Shabbos Observance and the Coming of Moshiach (March 2012)

“And Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel upon his heart before HaShem continually”

Exodus 28:30

This text from Parashas Tetzaveh describes the Breastplate and the Urim and Thumim which Aaron wore as part of his ceremonial robes as the first high priest.

Judaism has no High Priest these days, and so the offices of the Temple are performed by each individual Jew when reciting the daily services. Each one of us bears the responsibility for the entire nation upon our individual hearts. In our worship, we often make special mention of people or causes which we seek to commend to God—a prayer for the sick or troubled people we care about who need a spiritual hug, or a plea for peace between opposed or squabbling factions. But one of the hidden messages of this little verse in Tetzaveh is perhaps that we actually bear those good intentions imprinted on our spiritual hearts already. The vestments are principally a “memorial” or a reminder of something which exists as a spiritual reality.

The spiritual reality here is that each of us is a “part” of God; each of us shares a common humanity; and each of us shares the same “Soul” with all the children of Israel (and indeed with all the Children of Adam). Consequently every action we undertake is simultaneously a personal act and a cosmic one.

When we pray each Shabbos—even though we do not make liturgical mention of our needs on the Sabbath day—we are taking the needs of Israel, of humanity, and  of all creation with us into the Sanctuary which that Day creates. The observance of Shabbos is like a silent prayer.

Our task on Shabbos is to “rest”—but just as Aaron wore those vestments as a silent prayer of supplication—so our observance of the Sabbath is also a silent prayer of supplication. By observing the peace (shalom) of Shabbos, we are actually “praying for” peace. By observing the rest (menuchah) of Shabbos we are actually “praying for” the end of strife and conflict. By observing the joy (simcha) of Shabbos, we are actually teaching ourselves to see the positive in all our changeable circumstances.

Such Peace, Tranquility, and Joy are things we would all wish for our friends and for all the World. Focussing on these concepts and practices each Shabbos is a way of realising that they are things we can choose; things we can create; things we can believe in. We are given them as a gift on Shabbos but in the six days of the week which follow we are expected to bring them into existence ourselves by our communal effort in all our week-day encounters.

To put it another way: The best way to “bring Moshiach” is not to ask for that as a gift but to make it happen by our own observance, and especially by letting our Shabbos observance (and insights) inform our weekday actions. And what each one of does as an individual to make this happen is automatically connected to the welfare of the entire Community.

This is what we lay upon our hearts when we “enter the sanctuary” and what we are expected to remember once we have “disrobed” at havdalah.

Norman R Davies

March 2 2012

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Contemplative Roots and Branches - (February 2012)

(Photo: Sorelle White)

On the “Fifth Day” of the tale called “The Seven Beggars”, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov tells us of a “Tree that stands beyond Space”.  This image has many overlapping and layered meanings in Breslov, many of which are explored  by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in his translation of the Tales. These include (among many others) the concepts of  the Garden of Eden, the role of the Tzaddik, the symbolism of the Temple, and the Gathering of the Exiles.  But to me—more than anything—"The Tree that stands beyond Space" is an image which highlights the “Place” of encounter between the contemplative and the Divine as being a state “located” in the One who is HaMakom, the only true place.

When we are engaged in contemplative study and prayer we are “taken out of” this world and “re-located” in the Heart of all worlds. We may be under our tallit or seated in solitude on a park bench. We may be sitting on a bus with our eyes closed or digging in a garden with our minds engaged in a wordless communication with the Creator.  We are "nowhere" because we have entered the Holy of Holies which is beyond measurement or geography.  And yet we have located ourselves at the root of the Tree of Life. Its branches are the performance of the mitzvot. Their function is to bring the rising sap to the  four corners of the world, and to bear fruit beyond the limits of our individual consciousness in whatever way God may desire.

I am writing this on Tu B’Shvat—the festival of the  New Year for Trees. Recently, I came across an extract from a liturgical poem which appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is called the “Parable of the Trees”  and it reads:  

“One day the Trees of Life will put forth a shoot which will become the Everlasting Plant, for they take root before they grow and extend their roots toward the stream.

And the Plant will open its stem to the living waters and will become an everlasting source of blessing.

But now all the Well-Watered Trees tower over it,

For they grow as soon as they are planted,

But their roots do not extend towards the stream.

And the trees that will one day put forth the holy shoot of the plant of truth-

These trees are hidden away;

Their secret is sealed, it is not valued, it is not known.

For You O God have hedged in its fruit on every side

With the mystery of angels, creatures of might, of holy spirits

And a whirling, flashing fire.”

(in Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse page 187)

Perhaps the Kabbalah tradition holds something of that  guarded secret which the “Trees of Life” value. In his Sefer Ha-Rimmon, Moses de Leon quotes this midrash:

“Sleep is an unripe fruit of death

A dream is an unripe fruit of prophecy.

The globe of the sun is an unripe fruit of the Original Light.

The Sabbath is an unripe fruit of the World-to-come.

