JVO: Non-Jews and Kabbalah

Jewish Values Online (jewishvaluesonline.org) is a website that asks the Jewish view on a variety of issues, some specifically Jewish and some from the world around us -- and then presents answers from each of the dominations of Judaism. Nishmablog's Blogmaster Rabbi Wolpoe serves as an Orthodox member of their Panel of Scholars, offering answers from our perspective.

This post is part of a weekly series on the Nishmablog presenting the questions to which he responded and the answers that he gave.

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Question: The latest rumor of a celebrity practicing Kabbalah is supermodel Naomi Campbell. What is the celebrity draw to Jewish mysticism and can a non-Jew legitimately "practice" Kabbalah?

First I will start with the issue of sharing Torah with non-Jews
There are essentially two approaches I will take

1.    Traditional
2.    Modern yet still maybe reconcilable with   Halachah

Traditional

The Traditional approach is simply not to teach Torah - ANY Torah - to Non-Jews.  Jewish Law proscribes teaching Torah to Gentiles based upon Psalms 147:20....

Traditionally, there have been few exceptions
Such as
• Prospective Converts
• Certain limited inter-action with Gentile Biblical Scholars [see below]

According to this approach there is no loophole to teach any Torah - especially  Kabbalah - to a Gentile.

Modern

With the advent of Christianity we have a full-fledged non-Jewish group that pledges allegiance to our Scripture - the Tanach - albeit they supplement it.  Since Tanach is also part of their Canon, Judaism has relaxed rules regarding sharing ideas about scripture.
However strictures still remain with regard to Oral Law.

What has mitigated that restriction has been the printing press and other modern media.  And the Internet overwhelms them all.

At this point the reality is that all sorts of obscure and esoteric literature is available to the entire public-at-large.  Thus,  Christian Scholars have already written scholarly tracts on Mishnah and Midrash
The barriers have been blurred

It has come to be permitted  to share information on these otherwise "Private" texts in order to prevent misunderstandings and mis-portrayals.  Meaning:  better to violate the restriction against sharing data then to have masses misconstruing our Torah.

Kabbalah

Kabbalah was compiled by mystics and was expressed in esoteric language.  This cuts several ways

The Talmud restricts learning Kabbalah to only those who satisfied their appetite for Talmud and related texts.  Usually the requirement is age 40 in order to allow only stable, sober, and mature Jews to partake.  Strict compliance with Torah and Halchah is a given

On the other hand, Kabbalah IS out there. A case could be made for teaching Kabbalah in a correct manner so as to prevent a counterfeit Kabbalah from taking hold.

Conclusion:

It still makes little sense to me to initiate any one, especially non-Jews before they have attained a firm foundation in Torah learning - and observance