Java for Kavanah (A Primer for Jewish Meditation supplement)

Have a Java to increase your Kavvanah!

Am I serious or facetious? Well, half and half (pun intended.) On the serious side, I can tell you that coffee is noteworthy aspect of Hassidic life, and that contrary to what some dour types might prefer, it is almost always drunk before Morning Prayers. I have a little story to tell which will lead me to pontificate about some of my favorite topics. Who was the Baal Shem Tov? Did he found a Hassidic Movement? Is there really such a thing as a Hassidic Movement? These are questions of a historical and social nature not connected to meditation, but here is as good a place to put my soap box as any.

In case you are wondering: How can I doubt that there is such a thing as a Hassidic movement? Look at all those Hassididm, doing their distinctively Hassidic things. Aren’t they a specific movement within Judaism? Well….no they aren’t. For one thing they have no central governing body. Hassidim break down into a kaleidoscopic array of groups. Some Hassidim don’t belong to any group with any consistency. My father considered himself a “Hassidic Jew.” Which ever Rebbe happened to be in the neighborhood was good enough for him. There is only one group which self consciously claims to be a Hassidic Movement, and that is Chabad. But the existence of one movement within the total collective of Hassidic communities does not mean that Hassidism as a whole is a movement.

“Movements” are distinctive, but not every distinction makes a movement. Let me offer you an example. I live in Ashkelon, where 90 percent of the Torah observant Jews are Sephardic. There are a few religious Zionists, a tiny smattering of Haredim and us. Oh…who are we? We are the Anglos. We have special English Torah classes in a style quite different from any other Torah classes around. Other people often find our style of Torah learning strange, boring, too challenging or just unpleasant. We pray differently, talk differently and celebrate in our own way. I ask you: are we an Anglo Movement? Of course not! We are just being ourselves. Our practices are natural to us and reflect our history. We are a small but vibrant part of the culture of our town, but we don’t mean anything by it. Now let’s say that over time our children and students proliferate, so now the Anglo Torah learning, praying and social style spreads out across the land. Anglo communities proliferate morphing significantly as they grow. At some point we encounter the Anglos of Ashkelon. Beer Sheva, Kiryat Gat and Rehovot. The groups are similar, but they also argue with each other on many points. Once again, I ask: Have the Anglos become a movement, or are they still just doing what comes naturally? I reply: There is no Anglo movement. There is an Anglo style of Jewish practice manifested by various communities in diverse places. Anglo Judaism is part of the spectrum of Jewish observance, nothing more. We don’t need to make a point of convincing people to become Anglos. You will join us if it is right for you. In my understanding, that is exactly what Hassidic communities are like. There is a “Path of the Baal Shem Tov” and many diverse communities which offer “spins” on that path, but no Hassidic Movement.

But let me drop the big picture and get back to the yummy brew I love. As I said, I have a little story to tell, and here it is. One of my first exposures to real Kavvanah was when the previous Skulener Rebbe,  R. Eliezer Zusia Portugal ZT”L would come to Miami Beach. The current Skulener Rebbi is the son of the Rebbe I’m talking about. He would accompany his Father down to Miami Beach, and so would the Rebbe’s faithful Gabbai…what we would call his personal secretary. I grew up in Miami Beach, and although I wasn’t Hassidic in my education, dress or mannerisms, I had developed a serious interest in Hassidic ideas and methods of prayer. Rebbes would often flee the harsh New York winters, arrive in Miami Beach and rent some low cost cottage or apartment way down in the dregs of South Beach. There was a small enclave of semi Hassidic Jews in that neighborhood, as well as a full time resident Rebbe (The Euheler Rebbe) who was a friend of my father’s. The ritzy party-land of So-Be was nothing more than a glimmer in the imaginations of a few arcane admirers of Art Deco architecture.

I got to pray with the Rebbe, sit with him at Shabbat meals, hear him sing and watch him dance. His intentions and concentration amazed me, and I could not be around him without catching his fire or coming to tears. He could raise his hands, intone a word and sway a certain way, and everyone there would be overcome with an intense sense of holiness.  I still believe you would need a heart of stone not to be effected. From my teachers in the yeshiva (which was also located in Miami Beach) I learned many amazing things. But there is very much I owe the Skulener Rebbe. He showed me how Torah and Divine service could transform a person. In my Yeshivah they gave me a hard time about my skipping out on Shabbat to hang with the Rebbe. Years later, I have no regrets about that. I would often go there for Regular morning prayers too, where I noticed that the Rebbe’s Gabbai, who was no small scholar and tzaddik in his own right, was passing out cups of coffee while asking “Will you have a Kavveh with your Kavveh?!” This was meant as a funny line, and strange as it might sound, I understood the pun without having it explained to me.

At the end of Psalm 27 there is a verse that says :”Kavve el Hashem” (Put your hope in Hashem) “hazak veametz libecha” (strengthen and fortify your heart) “Vekavveh el Hashem” (and put your hope in Hashem!) There is an obvious question. Why does the verse repeat the phrase “Kavveh el Hashem” twice. The answer, rather humorously given, is that the first “Kavveh” refers to liquid kavve (i.e. coffee.) That kavve strengthens your heart so you can pray and place your hope in Hashem (the spiritual Kavveh.)

The Rebbe’s Gabbai was asking the congregants if they wanted some coffee before prayer. I asked the Gabbai if it was really acceptable to drink something before prayers, since the plain sense of the Halacha is that you should not gratify one’self before praying. The Gabbai replied “This coffee is different, you drink it in order to be able to pray with Kavvanah”

“But” I kept on “The milk and sugar makes it quite delicious!”

