This week’s parsha, or weekly Torah portion, Va’era, is the second parsha in Exodus, the book detailing the Israelites’ exodus from slavery under Pharaoh to freedom. “Va’era” means “I appeared” or “I let Myself be seen.”  God says “Va’era” to Moses, as in, “I let Myself be seen by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and by this, God means something along the lines of: “I revealed Myself to them so they know I am the real deal.” God explains that the distress of the Israelites who are living in bondage under Pharaoh led God to remember the covenant God had made with the patriarchs to give their descendants the land of Canaan.  According to God, it is now also time for the Israelites to fully understand the limitlessness of God’s power.

God tells Moses, the recently-appointed leader of the Israelites (who has a speech impediment), that he and his brother Aaron, who has been speaking to the Israelites on Moses’s and therefore God’s behalf, should get ready for a hard fight with Pharaoh regarding the Israelites’ freedom.  God also decides to “harden Pharaoh’s heart” so that God will get to have several opportunities to show off divine strength and power.  God decides that if Pharaoh doesn’t relent, the best plan of action will be plagues that afflict the Egyptians and not the Israelites.  Of course, Pharaoh puts up a fight, and the plagues of the Passover story begin.  Then Pharaoh tells Moses that the Israelites can at the very least go on a brief journey to sacrifice to God, but quickly changes his mind.  More plagues to come next week.

So much happens in this parsha, and I felt overwhelmed as I read it.  But ultimately I found myself coming back to the age-old question of why not just select Aaron instead of Moses?  Why this game of telephone?  What could be the benefit of a leader with a speech impediment?

Thinking about this reminded me of completely losing my voice.  This would not have been such a problem except that I am a high school teacher, and 99% of my job, or so I thought, involves talking.  At school, all I could was whisper. I whispered my instructions to a student who would repeat them to the class.  “Please take out your homework,” translated to “Yo!  Homework out now or Ms. Cohen won’t be happy.”  I did my best to say as few words as possible, and this meant that I had to keep instructions clear and to the point.  Minor infractions had to be ignored or handled using the infamous teacher look. I had to pick my words, and battles, carefully, because someone else was going to repeat them and I didn’t want to be misinterpreted, and because I had a limited capacity for speech and needed to conserve energy.  Amazingly, my classes ran smoothly.

According to one commentator, Moses’ “slow tongue” was his strength. Because speaking was a challenge, he would mindfully select his words, and what Aaron was told to repeat to the Israelites would be the true essence of what God wanted conveyed.

What would it mean if we could only say one-fourth or one-fifth of the words we say daily? What would we decide was superfluous?  Would we become better listeners?  How often have I thought to myself, I wish I had not said that, right after speaking quickly and mindlessly?  In an era of fast-talking and multi-tasking, how would our interactions change if we said less and, in doing so, said more?

Though I was thrilled to get my voice back, I realized that losing it had been a kind of blessing.  If you had no choice but to cut out a chunk of your daily words, phrases, or communication, what would you select to let go of and why?  These could be words you say to yourself or to others.  On the other hand, which speech would you come to view as essential? My kavanah, or intention, for this week is to ask ourselves how mindful awareness of our speech can help us improve the quality of our lives and the lives of others.

This week’s Torah portion, Tazria, explains that during specific periods in a person’s life,
she or he must spend time in physical seclusion, truly alone, in order to return physically and
spiritually to a balanced state of being; once a person returns to this place of balance, she is
then ready to return to the welcoming arms of the community. Tazria begins with a discussion
of the seclusion and purification period that women were required to go through after giving
birth. Yet the majority of the portion discusses the mandated period of isolation that had to be
undertaken by a person stricken with tzara’at, a disease usually translated as leprosy. People
who developed physical symptoms associated with this disease, such as patches of white hair and
scaly discolored skin, had to report to the Priest, Aaron, or to one of his sons, and if the diagnosis
of tzara’at was confirmed, the prescribed treatment was immediate isolation. Yet interestingly,
according to many commentators, tzara’at was not leprosy at all, but actually a kind of spiritual
disorder or confusion, and one of the ways in which this spiritual disordering manifested was as
physical symptoms.

