Perle Besserman This is Me

Education

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1. 1. Welcome to Kabbalah of Light

   www.drjerryepstein.org/light/w - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/1/2005   Last Visited: 12/15/2005

   Professor Perle Besseman of Illinois State University just authored a book on female Kabbalah. She then wrote an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe lauding Madonna as a "Kabbalist", and a credit to women who want to break out of the bondage imposed on them by a patriarchal society, and her efforts in helping women discover the divine feminine and goddess like nature that is their birthright. As eloquent as Ms. Besseman is in the article she misses the essential point of why Madonna has not the right to have the label "Kabbalist" appended to her name (you should get a gander of her in the latest New York Magazine Fashion edition where she is modeling some Versace clothes in what appears to be an un-Kabbalist pose).

2. 2. Teachers

   www.zengroup.org/teachers.html - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/7/2004   Last Visited: 4/9/2006

   Perle Besserman holds a PhD in comparative literature from Columbia university. She began her Zen practice in 1981 with Kyudo Nakagawa Roshi of Ryutakuji Monastery in Mishima, Japan. She was a founding member of the Soho Zendo in New York and, in 1984, joined the Diamond Sangha as Robert Aitken Roshi's student in Honolulu, Hawaii. After working with Pat Hawk, a successor of Robert Aitken, she completed her koan study with Manfred Steger. In 1992, she began teaching at the Princeton Area Zen Group Group. She is currently Professor Emerita of English at Illinois State University.
   
   Both Manfred Steger and Perle Besserman continue to be involved with the Princeton Area Zen Group.

3. 3. rinpoche.shambhala.com

   rinpoche.shambhala.com/html/co - [Cached]

   Published on: 10/9/2002   Last Visited: 10/2/2004

   Perle Besserman
   ...
   Perle Besserman Perle Besserman, author of Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic (published under the name Perle Epstein), and Teachings of the Jewish Mystics , is a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov. She is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Illinois State University and author of books of both fiction and non-fiction, including Kabbalah: The Way of the Jewish Mystic, The Shambhala Guide to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism, Crazy Clouds: Zen Radicals, Rebels and Reformers, and Pilgrimage: Adventures of a Wandering Jew.