“You are right. The Mishne Berurah says it is best to drink coffee without milk and sugar. But we think black coffee is just undrinkable. So we put sugar and milk. The point is that we drink this to be able to pray the right way, so it doesn’t pose a problem to prayer. So, will you have a Kavvae with your Kavveh?”

I did. Eventually I discovered that coffee with sugar and milk is just as likely to put me to sleep as wake me up, so I adopted a slightly more stringent practice. I add a small amount of milk, just enough to cut the bitterness. I do not add sugar. And that is the way I have been taking my pre-prayer coffee ever since.

We all know what coffee does. It gives a gentle buzz of wakefulness and focus. What might be surprising is the intentional use of coffee in awakening a state of Kavanah. Wouldn’t it be better if we generated wakefulness without the use of substances? Apparently not. The Hassidim stress the concept of uplifting sparks. This implies that there are latent forms of holiness in material things, which are released when material things are used to serve Hashem. It doesn’t matter that a substance is changing your brain chemistry. The altered state of awareness is a spiritual reality wrapped up in physical being and imprinted in its chemical structure. It exists in a physical substance because every physical object is part of G-d’s kingdom. It contains a lesson or a vision which becomes real through taking the substance. A state of awareness can be good, if it lifts you towards the light of truth. A state of awareness can be bad for you if it takes you down into unbalanced lust, passion, thoughtlessness or egotism. Some substances are helpful, while some are destructive and many are neutral. They react to the person. All substance use for spiritual goals has to determined by that purpose and take place in the company of Tzaddikkim and Torah scholars. Otherwise, watch out!

Since the beginning of history, the sacred substance most associated with Judaism was wine. I’m being perfectly honest when I say that our tradition explicitly sanctions the use of wine not just for ritual purposes, but as an aid to generating joy in the Divine service. (See Orhot Tzaddikim on Simha) Our tradition assumes that an enlightened person knows how to do this without lapsing into drunkenness. People who don’t have spiritual sense are not encouraged to drink alcohol. Just as an anecdote, I have gotten drunk with Chassidim and celebrated many times and tasted wonderful joy in drawing close to Hashem. When Becky and I moved to Ashkelon, I was invited to a bar mitzvah celebration of some people who were observant, but not Torah scholars. As is customary, as the celebration got going they passed around the hard liquor, drank “lehaim” endlessly and began to get rowdy. Thoughts of Torah and Mizvot went out the window. Laughter and off colored jokes flew around. I was deeply disappointed. I told the father of the Bar-Mitzva boy “You people don’t know how to drink!” the father replied: “Look at you! You have barely finished a single shot!” I left shortly thereafter, chastened with the knowledge that alcohol means different things to different people. I must mention that alcoholism is a real problem too. There are people who should never drink alcohol under any circumstances, and Hashem will certainly give them all the same spiritual heights in the merit of abstinence and humility.

Having said all that, I think it is fairly obvious that our tradition does have a certain shamanic element to it, in the sense that some substances are considered to be imbued with certain spiritual capacities which can be utilized for enhancing the divine service. In our tradition Wine is the original, and interestingly, aside from alcohol no other useful substances are noted until the early modern period. Whatever mind bending stuff was out there in antiquity, Jews didn’t do it. During the early modern period two new substances entered European society, one directly from the New World, and the other from Yemen through the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. They are tobacco and coffee.  The fact that these substances were becoming available at that time was taken as an indication that the moment had come for certain sparks to be uplifted that could not have been uplifted prior to them. It was considered a very auspicious time in history.

The Baal Shem Tov was extremely taken with Tobacco, and is reputed once to have exclaimed to a baffled Rabbinic Tribunal “Let me show you the New Heaven and New Earth I create by smoking my pipe!” The question of what the Baal Shem Tov put in that pipe is often raised. It is always understood that it was plain, perhaps very strong, tobacco. In the new world, tobacco was apart of Native American shamanism and vision quests for ages. A substance doesn’t have to be hallucinogenic to convey new levels of awareness. Tobacco may have opened the Baal Shem Tov’s mind in some way, but his visions were the result of his meditations. Currently, with the awareness of Tobacco’s addictive power and negative health impact, Hassidic communities are struggling to root out tobacco use.

Coffee came originally to the Arabian peninsula from Ethiopia. It was wholeheartedly adopted by Sufis for enhancing concentration and wakefulness particularly during all night Dikhr rituals. (Dikhr or Zikhr is a practice where the names of G-d are chanted over and over to the accompaniment of singing, drumming, swaying and dancing.)

 I don’t know of any Baal Shem Tov stories involving coffee, but I think the Skulener Rebbe’s Gabbai gives ample testimony enough to the intentional use of coffee in the divine service. If you take the three substances together (coffee, wine, and tobacco) they seem to form a triad of important states of awareness: Concentration, Ecstasy and Vision.  However, over time, tobacco turned out to be a dead end. It is much too bad for you. Wine (or alcohol) is problematic in an age when not many people seem to have much spiritual sense, and easily fall into addiction or wantonness. Currently I think that all the Hassidic groups are de-emphasizing or discouraging the use of alcohol. Coffee persists, and every Kabbalah yeshiva I know has a coffee station (or at the very least tea pot.) The sight of a person meditating on a Kabbalah text, coffee cup in hand, is commonplace.

