Misunderstanding tradition

Sometimes traditions are misunderstood by otherwise sane people. My partner - Jewish - just gave me two example which I though I might share.

The first example is that of Kabbalists wearing a red string bracelet around their wrist to ward off the 'evil eye'. The evil eye is basically understood in Jewish tradition as "being nasty", "backbiting" and "gossip". The traditional method of warding off the evil eye is to be a nice person. There are however simple superstitions regarding the evil eye which date to more modern times - valid ones simply make sense if we consider them without esoteric knowledge.

The other example is of the Rosh Chodesh ceremony. Traditionally this is a few short simple prayers - as little as a few extra lines - added into daily prayers to mark the new moon. Some modern non-Jewish kabbalists perform 45 minute rituals during certain astrologically alignments that have nothing to do with the new moon - and still call their ritual a Rosh Chodesh in the Kabbalist tradition.

Let's think about this ... One the one hand we have individuals trying to follow the tradition, and on the other ignoring the significance of the language of the tradition.

My advice on this one is either follow the tradition properly, or don't pretend to follow it at all - anything else is lying to oneself.