The Absolute Basic Jewish Meditation Practice: Shiviti
Of course, gestures alone do not do anything. You need meditating in the heart and mind as well. The gestures serve to make the meditation happen and drive it forward. To that end, I will preface my comments on gestures with a few famous quotes from the Shulhan Aruch, (OH 1:1) which describe the Shiviti Meditation. It is based upon the phrase in Psalms “Shiviti Hashem Lenegdi Tamid” or “I place Hashem before me always.” This is a basic yet exaltedly important meditation for everyday life. This meditation goes back to the Rambam, who details it at the end of the Guide for the Perplexed.
Scripture says, "I place Hashem before me always." This is a great concept in the Torah and a paramount attribute for the Zadikim who walk in the way of G-d. The way in which a person sits, moves around, and carries out his daily activities while he is alone his house is not the same way he would engage in these activities while standing before a King. In addition, the way one speaks with his family and the conversation he has with his relatives is not the same manner in which he would speak while in the presence of a King. Surely when one considers in his mind that the mighty King, The Holy One blessed be his name, where the whole world is filled with his glory, stands before him and sees his deeds, as it states: "Can a man hide in secret and be unseen by me!” immediately the fear and awed of Hashem will descend upon him and he will always be ashamed before G-d.
On the face of it this meditation is a straightforward visualization exercise. Imagine you are in the presence of a King, and not just any King, but the King of Kings. The presence of Hashem is very hard to visualize, but the presence of an earthly king is easier. When you are mindful of how your behavior changes because of this visualization, you infinitely expand the presence of the King in your mind (this means knowing that the real presence is always beyond what you can visualize) and let this presence hover in your mind throughout the day as far as possible.
It is difficult for most of us in this age of democracy in relating to this meditation, and understanding what we are supposed to get with it. No wonder many of us would rather imagine blue light or cosmic energy. Royals today are just irrelevant, although most of us probably still have some sense of honor and reverence for a head of state, and would feel quite out of the ordinary if we were called in for an audience with a president, prime minister or constitutional monarch. However, I think there is a more fundamental concern with the use of visualization. Imagining the King watching you is just a fantasy if you don’t know the King of Kings is real. If you have knowledge of Hashem, then you can use imagination as a medium for manifesting the Divine presence. The idea is not to imagine a human king, but to imagine the majesty and fear of the King's presence as it effects you emotionally and physically. Then you need to multiply this feeling times itself, until it reaches beyond what your experience can contain.You will know that you have found the real presence when, in the course of the meditation the imagination falls away, and you become aware in your mind and heart of the presence that transcends any human concept of Kingship. Knowing of Hashem is the foundation of this meditation, so you cannot avoid the work of clarifying for yourself the faith you have received from your tradition. That can be a problem for us, since our age is not one that encourages deep questions. The texts that help people do the work of establishing knowledge of God are seldom studied. Many tout the supremacy of simple faith over intellectual study. I have no interest at this point in arguing the principles of Jewish faith and how one can know them, be it through reason, faith, tradition or intuition. I am simply stating that visualization can get you to a destination, so it is best to know in your heart and mind that the destination is real. Now if, as it turns out, you honestly don’t know if God is real or not, doing this meditation is one way of finding out. When the imagination falls away and the presence remains, you have found God. The meditation will be quite useless to people who believe in the principles of Judaism because everybody in the community does, or because an authority figure told them its so, or because they are comfortable in their identity and prefer to play it safe.
I want to emphasize here that the Shiviti Meditation is not necessarily a Kabalistic one. It is appropriate (some might say obligatory) for all flavors of Judaism. It only becomes Kabalistic when one begins visualizing the letters of the Divine name. The gestures are not specifically Kabalistic either, but rather generically Jewish. In my presentation of them, I have tried to avoid Kabalistic explanations, even when pulling material from Hassidic sources. Of course, I have nothing against Kabbalah. The opposite is the case. However, not all Jews emphasize Kabbalah in their ideology or practices, and I want me presentation of the Shiviti meditation and the gestures to be as universal as possible. We are all commanded by the Torah to affirm God’s reality, to deny the worship of anything else as well as to love and fear Him. This is the essence of Jewish Meditation, and it is not just for those who embrace Kabbalah or Hassidut.