I love coffee. I think I have made that clear enough. I think it can be said that I take it in a shamanic way. And please don’t misunderstand. I don’t have conversations with the coffee bean spirit. This is important to me because I struggle with the issue of the relationship between brain chemistry and spiritual experience. You can’t invalidate a spiritual state awareness because it emerges out of a physical phenomenon or a chemical structure. Spirituality is imprinted on material structures. That gives any particular physical substance its “segulah” or natural spiritual property. I take my coffee with the understanding that has a state of awareness imprinted on its makeup, which becomes lived awareness when I drink it, and which leads me to the creator, Hashem, King of Kings. Coffee conveys the taste of concentration and focus. Baruch Hashem that we live in a world with this substance in it! As long as I am on this topic, I may as well tell you that I also drink wine also in some contexts, but that is a different (though not unrelated) story.

Now let me move back to the big historical picture. Hassidic coffee drinking suggests a connection to Sufism. For certain, they invented coffee drinking for spiritual purposes. Many Torah observant Jews get upset if you point out any similarities between Jewish practices and those of other people. I don’t have a problem with that.  I think there are some undeniable parallels between what Hassidim do and what Sufis do. However, I do not mean to imply that Hassidic practices are taken over wholesale from Sufi practices. Parallels are not necessarily the result of direct imitation. They may result simply from the fact that in each part of the world, spiritual activities take forms that are natural to that place. The Land of Israel and the Middle East is our natural place. We were there long before Sufism and Islam and we undoubtedly exerted out own influence of the religious development of those and other traditions. (By the way, Rabbi Avraham son of the Rambam admired Sufis and explicitly made the claim they learned their practices from Jews.) Whatever you make of the similarities, there are great contrasts as well, which show that our tradition did not take up practices just because the neighbors were doing them. For instance, Sufi whirling is something that Jews don’t do.

(If you want to compare Hassidic and Sufi styles of dancing, singing and dress here a some You Tube links you can follow)

Hassidim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws0MLvvw3T0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyjBy19Mdmc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzwQNcbb3hc

Sufis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK_9FhWRldE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhVLk-VUCqs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umPlmEWqZSo&feature=related

The parallels and contrasts deserve to be explored in a much longer work, so I will stick to one similarity which you can see for yourself. Sufi dancing is reminiscent of Hassidic dancing, often comprising a group of worshippers and disciples standing in a tight circle, swaying and chanting while the spiritual master moves about in the center. The master is likely to wear a robe and a turban, the latter consisting of a cap around which a length of cloth is wrapped. While the material and colors are different, Hassidic clothing and head-gear seems to me to bear the same general form. A shtriemal looks to me like a turban adapted for European climates and sensibilities. Once again, my point is not to equate Jewish practice and Sufism, rather my general thesis is that much of what we think of as Hassidic practices are simply long standing traditional Jewish practices coming naturally from the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire. This style of Judaism is more ecstatic and more strongly flavored with Kabbalah than the European Ashkenazi practice which originated in Germany and which later moved into Poland and Lithuania.

During the renaissance the Ottoman Empire extended over the southern Ukraine, before it was conquered by the Polish Nobles at the beginning of the 1700’s. It is usually thought that Ashkenazi Jews moved into that area after the Poles retook it. However, I think it is just as likely that Jews with Middle Eastern traditions and sensibilities remained in the area. They were not exactly Ashkenaz Jews, and they tried as hard as they could to maintain Middle Eastern traditions, especially as regards clothing (which was central to their concepts of chastity, modesty and decency) in the face of a new European invasion. I can’t explain why they were Yiddish speakers. I must confess this is a problem for my thesis, but I don’t think that this wipes out my other evidence.

I maintain that in their Middle Eastern tradition Torah and Mitzvot were more a practice of transforming consciousness and cleaving experientially to Hashem than in the more objectivist European Ashkenaz tradition. Torah study was not valued as information to be accumulated but rather as a way of encountering the Divine. Self nullification was more valued than self mastery. In particular the Middle Eastern tradition saw European style clothes, and especially pants, as immodest and decadent, even for men. In the Middle Eastern tradition men wore tunics and robes that did not know the shape of the legs. In the older version of the Hassidic Dress, the caftan was not worn as an overcoat over pants but as a robe over long underwear. The Hassidic style of dress, (long caftan and distinctive hats) does not, in my opinion, serve to differentiate Jews from Non-Jews, but modest and chaste Middle Easterners from decadent Europeans.

 As it turns out, the Baal Shem Tov practiced standard Judaism for his part of the world. If there was anything out of the ordinary in his teachings, it was in his ability to explain the more opaque aspects of the Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah in terms that made sense in lived experience. As I see it, this does not qualify as a revolution. It is a natural growth out of the older Kabalistic tradition which simply makes it more accessible. Everybody in that social context accepted and embraced Kabbalah, though not that many may have personally understood it or experienced it. The Baal Shem Tov’s genius was in his expository method which helped explain at least some Kabbalah to everybody. In his day to day life the Baal Shem Tov was the official Kabbalist and healing practitioner of his city, which was not, as many think, some obscure backwater town far from the eyes of the Rabbinic establishment. Recently discovered documentation bears this out. In the official records of Mydzhibozh, it is noted that the Baal Shem Tov lived a house belonging to the Jewish community, that he was a public servant, and that his job title was "Doctor" or "Kabbalist"! The Baal Shem Tov functioned as a full member of the rabbinic establishment. He was not a fringe phenomenon. He helped everyone draw close to Hashem, the advanced scholar in one way, and the simple worker, shop keeper, merchant or artisan in another. Kabbalah was the official theology of that community, this helped make the community stronger and more committed to Torah.

