What's Wrong with Jewish Spirituality

Here’s the problem with contemporary Reform Jewish spirituality: it isn’t Jewish.

I’m reading the “President’s Report from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion” (HUC–JIR), the rabbinical seminary of Reform Judaism from which I graduated in 1981. In the section entitled “Spirituality Initiatives” there is a photograph of a group of people, Jews I presume, practicing yoga on the floor of a synagogue sanctuary in front of the Ark. As I read the short essay, I discover two other practices that seem to be part of our Jewish spirituality initiative: mindfulness training and spiritual direction.

Now I have nothing against yoga, mindfulness practice, or spiritual direction; in fact I’m an advocate of all three. And if you can get more Jews to lie down on the floor of the sanctuary than to bob up and down in the pews, go for it. But let’s be honest: yoga, mindfulness, and spiritual direction are not Jewish practices. While it is possible to strip these practices of their religious roots and trappings (Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian, respectively), it does a disservice to them when we do so, and suggests that when it comes to spiritual practice Judaism has nothing to offer.

Why is there no “Spirituality Initiative” teaching the contemplative practices of Abraham Abulafia, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, and Reb Nachman of Breslav? Why are we practicing spiritual direction rather than yechidut, mindfulness rather than hitbonenut and hitbodedut, and yoga rather than the walking (pacing) practice of Musar?* The answer, I suspect, is that there's no place for spiritually hungry liberal Jews to go to learn these practices, and to become teachers of them so they can bring them back to our Jewish communities the way Jewish students of yoga do with yoga.

How sad that monies are going to fund secularized versions of Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian practices rather than to fund Reform versions of Jewish practices. How ironic that as more and more Reform Jews ask for spiritual practices they are offered practices from religions other than their own. If this is the future of “Jewish” spirituality, there is no future at all.

* If you are Jewish and have no idea what yechidut, hitbonenut, hitbodedut, and Musar are, you're simply making my point: Jews are being robbed of their contemplative heritage because our leaders and funders are either ignorant of them, or have consciously and deliberately abandoned Jewish spiritual practice for culturally denuded versions of the spiritual practices of others.

Ordinary Mystic #1: Preface

The Bible is a big book with big ideas and even bigger ideals. I admit to being addicted to reading it. I have made a career of commenting on what I read, and interpreting it for the modern reader. I find the Bible infinitely compelling, fascinating, enlightening, and annoying. 

Compelling because the stories contain the universal elements of the human drama. Fascinating because so many of its insights are both old and incredibly relevant. Enlightening because there are truths mentioned in the Bible that remove the shutters of my narrow egoic self and let in the light of God that is spacious Self. And annoying because for all of this the Bible also contains some of the most misogynist, xenophobic, homophobic, and ethically primitive ideas ever invented.

For many people the latter renders the Bible useless. They focus on the worst material and ignore the best. This is like my refusing to read Shakespeare because I find the anti-Semitism of the Merchant of Venice insulting. If I only read or learned from those books and authors with whom I agreed one hundred percent I wouldn’t read anything. Not even my own books, as I tend to change my mind over time and don’t always agree with what I said in the past.

Unlike the Bible, Ordinary Mystics is a series of short posts with very few ideas. It is meant to be understood without breaking an intellectual sweat. I want you to find the suggestions offered in this book either so compelling that you will do them, or so absurd that you will ignore them. What I don’t want is for you to agonize over them.

You have enough to agonize over. You have enough problems and challenges in your life. And even though most of these are of your own making, I have no desire to add to them. On the contrary, I wrote these posts because I believe that if you take them seriously you will find a method for letting go of lots of the problems that plague you.

The connection between the big ideas of the Bible and the small ideas of Ordinary Mystics is that the latter come from the former. This is a book all about one idea found in the Bible, the idea of the Nazirite.

A Nazirite is a person who dedicates a certain portion of her life to God and godliness. It might be a day, a week, or a month. The rules of the Nazirite are simple: abstain from wine, don’t cut your hair, and avoid dead bodies. Or as I prefer to put it: “No bars, no barbers, no morgues.”

Understanding the implications of becoming a Nazirite and learning how to live by these three rules for a period of time is what the next few posts are all about. There is nothing special about this. Very simple, really. Unlike most of the rituals in the Hebrew Bible, taking the Nazirite Vow is almost a do-it-yourself venture. You get to apply the three abstentions to your life, rather than mold your life to the abstentions.