Torah is an unripe fruit of Supernal Wisdom.”

(Bereshit Rabbah 17:5)

and then  he makes the following commentary:

Look! The root of Torah is supernal wisdom-hidden and concealed, perceived only through its wondrous pathways. How wondrous are the offshoots!  But since the root is wisdom, who can ever reach it.   That is why Israel’s sweet singer sang: Open my eyes, so I can see wonders out of your Torah!”

(Trans. D.C.Matt in Essential Kabbalah p.145)

This reminds me of a favourite extract from Rav Avraham Kook:

“One of the ways of studying Torah for its own sake, is with the intent to enrich the Jewish People with great spiritual powers. The more the light of Torah, its love and respect, increase in the heart of one Jew, the stronger and more powerful becomes the nation. The individual soul of this person becomes enhanced and more whole, and sends forth branches and roots .”

    ( Lightsof Torah. Chapter 2 )

Whether we celebrate a Tsfat-style seder for the festival of Tu B'Shvat or not –we can all make it a day of contemplative study of the Tree of Life, the Torah which is written on our heart. 

Nor is this something which is confined to this particular day. For "The Tree" which is beyond Space is also beyond Time.  The Torah is given anew in every moment and we only need to "turn" towards it to show our desire to dwell on its branches or in its shade. There is a miracle here.  Through no merit of our own, and by the unfathomable will of our God, we are capable of being "re-located" in the Heart of this Tree at any moment.  

 May our prayerful study “send forth branches and roots”.

Norman R.Davies

7^th February 2012

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Solitude in Jewish Contemplative Practice - February 2012

In the tractate of the Mishnah known as the “Ethics of the Fathers”, we are strongly advised “not to separate ourselves from the community” (Pirkei Avot 2:5). Anyone attempting to lead a Jewish solitary life has to come to terms with this directive, yet there have always been Jews who have felt inspired to make solitary lives of prayer and study their main spiritual discipline and a major part of their contribution to the life of the Community of Israel.

If you consult a modern Hebrew dictionary, you will discover that the word for solitude is “b’didut”. In Jewish mystical theology the related term “hitbodedut” (often transliterated as “hisbodedus”) has been used for centuries to denote interior and exterior seclusion for contemplative prayer and meditation. Despite this history, a non-Jewish observer might find it hard to see evidence of physical or spiritual solitude in Jewish practice—and many Jews might even declare that there is no place for it in Judaism at all. In this short essay I hope to shine a little positive light on that gloomy misconception.

The two main reasons for the apparent dearth of solitary practice in Judaism are its insistent focus on communal activity and its objections to life-long celibacy. Judaism does not generally encourage physical withdrawal from society, it encourages the pursuit of justice and mercy through social action. Judaism does not encourage monastic celibacy as a way of expressing devotion, dedication, or as a spiritual technique. Instead it regards procreation (Genesis 1:28) and the education of children by the family unit (Deuteronomy 6:7) to be positive mitzvot—commandments to be observed. It also insists that communal liturgical prayer is the ideal form of Jewish worship, and it makes the presence of a minyan (ten worshippers) the condition for many full liturgical usages in order to assert this directive somewhat forcefully.

Nevertheless, if we look at the lives of Jews with a leaning towards meditation, contemplation, and meticulous religious observance we may find surprising and highly significant anomalies in the practice of religious solitude. I am not merely referring to fringe pietist groups or minority eccentrics here, but towering figures like Moses our Teacher, Elijah the prophet, Rabbi Isaac Luria the eminent kabbalist, and the Baal Shem Tov, founder of “modern” chassidism. These are not Jews on the fringe. They are the generators and exemplars of quintessential Jewish spiritual practice.

Moses and Elijah were both advocates of religious solitude by example. Moses spent two very long retreats on top of Mount Sinai in deep solitude. He also left his wife and family behind and lived in celibacy for many years. Elijah appears to have been unmarried and childless yet, in a sense, his progeny are the contemplative Jews in each era. In every generation, each contemplative Jew follows Elijah into the cave of solitude to refine his/her spiritual attentiveness to the inner voice of the divine, and our tradition declares Elijah to be the archetypal mentor of those blessed to receive the gift of “his” mystical instruction. To be “under the mantle of Elijah” is to receive a profound contemplative awareness—a change in perspective— which is brought about by God’s inspiration.

When Moses went “into the Cloud” (Exodus 24:18), it was for a solitary retreat of forty days. Elijah’s encounter with the “still small voice” in the cave on Horeb (I Kings 19:9-18) was the climactic event which concluded a long solitary journey of forty days (I Kings 19:8). This was a biblical “zen walking meditation” par excellence. These experiences were not the biblical equivalent of a short “weekend retreat”. They were significantly long periods of isolated meditation intended, I would suggest, as models for future Jewish practice.

