Kuntres Maarat Ha-Lev was written by Nachman Davies in 2005 during his twelve year experiment in solitary contemplative living in a cavehouse in Granada, Spain. Much of it was concerned with promoting the kind of community outreach via the internet that has since emerged in abundance. This unusually long post is an attempt to re-state the core of that Kuntres Maarat Ha-Lev without those elements that are now redundant or obsolete. It is an exceptionally long post for a blog— it is being made accessible here as a point of reference online.
It describes a very simple method of contemplative receptive prayer and outlines the reasons why the author believes such prayer to be both timely and crucial. It was written especially for intentionally dedicated Jewish Contemplatives—mitkarevim (those who would “draw near” to G-d in intimate service)— but it speaks to all Jews who wish to meet the Divine in Contemplative prayer.
The Supernal Torah cries out: “Happy is the man who listens to me, eagerly at my gates every day, waiting at the posts of my doors, For he who finds me finds life, and finds favour before G-d” (Mishlei 8:34)
The ‘point’ of the Maarat Ha-Lev is at the threshold of the arch. It is a point of focus in the distance (the transcendent) and simultaneously it is a point of focus inside us (the immanent).
-That point inside us is represented by the star-light inside the Star of Dovid...
-The same point appears as the Larger Light present at the heart of the graphic.
-Whether it is behind or infront of the arch is ambiguous: it represents the threshold of the expanded consciousness which is everywhere…
-The two angelic Elyonim are guardians, witnesses,silent worshipers.
-They are symbols of the event taking place, marking the point of intersection.
-They are the keruvim of the ark and the lights of Shabbat.
Lights who are also called Shamor and Zachor, Yachin and Boaz.
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“G-d is the place (Makom) of the world but the world is not His place.
Bereshit Rabbah 68:10
Every created thing is in Him, and yet His Essential Being could not possibly be contained by creation. He cannot be grasped, delineated, or limited and yet He is in every thing and sustains all created life moment by moment. Ein od milivado—There is nothing but G-d, He is everywhere.
The Cave
of the Heart is a ‘place’ which is beyond
time and space yet we can feel
momentarily drawn into it when we
experience a wonder of Nature, or when
we are drawn into the gaze of a tzaddik.
When we see the light of heaven
in the eyes, or the face, or the actions of a righteous person—we are standing
at the mouth of that cave looking in.
When we attempt to meet G-d in private—on a
one-to-one basis, so to speak— we are being drawn into that cave. When we enter
it in the contemplative prayer of attentiveness, we can become vehicles for the
Presence of G-d. The Shechinah then prays through us and thereby, each of us
can attain a close intimacy with the Divine; with the rest of Knesset Yisrael
(the Community of Israel); and with Kol
ha-Olam (all creation).
-Why do I call it a cave
of the Heart?
The
heart of something is its essential
core, its deepest generative impulse, the source of its vitality. It is the spiritual faculty—spiritual
organ as it were—of intimate knowledge and intuition. Its manner of
understanding is both super-natural and supra-rational yet it is not divorced
from either intellect or common sense.
It is a
spiritual cave in the heart of each individual soul, and simultaneously in the
Heart of our G-d.
-Why do I call it a Cave?
A cave
is a place of shelter and security. It is also a home-base. It is a place of quiet and intimate retreat.
It has two highly significant elements spiritually: the interior of the
Cave which is enclosed and introverted, and the threshold which opens
out onto another world.
The
Cave of which I speak is to be found in our own deepest soul-chamber within the
Heart of our G-d.
For
this reason it is also possible to
experience it, simultaneously, in its unlimited
and polarised forms: We can find a second threshold to an interior world inside
G-d from the deepest part of the interior of the cave itself
and, with our backs turned (as it were) to the cave’s opening and our senses totally in the dark, find ourselves (somehow) lifted into His World.
The
Cave of the Heart thus has a threshold which stands between contemplation and
the created and temporal world, and another hidden threshold (between the olam
hazeh and the olam haba) which is where the individual soul can ‘know’
G-d intimately. The more we allow our
ego to dissolve into the Divine, the more these two states/thresholds blur into
one.
The Cave
of the Heart is the place in which we stand during the Amidah
when we daven formally; the state into which we enter when
we are sitting in silent focussed
hitbonenut (meditation); and it is the secret place in our minds when we are walking in the midst of crowds or
going about automatic tasks with our minds on G-d.
It is
the state of consciousness in which Eliyahu haNavi heard the ‘still small voice’—with
his senses shielded by his mantle and standing on the threshold between the
worlds. *1 Paradoxically it is often only when we retire deep into the Divine shelter in
solitary prayer that we can view things as they really are.
It
is the state of awareness which strips
away the veil that hides other worlds from our everyday vision. It is the state
of mochin d’gadlut (expanded consciousness) in which we can hear
the hidden melody of a true reality that suddenly emerges from within the
mundane—momentarily but long enough for
us to have been given the profound, if
obscure, certainty that what we have
seen or heard is not illusion but
truth. It is a reflection of the Holy of Holies in the
Heavenly Jerusalem, and an archetypal descendent of the Tent of Meeting. It may even be the generator of the Third
Temple.
This all sounds very
grand.
It is.
And what is more: the
miracle of the Cave of the Heart
is that it is open-all-hours; it is open to everyone and not
just to an elite few—and it
is much more easily encountered
than one might think.
shall be upon your heart.
Devarim 6:6
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The day on which ‘G-d is one and His Name shall be one’ is here right now— if we would only listen.
How can anyone listen to G-d
personally?
How can anyone meet Him in prayer?
Nobody can see Him and live.
Any perception we may have of Him comes heavily screened.
In Jewish texts, the Name of G-d—the Shem Havayah— is composed of the four letters Y-H and V-H. This name is never pronounced but is read as ‘Ado-nai’ (Lord). It was pronounced the way it is written but once a year by the High Priest in the Temple of Jerusalem at the most solemn moment of the liturgy on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The fact that it is a mysterious and ‘unpronouncable’ Name emphasises our acceptance that we can never comprehend the Divine Essence.
However much we might try to
philosophise, there is always a feeling of utter helplessness in
delineating or accurately expressing any concept of G-d’s nature.
The unfolding revelation of the
Name from the midst of the burning bush (Shemot: 2); at the
Giving of the Torah on Sinai (Shemot:
20); and the inner vision of HaShem’s glory from the cleft in the rock (Shemot:33) are personal as well as ancestral or community
revelations of the Divine –and they are given to us as models of our
relationship with G-d in prayer. We are
invited to remember that we are standing before G-d and also
simultaneously that we are in Him. He
is the Existence which fills all creation. At Sinai we are commanded to hear
His Voice daily and at every moment. In
the Cleft of the Rock we are told of His
attributes so that we may emulate them, but we are also being shown a
reflection of His perpetually creative activity in this world. The Attributes
are there for us to feel with our intuitive hearts as much as to
philosophise about, despite the cloud of unknowing thrown about any attempt
to grasp His Name cognitively. They are a revelation but their enigmatic and
elusive form is their beauty.
