Commentary to the Shiviti Meditation
Now let me continue with my commentary to the Shiviti Meditation. It looks like the point of the meditation is to create an all pervasive sense of fear and awe in the presence of G-d. This presence is everywhere and leads to almost instinctual shifts in behavior across the whole range of life’s activities. This leads one to ask: what is the point of this meditation? Aside from insuring better compliance with the rules of morality and Halacha, why is it good to be afraid and ashamed all the time? Why is the metaphor of G-d as king so central to this meditation? What are we to do if we have no experience in real life of Kings and courts?
Before I go on, I will just make one observation. Ultra orthodox Jews in general and Hassidim in particular, seem permanently welded to their clothing. The hats, jackets, white shirts, long coats, fur hats, ties or gartels are both uncomfortable and ever-present. There seems to be no acceptable time for casual attire. Of course when you wear formal clothing all day every day or during unseasonable weather it can all end up looking very shabby. This shabby-ness eventually becomes part of the accepted look. Sill, the original point of the ever present formal look is to embody this meditation. The idea is to dress as if one is always ready to greet a great dignitary…no less than the King of Kings, in whose presence we are at all times. On a personal note, I do not wear formal clothing much of the time. I dress appropriately for what I am doing. This doesn’t hamper my Shiviti Meditation. I am a created being, and as such I cannot be on the pinnacle of formality all the time. God knows I need time for shopping, cleaning and even relaxing. That is the way I am made. Still there is a substantial difference relaxing in the presence of the King because that is the way he made me, to just kicking back and letting it all hang out, as if I am alone in the world and owe nothing to anyone.
Now back to the meditation. The point is to realize the ephemeral nature of being. By seeing through ephemeral being you should come to the awareness of God who is absolute being. To live in the presence of the king means being in the presence of one who holds your fate absolutely. The king is seen as a higher order of being because he determines life or death for any one of his subjects. God is King because His Being and Freedom determines our being. The being of any given thing of person as well as the being of the universe as a whole is a freely given gift chosen over nothingness. The deeper and more all pervasive one’s sense of one’s own emptiness and ephemeral nature, the more one is sustained by the truth. One must know that one is ephemeral and that G-d alone is absolute. That knowledge, insofar as it can etched into the very fiber of ones mind and body is true life. To believe that one actually exists for real is to be sunk into illusion, which is death. Fear enters here in two forms. First it is the instinctual fear of non-existence and death than any living being experiences in the presence of that which determined life and death. Secondly, it enters as the fear of slipping from God consciousness, into the illusion of self sustaining existence. Paradoxically, along with fear come the bliss, joy and love of living in the light of truth, which is beyond all fear and mortality. Fear and joy are intertwined, as in the statement of the Talmud in Berachot “In the place of joy there should be fear” Similarly awe and love of God are simultaneous and mutually sustaining. Experiencing these feelings fulfill of two very fundamental Mitzvot.
There is great significance in the perception that each and every ephemeral being, (and particularly the self) exists as objects of G-d’s knowledge. As empty beings it would be appropriate for us to be mere dust in the wind, and yet we are held in a kind of orbit with God’s ultimate being at the center. We partake of God’s truth and discover life in the very midst of our emptiness. This is how we know that God knows us. Many great spiritual thinkers have known of G-d but have mistakenly assumed that in his own perfection he has no knowledge of anything outside himself. They have imagined G-d to be projecting the world in an impersonal detached way. Judaism and its prophetic tradition reject this. We perceive the world as willed, chosen and known. God’s being is beyond categorization, such that to be supreme perfect is also to be intimately involved. Each created being, for all its ephemeral nature and emptiness, knows that it known and loved, and knows that God’s knowledge extends infinitely down to the foundations of being. God’s infinity is beyond measure, but that means there is enough God for every single being no matter how small its size and brief its duration. The original choice at the beginning of time to create the universe is just as well the choice to create this individual being, this individual soul, and this moment in time. God’s knowledge fills every thing and every moment with infinite significance. This moment is chosen from the very beginning. It holds preciousness that cannot be wasted, as Moshe said in the Psalms “Let us know how to count our days and we will bring the heart of wisdom.”
Ephemeral created beings are hungry. We yearn to absorb into ourselves the source of our being. Just as we breathe, drink or eat, try to absorb, somehow, God’s being. All creatures (on some level) and Human beings in particular are instinctively driven to worship. To worship means attempting to fill ourselves with the divine. This hunger to become full of divine being lies at the foundation of the religious impulse felt by all human cultures. As the Rambam pointed out in his Guide, this religious impulse is very problematic. The worship and absorption of divine being requires objects of worship. The objects of worship we generally fashion unconsciously from our projected needs, hopes and fears. Furthermore, the attempt to satiate our hunger seeks an escape from our ephemeral nature and into being substantial. In fact there is no satisfying our hunger except through illusion, while accepting our ephemeral nature makes us live through God’s truth.