The giving of the Torah at Sinai was a unique religious event in that it was not an individual but a communal revelation. All of Israel experienced this event and, in a sense, the Torah was received by each individual in their own heart—in a spiritual solitude which is deeper than any mere physical solitude ever could be. It is “solitude within a crowd” and it is reflected each and every day in the traditional Jewish liturgy. Each communal service has periods where congregation members recite the central prayer of eighteen blessings (the Shemoneh Esreh) silently. At this and at other times during communal worship, they pray in secluded privacy under their tallitot ( prayer shawls), often at their own pace while absorbed in a text on the pages of their own prayer-book. They are worshipping in community, yet praying alone in interior solitude.

Elijah was only able to hear the “still small voice” when he had ignored the hustle and bustle of normal existence. The earthquake, and the wind, and the fire of our frenetic business and social lives can sometimes obscure a call to experience a deeper level of daat (religious encounter) or a more profound revelation of God’s will (ratzon). The messages of the “still small voice” are often the very ones which we are trying to avoid confronting, receiving, or putting into practice ourselves. Perhaps it is in a combination of external and internal solitude that we can best be aware of this tiny and hidden spark of inspiration (ruach ha-kodesh). Elijah was a Jewish mover and shaker, for certain—but even he went on a retreat. His is a Jewish example of religious solitude which many Jews ignore.

In chapter thirteen of his manual for Jewish pietists (Sefer Ha Maspik, in Rabbi Wincelberg’s English translation, “The Guide to Serving God”), Rabbi Abraham Maimonides (1186-1237) considers the biblical use of solitary meditation and suggests that we might follow the examples of Isaac meditating in the field (Genesis 24:63); of Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:3) and in his “Tent of Meeting” outside the camp” (Exodus 33:7); and Joshua during his long retreat there ( Exodus 33:11). He also gives us one of the most comprehensive definitions of Jewish solitary practice in existence when he writes:

“Outward retreat (hitbodedut) might be total, such as to separate from the city to isolate oneself in deserts, mountains, or other uninhabited places. It might be partial, such as to isolate oneself in houses. It might be frequent, or occasional, for long periods, or for short periods. But it is impossible in this world for one to retreat for an entire lifetime.”

(from the “Sefer HaMaspik” Chapter 13 trans Rabbi Yaakov Wincelberg in “Guide to Serving God” p 495)

Rabbi Abraham’s definition holds good for every Jewish solitary from the biblical era to the present day.

It is worth noting that attempts to incorporate solitude into Jewish life have most often been a case of a single Jew practicing a temporary hermit lifestyle rather than the communal monastic one. Christian solitaries have usually chosen to live as anchorites (confined in a building); as hermits (living in physical solitude); or as communal but eremitical monks ( sharing some aspects of religious life but spending the majority of time in isolation in a cell). Yet even these forms were not without some representation in Jewish practice. For example Rabbi Chaim Vital (1542-1620) writes when speaking of the “early saints” (chassidim rishonim) mentioned in the Talmud:

“These individuals would travel to rocky caves and deserts, secluded from the affairs of society. Some would seclude themselves in their homes, as isolated as those who went into the deserts. Day and night, they would continuously praise their Creator, repeating the words of the Torah, and chanting the Psalms, which gladden the heart.”

From “Sha’arey Kedushah” trans Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan on p94 of “Meditation and Kabbalah.”

There is, however, one notable example of a Jewish “communal eremitic monasticism”: the Order of the Therapeutae. The sole surviving historical source for knowledge of this Jewish religious order is Philo’s “De Vita Contemplativa” written early in the First Century C.E. (A.D.) Some scholars suggest that the community must have been formed of elderly “retired parents” and temporarily dedicated young pre-nuptual assistants. They were each secluded in a small hermitage with a private garden and prayer room with the cells grouped around a communal building, rather like the arrangement used by the Carthusian monks of the Christian religion. Each of the “communal hermits” of the Jewish monastic order of Therapeutae (both female and male) lived in solitude during the first six days of the week, but on the Sabbath, the entire community would gather for communal meals and services.

By combining Sabbath assembly with weekday solitude, perhaps the Therapeutae were attempting to reconcile the need for community observance with the countervailing impulse to lead solitary contemplative lives. It was this “Sabbath/weekday compromise” that was most often taken up by those later kabbalists and chassidim who felt particularly drawn to solitary practice— though almost exclusively in a solitary eremitical rather than a monastic form.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) writes:

“As a young man, Rabbi Yitzhak Luria, the founder of the Lurianic Kabbalah, removed to the banks of the Nile. For seven years he secluded himself in meditation, visiting his family only on the Sabbath, speaking seldom and then only in Hebrew, which was not commonly spoken in his time. Chassidic lore tells us that as a young man the Baal Shem Tov spent many years alone in the Carpathian Mountains.

Solitude was a common practice among mystically inclined Jews. Even the non-mystical Jewish writers of the Middle Ages seemed to agree that solitary living was indispensable to the attainment of spiritual purity. This view may be found in the writings of Abraham Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Badarshi, Falaquera, Gersonides, Albo, Crescas, and Abravanel among others.”