 I believe that eventually, as Middle Eastern traditions expanded they came into confrontation with European Ashkenaz traditions and attitudes. Some people criticized Hassidim for making innovations. My suspicion is that such criticism was misplaced. It was not a matter of someone overturning a previous community precedent, but of an encounter between traditions which originally came from very different places. Hassidim did not see them selves as innovators or revolutionaries. Quite the opposite, they saw themselves (and continue to see themselves today) as defenders of authentic old time traditions! However, some Hassidim did tacitly accept the terms that were use against them. They accepted the idea that they were changing something. They had to ask themselves “Why are we justified in changing the status quo?” or “What were we striving for?” Hence the awareness arose amongst some Hassidim that they were justified in making changes because they were part of a new movement, founded by the Baal Shem Tov and tasked with the accomplishment of some great mission. This sense of being a movement with a mission seems to have coalesced around the Chabad dynasty. The great mission, of course, could not have been anything other than bringing the Mashiah! What other mission could there be?! Hence, I think that both the belief that Hassidism is a "movement" as well as  Chabad Messianism arises out of the same historical process.

There, I said it. Chassidism is not a movement. I believe it is the perpetuation of profound ecstatic Jewish traditions, originating in the fertile earth of the land of Israel, spreading through the Ottoman Empire and into Europe, morphing as it goes, but everywhere teaching a path to oneness with Hashem. It is currently distinct from Sephardic practice (which has been more influenced by the Rashash’ Kabbalah than by the Baal Shem Tov’s) although Moroccan Jews seem to have grown from the same tradition as Hassidim. There is a great affinity between Moroccan Jewish thought and practice and Hassidic ones. They share the same ideas about theology and Kabbalah. My Rebbe told me that the famous Abu Hazerah clan study Kabbalah primarily according to Chabad and Breslov interpretations. Baba Sali was known to have great reverence for the Baal Shem Tov. Hassidim, in turn, tell the story about how a Moroccan Sage, Rabbi Hayyim ben Attar traveled to the land of Israel. The Baal Shem Tov, who was in telepathic contact with Rabbi Hayyim also attempted to travel to the Land of Israel, believing that if only he could meet Rabbi Hayyim there, the messiah would arrive. The Baal Shem Tov’s famous journey to the Land of Israel was never completed, although his grandson Rebbi Nahman did make it and return. To this day Rabbi Hayyim ben Attar’s Torah commentary remains a standard text for Hassidim. The Baal Shem Tov was reputed to say that it was the commentary that he would have written.

So, do we need to talk about the coffee meditation? Just get a cup of brew. Then say the blessing over it. Taste the concentration in your mind. Remember that this coffee is imprinted with the chemical signature of a spiritual reality. Acknowledge how in the complexity of creation, materiality is spirituality. Your soul becomes embodied so it can discover the uniqueness of its own vision of the light of truth. Your body is etched with this vision of your soul in its physical form and chemical processes. When you concentrate your awareness you let it burst out of those material forms, like the taste of coffee, which is just a chemical form, but which bursts forth from that form as you taste it, enjoy it and understand it. When you focus yourself it feels like you are contracting (like the tight taste you get from coffee) but if you take that far enough, your contraction becomes reversed into an expansion. The secret meanings of your chemical processes shine outward like an explosion of awareness. Use this awareness to reach for the King and to transport yourself to the divine presence. Use it to try and understand a Torah text. Leave yourself a few gulps of coffee at the end. These you will drink quickly, so you may be certain that you can recite the final blessing. Give thanks for your experience and praise your creator!

Primer 9 "Light a Candle!"

Light a Candle!

The first years of the millennium were a depressing time for Israelis (they were bad for America too, but that is a different story.) There were terror attacks, border skirmishes, missiles and a bad economy. In 2002 Sarit Hadad represented Israel at the Eurovision song contest with a song that ran “light a candle…light a candle with me. A thousand candles in the dark will open our hearts.” The song did respectably, though in conversation with non-Israelis I was told that the whole idea of the song was puzzling. Why light candles? What were they supposed to accomplish? Why not just turn on the lights?

As it turns out, lighting candles in a Jewish social context is a highly symbolic gesture which often evokes a sense of the smallness of human consciousness in confrontation with the universe of seeming indifference. Scripture tells us that the human soul is the lamp of God (Proverbs 20.) Despite the candle’s smallness, it changes the universe it shines into to. The light of the human soul stands heroically against despair. Hadad’s song was in essence claiming “We will remain optimistic in spite of the difficulties!” Needless to say, candles are used in numerous ritual and customary ways: in memory of loved ones, on Shabbat and on Hannukah. What interests me here is the lighting of candles as a meditative gesture.

You will notice that I said “lighting of candles” and not “contemplation of candles” or “meditation by focusing your mind on a lit candle.” In my role as cranky arch traditionalist I have to say that don’t know of a Jewish meditation that involves staring at candle. Many a Rebbe will stare at the Hannukah candles. But then, seeing the Hannukah lights is part of the Mitzvah. Some teachers point to a famous passage in the Zohar (Genesis 52b) where it tells you that if you want to understand the secret of the Divine union you should observe a candle flame. Yet none of the commentators I know make any mention of staring at a candle as a way to unlock this secret. Apparently the Zohar is using the candle as an illustration for the point it wants to make, nothing more. Could it me that somewhere some Hassidic Rebbe once stared at a candle in a meditative way? I guess that might be, but have never seen it done. In any event, if one were to meditate by looking at a candle, the point of the meditation would be to understanding spiritual processes within the self, and especially the relationship between body, soul and the Shechinah. But here I am trying to keep things relatively simple and non-kabalistic.

