But What Does The Kabbalah Say About Running The AC All Day?

I’m gonna say it and you can’t stop me — only in New York, Kids, only in New York:

If one hangs around Lower Manhattan long enough, one may see a white Ford van with its exterior adorned with Hebrew lettering and diagrams about the Kabbalah, the ancient mystical movement often studied by Hasidic Jews that deals with the nature of divinity and creation of the soul.

The van is not filled with Jewish missionaries, but rather with a greasy jumble of valves, fan motors, blowtorches and other equipment and tools. On the door, in English, is the company name: Aleph Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Service. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

. . .

So what is with these mystical messages on a gritty construction van parked with other banged-up service vehicles on busy Manhattan streets?

Its owner, Nelson Cabezas, 58, is just waiting for you to ask, and if you catch him when he is not fixing a walk-in freezer, air-conditioning unit, sushi refrigerator or ice machine, he will offer as much explanation as you want.

Mr. Cabezas is not like most Kabbalah scholars. He is not a rabbi — he is not even Jewish. His parents came from Nicaragua, and he was raised on tough Bronx streets in the 1950’s and 60’s.

He is a refrigerator and air-conditioner mechanic with a theology degree. He is an ordained interfaith minister with a refrigeration engineer’s license, who has spent the past few decades of his life studying refrigeration and the Kabbalah in tandem.

Mr. Cabezas draws a direct parallel between divine energy and the raw electricity created in power plants and sent through the heavy-duty power grids in and around New York City. Like God’s energy, he says, the raw electricity is so powerful that it must be “stepped down” many times with transformers, from thousands of volts to the 115-volt level that powers household appliances.

“For example, Con Edison produces thousands of volts of energy that is way too powerful for us to use, the same way God must reduce his energy through the 10 universes described in the Kabbalah, so that our material universe can comprehend it,” Mr. Cabezas said.

He explained this while he examined the cooling system of a walk-in freezer in the busy basement kitchen of Chef and Company, a catering business on West 18th Street.