(from “A Passion for Truth” p 214, Rabbi A.J.Heschel)

The subject of that essay, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787-1859), spent no less than nineteen years secluded in a single room adjacent to his shul, only venturing out when called to the reading of the Torah. Rabbi Joseph Horwitz of Novhardok (1848-1919) spent eighteen months as a “Jewish anchorite” in solitary retreat in a room with a bricked-up door and holes in the wall for delivering his food. He agreed to marry, but only on condition that he be allowed to spend all the weekdays in solitude in a forest hermitage. He lived like that permanently for twelve years. In the Breslov community, kabbalist-ascetic Reb Avraham ben Reb Nachman Chazan (1849-1917) also spent his weekdays in solitude in the woods outside Uman for many years, returning home each week only on the Sabbath.

But these, one must admit, are exceptional examples of an extreme practice of seclusion. In many ways, the more typically Jewish use of solitude as a religious discipline is one which is practiced in comparatively short retreats, or in regular periods of secluded meditation whose duration is measured in just hours, or even minutes. Rabbi Abraham Abulafia (1240-1291) writes:

“Choose a special place for yourself where your voice will not be heard. Meditate alone with no-one else present. If you engage in this by day do so in a darkened room. It is best if you do this at night.”

(“Chayei Olam HaBah,” trans. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in “Meditation and Kabbalah,” p. 107)

The same practice is recommended by Rabbi Chayim Vital (1542-1620):

“You should be in a room by yourself...It should be a place where you will not be distracted by the sound of human voices or the chirping of birds. The best time to do this is shortly after midnight”

(“Shaarei Kedushah,” trans. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in “Meditation and Kabbalah,” p. 197)

The practice of such solitary prayer is especially dear to the followers of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1811) who used the word hitbodedut to denote a form of informal prayer in solitude to be practiced on a daily basis by Jews of every type and spiritual capability. Here are three short examples of his advice on this:

“It would be good if we could spend our entire day in hitbodedut. However, not everyone is capable of this. Therefore, we should spend at least one hour each day alone, meditating and speaking to God.

However, if a person's heart is strong, and he wishes to accept upon himself the yoke of Divine service, in truth he should aspire to practice hitbodedut all day long. Thus, our Sages declared: "Would that a person could pray all day long!” (Berakhot 21a)”

(Likutey Moharan 11, 96, trans. Rabbi David Sears in “The Tree that Stands beyond Space,” p. 78)

“It is also necessary that you should meditate in an isolated place. It should be outside the city, or on a lonely street, or some other place where other people are not found. (...) You must therefore be alone, at night, on an isolated path where people are not usually found. Go there and meditate.”

(Likutey Moharan I, 52, trans. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in “Meditation and Kabbalah,” p. 310)

“Hitbodedut meditation is the best and the highest level of worship. Set aside an hour or more each day to mediate, in the fields or in a room, pouring out your thoughts to God .... Every person can express his own thoughts, each according to his own level. You should be very careful with this practice, accustoming yourself to do it at a set time each day.”

(Likutey Moharan II, 25, trans. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in “Meditation and Kabbalah,” p. 309)

In his Sefer HaMaspik, Rabbi Abraham Maimonides tells us that the “great sages” (gedolim) used to pronounce the following blessing:

“May God enable you to feel companionship in solitude and loneliness in a crowd”

(op.cit. p 529)

This is perhaps the most perfect Jewish way to practice the spiritual discipline of solitude. A Jew does not seek withdrawal from society for too long, yet appreciates that physical solitude is often necessary for spiritual health and growth. A contemplative Jew is like Jacob in Genesis 35: He is one who wrestles with both God and Humanity in the privacy of his own heart. But in that solitary struggle he is not simply a “Jacob,” an individual in solitude. He is also “Israel,” - a spiritually generative and essential part of his greater religious community. As Rabbi Moses Cordovero (1522-1570) writes:

“All Israel is related one to the other, for their souls are united, and in each soul there is a portion of all the others.”

("Tomer Devorah" 4:6)

When Jews practice solitude as a spiritual discipline, they take the Community of Israel with them into their own personal “desert”—they have not withdrawn from Jewish or global society at all, but have chosen a particularly deep form of spiritual engagement with them. Their seclusion and solitude is not a form of self-regard or a method of character development because, above all else, they cleave to the Solitary One in order to become useful as conduits of His Light. Whether physically isolated or not, they have withdrawn into the cave of the heart—and from there they hope to draw down the compassion of the God of Israel on all creation.

©Norman R. Davies

January 1 2012

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A brief digest of this article is to be published on the website “Spiritual Discipline” (details to follow)

For those interested in a more advanced study and practice of “hitbodedut”, I highly recommend the online archive of classical Jewish texts to be found on the website “Solitude-Hisbodedus” which can be accessed HERE. 

