Volume 1: Real Davvenning
Introduction-- Davvenning (The Jewish Way of Prayer)
Most teaching on Jewish prayer seeks to familiarize people with the structure of the prayer service or to explain the meaning of the various prayers or the theology of prayer, why we pray and so on. This booklet has another purpose -- to teach you how to pray so that prayer works as a spiritual practice, so that it moves you spiritually. The goal is for you to achieve during prayer an elevated state of mind so that you actually taste and experience the nearness of God. That is what I mean by "real davvening."
Hasidic literature particularly contains many techniques to achieve this kind of davvening. Most of these techniques are fairly simple, such as controlling one's glance in order to concentrate better. These hasidic davvening practices are the basis of this booklet. If you follow them your praying will be immeasurably higher than before. You will get deep satisfaction from davvening and will experience the profound pleasure and joy of the nearness of God.
Many people today find prayer difficult. Somehow prayer doesn't seem to provide enough reward or satisfaction for them to see it as their pathway to spiritual fulfillment. But this lack of enthusiasm for prayer is primarily due to the fact that most people have not been taught how to pray. The rote praying that many people are accustomed to and that fails to provide powerful results is not the same as real davvening.
Prayer is a form of meditation and to benefit from any meditation you have to learn and apply the proper methods. Only by knowing how to pray can you really davven and progress spiritually by davvening. Sometimes this takes time; you can't expect to reach the final goal in your first attempts. Because you find no pearls the first time you dive in the ocean you must not conclude that there are no pearls there. You must dive again and again to find them. You can find God by prayer, but you must persevere. If you try even a few practices from this booklet, you will be encouraged to persist in your effort when you experience the life and vitality they infuse into your davvening.
Both beginning and experienced davveners, men and women can benefit by using the many traditional meditation techniques for prayer. Once people realize that there is something to learn about davvening as a spiritual practice, we will be on the path to a renewal of Jewish prayer. The following parable helps to explain the situation today.
So they set about the difficult task of relearning the forgotten art that should have been their inheritance from their fathers. Every day, before coming to the king, they spent time tuning their instruments. Upon entering the palace concert room and hearing the racket of the other musicians, they sought out an obscure corner for themselves where they could play undisturbed. They also remained long after the other musicians had departed, so that they might improve their skill. And in their homes they continued to practice and to struggle with their instruments as best they could.
The king was aware of their efforts and was pleased, for even though they did not play with the same talent as their fathers, still they strove, to the best of their abilities, to once more bring pleasure and joy to the king. Thus was their music received by the king with favor.
One lesson of this parable is that if we want to progress spiritually by davvening, we must develop our davvening skills. But an even more important lesson is that we must davven with devotion, for only devotion wins God's favor.
Real Davvening to Reach God
There are many goals in praying, but the primary one is to draw close to God. His nearness and intimacy should be felt and experienced. Our relationship to God must not remain a mere concept, but must be fulfilled in reality. Judaism's fundamental teaching about prayer is that a person can communicate and speak with God and feel His answering presence.
Let us begin then to consider how you can achieve real davven- ing. First and foremost, you must understand that davvening is a form of meditation. One of the main times we focus and concentrate our attention most fully in daily life is when speaking to another person. Therefore, speech can be a way to meditatively focus attention on the Divine Person.
Because davvening is a form of meditation, focus and concentration are essential to its practice. One aspect of that concentration involves removing external and internal distractions that prevent you from directing yourself to God. One of the advantages of praying in a synagogue is that it is a holy building set aside for worship and, ideally, isolated from worldly influences. As you remove distractions and -- this is the other main aspect of davvening -- concentrate more and more on God, you will gradually begin to feel His presence. Most of the prayer techniques that we will discuss are simply ways to concentrate and focus more and more on the davvening and on God until you alter your state of mind, enter the spiritual world, and actually experience God's nearness.
It is said that Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, attained his exalted spiritual level because he prayed with fiery intensity. A parable, which he sometimes told to his followers to instruct them specifically about prayer, contains the essence of his teachings about the mystic quest for God and God- consciousness (d'vekut).
The king then had proclamations sent throughout the kingdom saying that whoever came to see him in his palace would be richly rewarded; he would be given a rank second to none in the king's service. Who would not desire this? But when many came and saw the outer wall's awesome size and the terrifying soldiers and animals, most were afraid and turned back.
