Jewish Meditation: An Introduction
Meditation is a training for the mind and body. Jewish Meditation is meditation that is done within the context and goals of the Torah and commandments. In this essay I would like to explain how the simple process of meditation, the discipline of focusing on the breath as described on the torahandmeditation.weebly.com website, is fundamental to Jewish spiritual path as taught by our holy sages.
Rabbi Haim Vital, the student of the great master the Arizal, writes in his Gates of Kedusha Part 1, Gate 2 a most amazing idea. He says that if one fixes his character, then the Torah comes with ease; but if one remains with a bad character, then he rejects the essence of the Torah.
The is because the Torah is not simply learning from a book, it is God’s wisdom, the magnificent light of God’s love and kindness that He wishes to bestow upon us. God placed this light within the holy letters of the Torah and the wisdom of our sages and we have the special opportunity to learn the Torah and thereby receive this light.
However, to receive this light, there must be an appropriate vessel. The primary topic of the Kabbalah is the complex and dynamic relationship between light and vessels, that which is bestowed and that which is received.
Now we can understand Haim Vital’s point. In order to receive God’s light, we need to fix our vessel, and this vessel is our character.
In Hebrew, character is called middot. Middot literally means measures or aspects. There are four primary middot corresponding to the four primary elements of nature: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. These four middot also correspond to the four letters of God’s holy name, May He Be Blessed.
The human body can be seen also as composed of these four elements. Air is centered in our lungs; Water in our stomach that is filled with digestive fluids; and Earth our legs that root us to the ground, and also our organs for elimination that are focused on physicality.
The element of fire is in the spine and the brain, the electric system of the body. The root of the spine is connected to the sexual organ which is the root of all energy and this energy travels up the spine, and the spine is actually an extension of the brain where the neurons “firing” is part of the thinking process.
Each of these elements also corresponds to a kind of quality in our character. This quality can be expressed in a positive way or a negative way.
Fire: Energy/passion or anger
Air: Light/Happy or spacy and distracted
Water: Openness/flexible or indulgence in pleasure
Earth: Groundedness or sluggishness
The key to fixing one’s character is to express the power of the elements in our nature in their proper measure. If one is passionate, it is essential to guard the passion so that it does not turn into anger. The same is true with each of the others.
We all need to create balance in each of these aspects of our lives. However, within each of us there is one element that is dominant, and this is the area where we need to focus the majority of our effort in fixing our character.
In the Jewish tradition the key to fixing one’s middot depends upon one’s relationship with the Tzaddik, the holy and truly righteous man. In the Torah the archetypal Tzaddik is Joseph. Joseph is faced with the greatest temptation. Potiphar, the wife of his Egyptian master and the most beautiful woman of her day, continually attempted to seduce the young Joseph. Joseph was able to overcome his yetzer hara (physical inclination), and the sages teach us that he did this by seeing in his mind the image of his holy father Jacob, that is, the image of the Tzaddik. By overcoming this test, Joseph in turn became the Tzaddik of his generation.
His brother Judah, who is the father of the house of the Moshiach, the King of Israel, did not pass his test. After helping to sell his brother Joseph into slavery, Judah left his brothers and consequently went on a spiritual decline that ended in an encounter with his daughter-in-law Tamar who disguised herself as a harlot. Consequently, Judah had to go through a process of shuva or returning to God. This process of shuva is orchestrated by Joseph, who in the story of Genesis, creates the opportunity for Judah and his brothers to fully admit the great wrong that they had done to him.
Rebbe Nachman teaches that this drama that occurs in the story of Joseph and his brothers is not a one time event. It teaches a fundamental principle of the Torah, that each Jew must go through a process of shuva before the Tzaddik of the generation. Even the King of Israel (and eventually the Moshiach himself) must come and do shuva before the Tzaddik, just as David expressed in Tehillim 51:
To the Chief Musician, a Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet [The Tzaddik] came to him after he had come to Bath Sheba. Be gracious to me, God, according to Your kindness; according to the abundance of Your mercies blot out my transgression...