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Crying to God in the Winter- January 2012

(photo by Sorelle White)

“But they did not listen to Moses because their spirits were broken and because of the hard labour”
Exodus 6:9

My mother often used to say that “we should not cry to God only in the winter”. She had no patience with the idea that people might call on God only when they wanted something, nor did she approve of people turning to God only during difficult times. Perhaps God shares something of her perspective?

The quoted verse from Parashat Va’eira might remind us that it is possible for hard times to be the cause of us not turning to God in prayer—and also of our disregard of His promises. Sometimes hard times can be so absorbing that we close our ears to His supportive advice or our eyes to the solutions He may be trying to show us. Often this is because we are simply too focussed on our selves, or on our own opinions, or on the apparent impossibility of the “tasks” we are struggling to perform. His interventions are not always as dramatic as those of the Exodus even though they may be just as much a demonstration of His Hand at work.

At other times we do not “cry out to God” because we are “simply having a wonderful time, thank you” and so don’t feel the need. This is obviously even more shameful a situation: we are forgetting that every breath we take in and breathe out is a gift. (In the quoted verse from Parashat Va' eira, my artscroll Chumash  translates "broken spirits" as "shortness of breath"--the original idiom being "mikotzer ruach")--We are forgetting that Providence is not Fate, but the mercy and generosity of God who sustains all—regardless of any lack of gratitude on our part.

Whether we are up or down, whether we are panting for breath under heavy labours or sighing with pleasure and contentment...may we never forget the One who performs miracles in every moment, and who offers to lead us out of Egypt, if we would only let Him.

N.R.Davies

January 20 2012

Poem: At the End of Bereishit - (January 2012)

“I wait for your salvation, O Lord”

(Genesis 49:18)

Sometimes we have to just get out there and do things.

To be the Hand of God ourselves and make things happen.

Other times we know we are just being asked to wait:

-For the right moment,

-For the missing piece of a jigsaw,

-For the help of another human-being.

At all times,

-Whether we are engaged in action

or in incubation

-Whether we are trying to fight our own battles

or despairing that we might never be able to enter the battle-field on account of our fear;

-Whether we are doing our best to help someone we love,

or just feeling frustrated that we can do little more than offer a hug or some verbal support;

In all these times

it is always HaShem alone who “saves”.

It is only in His Strength that we are empowered;

Only in His Love that we are able to be generous;

Only in His Mercy that we can be as kind to ourselves as we are trying to be to others.

In the end

Everything is God.

Our task is to “wait” on Him as servants and children

Whether we see ourselves as active or passive

“Doing it for ourselves”

or

“Expecting His signs and assistance”

It’s always His action anyway...

In the end

Everything is God.

(a Reflection on Parashat Vayechi)

N R Davies

January 6 2012
(posted Motzei Shabbos after Havdalah)




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Jacob's Angels and the House of Prayer - (December 2011)

Parshat Vayeitzei  opens with the story of Jacob’s dream of a ladder and its angels. It describes Jacob’s encounter with the Divine at the Place which Jacob then called the “gate” of Heaven. (Genesis 28:17).

He named the place of revelation Beit El, the House of God.

In one sense, this “place” is the future Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But it is also the “part” of God we might call “the Temple in Heaven”- a place of encounter and revelation which may be found in the hearts of all who seek God in humility and awe. We “go” there when we daven the liturgy, when we practice receptive contemplative prayer (hitbonenut), and when we engage in discursive private prayer (hitbodedut).

In  Haftarat Vayeitzei  (for Sefardim) we read the following:

“At Beit El he found him, and there he will speak with us.”

Hosea 12:5

Much academic ink has been used in translating and interpreting this verse, with variants including:

He (Jacob) found Him (God) at Beit El

He (God found him (Jacob) at Beit El

He/he (the angel) found him (Jacob) at Beit El

and

There He (God) will speak to HIM (Jacob)

There He spoke to US(Jacob’s descendents)

Most of the variations in translation/interpretation seem to come from the fact that the Masorete text uses “imanu” (with us) whilst the Septuagint uses “imo”. I do not speak either Ivrit or Biblical Hebrew and I am no Bible Scholar, I simply spotted the variation in my three different Bibles and then found the reasons clearly expressed online HERE.

Whenever a Biblical text has multiple meanings I prick up my ears.

- I remember the “sight of sound” (Exodus 20:15) that we experienced at Sinai.

- I remember the Shin and Zayin engraved on my Shabbos candle-sticks.

They divide and separate flame while bearing one light.

One candle for Shamor, one for Zachor;

-I remember that “God has spoken once, twice have I heard” (Psalm 62:12)

-And above all, I remember “I will be what I will be”. (Exodus 3:14)

Whatever the academic reasons for the variations in the Hosea text, the Haftarah quote is rich in potential meanings. The ambiguity is a textual challenge but it is also a deliberate and beautiful product of its poetic and prophetic form.

In what way does this textual “Angel of Jacob” speak to us as Jewish Contemplatives?

