Introduction
The meditation teachings you will find herein I have found personally helpful at various stages of my spiritual path within Torah. Some of these meditations are basic some are advanced, they are all deep and will be as helpful as what you bring to them. The intention in many of the meditations selected has been to demonstrate ways in which the daily rhythm of a halakhic and traditional life can be worked with- within a meditative context. In this vein, one should also see my other works that address traditional Jewish meditation like: Fixing the Soul Volume I- Anger and The Book of our Spiritual Heritage Series Volume I- Between the Straits: Cultivating Courage.
This work was originally written before I developed my more scholarly form of writing and notation. What Torah scholarship it has, owes largely to Rabbi Avraham Sutton who originally edited this work and provided nearly all the translations of Kabbalistic texts herein and the scholarly quotations and notes. I thank him for the fine job he has done.
I wrote this work some years ago in response to the developing interest in Jewish meditation within the Jewish people and the variety of books and teachers this impulse has spawned. I feel it appropriate here to succinctly state my views on the nature of Jewish meditation.
1. A meditation is only Jewish in any historically and spiritually meaningful sense if it is either:
A) Directly without revision in its methods or interpretation drawn from the classical Torah tradition i.e. Traditional Kabbalah and Hassidism.
B) Is developed by an individual that is so steeped within the above tradition that it represents the authentic development of the Jewish tradition of meditation.
In light of this one must be wary and mindful of some of what passes for Jewish meditation today. In particular, the author strongly feels that Eastern methods of meditation like Zen or Vipassana are not Jewish or more delicately and pragmatically put, “They are not the most helpful techniques to fully live within the tradition of Torah.”
The intention of this work has been to expand the meditative resources available to the English reading Jewish seeker. In this, I believe this work has achieved its aim.
Chapter 11 Mezuzah
“Listen, Israel, God is our Lord, God is One. Love God your Lord with all your heart, with all your soul with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today must remain on your heart. Teach them to your children and speak of them when you are at home, when traveling on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind [these words] as a sign on your hand, and let them be an emblem in the center of your head [also] write them on [parchments affixed to] the doorposts of your houses and gates.”
— Devarim 6:4-9
The Mitzvah of Mezuzah
“An intention when a man goes out from the door of his house, and places his hand on the Mezuzah and kisses it, intend in his meditation to be saved from the evil inclination, for YeTZeR (inclination- short form of evil inclination) spelled out in full [when each Hebrew letter is spelled as a word is]
Yod – Yod Vav Dalet
Tzadi- Tzadi Dalet Yod
Resh- Resh Yod Shin
The last letters [in bold spell the Divine name] Sha-dai, one is to meditate on the name Sha-dai that is written on the [outside of the] Mezuzah to save him from his [or her] evil inclination and [let this Divine name Sha-dai] enter him to subdue him [the evil inclination].”
Kitvie Ha’Arizal Ta’Amey Ha’Mitzvot Parashat Ethchanan Page 243.
The Arizal offers us a pathway to meditate with a Mezuzah. One perspective that can help us begin that process is to look at ourselves as a unit of Jewish Human technology. If we are going to operate as we were designed we need to be plugged in or function on our spiritual batteries. Life uses up those batteries in such activities as: work, marriage, kids community in short life and the principle of spiritual entropy. We need to have many opportunities to recharge with Godliness and re-expand ourselves spiritually. Thus placing your hand on the Mezuzah and tuning into God’s name and the energy of the Torah contained within could facilitate such a recharge. It is so easy to loose your spiritual power that is developed through prayer, study and meditation Mezuzah is a gift a way of re-connecting.
The meditation of the Arizal cited above is an advanced version of this process. A person when entering into the name of God as he describes needs to have a deepened experience of God consciousness before engaging the meditation, it is not mathematics rather Divine union that we are interested in hopefully. The teaching of the Arizal is very deep and somewhat hidden, in essence what is being taught is that contained within your evil inclination is God’s name, a manifestation of God. You want to get to that place experientially you want to discover and experience the Sha-dai that is hidden within your Yetzer. When you do this you transcend it at least for the moment and take the first step in lessening its grip on your being.
Perhaps an analogy from Gestalt theory will be helpful. There is Figure and there is Ground they are interdependent and define each other. The Figure is what your looking at right now the Ground is everything else i.e. its context. So to Shad-ai and Yezer. What can occur is a Figure/Ground switch that is actually what we are looking for in this meditation. Normally, Sha-dai is Ground most people believe in God and experience hence know themselves. The idea in Kabbalah at least, is to reverse this. Most people identify with and experience their evil inclination you could call it their unbridled and unrefined humanity this is their Figure. God is way in the background. We want to make God the Figure and the evil inclination/Yetzer very background.
Another analogy is from Modern physics. Is this book your reading really a book? It’s all a question of perspective, from the vessel of your eyes and by the standard of this material world most definitely. Thus if some one steals this book from you they have violated the law. What about under an electron microscope? It’s not a “Book” anymore and there is not any “Law” against stealing electrons in most systems of law. Its all a question in other words of perspective Kabbalah is one such perspective on life. Kabbalah is taking you deep into the sub (Asiyah) sub (Yetzirah) sub (Briyah) sub (Atzilut) -sub atomic plane of existence. Kabbalah is giving you tools in the forms of mitzvot, maps and meditations to taste the spiritual roots of existence.
A Mezuzah is placed on the outside of one’s house or room the name Sha-dai on the outside of the parchment. The “Outside” aspect of these placements is a hint to us that that is where most of us live, on the outside of our consciousness. We need to go inside, deep inside and discover a Godly dimension and name even within our most exterior aspects of our self our Yetzer. The Yetzer always want something that is outside of our true selves. We need God’s name to satisfy the true longing of our souls.
A detailed treatment of how exactly to affix a Mezuzah or which rooms like a bathroom etc… are exempt from a Mezuzah is beyond the scope of this work. A Kosher Mezuzah is made only out of animal parchment and is consciously hand written to the detail and is thus not a xerox copy. If of good quality and size the parchment itself with sacred scriptures costs at least 35$. The Mezuzah is the parchment with the sacred scriptures and Divine names inside not I repeat not the case which is merely useful in hanging it up or decorative. For a concise treatment of the laws of Mezuzah see The Concise Code of Jewish Law by Harav Shlomo Ganzfried (Moznaim edition) or contact a Traditional Rabbi or Jewish bookstore.