When I first started reading Tazria, I initially felt disappointed- what did leprosy have to do
with my life in 2011 and the lives of the people I know? But the commentaries, in describing
tzara’at in spiritual terms, provided me with an entry point, a way to connect. Commentary after
commentary discussed spiritual affliction and the ways in which seclusion, silence, time alone,
can and do provide an essential part of the answer to healing oneself and one’s soul. I started
to think, what helps me when I feel confused, conflicted, in a state of imbalance? In our day-to-
day lives, we speak and interact constantly, and often, in auto-pilot mode, I immediately turn to
friends and family when I am in need of support. But then, at some point, I realize that it is time
once again to turn to myself for answers, or at least for more specific questions. Basically, it is
time to sit again, to do the inner work that only I can do for myself.

And why do I do it? When something is not quite right internally and I am not tending to
myself, I find that my interactions are often not quite right as well. Maybe this is why the Torah
mandated such periods of seclusion. A state of spiritual confusion that goes undiagnosed and
untended often harms more than just the afflicted person; members of the community may suffer
as well, a kind of spiritual second-hand smoke. So I attempt to return to my breath and see what
arises, because sitting here is about much more than I initially understood: it is about offering up
my own attempts at inner healing in an effort to bring more balance to my interactions and to the
lives with which my own life is intertwined.

Those afflicted with tzara’at were required to seclude themselves in order to heal themselves,
but those who meditate are, admirably, choosing to do so through meditation. When you are
about to meditate or during a meditation session, you might consider why have you chosen the
silence and internal seclusion of meditation at and in that moment. How does the seclusion heal
you or re-balance you?

This week’s Torah portion, Sh’mini, begins on the eighth day of the consecration of
the tabernacle (or mishkan) which is the traveling dwelling place for God’s presence.
Moses summons Aaron, his sons, and the elders of Israel and instructs them on the varied
offerings they will be bringing before God with the hope of God revealing him/herself.
Once the sacrifices were complete to the precise order of God, the people were then
bestowed with the sight of “God’s glory.” After the offering, God tells Moses and Aaron
to inform the children of Israel of the laws of kashrut or being kosher. The requirements
for edible mammals include having split hooves and being able to chew their own cud.
Animals who have just one of the two requirements are deemed non-kosher such as
the pig, which is clearly the one that gets the most non-kosher attention in the Jewish
community. The pig is also the only one indicated in the torah who has the split hooves
but does not chew its own cud. From the outside the pig can pass as a seemingly kosher
animal; however, its inner process does not match what is visible to the world. This
concept reminds me of discussions had around Purim and the concept of going through
life wearing masks or presenting a face to the world that may not match our own inner
being.

Perhaps you had a day at work that required you to put on a persona that you do not feel
matches who you really are. Or maybe you had to schmooze with people that required
a lot of external focus and you have yet to check in with yourself and your breath today.
Wherever you are, I invite you to center yourself by bringing your attention back to
the very thing that sustains you; your breath. For the first sit I would like to offer the
kavannah, or intention, of using your breath as a vehicle to leave the masks aside and
draw your attention to your inner self.

The parsha goes on to talk about the laws of ritual purity which include the purifying
power of the mikvah or pool of water. Rabbi David Cooper says in his book God is
a Verb, “Mastery in purity comes through contemplation.” Rabbi Cooper goes on
to describe the goal of purity within spiritual or contemplative practice as being “to
minimize or eliminate thoughts that cause inner conflict.”

Reduction in inner conflict has been one of the greatest benefits I have found for myself
within my own meditation practice. Friends of mine will often hear me talk about making
a big decision and say “I need to meditate on it”. Meditation has been a source of quiet
and calm in my own thinking and has helped purify my opinions, feelings and desires and
weed out external factors that can muddle my decision-making ability. There are many
factors we take into account when making decisions or determining our own feelings,
some of which are largely unimportant to the matter at hand. We often get swept away in
the “coulds”, “shoulds” and “woulds” of our mind’s dialogue which often contributes to
our impurity of thought thus bringing us distress.