Our kabbalistic tradition has
formulated many beautiful and complex meditations and kavanot composed around
the meaning of the Shem Havayah and around the permutations of this and
other ‘Names’ of G-d. I have been
dazzled and gripped by lines extracted from the Zohar but almost all the classical forms, analyses, and systems of
kabbalistic meditation are just too complex and intellectual for me. They may
well be so for you too.
If you are reading this book
hoping for some insight into such meditational techniques you will be
disappointed—what I am sharing in this book is extremely simple.
There is presumption here.
I’m convinced that there is a simple way for those
needing a kind of spiritual minimalism. It
is a path I have been walking for many decades and, having given it a good try
and found it to be meaningful, I simply want to share it. I have the
trepidation of a Bar-Mitzvah boy in making it public here but my instinct tells
me there are others out there who may actually need to read these words. It is
a method for those who are fired by what can only be described as an ache to be
connected to G-d and to be of use to Him, but whose psychological or
intellectual inadequacies make the ascent of Mount Carmel or Mount Horeb
necessary by a less travelled side-path.
It is a simple path, but in no sense is it an easy short cut—and
travelling on it can often be boringly uneventful:
The kabbalists refer to G-d as ‘Ein
Sof’—This term is sometimes translated as ‘the Infinite’ or ‘The Endless’
and it also indicates that the Essence of the Divine is beyond description.
Ultimately we can never understand or grasp even this concept, let alone the
Being it attempts to describe—but contemplative prayer is a way of developing
our awareness of being in It, part of It,
and crucially with respect to our role in creation— a receptacle and channel of
It.
Individually.
This awareness can arise in highly charged moments,
come and gone as swiftly as the brief appearance of light on a cloud-darkened
sea. It can also grow imperceptibly at an agonizingly slow and apparently
uneventful pace, to emerge like a crystal, revealing something which was actually
there all along. Like the breath of a breeze it may come as a once in a
lifetime momentary shift in perspective after which our memory of it is our
only manna. Or it may not be ‘felt’ at all and only be sensed in its results.
Anyone who approaches G-d in contemplation becomes painfully aware of the dynamic tension caused by His distance while simultaneously feeling His immanent personal action ever more deeply in the heart. The unpronouncable Shem Havayah is, as it were, the embodiment of this dynamic tension—not on parchment, not in a devotional shiviti graphic, but in a part of our soul which is made pregnant by contemplative awareness. As indicated in the Aleinu *2, it is a Name that we are required to ‘make One’.
There is a sense in which we can enter into this state of contemplative awareness every time we pray with kavanah (intentional focus) and there is a sense in which we need to enter into solitary retreat if we are to feel its true depth and if we are to listen with the profound attentiveness asked of us in the Sh’ma.*3 In the paragraphs that follow I will suggest a way to do this.
The term Olam/Alam comes from a root implying concealment and hiddeness. It also signifies ‘the World’, ‘all Creation’, ‘Eternity’, and ‘Time’.
G-d is often referred to as Ribono shel Olam, as the Master of ‘Olam’, with all the shades of meaning I have just described.
G-d is the Master of All Time.
Since early childhood I have never been quite convinced that time
was anything but an illusion. As I age, the relativity and flexibility of time
and space seems to have become more fact than theory. I am not sure if this is because I have
accumulated experience of the ‘hidden’
supernatural world over the years, or whether it is simply because I am nearer
to death, a state in which personal time and space becomes irrelevant.
When one undertakes a period of
extended solitary retreat in silence, it is not long before time starts bending, slowing down, and
sometimes, to all intents and purposes: stopping. In a contemplative retreat , the moment which
is the present becomes,as it were, slower while the progress of the minutes in
an hour, the hours in a day, and of the days in a week, seem to accelerate.
Being able to wallow in this kind
of time transcendence is a precious luxury denied to all save the solitary
contemplative. Most readers will have babies to feed, businesses to maintain,
agendas to prepare and deadlines to meet.
But I have an unproven theory (unproven save in my personal experience) that once
you have experienced even a short moment of such time-transcendence—others
follow. Just one really deep period of such an experience can somehow be
recalled in the midst of everyday bustle, though it might need a periodic topping-up.
It can not only be recalled, it can sometimes break in to our consciousness
unannounced. Revelation often comes as an
unexpected surprise when G-d decends upon us without an appointment to catch us
off-guard, in what often seems to be an
act undertaken with a sort of Divine
sense of humour.
This is one of the reasons I claim that encountering
the Cave of the Heart is easier than
one might have expected.
And it is not necessarily the exclusive
experience of those who enjoy periods of extended retreat.
These moments of epiphany might
come out of the blue, but they can be so
momentous that they are generators of a relationship that lasts a lifetime, and
beyond. They are to a person’s life as Shabbat
is to the other days in a week—They are a forestaste of the Olam Haba
(the beyond life which is ever present
though concealed). They are the appointed times in our spiritual
life that
the world of G-d’s immanence can somehow receive some element of
His transcendence.
I should mention here that I have
written of ‘moments’. The reader should understand that such moments may last a
second, minutes, and even hours when reckoned in chronological time. This will
have implications later in the chapter when you see that the method of prayer
which I am about to outline takes place at a still-point in time which is
immeasurable.
The Invitation
It begins as a gentle but
insistent sense that He is giving us an invitation to meet Him.
So simple, and yet so easily
ignored or discounted as being merely our imagination— hence His
insistence.
It is not a special gift for the
chosen—it is an invitation for everyone—It just embarrasses us to admit that we sense it. Possibly out of personal
reticence, or maybe and quite justifiably, we are simply rather afraid of
it and its implications.
We can find many excuses to ignore
the invitation, or postpone its acceptance, or face its momentous consequences—
It is however, an invitation to share in the kind of listening and attentiveness which is the most essential part of the tikkun process, the process of personal and universal redemption that all Israel is commanded to proclaim each day when we recite the Sh’ma. The first verse of the Sh’ma is perhaps our most fundamental*4 and cherished commandment, and it is a command that we should listen, be attentive, and understand:
LISTEN ISRAEL,
Y-H&V-H IS OUR
G-D, Y-H&V-H IS ONE
In the congregational recitation
of the Sh’ma, focus on performing this type of hearing/listening can be
rather difficult but by no means impossible. From within the Cave of the
Heart in individual prayer it can become a contemplative event in itself.
There it becomes more of an action or a process than a text to be recited.
Responding to the invitation to “know before Whom we stand” *5 and to listen to what He might have to say can best be done in solitude. It feels very personal, and it is—even though the One inviting is not a person.
All very paradoxical—but less so
if you let Him take the lead.
To do this, one has to clear a space and make oneself ready to be receptive: One can do this best
in solitude of one form or
another. Solitary
contemplative and meditative prayer is
well documented in the Hebrew Bible, and has been practised in all
stages of Jewish history. Perhaps the
most typically Jewish use of solitude as a religious discipline is when it is used in regular periods of secluded
meditation whose duration is measured in just hours, or even minutes:
R' Avraham 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.
The same practice is
recommended by R' 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. *7
The practice of such
solitary prayer is especially dear to the followers of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov
(1772-1810) 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 two short
examples of his advice on this:
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…*8
Hitbodedut
meditation is the best and the highest level of worship. Set aside an hour or
more each day to meditate, in the fields or in a room, pouring out your
thoughts to G-d ... 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.