There were some, however, who succeeded in scaling that wall and fighting past the soldiers and animals, but then the second wall loomed before their eyes, even more imposing than the first, and its guards even more terrible. Seeing that, many others turned back.
Moreover, the king had appointed servants to stand behind the walls to give money and precious stones to whomever got beyond each wall. Those who had crossed one or a few walls soon found themselves very rich and satisfied with what they had gained from their efforts; so they too turned back. For one reason or another, either from fear at the increasing obstacles or satisfaction with the accumulated rewards, none reached the king . . . .
Except for the king's son. He had only one desire: to see the face of his beloved father. When he came and saw the walls, soldiers, and wild animals, he was astonished. He could not understand how his dear father could hide himself behind all these terrifying barriers and obstacles. "How can I ever reach him?" he thought. Then he began to weep, and cried out, "Father, Father, have compassion on me; don't keep me away from you!" His longing was so intense that he had no interest in any rewards; indeed, he was willing to risk his life to attain his goal. By the courage of his broken heart, which burned to see his father, he ran forward with reckless abandon and self-sacrifice; he scaled one wall and then another, fought past soldiers and wild animals. After crossing the walls, he was offered money and jewels, but he threw them down in disgust. His only desire was to see his father. Again and again he called out to him.
His father the king, hearing his son's pathetic cries and seeing his total self-sacrifice, suddenly, instantaneously, removed the walls and other obstacles. In a moment they vanished as if they had never existed. Then his son saw that there were no walls, soldiers, or animals. His father the king was right before him, sitting on his majestic throne while multitudes of servants stood near to serve him and choirs sang his praises. Gardens and orchards surrounded the palace on all sides. And the whole earth shone from the king's glory. Everything was tranquil, and there was nothing bad or terrible at all.
Then the son realized that the walls and obstacles were a magical illusion, and that his father the king had never really been hidden or concealed, but was with him all the time. It was all just a test to see who truly loved the king.
The simple meaning of this profound parable is that we are always in God's presence. The "walls" and obstacles that seem to separate us from Him are illusory. If we don't see Him, if we don't have the divine vision of the Godliness of all reality, it is because of our own spiritual deficiencies. But if we yearningly seek our Father in Heaven, we will find Him.
It is not accidental that the one to succeed in reaching the king is his son. We must realize that we are children of God, His sons and daughters, and that God is ever with us and does not intend to keep us separate from Him. The son in the parable succeeds because his love overcomes his fear. So must we increase our yearning and love for God until all barriers fall before us. In the parable, the son's forlorn cries of "Father, Father!" represent prayer. His readiness to die in his quest teaches the need for self-sacrifice (mesirat nefesh) for spiritual advancement -- and specifically for prayer. This parable undoubtedly depicts the Baal Shem Tov's own mystic quest, his fervent praying, and his moment of revelation.
When praying, you must yearn, even desperately, to reach God. You must be determined to go forward and not be deterred, either by obstacles and distractions or by secondary pleasures, even the satisfactions of davvening. Like the son in the parable, you must be single-minded in prayer, to go forward, to go deeper and deeper, over- coming all barriers until you reach your goal -- God's presence. The promise of the parable is that if you pray sincerely, from the heart, with self-sacrifice, God will reveal Himself to you.
All the teachings about davvening in this booklet have only one purpose: to help you to meditate deeply in prayer until you arouse your devotion and ignite your fervor for God. Remember that you will get back what you put in: The davvening techniques only work if used. The more of them you actually put into practice and perform, the better and more fulfilling your davvening will be.
Your attitude to davvening should be like that of a craftsman, who is interested not in theory but in getting the job done. The "job" during davvening is to somehow get close to God.
On Selecting A Seat In The Synagogue
Try to select a seat away from people you know to be "talkers." Avoid casual conversation in the synagogue sanctuary, particularly during the service, because it destroys any attempt at concentration. One cannot meditate and shmooze at the same time; one cannot go from a casual conversation with a friend to a profound conversation with God. Would a person meditating in a yoga center begin a conversation with the person meditating next to him? It makes as little sense for a person davvening in a synagogue to converse with his neighbor.
