These are my own gleanings from a classic text by Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, First Steps to a New Jewish Spirit: Reb Zalman’s guide to recapturing the intimacy & ecstasy in your relationship with God (2003, Albion / Andalus, Boulder). I hope they encourage you to buy the book. I have paraphrased in order to clarify my own understanding, but there are also direct quotations from the book. The notes in square brackets are my own thoughts and responses, rather than ideas gleaned from the book itself.
A note to the reader
- ix express spiritual stirrings
- practical work to develop God-connection
- place where emotion is allowed and honoured
- x enriching relationship with God
- “What God is like is up to each soul to decide. We each create our image of God from the feelings of our hearts, the insights of our dreams, from our memories and our reflections, from our interactions with the universe and each other. In forming this image, external philosophies are of no help. Everybody has to do this task for him- or herself.”
- God is available in consciousness, love and energy
Friend to Friend
- Xiii pluralist outlook
- Xiv “the rebbe shows you the way, but you have to do the work yourself”
- “To talk of the soul is to admit that a human being has needs that cannot be met in the physical world alone—the world of things.”
- [teach someone in their language and frame of reference]
- Xvii Do you trust the Ruach Hakodesh in your self-identity as a Jew?
- Experience a psalm through music or nature
- Spiritual lab exercises to develop people
- Xviii “Judaism and all other Western religions are suffering from having become over-verbalised and under-experienced.”
- Xx tallis, shofar etc are ‘medicine’ objects
- “As Reb Nachman of Breslov said, ‘The Holy Spirit shouts forth from the tales of the gentiles too.’”
- Heart impact of spiritual practices is universal
- Xxi Talk as friends, sharing what we know and have experienced – not ‘authorities’ or official roles
- “There’s only one way for us to get it together—together.”
- Xxii need a group for energy field, emotional container, witness and intimacy
- Xxiv “the kinds of experience human beings need in order to be fully awakened, fully alive”
- Personalise services for rites of passage. “[To prepare for a wedding ceremony] As a friend, I sit with a couple and ask what experiences would help them infuse their lives with meaning, sanctity, and commitment so that they will be able to stand each other and work through all the extremes that two people undergo and yet still find the stability and the vocation of their relationship.”
- Xxv “Our concern was to create a group that could function democratically as a ‘family of friends’, who shared the goal for spiritual growth. We wanted to focus on the religious experience itself, and were not bound by any preconceived notion of what a religious service ought to be”
- “non-hierarchical, democratic model … Everyone would contribute and have a turn to pilot. … a spiritual democracy. … We imagined a setting in which the inner experience of our souls’ search for God could take place with group support.”
Rx for a working Jew
- 1 “organic time, which changes texture with the turning of our planet”
- 2 Judaism follows the pulse of mythical cycles
- 3 Nachman – touch your own pulse to remember where God is
- 3 “the better we play the game with commodity time, the more money we make. But the better we dance with organic time, the better we live.”
- Shabbat regularly reconnects us to organic time [even though it’s man made]
- We need to give ourselves daily Sabbath time
- 4 look after your mammal self’s basic needs
- 5 exercise your human being
- Experience dawn
- Feel loved by the universe
- Love yourself, your neighbours, the universe
- Ps 2:7 “You are my child, this day have I begotten you.”
- 6 first blessing of the day celebrates the rooster marking day from night, ie organic time
- Visualise – imagine chain of life in what we eat, chain of steps that get it to us
- 7 blessing over food à conscious eating and connecting to nature
- 8 Ten minute sabbath in work day à 5 at sunset, 5 at sunrise (instead of a cup of tea)
- 9 “open yourself up again to the verification that comes from the centre of the universe. You belong. You are loved. You’re integral. You’re reborn. You’re being nourished. You’re growing further.”
- Reawaken, offer your concerns to God
- 10 Dedicate a mundane or tricky work task as fulfilment of a commandment of God
- “you have to give something to the job that is righteous and for the good of the company” “good will, conscientiousness, … the desire to do a good job:
- 11 [Consider what you did for God at work]
- “During your five minutes of leave-taking, it’s a good idea to thank God for the work you accomplished.”
- 3:6 “In all your ways/paths, know/acknowledge God”
- Give blessings to those who have brought goodness to you.
- 12 Apologise for wrongs before leaving work.
- Thank people. [Be helpful.]
- 13 Understanding distinctions maintains integrity with life
- Ending work and starting the evening à starting a new day in Jewish terms. Work day is over, and now starting with a clean slate.
