NYTC: 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.

Instead of some snappy slogan like “Don’t Lose Your Cool” or “Let Us Chill You Out,” there is the directive to “Study Kabbalah.”

There is no cutesy company logo, like a smiling ice cube, but rather a puzzling weblike diagram labeled “Abraham’s Ladder,” with lines linking encircled words. Taken from the Kabbalah, the model has as its top element “infinite energy” and as its bottom, “material universe.”

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.

Tinkering with the freezer’s three refrigeration units, he tried to explain the parallels between the study of thermodynamics and the Kabbalah.

“They’re beautiful pieces of machinery,” he said, checking a two-horsepower compressor, then a condenser and then a thermocouple. “And they run on the same theories and principles as the universe itself.”

He explained how a refrigerator cools according to the laws of thermodynamics, how the compressor and condenser force coolant through coils, which vaporizes and pulls heat out of the freezer compartment.

“Just like anything else in the universe, there has to be a balance of energy,” he said. “Sometimes I come in to fix a broken unit and I just touch it and it starts working again. The owner will say: ‘How did you do it? All you did was touch it.’ It’s because I’m positively charged, from my study and meditation. Of course, I’m not going to tell them it’s because I’m a Kabbalist and I got positive energy.’ To them, I’m just a repairman.”

Mr. Cabezas said that many of his Jewish clients tell him that because of the company’s name or from symbols and text on his van, they assumed he was Jewish. They are often surprised to see a Hispanic man with a Bronx swagger come in, inspect their ice machines and start talking about the Talmud, another ancient Jewish text.

Mr. Cabezas, a decorated Navy veteran, was a machine gunner on helicopter gunships that provided cover for Swift boats in the Vietnam War. He was deft with a machine gun and killed many enemy soldiers, he said.

The violence of war left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, for which he attends group-therapy sessions. His experiences in the war drew him to seek spirituality through the Kabbalah.

In his apartment, in Chelsea, he has several bookcases filled with books on his two interests. Esoteric books on the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism share space with electrical manuals and engineering texts.

Mr. Cabezas said he was constantly questioned by Hasidic Jews about his truck.

“Sometimes they pull up next to me, or call my cellphone from the number on the van,” he said. “They’ve said, “I’m driving right next to you. You’re not supposed to advertise the Kabbalah like this. It’s sacrilege.'”

He said he has had people, not Orthodox Jews, “run into my back bumper and get out and tell me I shouldn’t be working on a Saturday,” he said. “Once they find out I’m not Jewish, they’re usually O.K., and it usually turns into a long conversation. Sometimes, I’ll see Hasidic Jews walk by and rub the Hebrew letters and kiss their hand.”