Continuity and Depth
It is a principle of all Jewish spiritual practice to avoid any interruptions in a religious activity. As applied to prayer and the synagogue service, this means that you should strive to constantly and uninterruptedly meditate, whether by praying, singing, listening to the prayer-leader, meditating silently, or devotedly watching a Torah scroll being taken out of the Ark. The goal is to build up spiritual power.
When you interrupt your davvening you destroy what you are working to accomplish. It is like trying to fill a pail with water -- and at the same time punching holes in the bottom. That is the reason to avoid idle conversation and other distractions during prayer; it is not just a matter of "being strict."
Your Glance
How can you focus during prayer to go deeper? One prime way to retain concentration is to control your glance. When meditating, you don't look around this way and that. So don't look around the synagogue aimlessly, at the people or elsewhere. Keep your eyes on the siddur, or on the Ark (which contains the Torah scrolls and therefore has a great manifestation of Godliness), or on the walls, floor, or ceiling, or out the window at the sky (whose unitary expanse reminds one of heaven and inspires religious feeling). If you wear a tallit, you can cover your head with it, which removes your peripheral vision and concentrates your eyes on the siddur. The rabbis say that viewing the letters of the prayers in the siddur helps concentration and arouses enthusiasm. But it is also helpful to keep your eyes closed occasionally during the service, which you are able to do more often if you have memorized some of the prayers. The point is to generally avoid looking at the other congregants (including the prayer-leader). Why? Because there are no more powerful distractions to prayer than viewing a human face or overhearing a conversation.
Volume 2: An Open Heart: The Mystic Path to Loving People
Open Your Heart to Love All People
The Jewish mystic goal is for a person to meet God in this lifetime, to experience at every moment the beauty, sweetness, and holiness of the Divine Presence. The path to the goal is devotion and fervent love for God. But only by loving people can you truly love God. Only by meeting people in the deepest way can you truly meet God. An Open Heart guides you through traditional sources and texts to explore the Jewish mystic path of loving people.
Introduction: Mysticism and Humanism
Many Jews who seek to deepen their Jewish spirituality have developed an interest in mysticism. What is the relation between mysticism and religion? Mysticism means passing beyond belief and observance to direct spiritual experience. A Jewish mystic tries to attain d'vekut, God-consciousness, a devotional awareness of God's presence. God is everywhere, say the mystics, there is no place where He is not present. If we do not see the Divine Presence, it is only because our eyes and hearts are not directed to God.
Jews today are also attached to humanism, the Jewish ideal of loving and serving (helping, doing good to) other people. Both Hillel and Rabbi Akiba were asked to state the essence of the Torah. Rabbi Akiba's answer was "love your neighbor as yourself." Hillel's answer was the Golden Rule -- what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor -- which is the rule for the application of the commandment to love. Humanism is the core Jewish teaching that puts humanity and being loving and humane at the heart of religion. Although it is often said, truly, that Judaism gave monotheism to the world, it is equally true and important that Judaism gave humanism to the world. In ancient times, people did not understand religion as necessarily connected to morality.Judaism, the Torah, taught the world that God is one and humanity is one, that people are precious to God, and that loving and being good to them is the essence of serving God.
Both mysticism and humanism are important branches of Judaism. But what is the connection between them? If one searches in the Kabbalah or in hasidic mysticism, humanism does not seem to have the prominent place that one would expect from the statements of Hillel and Rabbi Akiba that love of neighbor is the essence of the Torah. In the Kabbalah, one learns much about heavenly matters -- about the ten sefirot (divine emanations) and the four worlds -- but less about loving people. Some kabbalists developed an ethical system, but ethics are not at the heart of their mystic perspective. Hasidism brought kabbalistic mysticism from heaven down to earth and concentrated more on earthly matters and on people.
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, and some of the hasidic rebbes who followed him, were great lovers of humanity. But, although Hasidism has many examples of noble humanistic teachings, Jewish humanism still does not appear at the core of the philosophy of hasidic mysticism. Moreover, hasidic mysticism usually focuses on love for fellow Jews and neglects love for non-Jews.