- 14 After work, connect consciously with beauty or nature before arriving home
- 15 Send ahead a mental message of love, joy, goodwill, intention to relate well
- Regardless of troubles you may have, bring positive energy home
Relationships: marriage, divorce & remarriage
- 18 “marriage is the support system for the incarnation of souls”
- 19 family = household & network of supportive relationships
- 20 nuclear family is too small; we yearn for something more
- The organic family is large, and embedded in community
- 21 Use ketubah as continuing source of positive, binding energy
- 22 [make a deep ritual to make a deep wedding and a marriage] [e.g. Robert Johnson’s ‘shadow vows’]
- See the worst in the other, and understand who you are marrying.
- Contact the other’s Higher Self, who you are marrying.
- Celebrant address the Higher Selves of the people in the ritual. [Do this in a brit shalom as well.]
- 23 Couple can draw upon the soul commitment in hard times.
- Involve the guests’ Higher Selves & their best soul gifts for the couple [or infant, or person needing healing]
- 25 Advises living together before decision to marry.
- “Part of approaching marriage seriously has to do with asking the right question, agreeing on definitions, and synchronising expectations.”
- Celebrant discuss marriage promises with couple.
- “What do you intend to give to this marriage, and what do you expect to get from it?”
- What will help you through hard times? What do you want to negotiate?
- 27 ‘Hitches’ in relationship are nature’s way of triggering evolution of relationship
- Partner can help you become more yourself
- Seven years later: consider returning to renegotiate and reaffirm covenant
- 28 Name the changes and talk about them
- Invite close people as witnesses and mirrors
- 29 Differentiate between problems that are painful, or terminal.
- Make partner intimacy a high priority before others things are routinely given attention to.
- 30 How to make foreplay & intercourse sacred, an offering to God
- Our interactions are at the core of making something sacred
- [Are we disconnected from consciousness of the Divine when we argue?]
- Phony harmony excludes the Divine
- How to be a mirror for our partner [with tough love]
- 33 In struggling relationship, stay open to the One and the One-ing.
- Sometimes ending a marriage is the right step.
- 34 Learn from failed relationship before starting another
- Divorce is major surgery on our social being
- 35 “For the benefit of both of us, I give you complete relase from my expectations of you and involvement in your life. Let’s really let go of each other, let’s not have any more hooks ore things to play out with the kids.”
- 36 Ask a couple to write letters of truths they were unable to say during the marriage, read them, then burn them. Then offer each other a dollar bill as total settlement. Then drink schnapps together. 3 day retreat to mourn death of relationship.
- “We must learn to spiritualise divorce—as strange as that may sound. Divorce should restore to each person the ability to continue heading back toward God and an at-one-ment with the universe. It should also release them to find in themselves what they didn’t find in the other.”
- 37 “Quickie marriages are a cause of quickie divorce, and quickie divorces, in turn, are a cause for failure in the next marriage.” Heal the previous divorce first.
- [What if the previous spouse died?]
The teachings of the body
- 39 “When the body dances, the soul claps her hands.”
- 40 Prepare body to receive soul’s enlightenment
- Job: “from my flesh shall I see God”
- “You are the instrument on which God plays. It is vital that you are tuned correctly. When you are, the Spirit of God can rest on you and the music will flow sweetly. If you’re out of tune when you present yourself to God, all the music that follows will be off-key, sour, and not quite right.”
- 41 Keep the body well & clear, so you can hear the call of Spirit and respond with you whole self
- 42 Schneur Zalman of Liadi: if you eat mindfully, you will be naturally satisfied, and naturally want to give thanks.
- 43 Don’t drive your body or inflict unhealthy consumption on it. You wouldn’t do that to someone else’s body. Redeem your body from slavery!
- Give thanks / blessing for basic functions of body without which we could not do our sacred living in body and the world
- 44 Listening to the body is good practice for listening to the heart, mind and spirit [like Gestalt work] “So tune into your body. Listen to it. It comes from God and is one of the ways that lead back to the Divine.”
- 45 Meditate to check into the body, find what is needed to reach wellbeing.
- 46 ‘Exercise’ and ‘diet’ are pre-programmed answers. Look for a more ‘here and now’ answer. The answer will be in body sense.
- Eventually the body will be surrendered to God, and the soul will follow.
Jewish orientation
- 48 Line up our intentions, desires, goals, energies with God.