It should be apparent to any modern day student of Jewish mysticism or meditation that the hitbodedut of the Breslov mesorah is quite specific in both character and form. To a great extent it is the Breslover definition of the term that represents its most commonly accepted meaning in our era.
The Breslover form of hitbodedut
seems to me to be focussed on the musar of self improvement and the
outpouring of one's private emotional and spiritual needs and worries. It
takes the form of a personal and solitary period of prayer
whose features are release,examination, repentance,petition, and
passionate reliance on Providence. It is clearly an act
founded on the desire for an intimate connection with the
Divine, but its focus is usually upon acts of joyous praise or upon
the sharing and elevation of the troubled thoughts and difficult
experiences of the one praying. As such, it is more a matter of
informal and spontaneous petition and expression than a form of contemplative prayer, and it is very
often highly vocal.
The kind of
contemplative prayer that I am advocating in this book is a much more receptive
activity and comes somewhere between the discursive hitbodedut of
the Breslover and the hitbonenut (silent meditation) of one
seeking some form of enlightenment, some form of Divine input,
some form of direct inspiration. Consequently the focus is
not on the outpouring of one's soul before G-d, but on developing a kind of
attentiveness of the mind that (as it were) opens a window or door in the soul
for the Divine Breath to enter. This can involve
preliminary and preparatory verbal prayer, vocalised or silent, and it
may involve music and dance or meditation on a text or a particular
thought. But ultimately it is a case of the soul making
itself attentively available, in patient,silent, and solitary
contemplation. It is a form of quietening the soul in
hopeful expectation that some form of Divine influx and intimate activity
might take place. Often it will seem that this has not
occurred (hence the need for patience and humility) but if G-d wills, it can
lead to an awareness that a direct input has occurred and
may even lead to an experience that resembles a two-way
conversation.
This kind of hitbodedut/hisbonenut is
a way of inviting G-d to make use of us as a channel of His Presence.
It is not about us and our individual needs or condition. It
is an attempt to invite G-d to 'speak'
to us or to show us something we need to see. To reveal to each
individual soul the way in which it can best be a channel to fulfil the needs
of the Shekinah.
The esoteric
systems and complex meditation practices
of the kabbalists, the deeply intellectual forms of hitbonenut proposed
by Chabad, and the frequently cathartic expressions of hitbodedut practiced by Breslover
hasidim are beyond the scope of this little book. There
are several reasons for this. As
I have indicated, I am neither a scholar nor a rabbi. I am not qualified or experienced enough to make deep analytical comment on these
jewels in Judaism’s contemplative crown.
You can find shelves full of books which deal with these subjects by
many gifted authors without too much effort.
But the main
reason you will not find them discussed here is because I want to propose a simple method for those who simply want to get straight to the heart
of the matter like a little child
running into the arms of a parent.
Nevertheless: what I am suggesting is that when we get there, we don’t just cry Tateh! Tateh!—but that we listen with all our strength.
This is an aim which is close to the frame of mind of anyone who would draw near to G-d hoping to receive a spirit of ruach hakodesh that approaches prophecy. I believe this to be the core tachlit of prayer in the Cave of the Heart.
In the latter days,
you will return to HaShem your G-d
and listen to His voice.
Devarim 4:30
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In our day, we are witnessing an ever increasing and often hyperactive pace of life that has frequently become coupled with a decreasing attention span. Pauses for thought are snatched rather than savoured and we seem to collect and share trivia more than we value focus and depth in our interior reflections. Online and offline, we are a generation that is hungry for spiritual satisfactions as much as for spiritual duties, and it is possible to Zoom ourselves into an endless peripheral playing around with mystical studies whilst overlooking (and avoiding) authentic solitary communion with our G-d.
Our unquenchable thirst for stimulation and gratification online can often
become addictive, and we may mistake the accumulation of religious,
intellectual, or liturgical bricabrac
for knowledge—when our Sages insist
that the
only true knowledge is
that we know nothing. In the forest of distraction whose paths frequently lead
nowhere, we are in danger of turning something
that is pure and simple into something
that is more complex than it need be.
And yet, there are those among us who sense a force that pulls us away from such noise and distraction and whom search for a way to turn their somewhat introverted natures or their spirituality into a practical form of service that frees one from egocentricity.
Such people may be
a minority but they have always
been active on the fringes of Judaism
and their number has been growing through our contemporary interest in
spirituality, mindfulness, and
meditaional practice. They are often Hidden Contemplatives.
Within
the Jewish Community there are people who know from the start that they
are called to live an intimate life of
prayer. Such people will sometimes be
pursuing this vocation in varying degrees of isolation, and sometimes they will be following personal;ised versions of the ‘Intimate Path’ of R' Avraham ben HaRambam) in the midst of
busy social, cultural, or educational, careers.
For others, their potential as contemplatives emerges gradually. It is
often more fragile, and it can be encouraged enthusiastically or squashed by
negative criticism.
So, who are these potential contemplatives in our midst and how can their apparent loneliness be transformed into a happy and fruitful solitude?
I’ll start my answer
to these questions by asking you to
consider this list for a moment:
• Some
isolated Jews may have found themselves made redundant or incapacitated through
illness or other circumstances.
• Some
of them will have been disabled all their lives and thus prevented from
engaging in many forms of social activity or communication.
• Some
people may be living and working in unavoidable isolation from Jewish community
centres or even in situations of restriction or oppression.
• Some
may have lost a life-partner, who in many cases was the only practically
functioning community they had.
• Some
may be people for whom family life has not been possible—sometimes they are
people whose attempts at partnership formation have simply not worked out, or
they may have emotional or other issues that prevent them from marrying and
creating a family.
• Some
people may be both single and desperately lonely, and thus feel
excluded/exclude themselves from the world of ‘family life’. Their isolation
can be physical or internal or both.
• Some
may simply be people in isolation who for one reason or another have found
themselves with more time on their hands and fewer opportunities for a social
expression of their religious feelings and aspirations than they had
expected. Within this group there will
be Jews who are in prison, or who are medically quarantined or terminally ill.
• Some
isolated Jews may be retired people, with or without dispersed families, who
have found themselves unexpectedly confronted with questions which they had
been cushioned from in the bustle of their previous working lives. In our day, as we witness the expansion of
artifical intelligence and robotics, this
group is almost certain to swell in number dramatically.
• And—I have to add—Some may feel called to
solitary life both naturally and supernaturally, and they may well have
no idea how to go about it. As Jews, they will very possibly feel marginalised
and embarrassed.
If you
go back through that list of life situations you will see that the people I
have described are by no means an insignificant minority. They are
diverse, hidden, dispersed, and very probably in need of spiritual support.