I would like to invite you to take a step in bringing this “purity” to your own practice.

Bring your attention to your breath, and when your mind inevitably wanders, observe
your thoughts or feelings (however “pure” or “unpure”) without judging them. Gently
bring your attention back to your breath. In the first sit, I offered the intention of
using the breath to tune in to your inner self. In this next sit try and let the “coulds”
and “shoulds” be replaced with the practice of returning to the breath so as to breathe
purity into your inner process.

The parsha deals with the offerings and sacrifices that G-d has deemed necessary for Aaron and his sons to become holy and prove their worth as priests to the Israelites.

Moses receives and delivers the message of G-d, an intermediary.  When Moses was born and cast into the Nile, he was retrieved by Pharaoh’s daughter and presented to Pharaoh.  He was given a test to see if he was of royal blood; two trays were placed before him, one with hot coals and another with gleaming jewels.  The test was to observe which objects Moses reached for; he began to move his hand to the jewels  – a sign of royal blood -and an angel thwarted his reach by pushing his hand to the hot coals.  Upon touching the hot coals, he burnt his hand and immediately placed his hot hand in his mouth thus causing his palate to be burnt and therefore disfiguring him and causing him difficulty in speaking clearly.

Aaron, Moses’s brother, became an eloquent speaker and assisted Moses in communicating verbally.  This situation, the division of thought and speech, begs the question of how thought and speech are so fundamentally interrelated.  Aaron Copeland, the great C20 composer, wrote an opera in three acts, Moses und Aaron, interestingly enough, the opera has only two acts and it has been a source of speculation whether Copeland intended the last act to be silent or he never completed the full opera.

Today, I read an obituary in The New York Times for Moacyr Scliar, the Brazilian writer who wrote of his identity as a Jew living in the Diaspora and found this quote appropriate: “I owe to my Jewish origins, the permanent feeling of wonderment that is inherent to the immigrant and the cruel, bitter and sad humor that through the centuries has served to protect the Jews against despair, it is the level of language, however, that these impulses are able to produce their effects.  It is in language that I have faith, as a vehicle for aesthetic expression and also – and above all else – as an insturment for changing the world in which we live.”

Prayer and meditation are similar practices in that they both offer us a connection to the divine, but they differ significantly.  I see prayer as using language to express our innermost thoughts and feelings to a higher power.  Sometimes, we plumb the depths within ourselves and allow whatever comes to the surface to flow out in our prayer; we often pray to words that were written by someone else but express what we want to say.  To me, prayer is reaching out to the universe with questions, gratitude and praise and often, pleas for help.

Meditation has a silent quality that honors the art of receptivity.  When I meditate, I cease movement and allow the activity of my mind and hearts to go on without control. Eventually, in meditation, we fall into a deep stillness that underlies all the noise and fray of our daily existence and it becomes possible for us to hear the universe as it speaks for itself, responds to our questions or allows us to sit with us silently.

Both prayer and meditation are indispensable tools for navigating our relationship with the universe and ourselves; they are natural complements to one another.  One makes way for the other just as the crest of a wave gives way to its hollow.  When we do only one, we may find that we are out of balance and we might benefit from exploring the missing form of communication.

There are times when we need to reach out and express ourselves, fully exorcising our inner thoughts and times when we are empty, ready to rest in quiet receiving.  When we allow ourselves to do both, we begin to have a true conversation with the universe.

A few weeks ago, I was at the Garrison Institute for the Awakened Heart Project and Institute for Jewish Spirituality Jewish Mindfulness Teacher Training Program’s first retreat. After a week of teachings, practice, and silence, we were going to have a “talking breakfast.” We were told that another group was beginning a conference at the retreat center, not a meditation retreat, and we would all be in the dining hall together. It made sense that we would break our silence beforehand and not require the other group to have a silent breakfast.

