you like your son to know you still feel about him, whatever he decides about the centre?"
  • Watch for: pressure for coercive "deprogramming" (decline and explain why); triangulation of the therapist. Working: contact maintained, concrete risks addressed.

B11. Responding to disclosure of sexual misconduct by a teacher or leader

  • Purpose: safe, believing response and access to justice. Use if a client discloses unwanted sexual contact, especially involving alcohol or drugs offered by a teacher (the pattern a 2015 jury verdict concerned; see Harm account).
  • Steps:
    1. Listen, believe, and avoid leading questions.
    2. Assess immediate safety and medical needs.
    3. Explain the client's options: police report, civil action, sexual-assault services, and the organisation's own processes, which the client may or may not trust.
    4. Follow mandatory reporting duties where a minor or vulnerable adult is involved.
    5. Offer trauma-focused treatment when the client is ready.
    6. Keep careful notes; do not investigate.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Thank you for telling me. None of what happened was your fault. Let's look at what you'd like to do next, at your pace."
  • Watch for: self-blame framed in spiritual terms; fear of being disbelieved by the community. Working: the client feels in charge of next steps.

B12. Community and religious liaison; referral

  • Purpose: connect the client, if they wish, with a community leader, rabbi, other religious adviser, ex-member support, or specialist services.
  • Steps:
    1. Ask whether the client wants anyone from their tradition involved, and whom.
    2. Obtain written consent before any contact.
    3. Refer as needed: psychiatry for psychosis or mania; OCD specialists; trauma services; financial or legal advice; sexual-assault services.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it help to talk this over with someone from your own tradition? You choose who, and whether."
  • Watch for: referral used to impose a religious view. Working: the client uses support they chose.

B13. Safeguarding children

  • Purpose: protect children in families involved with either group.
  • Steps:
    1. Ask about children's schooling, medical care, sleep, social life outside the group, and any pressure on them.
    2. Watch for medical care delayed in favour of spiritual remedies, harsh discipline, or isolation.
    3. Ask whether the child's views are heard (assent) and whether both parents consent where parents disagree.
    4. Follow local child-protection procedures if there is a risk of significant harm.
  • Example language (illustrative): "How do the children feel about the centre? Do they have friends outside it?"
  • Watch for: conflict between separated parents about the group used as a custody weapon. Working: the child's needs are assessed in their own right.

B14. Role boundaries, self-disclosure and competence

  • Purpose: keep the therapist in role.
  • Steps:
    1. Do not teach Kabbalah, interpret texts, scan or recite names, or advise on practice; the therapist is not a teacher, healer or guide.
    2. Avoid dual relationships: a therapist who studies with either group should not treat members of the same centre, and should consider referral.
    3. Self-disclose religious views only if it serves the client, briefly.
    4. Seek supervision or training in spiritual and religious competencies (Vieten et al. 2013) [uncertain: not verified].
    5. Follow the profession's ethics code (e.g. APA Ethical Principles, https://www.apa.org/ethics/code) on multiple relationships, competence and exploitation [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "I'm not the right person to say what the Zohar means. I can help you think through what it means for you."
  • Watch for: the therapist's own views about Kabbalah, Judaism or new religions colouring the work. Working: the client experiences the therapist as neutral and safe.

5. Handling problems

Sources describe no clinical problems for these groups; the guidance below is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

  • Client idealises the group and dismisses all concern. Stay with meaning (B1); don't argue. Track concrete costs together (B3, B4). Return to the client's own goals.
  • Client wants the therapist to say the group is a "cult". Decline the label; explore what the client has experienced and which specific behaviours trouble them (B7). Note that critics and scholars disagree: critics who campaign against new religious movements, in Israel and elsewhere, label both groups, while scholars note rival religious and secular motives in that opposition [source: Religion Watch; Bauer, WRSP].
  • Fear of disloyalty in therapy. Clarify confidentiality and its limits; acknowledge that seeing a therapist is the client's choice and need not be reported to the group.
  • Overwhelm after leaving. Pace work; stabilise sleep, routines and social contact before trauma processing; screen for suicidal thoughts following current standard risk assessment practice and safety-planning, and arrange urgent support where needed.
  • Financial crisis or regret over money given. Address shame; refer for legal or financial advice on pledges and recovery; avoid blaming the client. The Kabbalah Centre has called former members' fraud lawsuits "meritless"; outcomes of such suits are [uncertain: not verified] [source: LA Times via HeraldNet].
  • Relationship conflict where only one partner is involved. Offer couple work focused on shared values, time and money; don't take sides about the group. Gender-separated study and early lessons (Bnei Baruch) may need practical negotiation [source: Wikipedia, uncertain: secondary, unverified].
  • Client hides practices or giving. Explore what makes it hard to say; reduce shame; avoid interrogation.
  • Rupture over perceived bias (e.g. the therapist seemed to mock blessed water or the red string). Acknowledge, repair, return to the client's meaning.
  • Jewish identity conflict. A Jewish client may be told by family or rabbis that the teaching is distorted, and by the group that observance is unnecessary or that inner-circle observance is required. Explore the client's own identity; offer contact with a community leader of their choosing (B12) and cross-refer XIII 147.
  • Health decisions guided by spiritual tools. Follow B6; never advise on medication.
  • Disclosure of abuse by a leader. Follow B11; recognise the organisational response may be inadequate (a jury found the Centre negligent in supervising a co-director, per NBC News).
  • Pressure from members to return. Help the client set boundaries for calls, visits and social media; plan responses.
  • Allegations about Bnei Baruch. Reports of payment demands and authoritarian control are allegations as reported by critics and an Israeli newspaper [uncertain: secondary, unverified]; scholars note few reports of criminal misdoing [source: Religion Watch]. Assess the client's own experience rather than assuming either way.

