Over the last 10 years we have been given permission to film a variety of Kabbalah Society talks by Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi in order to record the teachings of the Toledano School. In the summer of 2010 a decision was made to video the entire Kabbalistic Summer School series of lectures where over a period of 5 days, Halevi teaches a course consisting of 15 ninety minute lectures incorporating meditations, practical exercises and questions.
Halevi’s course provides the basic foundation of the teachings of the Toledano tradition. The 10 lectures utilize over 300 slides of images gathered from a variety of sources. At the end there is always time for questions and answers concerning spiritual knowledge, devotion and practice. The remaining 5 lectures present practical exercises and meditations to the participants.
The 2010 summer school provided over 22 hours of material that is currently being edited. We utilized two cameras and an audio recorder in a room with lights dimmed for the overhead projector and Halevi moving in and out of the projector light while at the same time doing our best not to disturb other participants attending the course. In considering these constraints we decided to create videos which are focused and instructional in nature.
A decision has been made to make these videos available online via a subscription service. Utilizing this distribution method will allow subscribers immediate access to new videos as they are edited. It will also provide a library of material that can be used in study groups and presented in a variety of ways. Subscriptions to this service will only be $16.00 US - £10 UK - € 11.25 Euro per month. The subscriptions will help off set the cost of the video server and assist with cost of editing the videos.
We have designed this site to use a BrightCove Video Cloud to present playlists of each talk/lecture. Each talk has been broken up into chapters which flow through the playlists to view the entire lecture. The quality of the video will depend on the speed of your connection. BrightCove automatically adjust the video type/size/quality based on your connection speed. They also utilize technologies which allow the broadcast of this material on mobile devices, such a phones, and tablets, including iPhones and iPad.
