Current Jewish Spiritualities in Israel: A New Age1

Recently, new spiritualities have been emerging in Israel, which combine Judaism and New Age spirituality. Surprisingly, these interesting phenomena are being overlooked by academic and public discourse regarding Jewish spiritual innovations. Consequently, current developments and processes, which are strongly influenced by New Age spirituality, are being misunderstood. New Age spiritualities have become widespread recently, and they have gained legitimacy in Israeli society and worldwide. The New Age can arguably be defined as a Western, global, liberal spirituality that strives to offer an alternative to mainstream culture in all areas of life. Notwithstanding the variety of outlooks on New Age spirituality, its very general characteristics, which are accepted in the academic discourse,2 will serve us well in our discussion. The following are three such characteristics: First, scholars regard New Age spirituality as a Self Religion – celebrating, empowering, even deifying the individual, with a focus on one’s inner life, on intimate relationships, belonging, potential inner resources and self realization, personal experiences of the sacred, bodily pleasures and pains, investigation of feelings and inclinations, matters of livelihood and lifestyle, identity issues, and so on.