Editing Kabbalah (section)

=== Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism ===
[[File:Lekah Dodi.jpg|thumb|A version of [[Lekhah Dodi]] song to welcome the [[Shabbat]], a cross denomination Jewish custom from Kabbalah]]
Kabbalah tended to be rejected by most Jews in the Conservative and [[Reform Judaism|Reform]] movements, though its influences were not eliminated. While it was generally not studied as a discipline, the Kabbalistic ''Kabbalat Shabbat'' service remained part of liberal liturgy, as did the ''Yedid Nefesh'' prayer. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, [[Saul Lieberman]] of the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]] is reputed to have introduced a lecture by Scholem on Kabbalah with a statement that Kabbalah itself was "nonsense", but the academic study of Kabbalah was "scholarship". This view became popular among many Jews, who viewed the subject as worthy of study, but who did not accept Kabbalah as teaching literal truths.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

According to [[Bradley Shavit Artson]] (Dean of the Conservative [[Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies]]):

{{blockquote|Many western Jews insisted that their future and their freedom required shedding what they perceived as parochial orientalism. They fashioned a Judaism that was decorous and strictly rational (according to 19th-century European standards), denigrating Kabbalah as backward, superstitious, and marginal.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://judaism.ajula.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=1525&u=5504&t=0 |title=From the Periphery to the Center: Kabbalah & Conservative Judaism &#124; Spirituality and Theology:God, Torah Revelatio &#124; Judaism @ AJU AJULA American Jewish University formerly University of Judaism |access-date=2009-01-13 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423114222/http://judaism.ajula.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=1525&u=5504&t=0 |archive-date=2010-04-23 }}</ref>}}

However, in the late 20th century and early 21st century there has been a revival in interest in Kabbalah in all branches of liberal Judaism. The Kabbalistic 12th-century prayer ''[[Anim Zemirot]]'' was restored to the new Conservative ''Sim Shalom'' ''siddur'', as was the ''B'rikh Shmeh'' passage from the Zohar, and the mystical ''Ushpizin'' service welcoming to the ''[[Sukkah]]'' the spirits of Jewish forebears. ''Anim Zemirot'' and the 16th-century mystical poem ''Lekhah Dodi'' reappeared in the Reform Siddur ''[[Gates of Prayer]]'' in 1975. All rabbinical seminaries now teach several courses in Kabbalah—in [[Conservative Judaism]], both the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]] and the [[Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies]] of the [[American Jewish University]] in Los Angeles have full-time instructors in Kabbalah and ''Hasidut'', Eitan Fishbane and Pinchas Giller, respectively. In Reform Judaism, Sharon Koren teaches at the [[Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion]]. Reform rabbis like Herbert Weiner and [[Lawrence Kushner]] have renewed interest in Kabbalah among Reform Jews. At the [[Reconstructionist Rabbinical College]], Joel Hecker is the full-time instructor teaching courses in Kabbalah and Hasidut.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}

According to Artson:

{{blockquote|Ours is an age hungry for meaning, for a sense of belonging, for holiness. In that search, we have returned to the very Kabbalah our predecessors scorned. The stone that the builders rejected has become the head cornerstone (Psalm 118:22)... Kabbalah was the last universal theology adopted by the entire Jewish people, hence faithfulness to our commitment to positive-historical Judaism mandates a reverent receptivity to Kabbalah.<ref>[http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=2 Artson, Bradley Shavit] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110729142318/http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=2 |date=2011-07-29 }}. ''From the Periphery to the Centre: Kabbalah and the Conservative Movement'', United Synagogue Review, Spring 2005, Vol. 57 No. 2</ref>}}

The [[Reconstructionist Judaism|Reconstructionist]] movement, under the leadership of Arthur Green in the 1980s and 1990s, and with the influence of Zalman Schachter Shalomi, brought a strong openness to Kabbalah and hasidic elements that then came to play prominent roles in the Kol ha-Neshamah siddur series.{{citation needed|date=February 2025}}