Because of, rather than despite, its free-flowing nature, I believe that taking the Nazirite Vow can be one of the most powerful and personally transformative acts you will ever do in your entire life. A huge claim for a blog, I know. But there it is.

What I want to do with the Ordinary Mystics posts is explore the nature of the Nazirite Vow and how to adapt it to your life. In so doing I will do what I have always done with biblical texts and teachings: lift them out of their historical context and see what they have to say to us here and now.

Therefore I am not overly concerned with history, traditional commentary, or convention views of Judaism, whether orthodox or liberal. What concerns me is the potential for the contemporary practice of taking the Nazirite Vow to bring an ever-deepening spiritual awareness to people who imagine their current life situations to preclude this kind of deepening.

The Nazirite Vow is for students, householders, parents, married, and singles—anyone whose life is so busy that going off on a spiritual retreat is a seeming impossibility. While I am a great supporter of retreating from the world now and again, and a huge fan of solitude (I spend most of my days happily alone), I recognize the fact that for many a weeklong retreat is just not in the cards. Taking the Nazirite Vow is not about retreating from your life, but engaging every aspect of it with a heightened sense of purpose.

A Nazirite is an ordinary mystic, meeting the everyday obligations of her normal life. A Nazirite is what my friend and teacher Brother Wayne Teasdale calls being a monk in the world. This is what makes this little known aspect of Jewish teaching so powerful. It is as if it were tailor-made for our hectic lifestyles.

If you read these posts and find the idea of becoming a Nazirite worthy of your time, give it a shot, and tell us how it went via the Comments section of the blog.

Makers Shrugged

Right next to City Café, Murfreesboro’s iconic dinner, is the office of the Republican Party. I was walking by the GOP HQ the other day, passing a couple of older men standing outside the office reading the You’re a Republican if… poster, and talking about Makers, Takers, and Ayn Rand. As I walked by I said, “Who is John Galt?” This is the secret password of Randians. If you don’t recognize it read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

“Which are you,” the shorter of the two men asked, “a Maker or a Taker?”

“A Maker,” I said, explaining that I made content for books, magazines, and websites. “And you?” I asked.

“Were Makers, too,” the taller man said. “We build Nissans.”

“And yet I bet all three of us are also Takers: tax breaks, Veteran’s benefits (the shorter man wore a Vietnam Vet hat), and when we’re eligible Social Security and Medicare as well. So who are the real Takers?”

“People who just sit around and do nothing except collect checks.”

“Like the CEO of Nissan? He probably has no clue how to make a car. Or people who just make money off of money: what do they really make? The real Takers are people who get huge salaries, tax havens, and golden parachutes without producing a damn thing. After all, what did Mitt Romney actually Make?”

 “Sounds like you're a so…”

“I love Atlas Shrugged,” I interrupted so as to avoid being called a Socialist. “And I think we Makers ought to shrug just like in the book. How long do you think the real Takers would last if the real Makers stopped making their food, clothes, homes, and cars, or stopped cleaning their houses, picking up their trash, teaching their kids, trucking their goods, stocking their shelves, delivering their mail, cable, water, and electricity? If the real Makers shrugged maybe then we would value work rather than wealth in this country, and pay people for making rather than taking.”

I expected an argument, but both men just burst out laughing. I laughed with them. It was never going to happen. The real Takers have won by convincing the real Makers that they should win. What else can you do but laugh, even when the jokes on us?

Personal Manifesto

I've posted this before, but a couple of people requested I repost it so they can find it. I urge you all to write your own personal manifesto, and to update it as needed. Don't be afraid to change.

Rabbi Rami's Manifesto

* Everything is a manifestation of the one thing I call God. 

* God is not good; good and bad are human categories about which God cares not one bit. 

* Life is not controllable, but you can learn to navigate it, and do some good in the process. 

* Thoughts and feelings are not controllable directly by the will, but you can do what’s right regardless.

* Religion is a human invention designed to give us the illusion of control from which we can then create a sense of meaning and purpose without admitting we are creating it. In truth, we have no control, we invent what meaning there is, and purpose is only a story we tell to hide from the specter of randomness that haunts us. 

* Life has no purpose; life is purpose. 

* Sacred texts always reflect the bias of their authors and intended audience. Don’t be surprised that the Torah’s Jews are God’s Chosen; that the Gospels make Jesus the Christ; that the Bhagavad Gita sees Krishna as God; that the Qur’an holds Mohammad as the final Prophet; or that Harry Potter makes Harry rather than Hermione the hero.  