It might be said that Torah is anti-religion. If religion is based human needs and posits objects of worship, Torah challenges us not to attempt to control or delimit the Divine Presence. The Torah seems to encourages us to develop some concepts of God, (like Creator, King, Father and even Lover) yet our images continually and endlessly shatter against the His unknowable being. This is how the relationship works. God’s being shatters again and again all attempts to grasp him, turning the structure of knowledge inside out. This process of arising of projections and breaking them is the essence of Torah. Every time God transcends the limits of some imagination of him, the remaining form becomes a structure of Torah, a mitzvah, or a way of organizing life. God speaks and reveals his will by always transcending conceptions, by being endlessly holy. The emptied forms which are left from this transcendence stand as revelations of Divine will. The King is beyond the kingdom, but his presence is everywhere where his will is done. God’s transcendence itself gives forth divine words, and these have organized the stuff of the universe, the forms of life, the forms of human consciousness. The forms of the Torah, its commandments, observances and social organization let us cleave to the will of the King. In each form, awareness is turned outward so that the desire to absorb God’s being, becomes a way of becoming absorbed by the light of truth. Instead of becoming more substantial through absorbing divine being, we become ever more open, thankful, accepting and alive in our ephemeral nature. God’s words give form and structure to everything, and when we act out that specific form which encodes God’s transcendence and holiness in, that is doing G-d’s will and following the Torah.
All human societies are touched in some way by the Kings will. The light of truth translates into of a just society. Ephemeral beings accept each other as they accept themselves. Creating a just society is a basic commandment for all humanity. Bad people, (until they repent) will for the most part try to gratify themselves in secret by lying and cheating. They believe that behind the public exterior or society, such negative acts will find secret places to hide. However, when one realizes that society is founded upon the will of the King, there remain no secret places. The same fear or shame one would feel if one were caught doing something bad, will be felt before the act is carried out. When a person acts corruptly in secret that person becomes dead in the eyes of God. It is only a matter of time until the just society sniffs out the walking corpse. People who are aware of the presence of G-d become consistent in their behavior. Such people a feel a shame that does not let evil get a foothold even in their most private and personal lives. The shame which the Shivity Meditation brings about is not neurotic or masochistic. It involves the healthy understanding that a person should be as good on the inside as they are on the outside.
Ultimately, the fruits of the Shivity Meditation are: 1) a sense of faith and openness that negates manipulative and selfish desires, 2) an acceptance, appreciation and love for others, 3) an increased awareness of spiritual life beyond the physical being,
4) an increased consistency in ones personal and public behavior, 5) increased vitality and joy arising from the sense of being constantly created anew, and 6) the ability to “hear the word of God” as it supports, establishes and re-creates just societies. (For Jewish people this also means hearing the word of God vibrating within the framework of Halacha and Jewish Practice. As you progress to more intense levels of Love and Fear of Hashem, you can expect increased wisdom in understanding the Mitzvot and their meanings. You may find yourself discovering new Torah thoughts. You should relate to this as Hashem teaching you his word. Perhaps you may hear an echo of prophecy. I hesitate to say this because some people should not be encouraged to imagine themselves prophets. But if you are sane and well balanced, you should come to no harm. The Shiviti Meditation is one step on the road to prophecy. Admittedly, we are not on the level to become full prophets today. But an echo of prophecy (insofar as it makes you a better person and better in observing Mitzvot, studying Torah and doing good) is everyone’s birthright. Remember what it says in the book of Proverbs “The fear of God in the beginning of wisdom.”
In my comments to the rather brief passage from the Shulhan Aruch I have tried to explain why one should think of God as a king, what benefits are derived from cultivating an all encompassing awareness of the King’s presence, and what point there is in feeling fear and shame. The Shiviti Meditation may be accompanied by the visualization of the Letters of the Divine Name, if you find this helpful. In any event, the commentary I have given here is based upon the Rambam, and it is not Kabbalistic (as far as I can know.) In actuality, this is all just basic Judaism, which is why the Shiviti Meditation is placed at the very beginning of the code of Jewish Law. Over your life time you will find yourself undergoing various phases. Initially you will be working to gasp the truth of this way of seeing the world, the self and G-d. Once that is passed you will be actualizing these perceptions across the whole range of you life experiences. As you become more and more absorbed into the light of truth, you will find yourself behaving more and more consistently and reacting to lifes challenges with greater faith and tranquility. You will find joy and significance in every moment, every thing and every person. When you are strong in the light you will sense your body fading as you become truth and eternity. There is no more basic meditation than this. Perhaps there is none more advanced either.