The Jacob narrative in Bereishit is full of such deliberate ambiguity, particularly when the text is attempting to describe Divine action. Many times the revelation shimmers around the action without confirming its author. This is especially so in the  description of Jacob’s struggle with “a man” in Parashat Vayishlach (Gen 33:25)... We are never quite sure how revelation is taking place. Is it an encounter with God Himself, the angels He sends, or the humans and circumstances Jacob encounters? As contemplative Jews, we ask ourselves the same questions in our own prayer lives. Sometimes our periods of solitary and reflective prayer throw these questions up for us to consider. Sometimes those periods contain the moments when we are given answers.

Beit El is the “House of Prayer” which we enter in hitbodedut.

It is not just the place where we speak our thoughts and desires to HaShem.

It is also the place where we hope to hear the Voice of God responding to our prayers, and in this we may attempt to follow Jacob’s example.

In Part Two of Kuntres M’arat Ha-Lev (The first of the entries on this website/blog written in 2005) I wrote at length about hearing “the Voice” (the description is found at section "2c" HERE). It was a deliberately ambiguous passage as it touched lightly on areas of mystical experience which are best not described in detail, but experienced anew by each person. It is true that in a tiny number of instances I was writing about the Voice of God, heard with the ears of the mind or soul and not the body and always filtered and obscured by our personalities and powers of imagination. Such “auditory” spiritual experiences may happen once in a life-time if at all. They are most certainly a rarity.

Let’s take a look at Jacob’s own experience in this matter:

In Jacob’s “147” years (Gen 47:28) he had direct (recorded) experience of “hearing God’s Voice”- at Bethel (while re-affirming the Abrahamic covenant) at Gen 28; during the stay with Laban (requiring his return to Canaan)- at Gen 31; at Jabbok/Peniel (when wrestling and receiving a name change) – at Gen 32; on being sent back to Bethel (reiteration of the covenant) – at Gen 35; at Beer-Sheba (en route to Egypt to meet Joseph) at Gen 46. That’s only five times in one hundred and forty-seven years. That seems about right to me, for a Patriarch. It should also help us to keep our mystical aspirations in realistically humble perspective.

But there are several times when Jacob “hears” God’s voice less “directly”: via angels (messengers) and during dreams. These less “exalted” and more indirect types of spiritual experience are also far more common in the lives of ordinary contemplatives. Though they seem to come in infrequent but intense bursts, we often have a very clear intuition that they are in the nature of personal revelations and epiphanies. A request made in prayer for illumination on a problem (sometimes practical, sometimes theological, sometimes career-based, sometimes ethical) is often followed by one or many of the following:

An impulse to open a particular book and finding a directly relevant passage;

A coincidental reading of an answering phrase in an unrelated book we are currently reading;

A passage in the Bible or Siddur which leaps out at us unexpectedly;

A meeting with a friend, or more often a stranger who says something directly pertinent to our question with no possible way of knowing it was on our mind;

A scene in a television programme hitting our nail on its head;

An apparently meaningless tune that enters our head and replays itself until we slowly remember the lyrics which, (Surprise! Surprise!) fit our problems’ solution exactly;

A telephone call or email from someone we had not heard from for months or years expressing related thoughts or initiating a coincidence which leads to an “answer”.

The list could go on and on. For me, these are clear examples of angels bearing messages from God for our own individual ears. In those months or years when we don’t seem to be meeting such angels we can feel quite desolate. We would be floating on air, or perhaps gasping for breath in the suffocation of immanence, if these events came too frequently or too intensely. Sometimes it is almost a relief when they stop visiting us. But when they happen, we really ought to be grateful and sit up and take notice. We may not be Jacob. But we are his descendents. They are gifts which are more common than many will admit.

Though it does not follow infallibly, I think it is also true to say that:

-the deeper one’s silent periods in daily living are;

-the more frequent or intense one’s specifically attentive periods in prayer are;

-and the less one is expecting a dramatic answer yet still persistently asking for help:

....the more likely it seems to be that these angels visit us.

Our task is to be ever on the lookout for such opportunities, and sometimes these “angels” are only “recognized” by us if we are prepared to wrestle with them.

But what of the many years that Jacob was neither talking to God “directly”, encountering clearly “angelic” messengers, or accessing the “world which is coming” in his sleep?

Jacob was a man who saw Providence at work because he had time to reflect upon it. His tale is also one of great human drama:- as he followed his mother’s dynastic schemes and plans; as he learnt a hard lesson about deceit when he himself was deceived by Laban; as he was torn apart by fear of his brother, as he struggled to keep his large and volatile family together, as he suffered the long years of the agony of Joseph’s disappearance. In all of this he was a man of contemplative bent. A shepherd, a tent-dweller, one who would have preferred to stay “at home”. Such a person would have been attentively listening for the “Voice of God” in the most apparently secular/mundane aspects of his life. Such a person would have heard the Voice of God everywhere and in everything….certainly from the time he had realised that “God was in this place” and “he knew it not” onwards.