What then can I transmit to you about lighting candles? Lighting candles can sometimes be a mitzvah in its own right. If your chosen meditation place is your local synagogue, it is a actually a mitzvah (by rabbinic enactment) to light candles there. It helps makes the place well lighted, honored and beautiful. Sadly, we seldom bother with this any longer because of the prevalence of electric lights. Candles seem irrelevant. But if you go to any Hassidic place of prayer or study, you will find that candles are lit before every prayer, morning afternoon and evening. The more light the better! Every candle adds some light, even if it isn’t noticeable. So, you can always light a candle in a synagogue. Now, if your chosen meditation spot is not a synagogue, what then? I was told two things. Firstly, you can always light a candle in memory of some departed tzaddik. Secondly, your chosen meditation place can have the status of a synagogue for you, since you will continually use your place for Divine service. Lighting candles is justified there as well.

Cranky arch traditionalist that I am, I remain skeptical of anything that isn’t a mitzvah. I am also somewhat skeptical about using dead tzaddikim as justification. If I am meditating at the grave of a tzaddik, then of course, the candle is affirmed by well established tradition. But If I am meditating someplace that is neither a synagogue nor a tomb, candle lighting is to my mind problematic. Still, I know this much. It is good to do sit in a lighted place, instead of stumbling about in the dark, and since I need to generate light, well it might as well be candle light. So I will light a candle of two instead of taking the easy way out and hitting the light switch. If, however, it is day time and there is plenty of light coming in, then I won’t light candles.

But, from the meditative angle, what do you accomplish by lighting candles? I will translate from Rabbenu Bachya (Kad Hakemah: Ner)

A person is required to light candles in synagogue, which is a place set aside for prayer. Prayer is an activity of the soul, and the soul is compared to a candle. It also says in proverbs “Light makes the righteous glad”. The soul is receives benefit and joy in the candle’s light and expands in that happiness. Light is of the soul’s nature, and what ever makes contact with something that shares its natures, rejoices in that contact. The soul rejoices in serving Hashem, and the divine service is not complete without joy. This is the basis for lighting candles in synagogue according to the “Peshat” (i.e. the plain meaning of the mitzvah) It might be argued that the candle generates mere physical light, while the soul is conscious light, nevertheless we find that the soul becomes enveloped in joy and bliss because of the candle’s light and awakens to the divine service joyfully.

Rabbenu Bachya points out in this passage that he is speaking on the level of Peshat, by which he means that there is nothing particularly mysterious or kabbalistic about these ideas. Still, they are very profound, and they touch upon the nature of the soul. We are informed that the closest thing in our experience to the soul is the phenomenon of light, and that in actuality; the soul becomes expansive through encountering light. Light shows the soul how to be itself.

Light illuminates the relatedness between objects in the world, and permits objects to express their visual characteristics, like number, size, shape and color. Things are real even in the dark, but light gives them new aspects, and makes visible the complex relationships between them. It can be said that Turning on the light recreates everything in a new way. Similarly the light of consciousness transforms what it touches. It builds upon the power of visible light by adding many additional aspects, like goodness and beauty. As a soul expands and sanctifies itself, it sanctifies its view of the world, bringing it closer to the light of G-d’s truth. Indeed, all individual souls have their source in the light of truth, yet each one offers a certain specific point of view, which comprises that souls’ uniqueness. “Just like no two faces are the same, so too no two minds are the same” (Yerushalmi Berachot 5:9) It is by becoming embodied, that a ray of the light of truth is able to experience its uniqueness and individuality. Body and soul are intimately one, and together comprise the self.

Prior to the awakening of the self in meditation, the soul is like light that is still wrapped up in the wax of the candle. Lighting the candle, like repentance, is a gesture of awakening the self. The meditation on the candle, like any of the gestures, is in the intentional enactment being done. Light your candle deliberately, understanding that in bringing forth this visible light you are bringing about an awakening of your own self. Beyond that, the meditation is not on the candle per se, but on the light. Let your mind blend with the visible light, and let your nature as light be released within you. Breathe in and out gently as you feel your awareness expand along with the light. As you contemplate the visible light, and feel your own soul as light, you should find waves of joy arising as your soul learns to recognize itself. Obviously, if you have not actually lit a candle, you can still do this meditation with sunlight or whatever kind of light is available.

Being a kind of light your soul adds dimensions beyond material substance to everything you see. You will discover spirituality as you illuminate your chosen place in the world with your mind. As you look around, notice how the light adds color and shadow, how it lets the objects around you interpenetrate and reflect each other. Your soul also shines on your surroundings in a G-dly way, showing their ephemeral nature on the one hand, and their being sustained by the creators boundless love on the other, which envelops everything in unity. Let no-one tell you that these levels of awareness are just subjective projections of your own thoughts onto the world. Your vision is evocative and creative, but not subjective. It creates what is already in the fabric of the world. At its highest and most creative, your vision merges with the light of G-d’s truth. There you create a-new what had been there from the beginning. Indeed, this is the secret of all ethical and enlightened striving. If we do not create goodness, it will not exist. Ye, when we create goodness, we see that it is nothing more than what G-d has done from the beginning.