Harm account

This account concerns the Kabbalah Centre, where a court verdict documents harm. Financial matters are included as major news reported them, clearly separated into findings and allegations. Court or regulator findings of harm against Bnei Baruch: none found in the sources consulted; allegations about it are reported in sections 1, 4 and 5 only.

What was actually done

  • Sexual misconduct by a leader (court finding, 2015). In a Los Angeles County Superior Court civil case, a former follower alleged that Yehuda Berg, son of the founder and then co-director of the Centre in Los Angeles, invited her to an apartment, pressed alcohol and pain pills on her as soon as they were alone, groped her legs and tried to overpower her. Berg acknowledged offering her a drink and the prescription painkiller Vicodin and touching her leg, but denied forcing himself on her and said he left her alone when she rebuffed him. The jury found Berg liable for inflicting emotional distress, awarding $135,000 in compensatory and punitive damages against him, and $42,500 against the Kabbalah Centre, which NBC News reported the jury found had negligently supervised him (total $177,500). The plaintiff had sought tens of millions of dollars [source: NBC News 2015; Times of Israel/JTA 2015, citing Reuters]. The Times of Israel report does not itself mention the negligent-supervision finding.
  • Fundraising, tithing and sales (reported practices and allegations). A Canadian newspaper reported that the Centre recommended donating 10% of salary; sold blessed water, red strings against the "evil eye" and Zohar sets in Aramaic; that a former student was pressed to buy an expensive Zohar set when she asked for deeper study and was pressured to tithe; and that some members pledged their homes to the Centre and had to go to a Jewish religious court (Bet Din) when they tried to withdraw [source: Globe and Mail, undated; date uncertain: not verified]. In 1993 the Bergs reportedly brought a defamation suit against a rabbinic critic [source: Globe and Mail].
  • Federal tax investigation (investigation, not a finding). In 2011 the Los Angeles Times reported that the IRS criminal division was investigating whether the Centre's nonprofit funds had been used for the personal benefit of the Berg family; a Manhattan grand jury was gathering evidence, and subpoenas named the Bergs, Centre entities and two linked charities. The Bergs lived in homes owned by the Centre; a 1993 filing said they took no salary but derived their subsistence from the organisation. The Centre said it would "work closely with the IRS and the government" [source: LA Times via HeraldNet 2011; JTA 2011]. Outcome of the investigation: [uncertain: not verified].
  • Fraud lawsuits (allegations). In 2011 a former member alleged in two lawsuits that she had been defrauded of about $1.3 million, including a donation for a programme never completed; the Centre called the suit "meritless". A former chief financial officer alleged he was dismissed after raising financial irregularities [source: LA Times via HeraldNet 2011]. Outcomes: [uncertain: not verified].

How it caused harm

  • Power and access. A leader's authority, a private setting, and alcohol and medication offered by the leader reduced the follower's ability to refuse; the jury found this caused emotional distress [source: NBC News 2015]. The Centre's failure to supervise its leader was held to contribute [source: NBC News 2015]. Mechanism analysis is [synthesis].
  • Spiritualised giving. Where generosity is taught as spiritual transformation ("desire to share") and protection is attached to products and texts, financial pressure can be experienced as a spiritual duty, making refusal feel like failure [synthesis, based on teaching described in Bauer, WRSP, and practices in Globe and Mail]. Reported consequences include large pledges, including homes, and disputes needing a religious court to resolve [source: Globe and Mail].
  • Family disruption. One spouse reported that her husband's absorption in the group ended a 25-year marriage [source: Globe and Mail].
  • Who is most at risk [synthesis]: newcomers who join during crisis or illness; people seeking closeness to leaders; wealthy or isolated members; people unfamiliar with Jewish tradition who cannot judge claims about it; family members of committed members.

Recognising it today

[synthesis unless sourced]

  • A teacher or leader offering alcohol or medication in private, one-to-one meetings outside class settings, secrecy, or special status in return for closeness.
  • An organisation without independent oversight of its leaders, run by one family, with leaders' housing owned by the organisation [source: LA Times via HeraldNet 2011 for the Centre's arrangement].
  • Giving framed as spiritual progress, sharing or protection; escalation from course fees to tithes, large gifts, pledges of property, or funding projects that never materialise.
  • Products sold with protective or healing claims (water, strings, texts) [source: Globe and Mail].
  • Being told one is "not ready" for deeper study unless one pays more [source: Globe and Mail].
  • How legitimate versions differ: open financial accounts; giving that is voluntary, modest and never tied to spiritual worth; clear codes of conduct and complaint routes that reach someone outside the leadership; no healing claims; respectful relationship with the wider Jewish community.

What to do instead and how to help those harmed

  • Safer alternatives [synthesis]: study of Kabbalah with transparent institutions (synagogues, community learning programmes, university courses; cross-refer XIII 147); spiritual communities with external accountability; a personal practice that does not require purchases.
  • Assessment: the CFI with its spirituality module (B2); involvement and financial maps (B3, B4); trauma, depression and anxiety screening; risk assessment following current standard practice.
  • Treatment: B9 for religious trauma; trauma-focused therapy for sexual misconduct (B11); support for financial recovery with legal advice; family work (B10).
  • Ethical, reporting and legal duties: follow mandatory reporting where a minor or vulnerable adult is involved; inform the client of options for police reports and civil claims; refer for legal advice on pledges and donations; document carefully; do not investigate or name the client's accuser or others to third parties. Professional ethics on exploitation and multiple relationships apply to the therapist's own conduct (https://www.apa.org/ethics/code) [uncertain: not verified].

Sources

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