Shuva occurs before the Tzaddik because as Shlomo HaMelek says: The Tzaddik is the foundation of the world. Rebbe Nachman explains as taught in the Zohar* that the Tzaddik is literally the source of all the four foundations or elements of nature (יסודות). The Tzaddik is the river that runs through Eden and branches into four streams. These streams are the four primary elements of creation. Therefore, when one stands in relationship to the Tzaddik, one stands before the master of these streams of life force, the master of the soul. As the master of the soul, the Tzaddik reveals to us the perfect measure of the four elements of life in their complete harmony and balance.
When this proper measure is restored, the soul then becomes a true vessel to receive God’s light. This is because God’s light is expressed in the world through His holy four letter name הויה. In order for this light to be received, the four elements within us that correspond to this holy name must be properly prepared. When they are in proper measure this light flows naturally from above to below, like the river of Eden to her four streams. As Haim Vital teaches, then the Torah can be received easily.
The purpose of Jewish meditation is to help us develop the objectivity and consciousness to restore the elements of our character in proper measure. The key to this process is awareness. In order to fix our character we have to gain the clarity to see ourselves objectively so that we can realign the energies within our mind and body.
At the root of all our actions are thoughts and the root of each thought is an image from our imagination. Our lives become imbalanced principally because we follow after images and thoughts in our mind that our sent from our yetzer hara (our lower or evil inclination).
There are two inclinations within man, one is an inclination upward towards God, and the other is downwards towards animal existence. Spiritual growth is the process of gaining greater awareness of the power of these thoughts and images that run through our consciousness and seek to lead us downwards. The mastery of the self is the process of learning to harness the physical powers and inclinations for Godly purpose.
In the Shema that we say every day the Torah teaches us to place tzitzit on our garments and to look at them so that you will not follow after your heart and after your eyes by which you go astray... It is very essential to understand that according to the Torah the heart and not the mind is the root of all thoughts. Thus, when the Torah commands us to “love God with all our hearts, all our soul and all our might, the real meaning is to love God with all our thoughts, all our physical life force and all our wealth.
This is the primary meditation teaching of the Torah. Our meditation is to love the One God with all our life, mind, body, and possessions. In order to do this we must maintain a constant awareness of God. The yetzer hara, however, is constantly bombarding us with every possible form of distraction also in the form of thoughts, body sensation, and worldly possessions. God in His great compassion gave us the Torah and its mitzvot to provide us a way to anchor our consciousness of God within the activities of daily life. He also appointed the special days of Shabbat and Chagim when we can free ourselves from worldly concern and focus on God.
The activity of the mitzvot demand a disciplined mind. During prayer we are supposed to focus upon the words of prayer, when we are wearing tefillin, we are commanded to maintain awareness of the holiness of the tefillin we have placed upon our head and arm, when we are walking in the street or in front of a computer we are supposed to guard our eyes from certain attractions, etc. The challenge is that the yetzer hara sends thoughts and images that lead us astray.
Meditation is in principle the discipline of placing one’s concentration and awareness on a specific thing, like counting breaths or a Torah verse, and then guarding the mind from following after thoughts and fantasy images. This is a discipline and exercise like anything else. When one begins it is difficult, but with practice, there are certain spiritual muscles that are built that generate the disciplined energy required for meditation. I see meditation like a form of exercise, like jogging. With a little practice, it becomes easier and generates tremendous benefit, but it requires consistency and patience. At the same time, it is essential during meditation, not to think about results because this takes away from the very practice of meditation.
However, there are very real results and one must know what they are in order to gain the motivation to take on a regular meditation practice. With regular practice meditation helps to quiet the mind, so that even though thoughts and images still arise, they do not come as frequently and with the same intensity. Regular meditation strengthens our power of awareness that allows us to clearly distinguish between those thoughts that are leading us towards God and a healthy life and those that are seeking to lead us away from God and towards negative or even destructive patterns of behavior.