“And more…much more than this….You did it yoooooour way!”

                                                                                         (a hat tip to Anka and Sinatra)  

Primer 8, Teshuvah and a Gesture

Teshuvah: Returning to God or “Repentance” 

(and a gesture too)

In the previous chapter I made some comments about cleanliness, both of the place and of the person. Cleanliness is indeed important for successful meditating. More important that physical cleanliness is cleanliness of the self. You are about to engage in the Divine service, and just as you wouldn’t want to stand before the King with any material stains, you would not want to have any spiritual stains either. In the Shiviti meditation you are attempting to move beyond illusory being (the illusion of independently existent person in a material body) into life in the light of truth. Intentions desires and deeds which are inconsistent with the light of truth cannot stand in the Divine presence. We who believe in the Halacha have extensive and elaborate notions concerning the Divine will. Deeds and intentions which go against in the divine will separate us from the light of truth. However, the greater impurities are those attitudes or personality traits which often go unnoticed, like selfishness, greed, anger and falsehood. Regardless of your views of Halacha, or the kind of Jewish community (if any) you belongs to, all can agree that negative personality or character traits and their damaging results should be repented of. Therefore it is important to do Teshuvah and return to God before engaging in you meditation session. Once you have identified some of the traits and actions to rectify (and remember that no-one can really see them all) Teshuvah comprises the following stages set down by the Rambam in his Laws of Teshuvah: 1) putting the sin aside and deciding never to do it again 2) regretting the sin and 3) confessing the sin. Teshuvah and atonement are really nothing less than miracles, accomplished by an unfathomable Divine purpose. The spiritual stains which keep you from the Divine presence are real. How many life times of penitence and austerity should it take to undo them? God's compassion transforms them in an instant. At our time in history the prevalent attitude is that one should not feel guilty. Yet without Teshuvah spiritual life is weighed down by negativity. Great clarity can be found in meditation if the miracle of Teshuvah is recognized and utilized

The Rambam’s requirement that a penitent promise never to do the sin again as part of the confession presents a problem for many. Can we really say to God “I will never do it again!”? Is there any point in lying to ourselves and our creator? For many of us (I am certainly no exception) our spiritual journey is full of advances, retreats, successes and failures. The goal is to become good, righteous enlightened persons, but the path is full of obstacles, twists and turns.

I once heard a great truth I heard from Harav Yochanan Zweig many years ago. To confess means being willing, at that time, to have God take away the desire for your sin so you will never do it again. If you can sincerely stand before God and be willing never to sin again, you will be cleansed. Such willingness is no small matter.  Sometimes we love and nurture our sins.  We would prefer to keep them and be released from their consequences. This is vanity. At least I must be willing to be released from the sin that traps me! Still, what if I just can’t bring my self to imagine life without the sin of my desires? What then? Perhaps it can be said, taking some inspiration from Rebbe Nachman, that I should be willing, at the very least, to have God make me willing.

Is this what the Rambam actually means? I don’t know. He actually seems quite strident in his rejection of any Teshuvah that is not absolute. And yet, anyone familiar with the Rambam’s writings in his “Eight Chapters” or his “Guide” cannot fail to notice how well the Rambam knew human nature. He knew that a teen with raging hormones is at a different developmental stage that a mature scholar. How then could he demand and absolute irrevocable repentance from everyone, when obviously, there are many stages and ages to be traversed before one can get it right? I think the answer can be found in the idea that Teshuvah involves the awakening of an inner self. As long as you see yourself only as natural organism the only way to satisfy the hunger for being, vitality and self fulfillment is through grasping and taking. Evolutionary biologists, with great difficulty, attempt the claim that even pure altruism can be explained as an adaptation that benefits the individual organism, or at least the organism’s genetic package. Teshuvah begins with the realization that one can transcends biology. There is a real inner freedom which is conditioned by the natural world, but limited by it. A free self can aspire to the light of truth. The awakening of the self is the fundamental act of Teshuvah.

Hopefully, if you are reading this you are already awakened in some way. You need to be focusing on your awakened state. You can strengthen your awakened state by thinking about your essential nature as a free being. Are you driven by bodily instincts, social conformity or consumer culture? Are you running through your life without attending to your own identity? Have you confronted the reality of death? Where do your desires lead? Do you really have to follow them helplessly? These questions, contemplated seriously, bring about an awakening of the self. The awakened self turns towards life in the light of truth.

If so, it might well be that that Rambam means for everybody to use the same formula and state “I will not do it again.” This is not a lie in God’s face. It is the authentic statement of the awakened self. If the penitent fails to withstand temptation at some future time, it will not have been a failure of the awakened self, but rather the result of the self falling back into slumber. In a sense, the awakened self never returns to the sin. It gives the sin to God in confession because the sin is not part of its nature. The more enlightened and righteous a person is, the more completely awake is the inner self. Awakening the self is a lifelong process. It begins with intermittent flashes, and hopefully it evolves into a steady state of awareness.

In any event, the Rambam’s formulation of the confession never became part of the Day of Atonement liturgy. The Sefardic liturgy contains an interesting disclaimer. The penitent tells God “Indeed I should promise you I will never sin again, but I fear my negative inclination. It is fire and I am but flesh, and if I were to lie at your face I would be adding guilt to my transgression” The Ashkenaz liturgy seems to accept as a given that we cannot promise God how we will behave in the future. We can repent sincerely in the here and now, and continue the journey of life to a successful conclusion.

