[Unedited] Lawrence Kushner with Krista Tippett
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is a long-time student and articulator of the mysteries and messages of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. Kushner says mysticism tends to appear when religion \u2014 whatever the tradition \u2014 becomes too formal and logical. \u201cThe minute mysticism becomes permissible, acceptable, possible, it\u2019s an immediate threat to organized religious structures,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause what mysticism does is it gives everybody direct unmediated personal access to God.\u201d He is influenced by the Jewish historian Gershom Scholem, who resurrected Kabbalah from obscurity in the 20th century and made it accessible to modern people.\nLawrence Kushner is the Emanu-El Scholar at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. He served for 28 years as the rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He has been an adjunct faculty member at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles and also a commentator for NPR\u2019s All Things Considered. His many books include God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know, Kabbalah: A Love Story, and I\u2019m God; You\u2019re Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego.\nThis interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode \u201cLawrence Kushner \u2014 Kabbalah and Everyday Mysticism.\u201d Find more at onbeing.org.