The practice of sitting or standing meditation brings our physical elements into natural alignment. In ordinary life we are constantly looking out into the world and our energies are being dispersed by the different experiences and thoughts that we have. During meditation we allow the thought process and all the fire energy of our thoughts to settle and be quiet. This thought energy is calmed by the rhythm of our breathing. After some time this energy that is usually rising upwards slowly settles towards our center in our lower stomach, the place of water and we can enter a state of calmness and openness. This allows us then to come to a place of stillness rooted in the quality of earth as even our physicality becomes still. As Shimon ben Rabban Gamliel says in Pirke Avot 1,17 says, All my days have I grown up among the wise and I have not found anything better for a man (literally, “better for the body”) than silence.
From this place, it is possible to gain greater awareness of the unity of our life energy. This greater awareness of unity is the key to connecting to the spiritual and inner aspect of our life called soul. It is from this place of unity that we have the opportunity to connect to the true Unity -- the presence of God.
This process of coming to the unity of God is also a process of returning to God -- shuva. And as we said above, the process of shuva is guided by the Tzaddik. Rebbe Nachman explains as taught by the Holy Zohar that the Tzaddik is literally the neshama klali or universal soul of all Israel. This universal soul is the soul of Moses (L.M. 118), the chief prophet of Israel, and is in truth a higher spiritual level. When we gain in spiritual development and connect to the inner truth of our own soul, we gain a vision of the True Soul of Israel, which is the key to prophecy. The ultimate aim of the Torah is for all of Israel to reach this level so that each of us can live a truly holy and righteous life and behold the glory of God.
The path to this exalted goal is like in anything else, one that demands disciplined effort and patience.
* Zohar 208a HE DISTRIBUTED WIDELY TO THE DESTITUTE: Rebi Elazar said: When The Holy One, Blessed is He, created the world, He stood it up on one column (i.e., principle), and 'Tzaddik' is its name, and it is this tzaddik that is the basis of the world's continued existence. He is the source of its "drink" and "food," as the verse says, "And a river went out from Aiden to water the garden, and from there it branched out." (Bereishis 2:10) http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5763/vayigash.html#
See also Lekutei Moharan 4.
To learn more about the teachings of Rebbe Nachman and the True Tzaddik see my online book: The Knowledge of God. To learn tools for discovering the principles of personal growth see the interactive animated presentation and online book The Secret to Achieving Personal Goals at shareyorah.org
Meditation is a training for the mind and body. Jewish Meditation is meditation that is done within the context and goals of the Torah and commandments. In this essay I would like to explain how the simple process of meditation, the discipline of focusing on the breath as described on the torahandmeditation.weebly.com website, is fundamental to Jewish spiritual path as taught by our holy sages.
Rabbi Haim Vital, the student of the great master the Arizal, writes in his Gates of Kedusha Part 1, Gate 2 a most amazing idea. He says that if one fixes his character, then the Torah comes with ease; but if one remains with a bad character, then he rejects the essence of the Torah.
The is because the Torah is not simply learning from a book, it is God’s wisdom, the magnificent light of God’s love and kindness that He wishes to bestow upon us. God placed this light within the holy letters of the Torah and the wisdom of our sages and we have the special opportunity to learn the Torah and thereby receive this light.
However, to receive this light, there must be an appropriate vessel. The primary topic of the Kabbalah is the complex and dynamic relationship between light and vessels, that which is bestowed and that which is received.
Now we can understand Haim Vital’s point. In order to receive God’s light, we need to fix our vessel, and this vessel is our character.
In Hebrew, character is called middot. Middot literally means measures or aspects. There are four primary middot corresponding to the four primary elements of nature: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. These four middot also correspond to the four letters of God’s holy name, May He Be Blessed.
The human body can be seen also as composed of these four elements. Air is centered in our lungs; Water in our stomach that is filled with digestive fluids; and Earth our legs that root us to the ground, and also our organs for elimination that are focused on physicality.
The element of fire is in the spine and the brain, the electric system of the body. The root of the spine is connected to the sexual organ which is the root of all energy and this energy travels up the spine, and the spine is actually an extension of the brain where the neurons “firing” is part of the thinking process.
Each of these elements also corresponds to a kind of quality in our character. This quality can be expressed in a positive way or a negative way.
Fire: Energy/passion or anger
Air: Light/Happy or spacy and distracted
Water: Openness/flexible or indulgence in pleasure
Earth: Groundedness or sluggishness
The key to fixing one’s character is to express the power of the elements in our nature in their proper measure. If one is passionate, it is essential to guard the passion so that it does not turn into anger. The same is true with each of the others.