I should tell you that during this retreat, one of the themes that kept popping up for me was integration. And, more specifically, how am I integrating all aspects of my life. Now, through Joshua Venture Group, I will be supported in directing the JMC, but I also will continue to work part-part-time as an urban planner. This career juxtaposition was on my mind, because I love my urban planning job, I want to finish my projects, and leading the JMC (and being supported financially to do so) is a total dream come true. How to do both and not burn out?

Back to breakfast. We all entered the dining hall. The other group was already there, talking, loudly. After a silent retreat, I always have a little bit of a hard time adjusting to not being in silence. My energy level spikes, and I feel kind of shaky. It’s a hard transition. Anyways, that happens. I take a few seconds to just notice it, and then a friend starts talking to me. I notice over his shoulder someone from the other group, sitting, eating breakfast. I recognize this person. I try not to ignore my friend, but I quickly realize that sitting before me is one of my urban planning heroes. I quoted him extensively in my Masters Thesis, cited his work constantly, and loved his recent book. Van Jones. Totally out of context. He was at the Garrison Institute for a conference on the “Green Economy.”

I looked back at my friend, and told him the situation. “Go talk to him!” And so I did. I walked over, interrupted his oatmeal, and said “Hi. You’re Van Jones!” He looked up and nodded. Said hello, politely, cautiously. “I’m Alison. I’m actually here for the meditation retreat, but I’m also an urban planner.” Now he smiled, got up, shook my hand. “I wanted to come over and say hello, because I’ve been so inspired by your work. Thank you.” He hugged me, we talked, and he said “Thank you. Thank you for going on meditation retreats. Thank you for taking care of your spiritual self so that you can do good work in the world.”

This seems to be the lesson I come back to over and over again. To me, it doesn’t matter if you’re a “good” meditator, or spiritual practitioner. Your practice on the cushion is going well- awesome, but that’s not that exciting to me. What interests me is how we take our practice into the world. How do you treat other people- strangers and loved ones and not-so-loved ones? How are we working to help others? Integrating our practices and our lives can be difficult, but when strange coincidences that open your heart and blow your mind start happening, I like thinking that means I’m going in the right direction. After talking with Van Jones, I floated back to my table and smiled over my oatmeal.

Last night Rabbi Ellen Lippman led a beautiful teaching on “What Happened at Sinai?” I’ve heard the idea before that everyone who has and will ever exist were there for the receiving of the Torah, revelation, “Rabbi Isaac said: At Mount Sinai the prophets of each and every generation received what they were to prophesy… even though they did not yet exist, each one received a share of the Torah… each and every one of them also received at Sinai the wisdom he or she was to utter” (Exodus Rabbah 28:6). What I had never really contemplated was how it must have felt. How it does feel, each year, when we receive the Torah. Rabbi Lippman went through different texts, exploring what each of our experiences are at Sinai. We started with the thunder and lightening version:

“On the third day, as morning dawned, there was thunder and lightning, and a dense cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud blast of the horn; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they took their places at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the Eternal had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The blare of the horn grew louder and louder. As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder.” (Exodus 19:16-19)

This is the movie version- exciting, loud, sort of violent. One of the participants at the teaching said that she related to this, that she feels most at home in this sort of chaotic, thunderstorm experience. Others commented that this just sounds scary, frightening, booming. We then read the next text:

“Rabbi Abahu said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: When the Holy One gave the Torah, no bird chirped, no fowl flew, no ox lowed, not one of the ofanim [wheel angels, as in Ezekial's vision of the chariot] stirred a wing, not one of the seraphim [another kind of angel] said, “Holy, holy, holy!” The sea did not roar, creatures did not speak – the whole world was hushed into breathless silence. It was then the voice went forth: “I am Adonai your God.” (Exodus Rabbah 29:9)

After we read this and sat silently for a few minutes, I kept thinking about how these two texts are interwoven. That within a loud storm, there is a silence. And within deep quiet, there is a thundering. Rabbi Lippman talked afterwards about the “eye of the storm,” and that’s exactly what this felt like to me. There is a charge to the air, there is a multitude of sound and feeling in each moment. We’re all worked up to receive. It’s dramatic, and it feels so real. Here we are, again, at Mount Sinai. We have to make space to receive what we already have, what we already have been given. It’s a total paradox, confusing, messy, but it’s also just the way things are.