- God is ‘god-ing’
- 49 Kosher = what serves life, Gaia, living in harmony with Creation. Jewish discovery of natural laws of Life and sustainability.
- “When I talk about religion, I stress the miracle of the obvious. God reveals and creates constantly in the ordinary. There we find the real expression of God’s Minding.”
- Orient to planetary survival
- 50 Kosher foods might be non-kosher if inhumane to animals or people, or damaging to the environment
- 51 treating our own body well leads to treating well the world beyond our own body
- Beware fundamentalism or unthinking traditionalism. “There is always the danger of being trapped and tyrannised by the past. People sometimes slip into the assumption that whatever was done back then was the real thing; if it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for us; give me that old time religion! These are the sentiments of the fundamentalists …”
- 52 Allow the influence of wisdom and positive intention of ancestors
- Following old practices connects us to that and puts us at focussed apex of the pyramid
- 55 Praying together & Friday night kiddush
Prayer—Fact or Feeling?
- 57 “As for Judaism, I believe it has gone a long way toward becoming an elite religion: highly prescriptive, over-verbalised and intellectualised, and under-experienced. In order to overcome these trends, I introduce people to the experiences in Jewish ritual and observance, sensitizing them to the psychological and emotional content rather than the outer form. People then realize that religious acts are natural unfoldings of our response to God’s call. When they learn how to recreate these acts, they move naturally closer and closer to the intent of the ritual. They become aware that the ritual is the soul’s way of dancing with God.”
- 58 a blessing should be a response of the heart, and not just a ‘legal’ move
- Find the blessing in everything. “Each time a person focuses in this way, blessings become a reality, and the person begins to learn about prayer and life.”
- Bless for: ancestors, life, holiness.
- Ask for good sense, closeness to God, forgiveness, help for daily needs, healing.
- Thank God
- 59 [Siddur is springboard for me to take a leap into God]
- A standard prayer is like ‘I love you’. We can say it as often as we mean it.
- Translate prayer texts into direct, simple language
- [A ‘faithful’ translation might reframe or reinterpret but be full of an integrity imbued with ‘truth’ ie God connection that we might call prophecy.]
Praying in God’s corner
- 61 “The heartfelt prayers of an unlearned person are worth more than the perfunctory recitations of the scholar.”
- 62 Heschel “We cannot make God visible to us, but we can make ourselves visible to Him.”
- Create a God corner at home.
- Get the space ready.
- 63 “regularity is important. Scheduled expectations have a way of fulfilling themselves.”
- “Universal traditions … point to dawn and dusk as the most fitting times to reach out beyond ourselves. They are in-between times, rich and suggestive times when light and darkness blend together, when two contrary qualities coexist in the same time and space—the best times for prayer.” “At such times your whole being will respond in agreement with the natural cycle.”
- Get your body ready.
- 64 Say what is in you.
- Present yourself.
- Persist beyond the digressions and self-consciousness.
- Embrace whatever feelings arise, especially vulnerability.
- 65 “You don’t have to impress God; God is not impressible.”
- “At times, your ears will hear words from your own mouth that will shock and pain you. But don’t stop.”
- Go down layer by layer to deeper places of truth and revelation
- “Every once in a while, pause, sit back, breathe deeply. Become passive and allow for a response. Invite a reply to form in your consciousness. If particularly strong thoughts occur to you at this moment, you may want to write them down.”
- Perhaps even verbalise the response as God’s mouthpiece. [Adonai s’fatai tiftach ufi yagid t’hilatecha]
- 66 Content may not be as critical as the encounter itself, relating with the living cosmos.
- “Talking to God once can be an electrifying experience. Talking to God regularly will nourish your soul and change your life.”
Singing to God
- 67 [Telling someone not to sing, or that they can’t sing is like telling someone that they don’t have a soul, or that their soul doesn’t count. Don’t do it!]
- 69 “A well-functioning religious person, in my view, is one who uses the symbols and tools of his or her religion as a means to generate genuine experiences in which there is heightened awareness of the universe and a closer connection to God.”
- 70 “All forms of prayer are pleasing to God, so long as their aim is to know the Divine in all the Divine’s ways.”
- Give yourself permission to sing.
- Reciprocate God’s love by keeping the universe flowing.
- 71 Yom Kippur story—the boy’s whistle releases the community’s prayers
- A pure offering is what’s needed.