Here is the text of the confession (somewhat shortened but essentially unchanged) taken from the bed-time reading of the Shema:

Master of the world, I hereby forgive anyone who has angered, insulted or injured me; be that injury to my body, my property, my honor or anything else I have. It doesn’t matter if the harm was done unwillingly or willingly, by accident or on purpose, by word or by deed. For all human beings, let no one suffer on account of me!

God who is God of our ancestors, let our prayers come before you. We are not so arrogant and stubborn as to tell you “We are righteous and have not sinned.” Indeed we and our ancestors have sinned. We have sinned, we have distorted ourselves, and we have transgressed before you.

[If you want, you can quietly specify the wrongdoings you remember]

What can we say to you? What can we tell you? Nothing is secret from you and nothing is hidden from your gaze. Let there be a will from before you Lord our God and God of our ancestors that you forgive us our sins, remit us our wrongdoings and atone for our transgressions.

My God! Before I was created I was unworthy, and now that I have been created, it is just as if I was never created. I am dust in my life, how much more so in death. May there be a will from before you that I never sin again and what I have sinned erase in your abundant mercy. May the words of my mouth be desired along with the thoughts of my heart, Lord my refuge and redeemer.

There is a well known gesture that goes along with reciting the confession. The gesture is to strike the heart gently with ones right fist, at the time that one mentions the word “I have sinned.” My father, Ze’ev Binyamin Glick of blessed memory, taught me some important commentary to that gesture. Like many things I learned at a young age, I failed to appreciate the depth and subtlety of his teaching at the time. Today I know it came from a very high place. He taught me that the gesture should not be performed forcefully. It is not a way of beating up on your self. The gesture should be done gently. Next he said that it is important to slip your fist under you jacket or under your tallit when you “beat your heart.” The gesture should be done in a private and personal way, not as a public visible demonstration of remorse.

The gesture has nothing to do with punishing yourself. Rather it is a gesture of awakening. Most all living creatures have heart beats. Pulse and rhythm is the sign of life. Teshuvah is an awakening of a new inner self, so it introduces a new pulse into the center of one’s being. The Human heart is approximately the size of ones clenched fist, so using the fist to symbolize a new heart beat makes a great deal of sense. The awakened self has an inner spiritual nature, and is not reducible to materiality biology or society. So too, “beating the heart” should be an inner act, performed in a subtle and private a way.

Primer part 7

Finding a Place and Time

It is a good idea to find yourself a special place for meditating. The place can be in your home, or out in nature. There is nothing wrong with having more than one place. Forests and caves have been popular choices, as well as graves of zaddikim (if you know of any zaddikim buried in caves, so much the better!) In the end, your local synagogue or Bet Midrash may be the best place of all. You can consider showing up half an hour early for Prayers and using the time for meditating. While in synagogue you should try to establish a spot you habitually use. You may find yourself drawn towards a certain spot, sometimes for no particular reason. I have always let my intuitions guide me.

There are no hard rules for picking a place, other than you should feel focused and calm there. While your local synagogue has the advantage of being a real sacred space unfortunately it is not always conducive to a calm and focused state of mind. You need a place where you won’t be self conscious, and if your local synagogue insists on a having formal, correct decorum, you won’t feel comfortable shaking, yelling and jumping around. If you think you will be doing gestures in a pronounced way, you will need someplace more private. There are some hassidic synagogues where everybody carries on in a pronounced way. The purpose is to create the kind of environment where you will have no need to worry that others think you’ve lost it, but then such places are often not conducive to a calm focused state of mind. Preferably, your place should be clean and nice smelling, and –let’s face it—some Hassidic synagogues leave something to be desired on that score. Of course some quiet spot in a forest could be wonderful, but spooky for people with spider and snake phobias. Likewise caves are a challenge to keep clean. Graves of zaddikim are plentiful in Israel and no-one will hassle you if you are seen carrying on there in the middle of the night. However, I would stay out of the mausoleums at the Forest Lawns Eternal Rest Park. Come to think of it, finding a place can be a challenge sometimes. For a long time, my place was in the laundry room in front of the window. I also have a little pine dotted dune at the top of a cliff where the surf pounds the sand. In the end, even if your place is not ideal it will be great because you are going to do great things there.

So, humor aside, your place should have as many of the following attributes as you can find: 1) Sanctity and or connection to nature, 2) Good quiet vibes and atmosphere 3) Cleanliness and nice smells, 4) Privacy and 5) Proximity. This means that your place should be close enough that it won’t be a drag getting there and back.

The best time for your meditation session is in the second half of the night, or during early morning, so it can feed into your daily prayers. If that doesn’t work, then any time is fine, just try to fit your meditation session so it prepares you for performing some mitzva or prayer that is part of your day.

Not only should your place be clean, you should also make a point of being clean yourself and wearing clean good smelling clothing. Be careful with basic hygiene. Go to the bathroom. Never underestimate the spiritual value of good regular movements. (According to the Talmud in Berachot, one who wakes up, goes to the bathroom, does the ritual hand washing, puts on tefillin, says shema and prays, is seen as building the altar in the temple and offering a sacrifice on it! So eat lots of fibre! Forgive me if I seem to be getting extreme here, but this is important both spiritually and for your health! Don’t rely on toilet paper to get you clean. Use water. You can always tell you are in a Kabbalah Yeshiva if the toilets all have little bidets installed in them!) Did I mention that you should brush your teeth? No point in searching for God with all that yucky plaque from last night. If you can get to a Mikveh, fantastic! If you don’t have a Mikveh in your area, you can shower and let “9 Kavs” (24 quarts) of water flow over you. This is usually estimated as being about three buckets, and any unrushed shower will probably use this much water anyway. In a very limited way, 9 Kavs is considered equivalent to the Mikveh for the purposes of sanctification and prayer (but not for Niddah or conversion which requires a real Mikveh.)