We ended the evening with two other texts- moving, or ascending, from a cacophony of sound, an absence, looking at the words that God said, “I am Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay,” staying with just the first letter (of “anochi” or “I am”) of Aleph, and then to just our breath:

“God spoke only the first letter of the word. That letter, aleph, is by itself silent. God speaks only the great silence; the divine is a silent womb that contains all language within it… All God says is that which cannot be spoken, the pronouncement of the unpronounceable word. But this word is overflowing with the energy of Being.” (Rabbi Arthur Green, in Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology)

and

“The pause between our in-breath and out-breath is a place of stillness where we experience simply being, or in the state of I Am.” (Sheldon Lewis, Jewish meditation teacher extraordinaire)

As we prepare for revelation on Shavuot next week, take a few seconds to just be with that stillness. Breathe in and pause as you transition to an exhale. Feel that emptiness in between the breath. Breath out and pause before inhaling. Feel the space created that allows you to receive. As you take a few breaths, spend time playing within those pauses. Noticing the transition between in-breath and out-breath, feeling alive, “overflowing with the energy of Being.”

Also, Shabbat Shalom!

It can be hard to realize what space each of us takes up. We live in finite spaces, grow accustomed to the shape of our clothes on our bodies, the way we fill a chair, how we sleep (with a cat curled into the side of my face, and one arm under the pillow, fingers clutching at the covers), and the way we move through familiar spaces day after day. This is my kitchen, this is my office, this is my city. There is not much mindfulness here, when you mutter at someone who knocks you on the shoulder by accident, trying to get by, when a wet umbrella that does not belong to you brushes against your thin tights. But then there are moments when our space catches up with us, and we feel especially big or small. In a tai chi workshop a few weeks ago, pushed into the center of a circle, I felt like I was moving wrongly and blushing furiously. In these moments, my space seems too small for me, or more than what I thought I possessed.

Even harder for me to realize is the way I take up space in a conversation. How my opinions fly from my mouth and before I know it, I’ve said something that might be construed as offensive, rude, wrong to have said. Or worse, I don’t realize it at all, and wonder afterward, sometimes much later, if I’d said something hurtful, if my own words, carelessly chosen in a conversation, are as dangerous as the ones I choose so painstakingly when I write. More than once, I’ve wanted to throw a hand over my mouth, hold it there. Speak through it, feel the muffled nothing vibrating against my hand. Realize that speaking is more than it feels like, more than it seemed a moment ago, before I said that.

When I’m talking, it’s easy to get flummoxed, to have to start over, to say, “you know what I mean?” When I don’t know at all what I mean anyway. Recently, I’ve forced myself to stop talking at these moments, simply to regroup, think my thoughts, and then speak. Contemplative speaking - maybe an unconscious result of my meditation practice, maybe its own meditation practice, maybe both. And yet, although it is not natural for me, when I take the time, the results are so gratifying. “Think before you speak,” but really, really think. It’s not easy, not at all, especially in a place where everything moves so fast. To slow myself down in the flesh, to realize the space I fill, is a demanding task, but seeing it through feels like that first moment in spring when you feel the warmth of the sun after a long absence.

Last night a room full of seventh graders sat silently, followed their breath, contemplated the Sh’ma, practiced listening, and asked lots of insightful and deep questions. Usually these classes are small- five to ten students, but last night the entire 7th grade class decided they wanted to learn Jewish meditation. I tried to get half of them to do something else, but they were adamant, and I told them that if they wanted to stay, they had to take out their cell phones, turn them off, and put them in the front of the room, and each person had to agree that they were going to take this class seriously, be respectful to each other, and participate fully. Everyone agreed. Everyone sat down. Not everyone really practiced meditation, but that’s okay if two out of forty kids didn’t play along, as long as the few resisters didn’t disrupt anyone else, they were welcome to stay.

