SAMUEL AVITAL IS NOT A SCHOLAR
AND HAPPY HE IS NOT A SCHOLAR

 By Kathryn Bernheimer

Intermountain Jewish News Boulder Correspondent Education & Culture – Friday, March 11, 2005

Boulder, Colorado.

      Samuel Ben-Or Avital is not a scholar -- and happy he is not a scholar.

      “I strove all my life not to have any degree,” he says. ”I write from knowledge, study and transmission from my ancestry.”

      Avital was born in a small village in Morocco into a Sephardic family that traces its lineage to 15th Century Spain.

      Avital explains that “the ancient, and beautiful, practical wisdom of the science of Kabbalah” was passed down through the generations.

      “I am dedicated to the continuation of the lineage and the teachings I was given. Kabbalah is not pop psychology. It is the exploration of the unknown.”

      Avital has fused his understanding of Kabbalah with his own long and illustrious work as a mime, creating a technique for literally embodying the knowledge.

      Avital is offering a seven-week workshop, “Climbing the Invisible Stairway,” exploring the meaning of the Hebrew Letters through the wisdom of the body, which begins today at the Boulder Jewish Community Center.

      “I consider the body the vehicle through which we manifest the principles of the divine,” Avital explains.

“There’s a difference between knowledge and information. We can lie with words but not with the body.”

      Avital believes that the Hebrew letters hold the key to the experience of authentic kabbalah.

“The letters have been studied by Kabbalists for centuries. What I bring is a kinesthetic understanding of the 22 Hebrew Letters, which contain the essence of all spiritual power in the universe. I bring that to people with movement.