Friday, June 17, 2011

Spirituality and Healing

Jewish spirituality and healing are inextricably bound together. Healers around the world know that God is our ultimate healer; the force that enables true healing to take place. www.jewishealing.com is the website dedicated to spirituality and healing.

Judaism has a lot to do with fixing things that went wrong. The Kabbalah, for example, presents us with the theory of Tikkun Olam (the rectification of the universe) to deal with the mechanics of repair. Through Kabbalah, it is believed, we can fix what went wrong with our bodies, our emotions, and our minds. Our entire existence—the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual life—emanates from the Divine realm, and provides for all of our personal needs, which we receive continuously. Many questions arise out of spiritual inquiry such as “Who am I?” “What is the purpose of my existence?” “What is the meaning of life?” “What happens to me after I die?” and a host of other similar questions that may pose a threat to our mental and emotional stability. Quite often, people, upon entering psychotherapy, find that their painful issues are not emotional but indeed spiritual.

Healing is a function of living a spiritual life. Healing can be defined as the natural process by which the body repairs itself. As an integral part of nature, we all consist of the energy of Creation. A number of terms have been coined throughout the history of healing practices to describe energy; for our purposes, we mean the vital energy, the power that energizes life. This power is synonymous with what we call God. On Shavuot, we refresh our connection to God, our healing power, by receiving His Torah.

Some of us believe that entering a spiritual path will solve our overall problems; they are often disillusioned when they find their lives have not really changed as a result of their introduction. Mysticism has always been the tool of spiritual explorers who stick with it, delving into the depths of their being, in search for an understanding of and an intimate relationship with the Creator. A grasp of Kabbalah can serve our healing efforts well however it is a long tedious journey that may last a lifetime while the practice of standard Jewish tradition—Torah, Mitzvot, and Prayer—bring about changes right now

Jewish tradition tries hard, though sometimes pitifully, to relate that the entrance to the “Gates” is the alignment of our personalities with our souls, our spiritual Self. In more familiar terms, it means aligning ourselves with God and Torah. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner put in succinctly when he wrote, “The Pentateuch is God’s Torah; each one of us is our own Torah whose purpose in life is to align our Torah to His Torah”.

You may ask, “Why traveling on the road to heaven—or biblically, the road to Canaan—is so urgently important for those on the spiritual journey”? I think that if a survey were taken to determine just what most people want in their lives, I think we would find that they want a just and moral society where people can flourish in accord with their aspirations.