Spending a lot of time teaching this age group (at one workshop a few weeks ago, one of the 12 year old girls told me that she doesn’t even know what to call herself, whether she’s a “tween” or a “pre-teen” or a kid or what, and how it’s just confusing) has taught me a lot about fear and vulnerability. I realized last night that the kids who had the most trouble staying with their breath or keeping still had the most fear. One boy raised his hand and asked, “what if it’s too difficult for me to keep my eyes closed? If I hear a sound or just feel uncomfortable, I want to open my eyes. It’s kind of scary to not open your eyes.”

We spent some time, as a group, talking about this idea. The thing is, it IS scary to sit with your eyes closed in a group. Most adults don’t even think about it, but in seventh grade, I think we’re probably at our most judgmental, our most critical about ourselves and others. It’s at this exact moment where I think meditation and inclusive spirituality and community is the most important. I was very strict when we all sat down- taking away the phones, telling them that if anyone was disruptive I would ask them to leave and there would be no conversation about it, telling them to be silent, sit so that they would not be touching the person next to them, and I explained that this was all in an effort to protect the students who were serious about practicing meditation. Limiting distractions and interactions, at least during this one hour period, gave the kids a space to relax, close their eyes, breathe, and notice those judgments and thoughts and critical voices, observe them, and let them go.

One of the regular teachers commented that they’ve never seen this group of rowdy, always loud, sometimes obnoxious group of kids so quiet, calm, and sharing feelings, and I was shocked too. It seems like they just needed a space to step into themselves and community where they could sit down, rest, and share their thoughts about listening, compassion, prayer.

Rabbi Alan Lew used to talk about how in the Mishnah, it says that the ancient pious ones sat for an hour before prayer every day. This sort of preparatory time was essential to direct their minds toward God, to be ready to pray. We talked about this idea in the class last night. One of the girls said after doing a few different meditation practices, “I don’t know if I was just tired before, but now I feel different- I feel more awake and at the same time more calm.” And I think that’s probably the point. We sit upright, but comfortable, uplifted. We calm our minds, but wake up. Our discussion last night included the idea that being receptive, listening to ourselves and each other and the world, can be scary. Using our meditation practice to practice sitting with that fear, to being aware of our vulnerability, is a way to shift our reactions to the fear itself. This experience started when I told them to turn their phones off and leave them in the front of the room, pure fear. And for me, realizing that I was completely overwhelmed and scared to teach such a large group of seventh graders how to meditate was a moment of fear.

By the end of the class, I hope that everyone was able to see what it felt like to feel that fully, to place that sensation and just sit with it, letting it come and go, and hopefully remembering that wherever we are and whatever we’re doing, this practice is always possible, always accessible, and, I think, always helpful.

Some time ago, I posted a review of Rodger Kamenetz’s The Jew in the Lotus on Amazon. The book, a favorite among Jewish meditators, is partly about a Jewish delegation’s visit to the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The delegation traveled there to share the strategies that Jews have used to survive as a people during our nearly 2000 years in exile.

After reading the book, I remember thinking that the most important lesson we should have shared with the Tibetans was about the very positive value of attachment.

Why is attachment something we should share? In my opinion, attachments are the keys to Jewish survival. For example, God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Israel. If we had not been spiritually attached to the land as a result of God’s promise, we never would have had the desire to survive and return. This attachment, a great yearning, has had great value.

In Hebrew there are a few different words for attachment. Each expresses a different sense of what attachment means.

One is hit-dahb-koot, which means “to cause oneself to cling to” or “to cause oneself to adhere to.” It’s a deep and serious attachment, in love and in awe/fear. It’s rooted in the word d’veikoot (or d’veikoos), and implies a constant awareness and mindfulness that we are always in God’s presence.  Being there, our desire to do God’s will, which values compassion, justice and surrender, completely supersedes the self-centered desires of our own egos. With perfect d’veikoos we will not, even for a moment, lose our connection to God. This kind of attachment can be very positive.