Judaism is
not a ‘one size fits all’
religion and a certain distribution of labour
keeps it strong and healthy. We
wave the arba minim at the festival of Sukkot: fruit and bound-together
plants which represent the variation and diversity which individual Jews bring
to the community of Israel as a whole. Some commentators view the arba minim
as a symbol of a diversity in which the strong support the weak. Others, myself
included, view it as a non-judgemental and positive statement about diversity
being celebrated for its particular beauty per se. It was a
diversity accepted and expressed by the arrangement that was made between Yisachar
and Zebulun without any taint of elitism or conflict of interest, for in
There
are those who are forced to snatch whatever time they can away from family
duties or business responsibilities in order to daven, and for whom
extended periods of solitude are virtually impossible. There are those with
more free time on their hands. Each has their place in the execution of the
shared vocational task of Knesset Yisrael.
Might
it not be possible to accept that some people have what might be termed a
natural gift or predisposition for the contemplative life which could be
acknowledged, and maybe developed, for the good of the whole? And here, I mean
the good of kol ha-Olam as much as for kol-Yisrael: for
the community of all Creation and not just the Jewish community.
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We hear
the Voice of Sinai as Knesset Yisrael
in our individual hearts. The covenantal relationship between Knesset
Yisrael and G-d is manifested in the inner and outer life of each individual
Jew. This is what makes Judaism a religion and not a club, not just a grouping
of people with a common nationality or shared ideals. It is that individual communication with G-d
which paradoxically produces the ‘We’ of all Jewish prayer— and all Jewish
activity— and it is a paradox which is at the heart of specifically Jewish
mysticism.
If one
accepts that there is a Knesset Yisrael, an eternal Community of Israel
which is not bound by the limitations of time, space, or number—and if one
accepts that there is a Universal ‘Soul of Humanity’ of which we are the
re-uniting fragments—it should be a small matter to see that neither can be
contained by synagogues, by movements, or by sectarian units. The best they can
do is to facilitate points of focus for some of the fragments. The only real point
of focus is the spiritual one they hope to represent. The worst they can do is
to allow themselves to think that they embody that Point of Focus exclusively,
making themselves feel stronger by denigrating
those whose perspective doesn’t
match their own.
The Task of the Contemplative Jew
The thought is often expressed that we are G-d’s only hands in the world.
There is a sense in which G-d is more present in ‘our’ world when we make Him so. Following the image through— might the spiritual activity of the Mitkarevim be an expression of His Mind or Heart in the world? Rebbe Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev assures that the contribution of contemplatives is absolutely indispensable:
When man nullifies
himself completely and attaches his thoughts to Nothingness, then a new sustenance flows into all the
universes. This is a
sustenance that did not exist
previously.
A
person living a contemplative lifestyle (whether by choice or circumstance) can
transform isolation into living community action by consciously turning their
focus in prayer to the healing or tikkun process. By making this
intentional transformation, such a
person brings a new
sustenance into all the universes. If such a person does not intend to
effect this transformation, especially when it may well be their personal vocation to bring it about
—then the tikkun, willed by G-d, will either not happen, or be delayed.
This
process is active in the individual’s never-ending journey in and to G-d—and it
is simultaneously active in the process of the evolution of all
Creation. From the position of the former we hope to influence the latter.
In my personal prayers, I find it easier to do
this on an individual level by joining my thoughts to those of friends,
especially when they are in periods of distress. Attempting to give such
spiritual support on a wider scale, perhaps even a global scale might have highly
significant consequences, and it may be something that you alone can do
in G-d’s Name.
Yes—You alone.
Maybe you need to see
these words to realise that.
The method of
contemplative prayer I am recommending
in this kuntres is very
simple. All we need to do is sit down in
solitude and silence, put ourselves in
G-d’s Presence, and attempt to relate to Him in some focussed way.
It may involve the words of a set prayer
or not. It may involve reflection
on a text or a concept—or not. It may
involve a search for meaning in a particular life-situation—or not.
But whatever
form that hitbonenut/hitbodedut might take there are two things that make the method I am promoting special. Firstly: It is not about us, but about Him. It is an attempt to be present to G-d and in G-d for its own sake. Secondly: It is an attempt to be so
intentionally and profoundly attentive that our contemplation becomes an
opportunity to listen for— and maybe even hear— the Divine Voice itself.
It requires
that the contemplative simply makes time
and space for G-d to get a word in edgeways. A set time of solitary intimacy. A short period, or a long period of silent
availability to G-d in the Prayer of Nearness. The attentive gaze of one in
love with the Divine. In order to
assist those unused to this kind of
contemplative practice, and for those
who have been baffled or confused by complex meditation methods—here is
an example format I would like to
propose as a guide to get one started. It is a form of contemplative prayer that I
have used daily in some years and
ocassionally in other years. These days it’s a format I rarely use at all, but I am
recommending it strongly, and will explain why as this kuntres unfolds.
Here it is:
That’s it.
Yes….
That’s all of it.
The listening/attentive/receptive form of meditation I am suggesting here might be practiced at the conclusion of a regular meditation period; within the famework of a more verbal ‘Breslover-form’ of hitbodedut; or as a feature of ones private recitation of the Amidah.
If you were expecting this book to offer you a contemplative method replete with manipulations of Hebrew letters and numbers, or guided meditations, or ascetic practices you will be very disappointed by that. If you are a scholar of Jewish mysticism you might be irritated by my impertinence. If you are somebody who feels relief or excitement (and perhaps a sense of recognition) on reading those last few statements but need a little bit more help to make those words make sense: then read on.
There are countless methods of contemplative prayer which take the practitioner through various stages of meditation by suggesting things that one might do—often in a progressive and hierarchically order or scheme. The specific exercise I am describing and promoting here is a supplement to such activities.
It is not being promoted here as the only or somehow superior meditational method to be practiced by a contemplative –though for some people it may prove to be their principal form of contemplative activity. Rather, it is presented as an activity that all Jews should practice (in some form or other) if they want to meet G-d and reach their full potential in prayer. As a main-course contemplative activity, it is a path of intimacy that leads to focussed service, but it may also prove to be a sort of sourdough to kick-start a person’s introduction to contemplative practice.
oo0oo
There is nothing new in the three-point method I have just outlined. The method is ancient. It consists of nothing more than periods of attentiveness and receptivity in prayer, and such periods—or something very like them—must have been part of the core curriculum of the Schools of the Prophets of Biblical Judaism. Prophecy in Biblical times was something that sometimes required training and those students of the Prophets per se were educated in the equivalent of residential yeshivos. They were the bnei ha-nevi’im –sons of the prophets (Amos 7:14), and the Talmud numbers them in excess of a million[11]. References to the prophetic schools may be found in the time of Shmuel Ha Navi[12] (I Shmuel:19) and most especially, under the tutelage of Eliyahu and Elisha. ( I Melachim 19:18 and II Melachim 4:38–41)
Furthermore, I believe that there is an echo of the practice of such a receptive, focussed, and attentive form of contemplation in the Talmud itself. In Berachot 32b we are told that the Sages of old spent an hour before and after reciting the formal tefilla in some form of meditation— and the word used for their activity is 'waiting'. It is apparent (from Berachot 32b:24 ) that this waiting was neither inactivity nor study, and it is significant that they were said to 'wait' both before and after reciting formal prayers. The term must therefore refer to some form of private contemplation made in preparation for worship, or in reflection on it after its formal (and usually communal) enactment. The sort of attentive contemplation I am recommending is certainly a form of expectant and reflective 'waiting'.