We all need to create balance in each of these aspects of our lives. However, within each of us there is one element that is dominant, and this is the area where we need to focus the majority of our effort in fixing our character.
In the Jewish tradition the key to fixing one’s middot depends upon one’s relationship with the Tzaddik, the holy and truly righteous man. In the Torah the archetypal Tzaddik is Joseph. Joseph is faced with the greatest temptation. Potiphar, the wife of his Egyptian master and the most beautiful woman of her day, continually attempted to seduce the young Joseph. Joseph was able to overcome his yetzer hara (physical inclination), and the sages teach us that he did this by seeing in his mind the image of his holy father Jacob, that is, the image of the Tzaddik. By overcoming this test, Joseph in turn became the Tzaddik of his generation.
His brother Judah, who is the father of the house of the Moshiach, the King of Israel, did not pass his test. After helping to sell his brother Joseph into slavery, Judah left his brothers and consequently went on a spiritual decline that ended in an encounter with his daughter-in-law Tamar who disguised herself as a harlot. Consequently, Judah had to go through a process of shuva or returning to God. This process of shuva is orchestrated by Joseph, who in the story of Genesis, creates the opportunity for Judah and his brothers to fully admit the great wrong that they had done to him.
Rebbe Nachman teaches that this drama that occurs in the story of Joseph and his brothers is not a one time event. It teaches a fundamental principle of the Torah, that each Jew must go through a process of shuva before the Tzaddik of the generation. Even the King of Israel (and eventually the Moshiach himself) must come and do shuva before the Tzaddik, just as David expressed in Tehillim 51:
To the Chief Musician, a Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet [The Tzaddik] came to him after he had come to Bath Sheba. Be gracious to me, God, according to Your kindness; according to the abundance of Your mercies blot out my transgression...
Shuva occurs before the Tzaddik because as Shlomo HaMelek says: The Tzaddik is the foundation of the world. Rebbe Nachman explains as taught in the Zohar* that the Tzaddik is literally the source of all the four foundations or elements of nature (יסודות). The Tzaddik is the river that runs through Eden and branches into four streams. These streams are the four primary elements of creation. Therefore, when one stands in relationship to the Tzaddik, one stands before the master of these streams of life force, the master of the soul. As the master of the soul, the Tzaddik reveals to us the perfect measure of the four elements of life in their complete harmony and balance.
When this proper measure is restored, the soul then becomes a true vessel to receive God’s light. This is because God’s light is expressed in the world through His holy four letter name הויה. In order for this light to be received, the four elements within us that correspond to this holy name must be properly prepared. When they are in proper measure this light flows naturally from above to below, like the river of Eden to her four streams. As Haim Vital teaches, then the Torah can be received easily.
The purpose of Jewish meditation is to help us develop the objectivity and consciousness to restore the elements of our character in proper measure. The key to this process is awareness. In order to fix our character we have to gain the clarity to see ourselves objectively so that we can realign the energies within our mind and body.
At the root of all our actions are thoughts and the root of each thought is an image from our imagination. Our lives become imbalanced principally because we follow after images and thoughts in our mind that our sent from our yetzer hara (our lower or evil inclination).
There are two inclinations within man, one is an inclination upward towards God, and the other is downwards towards animal existence. Spiritual growth is the process of gaining greater awareness of the power of these thoughts and images that run through our consciousness and seek to lead us downwards. The mastery of the self is the process of learning to harness the physical powers and inclinations for Godly purpose.
In the Shema that we say every day the Torah teaches us to place tzitzit on our garments and to look at them so that you will not follow after your heart and after your eyes by which you go astray... It is very essential to understand that according to the Torah the heart and not the mind is the root of all thoughts. Thus, when the Torah commands us to “love God with all our hearts, all our soul and all our might, the real meaning is to love God with all our thoughts, all our physical life force and all our wealth.