Because, like many others, I am strongly interested in both Jewish mysticism and Jewish humanism, I have searched through traditional sources to find the connection between them. I also wanted to find the connection between these two parts of my own soul. I discovered hidden treasures of wisdom in the tradition. Using insights and clues from many texts, I have attempted to more fully integrate Jewish humanism into the Jewish mystic perspective. This view, which I call Mystic Humanism, means trying to develop the mystic vision to see the holiness of fellow human beings and putting love and service of people at the center of one's mystic path and lifestyle.
One reason to emphasize religious humanism is that there is a constant tendency for people to forget its importance. It is often easier to study Torah, pray, and celebrate Sabbaths and holidays, than it is to truly, religiously love and serve other people, even those closest to us. Therefore, there is a need today to reestablish -- even within the boundaries of Jewish mysticism -- the centrality of humanism to the worship of God.
There is another need of the hour too. Whereas traditional Jews focus on the love for fellow Jews, sometimes neglecting the universal love for all people; less traditional and more modern Jews sometimes focus on the love for non-Jews, neglecting the special love Jews should have for each other. We must increase our love for Jews and for non-Jews. We require a restatement and renewal of a traditional Jewish religious humanism that begins with a special, fervent love for fellow Jews and extends to an open and unabashed love for all people
The History of Jewish Mystic Humanism
It is ancient Jewish teaching that love for God must be expressed in love for our fellow humans and that serving God mainly consists in serving fellow humans. This teaching appears at the very beginning of the Book of Genesis in the account of the creation of man. This tale is the basis for the mystic humanistic viewpoint, as the following original insight will show.
The story of humanity's creation portrays God as, so to speak, a man who scoops up clay from the ground and sculpts a little man in his own image, a small model of himself. But what actual human activity is being pictured here? This, of course, is a parable -- God is not a man scooping up dirt -- and every parable is based on something in real life. What real-life scene is the basis for this graphic parable of God's action?
It is that of a sculptor who works with clay to produce a little image of a man. And in the world of ancient Israel, as in the rest of early antiquity, the actual context of such sculpting of human figurines was the age-old trade of -- the idol-maker!
Is not this astonishing and even breath-taking, that the parable used for God's activity in creating humanity is an idol-maker? Isn't the Torah vehemently against idolatry? The meaning behind this story is, however, as important as it is radical, for the Torah makes a claim that turns the views of the idolaters on their heads.
In ancient times, idol makers took clay, stone, or metal and constructed a human-like figure, which they said was the image of the god, made in their own human image. The Torah inverts this story and says: This is the way man was originally formed -- with God fulfilling the part of the idol-maker! Out of clay He created a man, a small version of Himself, made "in His own image." The Hebrew word for "image," tzelem, used in the story of Adam's creation and in the phrase "divine image," tzelem elohim, is the same word employed elsewhere in the Torah for an idol.
Although God is pictured as an idol-maker, this story contains a radical anti-idolatry message. The idolaters made statues, which they said were the images of their god, and to win the god's favor they ritually served and worshipped the idol. But the Torah story of man's creation out of clay, yet in God's image, teaches the very opposite: that idols of clay and stone are false and empty. Idolatry demeans human dignity by making people worship a lifeless object and it misrep- resents the nature of the living God. The idolaters say that the piece of sculpted clay is the image of a god; it is to be served and worshipped, bowed down to and revered. What does the Torah say is the "idol," the true "image of God," which should have our utmost respect and reverence?
It is Man himself. So the true worship of God is not the ritual temple service of a lifeless image, devoid of ethics and with no necessary link to justice and mercy. The true worship of God is the love, service, and "worship" of living human beings, who are veritably "in His image." This exciting insight into the Genesis story is not an interpretation being read into the text. It is the real meaning of the story.
The Torah is astonishingly bold in using the parable of an idol-maker to portray God's creation of man. And the lesson conveyed through this startling device is profound. The essential teaching is that the love and worship of God are best expressed through love of humankind. Moreover, the statement that man is in the "image" of God contains a deep mystic truth: God is not only far away in heaven and separated from us. He appears on earth before our eyes in the form of our fellow human beings. We see from this insight into the Genesis story of man's creation that the belief in the divine dignity of humanity and that love for humanity as the essence of Judaism is not something invented later by the rabbis. It is found at the beginning of the Torah and at its very heart.