It also resembles the kind of prayer that must have been made by those standing at the entrance of their tents while Moshe Rabeinu entered the (second) Tent of meeting in Shemot 33:7-10. *11
The simple contemplative practice I am promoting may however be ‘new’ for many Jews who will not have considered that prayer could (or should) include a time for G-d’s response. Jews are very familiar with the idea that listening to G-d takes place whenever the Torah scrolls are read, studied, or discussed— but that same Torah is to be found in the heart of each individual Jew. That Torah of the Heart is rarely accessed, but it really ought to be—for how else can we begin to hear the Voice which goes out daily from Sinai?
oo0oo
What I have suggested is extremely
simple: During private prayer, ask G-d to speak to you and then wait in humble
silence to let Him respond. It is possible that you may only be able to hold
your attention on listening out for Him to ‘speak’ for a
minute or so before you lose concentration. But it is also possible (sometimes
after years of making this effort) that you may find yourself standing there waiting for many minutes— or
even hours— and cannot account for the
time passing. But believe me, the Voice
of Sinai is calling—if only we would listen. Our effort to do so may often seem
to fail but we are commanded in the Sh’ma we recite daily to at least
try. And try again.
In Pirkei Avot 6:2 we read that a voice goes out from Sinai everyday, admonishing the Jewish people to return to Torah. In the Zohar we read:
The acts of G-d are eternal and continue for
ever. Every day the one who
is worthy receives the Torah standing at
Sinai. He hears the Torah from the mouth of the Lord as Israel did….Every Jew
is able to attain that level, the level
of standing at Sinai.
And
the midrash in Shemot Rabbah 5:9 confirms this by pointing out that
all members of the Community of Israel heard the Voice of Sinai “according to
each individual’s capabilities and
strengths”. This kind of inspired listening is potentially attainable
every day.
THE VOICE
I believe that we are all capable
of hearing G-d’s voice. Not in the way Moshe Rabeinu
did, for sure, but in the way that all Israel did at the foot of Sinai. I mean
that literally.
It comes to us, in its purest
form, as a voice during contemplative prayer itself or out of the blue when least expected. We hear it in our hearts and not through our
ears. It is not our own voice (though part of it is). It seems to have a tone
all of its own and does not speak often—There may be years between perceived
occurrences.
The Voice seems to respond to
questions, and its answers are often unexpectedly mundane, brief and brutally
to the point, or just plain odd. In the latter case,we may have a crossed-wire
in our imagination that has simply short-circuited the brain’s ability to
dicipher input. The meaning or significance of apparently
unintelligible answers that we have ‘heard’ can often emerge long after the
event—maybe in another prayer session or when something happens in our lives to
explain it. When one is dealing with a 'world' that is free of time and space, such temporal re-organisation of past
present and future experience is par
for the course.
The Voice sometimes answers us
before the first word of such a question has even been expressed. Sometimes we
have just begun to frame a question and we
hear the answer rocketted out at us.
Sometimes ‘answers’ are delayed to
give us an opportunity to re-think or
re-phrase any request or petition that we might have made. This often happenens when we
realise that the question we thought we needed to ask had been masking a
different question that we were originally afraid to ask.
Sometimes we are given an ‘answer’
which seems to bear no relation to any question we may have asked, in
such cases it is what we really needed to hear.
Often, we are the ones being asked a question.
Frequently, we are left to our own devices to find our
own answers. Once we have struggled and
found our own answers or made our own
decision we then hear or sense a ‘Voice
of Approval’ which comes as an unexpected blessing on what we have ourselves obtained.
This confirming approval can come in the form of signs or words or events immediately following
our own decision making, either from the actions of the people we meet, in a passage in a book
we pick up, or an email we receive, or through something we chance upon in a
moment of déjà vu. Such approval really feels like it has come from a
parent who congratulates a child on developing its independence, and when it
happens it comes with a unique scent of authenticity that tells us that it
is not
a mere illusion.
The Voice can be commanding, but
it never makes our decisions for us. Sometimes we may even be invited to challenge its demands. It seems to enjoy the tussle of a good fight.
The Voice may be heard synesthesically.
It may be in the form of verbal communication, it may present a visual image,
it may cause a movement in our body, or it may not be sensed at all save by the
heart— by a spiritual, intuitive faculty which is neither intellectual,
emotional, nor purely imaginative. On the many occasions when absolutely
nothing seems to have happened and no answers given, this part of our consciousness often seems to
be aware that something has been done to us even though it is not
necessary for us to know what or why.
There is some similarity between
the type of awareness I have just described and the dream state and, perhaps
not surprisingly, the Voice sometimes speaks in dreams themselves.[See Berachot
9 and Derech HaShem 3:1,6] Some deliberately seek information in dreams
through she’elas chalom—dream questions (Chayim Vital and Ibn Ezra for
example), and many say that a tzaddik/rebbe who is apparently dozing at a tish is not dozing but
‘visiting the academy on high’.
In such ‘special’ dreams (special because we
recognize they are in a class of their own, not that we are) it has the same
synesthesic quality— The dreamer perceives a dream-message which appears before
the ‘eyes’ of the mind as a kind of
written banner whose word or words are simultaneously recited by a voice heard
by the mind’s ‘ears’.
Many times such dream-messages are
delivered in a way that allows for multiple interpretations. This can present us with a knotty paradox to
unpack, or with a conflicting set of instructions for action— thus confirming the adage that the significance of a dream is in the control of the dreamer. This
is a core concept in Jungian theories of dream
interpretation, but it predated Jung's reveries and has a considerable following amongst classical Jewish thinkers. In Berachot 55b we read “all dreams follow the mouth of the
interpreter,” and in Berachot 57a we are given a detailed
description of the meaning of various dream omens and ‘encounters’ with Biblical personages or
with Scriptural passages themselves; and in Moshe Chayim Luzatto’s Derech
HaShem 3:1:6 we read of the interrelation of the individual soul’s imaginative faculty and the (indirect) Divine
inspiration couched in dream encounters:
It emerges that dreams in general are images that are formed by the
imagination, either on its own—or as a result of what the soul arouses within
[the imagination] in accordance with what the soul perceives in the spiritual
realms. [30]
Sometimes, in the midst of such
dream-visions, we wake suddenly with a flash of intuitive recognition or have
it on our lips as we arise in the first waking moments of the morning so that
we should not forget (or try to minimalise) the importance of what we have been
told.[31] I think that
sometimes such special dreams act as a channel of information because we were
somehow not sufficiently receptive to hear such
a ‘message’ in a recent prayer session.
The Voice sometimes seems to make
use of synchronous events—inexplicable chains of coincidences which seem to
come in proximate bursts (often in threes for some reason)
to ensure that we get the intended message.
These answering events often resemble those occasions when we sense that
something is wrong with someone we are close to in thought but miles away from
in space—only to find that a split second later, a phone call confirms our
apprehension. They resemble those
moments when we think of someone, only to have them turn up out of the blue at
the door, in our path, or in our email in-boxes. Often they come as a sort of underlining
of something we have just experienced in contemplative prayer. Sometimes we may
have ‘heard’ something in prayer only to
find someone saying almost exactly the same thing to us in a conversation, or
in a phrase we read—often within seconds or minutes of the original prayer experience.