For us it is also the same. As contemplatives, we are not always scaling stairways to heaven, but we are forever going up and coming down so that, bit by bit, we are removing the veils which hide our God in both the night of our private prayers and in the brash daylight of our ordinary lives. We may find an angelic light enmeshed in the apparently mundane, just as we might find the answers to our prayers surprisingly ordinary and down-to-earth.

Many commentators wrestle with the (literary) Angel of Peniel. Some say it was God’s Presence. Some say it was the angel of Esau (or even Esau himself). Some say it was an “ordinary” man sent as a messenger to try Jacob. Some say it was the fear inside Jacob emerging in a dream. It could be all, or many, of those simultaneously.

All of these are messengers of Ein Sof. We hear the Voice of God in the secular as well as the religious. In the speech of our family and friends. In the written word which we seek or find. In a talmud which is composed of the daily events in our lives. In a scripture which is formed by our unfolding life stories and choices.

God found Jacob in His house, and in that House He will speak with us.

Once we have encountered God, for however short a moment in time, we know what “home” really means.

Whether you are living “in a cave” as a full-time contemplative as I am able to at the moment—or if your life is largely active with moments of silent waiting on God squeezed in wherever you can – or if you are unable to pray and just wish you could. If you place yourself in God’s House……that is to say, if you make God your focal point above all else… I guarantee, you will meet his angels. More than that, He will let you “find Him and there He will speak with you”.

N R Davies

December 1 2011

(This commentary was written for the private Jewish Contemplatives Community website and was originally published there in 2008.)

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Treasuring the Concealed (Nov 2011)

Contemplatives and practical students of the Jewish mystical tradition are sometimes described as being engaged in a “spiritual-search”,the implication being that they are seekers who are engaged in a continuous process of discovery and not an elite who have somehow "arrived". A Jewish contemplative is ever engaged on a journey towards God and yet, as a Jew, he or she realises that the journey can never end. How could it when it leads to the One who is “eternally ever-present”? Such infinity is not something we can ever grasp or possess.

The Jewish contemplative hopes to be granted an experience of the Eternal One but accepts that this experience can only ever be partially understood. It is an encounter with a deeply veiled awareness of a Presence whose actual Being is beyond our comprehension. Most Jewish mystics experience only the very merest hint of this veiled Presence, and yet the memory of that fleeting moment is often sufficient to inspire a whole lifetime of contemplative yearning for further contact.

Such a motivating experience is an experience of devekut (cleaving and attachment to God). It is not a superior state of human perception and understanding achieved by any practice or method of our own devising and it cannot be taught. It is a form of moral and spiritual contemplative bonding which simply makes us useful to the Creator. Its purpose is to show us that we are in a relationship with One who requires our effort, our loving compliance, and our determination to be made more “in His image” as each day passes.

In a nutshell, when we cease to see ourselves or focus on our own needs, but look in God’s direction and hope to meet Him in some way, we will find ourselves looking back through His eyes. This is perhaps the closest we can come to "enlightenment" and experiencing it is a process which never ends.

If there is to be any enlightenment on a Jewish mystical path, it does not consist in arriving at an all-encompassing grasp of the Divine master-plan- rather it is something which is most usually encountered in moments of prophetic or inspirational intuition which can then nourish our otherwise transient and changeable experience. As Jewish contemplatives, we are expected to draw nourishment from the deeply buried memory, the muffled echo, and the glimmering after-glow of Sinai as it presents itself to us in the ordinary but often synchronous events of each and every day. To see and hear the unbearable thunder of the Voice of Sinai in every moment was beyond us then and it is beyond us now. Our blessing is to be spoon fed digestible measures of spiritual manna and to hear the message of that voice as a still small whisper, a barely distinguished hint, a kol d’mama dakah.

When we daven or meditate, when we spend time with our God  in discursive hitbodedut or reflective hitbonenut , we do not do so because we want to achieve something for ourselves-we pray because we are commanded to and because we wish to take our observance of the commandments to “cleave to God” and to “love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength” to their fullest and most authentically Jewish levels. Not as an act of philosophy, spirituality, or mysticism per se, but as an act of religious service.

The effectiveness of this realistic and humble approach to the spiritual and mystical journey has its root in the process known as bittul haYesh: There is no point in demanding that our thirst for total control over the wildness of existence be quenched at all costs. Our desire for certitudes and a clear vision of a spiritual “God-particle” is certain to miss the "target" as the Target is simply beyond our reach and skill. It is an approach which reminds Jews of their own place as the devoted servants of a commanding and loving God. The concealment of God is not a barrier to be breached, nor is it a negative situation which we ought to try to “remedy”. It is the Kevod of HaShem made partially accessible. It is a gift to be treasured.

In Tehillim we read:

“Wonderfully concealed are your testimonies,

Therefore my soul has treasured them.”

Psalm 119: 129

The words of the Living God are pathways to walk on, shining lights to inspire us or guide our choices; flowing rivers to nourish our seminal hopes and growing thoughts; and they are a Tree of Life which is planted in heaven yet intended to bear fruit on this earth. In other words, they are a process not contained by tangible items or mental conceptualisation and the One who makes them has made them as ultimately beyond our full comprehension as His own Being is and always will be.