Once you have you place picked out there is a beautiful Kavvanah  you can do to “make an acquisition” of it for your meditation. Firstly, if you are fortunate enough to have a synagogue to meditate in, you can actually rent the place from the sexton. If not, well no harm done. The next step is to stand in your place and visualize the name YOD- HE- VAV-HE. Do not pronounce the letters, just see them. Then multiply the letter by each other. That is how you generate spaces mathematicly, right? Try to visualize YODxYOD (which is gematria ten times ten =100.) In your mind it should look like this :

י י י י י י י י י י 

Then visualize HExHE (five times five =25)

ה ה ה ה ה

 Then visualize VAVxVAV (six times six =36)

ו ו ו ו ו ו

And again HExHE (five times five =25)

ה ה ה ה ה

This all adds up to… (drumrole please) 186, which is the numerical equivalent of the word “place”

מקום

So visualize these letters, and dedicate yourself to using this place in a holy way, so you can find God (also referred to in Hebrew as “The Place”) 

המקום

I have heard of some people encircling their place seven times. I have even heard of some zaddikim who dance out the letters, taking ten steps here, five steps there etc, but I have never actually seen this done. I won’t recommend anything I have not seen first hand, but of course if you feel like dancing, why not?

As I said at the outset, not everybody is comfortable doing Kabbalah. When you start imagining letters and names that is when you have crossed the line between regular serious Divine service and Kabbalah. For those of you who want to avoid the Kabbalah, skip the visualization and go straight to the following little prayer: (In case you’re wondering it’s an original)

Master of all the worlds: In this place I will try to fulfill your commandments to believe in You and only You, to love You, to be in awe of You and do your will. Grant me success and draw me close to you always. Fulfill through me the verse: “One thing I asked from Hashem, and that I will request. Let me stay in the House of Hashem all the days of my life, to see the sweetness of Hashem and visit his sanctuary. Make your presence known in the world and redeem us! Amen!

Primer part 6

How to do the Gestures.

The gestures are meant to help you bring about the shifts in awareness. After all, it is possible to investigate the ephemeral nature of reality without actually getting it. You may imagine the name of God and imagine that the king is present; but you might not be able to hold the thought or focus. The idea of the king might leave you cold. The gestures help you concentrate your mind and make it reach down into your physical and emotional dimensions. The mind can think, but only when the heart and body awaken do spiritual truths become real. This reminds me of something I heard in the name of the Rebbi of Ishbitz. The Rebbe was heard to tell God “If you had really wanted that people should do your will, you should have put heaven in front of their faces and physical temptations in books. Instead you put heaven in books and temptations in front of their faces!” The point of meditating is to adjust the ratio between this-worldly experience and the light of truth. When your heart and body begin to respond, then you know you are getting the light. And again, please understand. Nothing is automatic. Believing in God means that you will trust in Him as you search, wait and wander. You can choose to find God, but you can’t force God’s hand. Also meditating with the gestures can look pretty strange, which is another reason why many zaddikim preferred going off into the forests by themselves. Eventually you may find that very small gestures can be more powerful than big dramatic ones. It seems sometimes that the smaller the gesture the greater its impact. But of course there is no right way or wrong way to do them. You have to go with what works and trust that G-d is drawing you close as you search for Him.

 The Shulhan Aruch supplies the basis for using gesture to bring about the transformation of consciousness (OH 48:1) “The pious customarily move about while reading the Torah, since the Torah was given in trembling. Similarly this is done while praying as well, in fulfillment of the verse ‘all my bones will say: Hashem, who is like you!’” while some authorities claim that the amidah prayer is best recited without motion, the Mishna Berurah concludes: “It all depends on the person. A person who focuses well through movement should move about. A person who does not, should just stand and pray making sure to focus the heart. Some of those who move about do so improperly. They keep their bodies stationary and move their heads back and forth in a haughty gesture, which should not be done.” By the way, I have never seen anyone just move his head. I wonder if perhaps the head movers were performing some left over Abulafian practice, which has since faded from common use. Rabbi Avraham Abulafia originally instructed his students to use elaborate head movements. Perhaps the Mishna Berurah was unaware of this tradition, or thought it to be an aberration. Since I want to stick with describing things that I have actually seen in a Hassidic worship, I will not expound on the head movements.

When you perform a gesture, you need to put your whole mind into it. This takes some practice and concentration. I like to think of a gesture as a riddle or a maze that one can solve by going into it and feeling it from the inside. You will experience the gesture as physical movement, as emotion and as thought. It will take you beyond thought as well. As the ancient philosophers noted, there is something in movement which defies logical categories. As you immerse yourself totally in the gesture, the hope is that you will open yourself to the larger process of which it is a part. Rising to the light of truth is a process intrinsic to being in the world. That is why the gestures are drawn from movements that happen spontaneously as a natural part of life. The light of truth is found in the ordinary. In describing the meanings of each gesture what you may discover in them I do not intend to offer a definitive and final statement. The fruit of the practice ripens when you find something new. If you find something other than what I describe, rejoice! It means you are walking the paths for real and encountering what is there. 

Primer part 6

A Primer for Jewish Meditation 5

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.