* Priests, rabbis, pastors, imams, swamis, lamas, and gurus sometimes have your best interest in mind, and always have their best interests at heart. Learn from them, but never turn your life over to them.

* At its best religion is about personal freedom, social justice, and compassion for all living things. At its worst it is about power and control. Religion is rarely at its best. 

* Human beings can be taught to see through propaganda—religious, political, commercial, etc.—overcome its divisiveness, create loving communities, and glimpse the truth through science, art, music, literature, and spiritual practice. What we lack are the teachers to do this.

* Spiritual practice cuts through self and selfishness, reduces conflict, and increases compassion. And that is the best we can do. 

Down with Downward Dog?

Even though many of us associate California with yoga, it turns out that the teaching of yoga to California elementary school kids as a way of calming their minds and improving their bodies may be in trouble. According to opponents of the program, yoga has broader spiritual aims, and therefore yoga classes in public schools violate the First Amendment. I hope they’re right. *

Yoga means “to link or to yoke.” In the context of Hinduism, and yoga makes no sense outside that context, the link is between Atman and Brahman, the soul and God, which, in Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, are in fact one. There are four yogas or four ways of realizing this unity. Hatha yoga isn’t one of them, though it can be used to enhance any of them. The four yogas are Karma Yoga (union with the divine through service), Bhakti Yoga (union with the divine through devotion), Raja Yoga (union with the divine through meditation), and Jnana Yoga (union with the divine through knowledge and study).

So the opponents of public school yoga programs have a point. Done well, yoga awakens us to our union with God. While opponents of yoga in public schools seem to know this, too many practitioners of yoga don’t, and have stripped yoga of its deepest spiritual roots and promise in the name of physical fitness. If this is what it takes to get yoga into public schools, it may be a cost too great to pay. Yoga is more than exercise, it is spiritual practice. So while I wish every elementary school student could begin a life-long yoga practice that would lead to Self-realization and divine union, I’m afraid that the elementary school itself may not be the place for it. Sad but Constitutionally true nonetheless.

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* Full disclosure: There was a time in the early eighties when I practiced hatha yoga daily for 90 minutes as part of my work as a Jnana yogi devoted to study (in my case primarily Torah study). I followed the Iyengar method, and got good enough to be able to kiss my own ass, a nice compliment to the other kind of ass kissing congregational rabbis are often called upon to perform. I haven’t done this in a long time (yoga, I mean, ass kissing is eternal), but I continue to practice Jnana yoga (studying the Torah/teachings of all wisdom traditions), and to a lesser extent Bhakti yoga through my daily chanting practice. And, as promised, these yogas do awaken you to God.

What Difference Do You Make?

I’m writing this on Christmas morning, shortly after sunrise. I’m on my way to Nassau and then on to Paradise Island and the Sivananda Ashram where I will be teaching for the week. As always I pick up a copy of USA Today.

The best article in the paper is about David Menasche, a forty-year old high school English teacher dying of brain cancer. David is travelling around the US visiting past students and asking them if he, David, made a difference in their lives. Wow.

My mind immediately ticked off a list of teachers, now deceased, who have made a difference in my life: Peter Santos and Michael Gelinas, the two high school social studies teachers who introduced me to Hinduism and Buddhism. Miss Marshal, my junior high school history teacher with whom I stayed friends until the end of her very long life. Dr. Terri Havens, my first guru, who introduced me the Mother and Her many guises. Dr. Taitetsu Unno, my Buddhist Studies professor at Smith College who taught me too sit “like a mountain.” Sasaki Roshi who challenged me to be a “Zen Rabbi.” And Dr. Ellis Rivkin and Bonia Shur, two professors at Hebrew Union College, who taught me how to read Judaism for its archetypal wisdom, and how make it come alive by letting that wisdom speak through me, respectively. Reb Zalman Schachter–Shalomi who showed me that as wide my thoughts roamed, Judaism could always accommodate me, and he would always love me.

Not a long list, granted. And there may be others whose names I have forgotten at the moment. But without these people I wouldn’t be who I am.

I have reached thousands of people both in person and through my books, and while I am not aware of any terminal illness, Mr. Menasche’s question remains: did I make a difference?

As we enter the new year, I find this a question worth asking. May you live the new year so that when you die you know you have made a difference. For the better, of course.