This in itself is a treasure, and being aware of it enables us to be both the beneficiaries and the transmitters of the Hidden Light we are then freed to hold in our embrace despite never being able to grasp it as a hoarded possession.

One who treasures the concealed word of HaShem in the Torah haNistar in their prayer and meditation and who seeks to live the Torah haNigleh in their daily study and work knows that this Torah cannot ever be used as a spade to dig with, nor as a crown to be hoarded away for personal pleasure.

All of a Jew’s relationship with HaShem is for the sake of the outflowing of the Divine into our world. The reward of a mitzvah is another mitzvah, and even the blessings which are granted specifically to Israel are ultimately for the sake of all nations and for the sake of all creation. As the Berditchever Rebbe reminds us:

“When one nullifies oneself completely and attaches one's thoughts to Nothingness, a new sustenance flows to all universes. This sustenance did not exist previously.”

These words are most encouraging for those of us who make their prayers their main contribution to the tikkun (healing) of the world’s woes yet often wonder if their endeavours are of any use.  Jewish Contemplatives then, are both the beneficiaries and the transmitters of the Hidden Light. The transmission is most effectively brought about when we are as observant and as whole-hearted in yiddishkeit as we possibly can be.

I’d like to finish this short reflection on the “Concealed” with a comment on a few verses from the current week’s Torah Parshah and Haftarah (Parshat Chayei Sarah)

In Parshat Chayei Sarah we read:

“This comes from HaShem

We cannot declare it to be good or bad”

Genesis 24:50

In Haftarat Chayei Sarah we read:

“Let her stand before the king

And be an intimate companion for him.”

I Kings 1:2

The Torah verse tells us to submit to whatever might befall us, whether it is perceived as good or as bad, for who are we to judge or to try to know without the long-sight of Providence?

The Haftarah verse tells us that we are both servants and friends.

We are willing tools in God’s hands if we offer our lives and prayers to Him,

To “stand before him” is to be available and at our Master’s service.

But we are blessed in so far as we are invited to “sit at His table”,

To be close to Him through a deveykut which is (perhaps shockingly) mutual.

The Psalm 119 verse which I quoted earlier-

“Wonderfully concealed are your testimonies,

Therefore my soul has treasured them.”

Psalm 119: 129

-tells us that God’s “decrees” for our life-history are not known to us,

Yet we ought to rejoice that our “fate” is in such good care.

We make our own choices and face our trials, that is true,

But He is our watchful and guiding shepherd at every moment.

The messages hidden in the “testimonies” of God are often very well hidden indeed.

They are beneath the surface of the ordinary events in our lives.

They are in the familiar texts of our prayer-books and bibles.

They are in the often bewildering insights and intuitions

which we receive in contemplative prayer.

They are also in the insights of our prayerful study of Torah in meditation:

Often, such insights are at first dimly perceived,

But they can dazzle us when we suddenly “see” what we are being told/shown,

Each of us individually seeing something personally spoken to us in intimacy.

In Parshat Chayei Sarah

Our father Isaac goes out at dusk to meditate in the field.

At dusk, ordinary things are often bathed in a soft focus

And we can see their inner light more accurately.

At dusk ordinary things can sometimes fade into the half-gloom

And we turn inward to see our inner light in a more heightened way.

The growing darkness is sometimes our best friend and not an annoyance or an enemy.

It often leads to the place where we can see that our clouded perception of God is not just the adoption of a realistic approach-

The cloud of darkness prevents us making God in our own image.

It is actually closer to the Truth of God’s nature than any detailed theology ever could be.

The Divine which is concealed will always elude our attempt to grasp it.

But we can let God, the Hidden, grasp us

Through our loyalty as servants

And hold our hands as friends,

Thus, we can be held by the Hidden and know some of the power and beauty of our God.

When we experience an ecstatic sexual or sensual feeling

we reflexively close our eyes to improve our mind’s savouring of the physical event.

In contemplative prayer our eyes are metaphorically shut,

But we may discover that we actually “see” better in the dark.

We may not be able to see God’s plans for us

But being “kept in the dark” is not always a negative thing.

A contemplative is happy to know that the answer is not (necessarily) “42”.

A contemplative is not looking for answers but is allowing God to lead....to wherever...

Being in a Divine/human relationship in which we are informed on a “strictly need to know” basis is not because we are being kept in a subservient state of ignorance. As contemplatives, we are enlightened by a form of loving revelation whose brilliance we could never bear without the embrace of the Cloud of Unknowing.

This is the treasure of the Hidden One.

Our task is to make sure we don’t hoard it for ourselves,

But allow God to make us into transparent conductors of its Light.

N R Davies

November 13 2011

( from a commentary on Parshat Chayei Sarah (Oct 21 2010) written for the Community of Jewish Contemplatives)