Their rapidly consecutive
appearance convinces me that, as the Baal Shem Tov said: “there are no
accidents” wherever this little miracle occurs.
My use of the terms Voice, hear,
see etc. can be taken (almost) literally or metaphorically. They are used in an
attempt to describe an experience which will differ from person to person, and
which takes many different forms in the various periods of an individual’s
life. The common denominator is that they describe a process of a kind of
spiritual intuition (and maybe of
inspiration or revelation) which operates on a level beyond the superficial,
emotional or intellectual. However it is perceived, it is a process which
produces insight, learning experiences, and attentiveness to G-d in our deepest
self and in the world about us.
I believe that the Voice I have
described can be G-d’s Voice and ours simultaneously. The extent to which it is
His Voice, I cannot say.
If you are brave enough, ask it!
How much of it is our own voice can often (but
suprisingly, not always) depend on the level to which we have removed
our self-centredness,our insatiable desire for material and spiritual
things we don’t really need, our prejudices, and our totems—or had them removed
for us. That is an ongoing process and as it is a work in progress we may mis-hear
the Voice by hearing only the frequencies we want to hear, or simply by
filtering it in inaccurate language.
But if our intention is truly to listen to G-d alone with the motivation of service overiding all others, then our misinterpretations are shortlived. Other presentations of the same ‘word’ are made till we get the message. This way we get as near to understanding it as we can.
ooOoo
Certain things in those last few paragraphs will not make a lot of sense to some readers, but my hope is that they will strike a chord in the hearts of those readers who are intended to see these words—possibly as confirmation of their own intuitions—and that for such readers it will give both peace and encouragement.
Secular psychologists reading these paragraphs may also be having a field-day examining the mental processes described in those last few paragraphs from a purely natural view-point —superimposing whatever diagnostic/therapeutic model they subscribe to in analysing them.
I am not
at all embarrassed by writing about the experiences of those who ‘hear voices’
because I actually expect G-d to operate using natural human processes
when communicating with humans. There is
a world of difference between psychic sensitivity and psychopathy, and
reticence about the former is out of place
here,in a document which is being written to encourage others to come
out of the contemplative closet. On the
one hand it is right that individuals should only discuss
their spiritual experiences with their mashpia (mentor), but on the
other hand: in our era, people who hold religious beliefs are often ridiculed
and even despised and are thus more fearful of exposing their spirituality.
Consequently, I’d like to support such people through my words of chizuk (encouragement) here.
Some times such criticism comes from the sitra achra (the darker side of our nature), as an attempt to
dissuade us from performing the tikkun (healing and restoraive growth) which may actually be nothing less than our personal vocation.
Challenges to the authenticity of our experiences and perceptions are not to be avoided or shied away from. They may themselves be a part of the process of purification that the contemplative is initiating and working through. Hearing such a Voice—that is to say, being able to practice a level of intuition that may sometimes approach inspiration— does not produce rock-solid faith in G-d, nor does it produce an unwavering confidence in one’s interpretations of His Word. If anything, such experiences are more often accompanied by an increase of doubt and periods of self-questioning that are part of the sort of intellectual and spiritual struggle that gives us the name Yisrael, *14 a name which is often translated as ‘one who wrestles’ with G-d.
These periods of struggle are sometimes agonisingly empty and desert-like. Sometimes they are times of storm, wind and fire. The Voice may be a still, small voice *15 but its stillness resembles the apparent stasis of a surgical laser beam coming sometimes with anaesthetic, sometimes without. Our delusions and our false securities are burnt out. One way or the other.
It also has to be said here that those delusions sometimes come temptingly gift-wrapped in self-promoting misconceptions, and are thus hard to differentiate from the real thing. There are also times when we are excited by emotional or ecstatic episodes in prayer. Sometimes the mere sensation that we are engaged in a Spiritual Quest can itself create excitement or produce spiritual self-gratification. If we are not on our guard we may be tempted to elevate ourselves beyond our proper place. Such delusions are often hard to self-identify, but that task is not impossible: People who ‘hear voices’ may be suffering from illness; they may feel commanded to perform selfish or hateful acts; they may feel driven by a compulsion which leaves no room for argument or discussion. The Voice I am referring to never causes any of these.
If you ‘hear’ a voice in prayer and doubt its origin, test it. If hearing such a voice produces an increase in practical acts of compassion and kindness, of tzedekah and chasadut, and if it removes or diminishes self-absorption or ego-focus, then it is likely to be both safe and healthy. If it is clearly and demonstrably making you a better person, then trust it.
ooOoo
The method of attentive and receptive
prayer that I am promoting is based on the following premise: That if we place
ourselves regularly in the presence of G-d, silently or sometimes not so
silently, sooner or later He will do
something—and it is my belief that putting ourselves in that situation is
somehow of great use to Him. It all takes place in clouded internal worlds of fleeting
half awarenesses, but it changes us and makes the world we return to after such
prayer different. If it is not too
presumptuous to claim it, I would suggest that by engaging in receptive
contemplative prayer, we begin to
perceive things a little more in the way G-d sees them. This simple
method assumes that G-d is perfectly capable of revealing His presence and activity in our dimension if He wants to, but for that to happen, He seems to prefer us to invite
Him to do so. It is principally a profound acknowledgement of that
belief.
The proposed form of receptive prayer that I have presented here is nopt not a passive as it may seem at first glance. We are by no means exempt from putting considerable effort into the process ourselves. Preparation before standing in His Presence involves considerable care and effort, and during the prayer-session itself we will often have to work quite hard to clear away the mental clutter that blocks our path. Making an internal space—a chal ha-panui that He can fill—needs our time, our effort, and our persistence. Neither is it so passive a method that it consists solely of the exercise itself. The point of standing in attentive contemplation is to be open to inspiration. That is inspiration for action— both spiritual and material action. We do the work it inspires. The follow-up activity that our prayer session often generates (by demand or by suggestion) is often even more arduous than the prayer itself, and it can be much more physical, temporal, spatial—and social— than we bargained for.
We also have to be prepared to accept that our effort may rarely produce any lasting sense of fulfillment. Similarly, it may not be completed in our (current) lifetime—but “neither should we desist from the task of trying.” *16 One who begins such a contemplative practice needs determination and perseverance—I have known many years when, despite standing in receptive silent prayer regularly (sometimes for hours) most days of the week, I have felt/heard/seen absolutely nothing that I could identify as being a response of any kind.
Please go back and read that last sentence again— it is really important.
oo0oo
It is
possible to engage in contemplative prayer when
sitting, standing, reclining, or strolling. My own preference is sitting or standing with my eyes closed. I recommend using a standing posture, most of all, because I first started using this method when
in the midst of the personal and solitary recitation of the Amidah
prayer. a term which itself refers to a standing position.
But I
also chose it in reference to two scriptural verses which I take as a kind
reference to the sort of contemplative prayer I am describing:
“Stand still and consider the wondrous works of G-d” *17
and (with its hint at synesthesic replies)—
“Stand still
In the Amidah (sometimes referred to as
the Shemoneh Esrei) many siddurim contain an invitation to add personal requests and
personal prayers. The place for these is usually in the middle blessings *19 or after the words:
“May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of
my Heart find favour before You, L-rd my
Rock and my Redeemer.”
