Friday, February 26, 2010

Jewish Spirituality In A Nutshell (Part 1)

Generally speaking, spirituality is the awareness that an unseen spiritual world exists simultaneously with our everyday world of thoughts and feelings. This dimension of life generates the most significant values that mankind can attain—love, wisdom, healing, forgiveness, just to name a few. Religious traditions throughout human history always understood the need for making contact with the spiritual realm, but each culture’s style varies widely. Jewish spirituality is intimately tied into our tradition, and I know of no other spiritual practice as potent as Judaism for the Western sensibility.

How can modern Jews live today’s pace, go through the mechanics of raising a family, attend to the pressures of the workplace and yet find time and energy to pursue spirituality in their lives? The present ultra-orthodox style of living in ghetto-like communities originated by necessity in the European countries in which they were forced to take refuge. Certain laws of the Torah made it necessary for everyone to reside close to one another; these people found joy and warmth and satisfaction from living in close proximity to each other. They not only lived among each other, but they followed the same dress code, ate the same foods and spoke the same language, all to remain distinct from the outlying community. Their spirituality came from clinging to God in every feasible moment. But is it possible for us, living in the 21st Century, in an ultra-technocratic society where change happens faster than we can keep up with it, to establish some level of spirituality.

The ultimate objective of Jewish spirituality is a kind of Divine perception that Jewish mystics have struggled towards for many centuries. They labeled it “Devekut”—the union with God. This kind of enlightenment doesn’t take place with blinding flashes of insight. It’s nature is to experience God in all our daily activities. It’s meaning is encapsulated from the verse from psalm 140 “Shviti I stand before God at all times”, and its origin lies in the spring festival of Pesach. In the stories surrounding the redemption, we find the stiff-necked nation of Israel enslaved, to the taskmasters of Egypt, for nearly 400 years. They preferred the hardships of Egypt to the great unknown of liberation. You and I follow similar paths. It takes many plagues to dislodge us from our captivity to the world of matter and concepts. After God redeemed the Israelites with an outstretched arm, the people journeyed for the next forty years toward the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. Egypt is our exile; the road to Canaan symbolizes our Devekut.
To be continued...