Another word for attachment is hit-kash-root. It means “causing oneself to be connected to” or “causing oneself to be tied to.” Jewish mysticism teaches that each of us is a soul consisting of many parts. One part is attached to its root in the highest spiritual world, a spark of God’s “light.” It also attaches us to each other.  We want that attachment.

A third word for attachment is hit-khab-root, which could be translated as “drawing oneself into a very close relationship.” Its root means “friend” or “joined together.” It’s God’s relationship with the world that allows the infinite light of existence to enter, which is what allows for tikoon, repair. Without that relationship, the world would revert to chaos in an instant.

All three of these kinds of attachment can connect us to the everlasting, infinite One.

The same word d’veikoos is also used in the Torah for when two people get married.  It describes how they “cling to each other and become one flesh.” Jewish mystical teachings say that our entire reason for being is to elevate the physical via the spiritual, especially in our relationships. Instead of offering a celibate, monastic life to reach the pinnacle of spirit as some religions do, Judaism asserts that some of the highest levels of spirituality are found in the attached state of marriage.  The relationship between God and Israel is even likened to a marriage, and the giving of the Torah at Sinai, a wedding.

It’s clear that Judaism considers some kinds of attachment, including the very deeply attached relationship of marriage, to be very positive.

But not all attachments are positive. Some attachments are negative. Judaism’s Mussar movement is about cultivating mindfulness to become aware of and then change our bad habits and negative character traits.

What does attachment have to do with Jewish meditation? We usually think about meditation as a way to free ourselves from attachments; but, in Jewish meditation, attachment is a goal. Almost all of the classic Jewish meditation texts teach that meditation is about attaching ourselves to God. The practical forms of Jewish meditation foster that attachment. It may take the form of cultivating inner silence or compassion or equanimity. It may require us to work on mindfulness and self improvement, as in the Mussar approach. It may be in the form of prayer or visualizations. Or it may require social action.

Silence, compassion, equanimity, prayer, visualizations and social action are important, but according to traditional sources, we have to make sure that we don’t mistake (to use a Zen metaphor) the finger pointing at the moon for the moon, or the road for the destination. In the end, the reality is attachment to God.

keep it short and sweet (or bitter. but not too bitter.)

As Yael wrote in The Top 5 Reasons Why I Meditate and as we heard at our first meditation session on Monday night, each of us might meditate for different reasons. One of us might meditate to relax from a stressful day. Another might meditate to quiet a mind full of disturbing and unruly thoughts, to reach a measure of serenity or equanimity.

Some of us meditate to experience enlightenment.

What is enlightenment in the Jewish context?

It’s the experience of God’s presence in the world, the experience that all is One, that there is literally nothing but God. In Hebrew it’s called roo-akh ha-kodesh – a phrase that translates somewhat freely into the holy spirit. According to the great Jewish meditation master the Ariza”l, King David was the greatest master of roo-akh ha-kodesh, and according to Maimonides, it’s the first rung on the ladder to prophecy.

Zen Buddhists call the first opening of enlightenment kensho. They don’t associate kensho with God because they don’t have the Jewish history of God’s revelation on Mount Sinai nor the prophetic experience, but from a Jewish perspective that’s what it is.

If we doubt whether we can experience it, we should be heartened by the words of the prophet Elijah and Maimonides, who assert that essentially all of us, with only very rare exception, have that potential.

Elijah Rabbah 9 : “I call heaven and earth to bear witness that any person, Jew or gentile, man or woman, freeman or slave, if their deeds are worthy, then roo-akh ha-kodesh will descend upon them.”

Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, Part 2, Chapter 32: “For the laws of Nature demand that every one should be a prophet, who has a proper physical constitution, and has been duly prepared as regards education and training.”

Enlightenment arises out of silence. The silence is found in meditation.