In fact, the prayer which begins Elokai netsor l’shoni meira (My G-d, guard my tongue) was inserted into the Amidah as a formalised example of the sort of personal additional requests and prayers that one might make at this point. *20
As
such, it is the ideal place for one to
make one’s silent attentive prayer
when davening privately and alone. When
davening during public worship, it is quite likely that, out of concern for the
waiting fast-daveners, the community will leave insufficient time for such
expanded personal prayer. Weekday communal worship also has to make allowances
for the work-schedules of the
congregants, which can often leave little or no time for extended
prayer.
Assuming that one habitually davens with a minyan and wants to make a unit of receptive contemplative prayer at a separate time altogether, here is a suggested format that readers might like to try:
The sort of contemplative ‘standing’ I am
recommending as a method can be taken figuratively rather than posturally. I
have simply and respectfully borrowed
the posture and approach choreography from the Amidah as I have found
it really helps me to prepare to
enter into attentive receptivity with all my body and soul. It may help you to do that as well.
The Amidah choreography of taking three steps
forward at its start has many nuances.
Foremost of these is the kabalistic one
in which the steps reflect Moshe Rabbeinu’s passage through choshech
(darkness), anan (the cloud), and arafel (impenetrable
darkness) to approach the Divine. I take
them also in reference to the experience of Eliyahu HaNavi in passing
through ra’ash (earthquake), ruach
(wind), and eysh (fire) before
encountering the Voice.
Silent and still attentiveness may
often be very hard to achieve or maintain but it can be developed by repetition
of the exercise I have suggested here
over time. Distracting thoughts can either be gently dismissed or followed,
they might themselves be an intended route to lead you to the same moment of
encounter.
According to R' Yaakov Yosef of Polonoye in his Toldos Yaakov
Yosef (Vayakhel), the Baal Shem Tov taught that these machshavot
zorot should not be ignored or cause
the meditator to cease praying, but that they should be elevated by being woven into the meditation
itself as their redemptive tikkun.
What counts is that you are trying
not to be concerned about yourself or what you are doing so much as trying to
be prayerfully available to G-d, even though it may be for a very short space
of time, and despite being plagued by distractions.
What counts is your attempt to be
attentive to Him.
In presenting
this model, I have to leave the reader at the ‘hineini’ point. Each
individual needs to grapple with their own ‘creation of the empty space’ using their own experience and creativity.
Everyone is unique and needs to find their own ways to do this. In a sense I am
hoping to lead you to water but only you can decide when and how to drink.
There are a
million religious and secular meditation books dealing with ways to promote ‘stillness’,
‘mindfulness’, or ‘attentive silence’. They may help, or they may confuse and
distract the religious contemplative. Reading about prayer can be a good
way to avoid doing it. Nothing beats the ‘suck it and see’ approach because in
the end—you are your own Teacher and Tzaddik.
The important thing is your attentiveness to Him.
The Maarat Ha-Lev is not a metzar (a confined space) and a place of mochin d’katnut (small mindedness). It is the merchav-Kah (G-d’s wide open expanse)*21 and a vehicle for transporting us into the Courts of the Divine. Should you feel like singing or dancing or moving or whatever after some time being still and silent, let it happen. That may actually give you what you are meant to hear or receive.
If nothing happens, or it seems that nothing is happening,
remember that “No” and “Not yet” are also answers and that they do not
necessarily imply a rejection.
Again: The important thing is your attentiveness to Him.
If you have never done anything like this before or if
you feel awkwardly self-conscious despite really wanting to do it—my suggestion
is that you persist in making the experiment for a reasonable period on a
regular basis before giving up. The fact that contemplative prayer or
meditation is a lot less glamorous and than your hopes or expectations may have
led you to expect should not be allowed to put you off. You are doing it for
Him more than for yourself after all.
As to how often you should perhaps do this kind of
meditation: My advice to someone unfamiliar with this kind of prayer is to do
it every day, or every few days, or once a week, or whenever you feel called
to—but, if possible, more or less regularly and for a reasonable length of
time.
I’ll leave the definition of what that might be to you
but ask you to remember, if you’ll pardon the anthropomorphism, G-d seems to
enjoy an old-fashioned lengthy courtship.
If you find it produces no results in your life—then
leave it. It might not be the right time— but you may feel unexpectedly called
back to it at a later date.
Or perhaps it’s just not a way meant for you, in which
case, He will surely offer you another one.
oo0oo
-Contemplation is not about
possessing or attaining-
It is about receiving.
-It cannot be taught or
studied-
We only learn by doing it ourselves.
-Contemplation is not about ‘me’,
or ‘them’,
or even ‘Us’-
It is about G-d.
The primary task of the
contemplative is a prophetic one. To be
fully effective as channels of the Light of Ein Sof, we have
one principal task: To be still and
to be attentive to the Divine Voice.
The intimate service of the Mitkarevim is not something that can be adopted part-time as some sort of spiritual hobby or diversion. It is dedicated, intentional, and focused. It involves the whole heart and the whole soul and it is not something to be played around with. Those who would walk this path must be prepared to streamline things and avoid diversions if they are to be truly useful to G-d.
It was
Israel’s wish at Sinai that Moshe Rabeinu did the listening for us though this
does not seem to have been the Divine intention. Moshe Rabeinu himself wished that all Israel
were in receipt of the prophetic spirit and the subsequent institution of the
prophetic role was perhaps a kind of compromise. We were rightly in awe of the terrible
Presence of HaShem at the giving of the
Law, and our humility in seeking that
Moshe Rabeinu be our spokesman is
laudable. But was there an element of cowardice
present there also? Were we also a little afraid of the
responsibility that continued intimacy with HaShem would produce?
If the
Torah which is written on our hearts is ever to be understood and if the spirit
of prophecy is to return to us in its fullness: the individually-tailored
personal communication, and the spiritually receptive attentiveness which they
require is not only desirable, it is crucial. For all Jews.
Ultimately
we are said to be destined to become a nation of prophets. If that is to become
an immanent reality, there has to be
somebody listening.
The
parallel development of contemplative lifestyles and contemplative prayer in
the life of all Jews might go some way towards making sure that those ‘listeners’
are in place.
If the practice of extended retreat has sound roots in Jewish Tradition, and if
living an intentionally dedicated contemplative lifestyle really is a
valuable minority option for modern Jews—then the Mitkarevim should be encouraged, or
else they might not otherwise emerge. Their prophetic and kabbalistic potential
might go to waste. If one truly believes
in the power and efficacy of prayer—scripted
and unscripted, public and private, petitional and contemplative— then it should be reflected in
one’s priorities and in our nation’s
move towards Redemption.
The
old, or isolated, or disadvantaged, and those forgotten on the fringes of community are frequently
the very Jewish souls who have the
spiritual credentials in hard-won authenticity and in wholehearted ‘searching
for G-d’ which might qualify them
to develop the prophetic spirit anew. The isolated,the elderly, and the infirm are also often the ones with the time to focus on the prayerful task of drawing down the
light and the strength of Heaven with intensity and
perseverance.