This is the primary meditation teaching of the Torah. Our meditation is to love the One God with all our life, mind, body, and possessions. In order to do this we must maintain a constant awareness of God. The yetzer hara, however, is constantly bombarding us with every possible form of distraction also in the form of thoughts, body sensation, and worldly possessions. God in His great compassion gave us the Torah and its mitzvot to provide us a way to anchor our consciousness of God within the activities of daily life. He also appointed the special days of Shabbat and Chagim when we can free ourselves from worldly concern and focus on God.
The activity of the mitzvot demand a disciplined mind. During prayer we are supposed to focus upon the words of prayer, when we are wearing tefillin, we are commanded to maintain awareness of the holiness of the tefillin we have placed upon our head and arm, when we are walking in the street or in front of a computer we are supposed to guard our eyes from certain attractions, etc. The challenge is that the yetzer hara sends thoughts and images that lead us astray.
Meditation is in principle the discipline of placing one’s concentration and awareness on a specific thing, like counting breaths or a Torah verse, and then guarding the mind from following after thoughts and fantasy images. This is a discipline and exercise like anything else. When one begins it is difficult, but with practice, there are certain spiritual muscles that are built that generate the disciplined energy required for meditation. I see meditation like a form of exercise, like jogging. With a little practice, it becomes easier and generates tremendous benefit, but it requires consistency and patience. At the same time, it is essential during meditation, not to think about results because this takes away from the very practice of meditation.
However, there are very real results and one must know what they are in order to gain the motivation to take on a regular meditation practice. With regular practice meditation helps to quiet the mind, so that even though thoughts and images still arise, they do not come as frequently and with the same intensity. Regular meditation strengthens our power of awareness that allows us to clearly distinguish between those thoughts that are leading us towards God and a healthy life and those that are seeking to lead us away from God and towards negative or even destructive patterns of behavior.
The practice of sitting or standing meditation brings our physical elements into natural alignment. In ordinary life we are constantly looking out into the world and our energies are being dispersed by the different experiences and thoughts that we have. During meditation we allow the thought process and all the fire energy of our thoughts to settle and be quiet. This thought energy is calmed by the rhythm of our breathing. After some time this energy that is usually rising upwards slowly settles towards our center in our lower stomach, the place of water and we can enter a state of calmness and openness. This allows us then to come to a place of stillness rooted in the quality of earth as even our physicality becomes still. As Shimon ben Rabban Gamliel says in Pirke Avot 1,17 says, All my days have I grown up among the wise and I have not found anything better for a man (literally, “better for the body”) than silence.
From this place, it is possible to gain greater awareness of the unity of our life energy. This greater awareness of unity is the key to connecting to the spiritual and inner aspect of our life called soul. It is from this place of unity that we have the opportunity to connect to the true Unity -- the presence of God.
This process of coming to the unity of God is also a process of returning to God -- shuva. And as we said above, the process of shuva is guided by the Tzaddik. Rebbe Nachman explains as taught by the Holy Zohar that the Tzaddik is literally the neshama klali or universal soul of all Israel. This universal soul is the soul of Moses (L.M. 118), the chief prophet of Israel, and is in truth a higher spiritual level. When we gain in spiritual development and connect to the inner truth of our own soul, we gain a vision of the True Soul of Israel, which is the key to prophecy. The ultimate aim of the Torah is for all of Israel to reach this level so that each of us can live a truly holy and righteous life and behold the glory of God.
The path to this exalted goal is like in anything else, one that demands disciplined effort and patience.
* Zohar 208a HE DISTRIBUTED WIDELY TO THE DESTITUTE: Rebi Elazar said: When The Holy One, Blessed is He, created the world, He stood it up on one column (i.e., principle), and 'Tzaddik' is its name, and it is this tzaddik that is the basis of the world's continued existence. He is the source of its "drink" and "food," as the verse says, "And a river went out from Aiden to water the garden, and from there it branched out." (Bereishis 2:10) http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5763/vayigash.html#
See also Lekutei Moharan 4.
To learn more about the teachings of Rebbe Nachman and the True Tzaddik see my online book: The Knowledge of God. To learn tools for discovering the principles of personal growth see the interactive animated presentation and online book The Secret to Achieving Personal Goals at shareyorah.org