How to deal with a Jewish issue: circumcision
- [This is where Reb Zalman and I had strongly opposing views. You’ll need to read the book if you want to learn his arguments about circumcision. For me, the Akedah / Binding of Isaac is a defining moment in Jewish history that teaches us ‘don’t cut again!’, despite the teachings we receive through the Exodus-Pesach story.]
The dance of the Sabbath
- 81 “the sense of God’s plenty that arrives with the coming of the Sabbath”
- “The preparations are like a dance; we develop a rhythm and work up a fine sweat, but it is the seat of pleasure, not of hard work.”
- 82 We’re partners, lovers, as we prepare for Shabbat.
- Know in your bones and muscle and senses how to live the Sabbath.
- 83 Language of Jewish prayer is emotive, not logical [elicits a whole-person response] – ‘body’ Hebrew
- Weekday we’re masculine, Shabbat we’re feminine
- 84 Translate words of Jewish concepts into physical and emotional experience
- Make Shabbat a verb!
- 85 Exerting the body to make ready for Shabbat is holy work; clean anyway; wash yourself and change clothes; give tzedakah; hum a melody; do teshuvah; repair relationships
- 86 See the world with wonder; light candles; study Torah; no weekday talk; arrive early to daven; surrender to God; be receptive to the liturgy; pay attention to Kiddush; drink and eat slowly; “sing slowly and benignly”; be a priest & treat the Sabbath table as an altar
- 87 Savour the meal; grace after meals; bedtime prayer, then silence until morning
- Sabbath is fixed in time – you can ignore it, but you can’t leave it.
A time for lovers
- 90 ‘The Baal Shem Tov taught, “It was revealed to me from above that the reason for the delay in the coming of the Messiah is that people do not enter the mystery of the kiss before the great loving.”
Godbirthing
- 91 God rebirths every day. “You are my child. Today I have begotten you.” (Ps 2:7)
- Revelation of receiving total love and forgiveness from God. “Whenever you get it, it’s Yom Kippur.”
- 92 “Being born again is not enough; you have to grow up too.”
- Maturation implies building a community that shares your symbols.
- 93 Develop intimacy with the Beloved
I believe we can rise up
- 96 Rebbe Barukh of Medzebozh to one of his disciples: “I know there are questions that have no answers; there is a suffering that has no name; there is injustice in God’s creation—there are reasons enough for man to explode with rage. I know there are reasons for you to be angry. Good. Let us be angry. Together.”
- “For those of you who do not believe, I have no answers. As part of my believing, I pray for you.”
- “Sit there as if you and God are both naked, hiding nothing of your need, your want. And say it: ‘I want. I need. I don’t deserve. All I can do is say I am here. I am open to the universe, of which I am a natural part. I accept the universe. I ask the universe to accept me. Please.”
- 97 Nachman: “Know that there are great powers in man. By thought alone one can achieve a great deal.”
- “It can be said that the object of prayer is the wellbeing of the universe. Prayer is the energy feedback God gets from us, God’s creation. Prayer completes the circuit of God’s energy and helps to keep it flowing. Praying for ourselves or our loved ones contributes energy to the entire system, for we are integral parts of the universe. Praying for our wellbeing, and ultimately for our own perfection, is equal to praying for the universe, since it is composed of its parts, of us.”
- “Our task is clear. We are here to fulfil our potential for godliness.”
- 98 “And if perfection seems remote, beyond the possibilities of our limitations, well we have to do is work toward improvement. We work to follow God’s will, which we understand to be the natural laws of the universe as they are encoded in our tradition. We place ourselves before God and open ourselves to the Divine—fully disclose our tears and laughter, weakness and strengths, certainties and doubts, the parts of ourselves we love and the parts we despise, our prides and shames. In doing this, we open ourselves to the world, to our fellow humans. We take down the barriers, drop our masks, and join with the rest of creation in the unending effort to live the good life and attain perfection. Even if we can manage only one step at a time, this journey must be made. In the end, it is the only journey worth making.”
- “Judaism, like life itself, is organic. Neither is perfect; both are evolving. Each generation learns what it can. Every incarnation brings a soul to more light.”
- “We are all on our way to the messianic finale, when the total consciousness of all the inhabitants of this planet is moved to one great at-one-ment. … The finale can .. be a quantum leap in our awareness of how the universe works, the beginning of a new and higher way of life than the fiery end of the old one.”
- 99 Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson: “The teachings on gilgul—reincarnation—are true, AND, it is also true that you don’t have to wait to die to start a new life. In turning to God (teshuvah), you can start the next reincarnation right now.”