Can we afford to neglect their contemplative
potential any longer?
Are you yourself prepared to really listen to the Voice of the G-d of Israel?
oo0oo
Studying the thoughts and discoveries of others is one of
the ways in which we learn. For Jews the thoughts of our
predecessors in mysticism can often be a safeguard and (almost but not quite) a
route-map. It is true that we can be temporarily carried away into
the world of deep prayer whilst engaged in such religious
study. Sometimes this can be the very deepest prayer
for we are only truly in contemplative prayer when we no longer realise that we
are praying.
Similarly, the thoughts of our contemplative contemporaries,
both in print and online, are often an exciting and refreshing stimulus to our
own development. Quite obviously and laudably, we need to be
faithful to our tradition and study the works of those who have gone before us
and those who walk with us. But we can overdo this.
The tendency to be permanently and actively attached
to an iphone or a tablet (or whichever new media-toy is in
vogue by the time you read this) means that we may be more easily
sidetracked into periphal chatting or doodling or socializing on the
media-toy and thus completely forget that we were searching for a particular
Talmudic reference or halachic psak when we picked it
up. Furthermore, it encourages us to think and feel at a
speed that makes considered reflection a rareity.
I do not carry a phone around with me habitually— its use being reserved for essential business, or for those times when I need to use its speech-to-text technology due to my severe deafness—but I often ask myself how many hours have I spent browsing ‘religious/spiritual’ websites at home when I should have been standing in receptive prayer?
How often have I put off the hour of prayer by extending
time spent on some less viscerally-exposed and stoic activity so that when the
time came for davening or hitbodedut- all I had the energy for
was a brief liturgical recitation and a few passing words in the Divine
Ear?
I would be the first person to echo the Kotzker Rebbe’s
dictum that the hour of prayer should be delayed until sufficient preparation
had been made.
He declared that there were no clocks in his
community, only souls.
He reminded us that the woodcutter is engaged in his trade
even while sharpening his tools.
But I still think that, for the aspiring and the experienced
contemplative alike, the number one distraction is to be
excessively engaged in reading, talking, (or writing!) about
spirituality and contemplation when the task at hand is meant to be action not
theory.
Praying is the principal task of the dedicated Jewish Contemplative—but because it can often be demanding, we put it off, we skimp on it, and we allow our energies to be spent elsewhere.
oo0oo
Israel’s
response at Sinai was, and is: “We will do and we will hear.” That is most often interpreted with the
meaning: Israel hears G-d’s voice by observing the commandments—that the
practical action of observing the mitzvos leads to spiritual
understanding. That is most certainly true. But a complementary interpretation
occurs to me. I’m absolutely certain
that there are no accidents:
It
surely must be of primary significance
that
the first commandment
in the principal text of Judaism, is
Sh’ma!—Listen!
Israel’s
compunction to ‘keep working’ and indeed ‘keep talking’ can sometimes be as
counter-productive as it can be dynamic. We also need to give G-d the chance to get a
word in edge-ways. Prayer is a two-way conversation, not a monologue.
Judaism has been focussed for centuries on ‘doing’.
But the time is coming when the significance of ‘listening’ will grow in
importance.
We read in Yoel:
And it shall come to pass afterwards that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophecy; your elders shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. *22
In a letter of Maimonides to the Jews of Yemen
we read that shortly before the coming of Moshiach, prophecy will return
to the Jewish people. It is my belief that the ‘coming of Eliyahu haNavi’ in the days before the start of the Messianic era refers to the re-emergence
of the spirit of that prophet in the
souls of those contemplatives who are being truly ‘attentive and receptive’ in
their prayer.
It is time for us to ‘listen’
in contemplative prayer because it is only by paying attention in
receptive contemplation that we can become the prophets, or sons of the
prophets that we are all destined to be.
Dedicated Jewish
Contemplatives—the Mitkarevim— may well be in the vanguard of those who
hasten the coming of that emerging consciousness.
May Hashem open the minds and hearts of all those who would hear His Voice, and may His Name be blessed in all the worlds.
קרבנו מלכנו לעבודתך
אהרון-נחמן דייויס
©Nachman Davies
11th Adar 5781
First
edition...Spain 2005
Second
edition...Tzfat 2021
*1 Melachim
I 19:12: “And after the fire there came a still small
voice.And when Eliyahu heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went
out, and stood at the mouth of the cave.”
*2 Aleinu: Concluding prayer of formal services whose last line
reads: Then the L-rd shall be king over
all the earth,on that day the L-rd shall be
One and His name One.’ (Zechariya:14)
*3 Sh’ma: A prayerful statement found the tefilin and also
recited daily in public and private. Texts are from: Devarim 6, Devarim 11,and Bamidbar 15. The word ‘sh’ma’ can be
be translated as ‘listen’, ‘hear’, or ‘understand’.
*4 In Mishneh Torah 1:2, the Rambam instructs us that the commandment refers to the Unity of G-d: ‘a fundamental principal on which everything else is based.’
*5 Know before Whom you
stand:— “Be careful of the honour of your colleagues ;
restrain your children from recitation, and seat them between the knees of the
disciples of the wise ; and when you pray, know
before Whom you stand ; and by
doing so you will be worthy of the life
of the World Beyond.” (Berachot 28b)
*6 Chayei
Olom HaBah, trans. R' Aryeh Kaplan in ‘Meditation and Kabbalah’, page 107, (Samuel Weiser, York
Beach,Maine,1982)
*7 Shaarei
Kedushah, trans. R' Aryeh Kaplan in ‘Meditation and Kabbalah,’ page
197.
*8 Likutey Moharan I:52, trans. R' Aryeh Kaplan in ‘Meditation and Kabbalah,’ page 310.
*9 Likutey Moharan II:25, trans. R'Aryeh Kaplan in ‘Meditation and Kabbalah,’ p. 309.
*10 The Chassidic Masters, R'Aryeh
Kaplan, page 73 (Moznaim Publishing
Corporation,New York/Jerusalem, 1984)
*11 This
tent of meeting outside the camp (ohel mo-ed asher michutz lamachaneh) is
especially significant as it had a resident “Dedicated Jewish Contemplative”,
namely Yehoshua, who was permanently on contemplative retreat there in his
youth as a sort of custodian. (see Shemot 33:11)
*12 Zohar 1:90a
*13 Shiv’chei Baal Shem Tov 150 : ‘Nothing is accidental. I know that everything,however great or small, is overseen by Heaven. Therefore one must think about the meaning of everything that happens’. (quoted in ‘The Path of the Baal Shem Tov’, R' David Sears, page 43 (Rowman & Littlefield publishers INC.,New York,1997)
*14 Bereshit
32:29
*15 (Kol
dimamah dakah) (I Melachim 19:12)
*16 Pirkei
Avot 2:21
*17 Iyyov 37:14.
*18 Shemot
14:13.
*19 Berachot 34a
*20 Berachot 17a. It was a prayer composed by the Amora, Mar Bar Ravina (Fourth century CE) in the tradition of the sages who used to improvise similar prayers at the conclusion of the Amidah.
