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Jewish Meditation Made Simple                                                Click here to view the meditations
by Velvel "Wally" Spiegler

I suppose everyone has an underlying desire to experience the spiritual dimensions of his or her life. I guess that’s one reason why so many of us pay our membership dues to the synagogue of our choice, but I also suspect that very few, if any at all, actually ever reach the spiritual plateaus that Judaism promises.

The Jewish spiritual path is, at best, a rocky road paved with steep inclines and perilous ravines; it’s a lifetime of devoted practice and study, which few of us are willing to pursue. But what if, an effective spiritual program suddenly appeared, laden with hopes for healing the body, dissolving fear and anger, resolving boredom and depression, and offering a meaningful life, without years of delving into esoteric texts and dusty Rabbinic commentary.

The intent of  “Jewish Meditation Made Simple” is a route to Devekut. Devekut is the ultimate goal of Judaism, the Jewish counterpart to enlightenment; it’s the binding of oneself to God. The possibility of such ecstasy may sound something like a pipe dream or a swallow of snake oil. The shortcut to Devekut I’m proposing are brief three-minute meditations, which you can do anytime—standing on line in the supermarket, waiting through a traffic jam, pausing for a coffee break or any other moments of leisure. A few short meditations a day are just as effective as the prescribed twenty to thirty minutes. Meditation is without doubt the foremost training for spiritual development. The difficulty lies in getting started on a regular schedule for the usual appointed periods of time, and the perseverance to sustain it. A few Spartan types will endure, the rest will fall away. Meditation is, as most seasoned meditators would admit, utterly boring, especially in the beginning stages. What is unrevealed is that meditation in not merely sitting still with eyes closed, trying to tame the unruly mind; meditation is a state of being, a way we face the world every day. That’s why these three-minute retreats are so ideal for people living busy lives.

Why do we need to meditate? All day long our minds chatter—we’re busy planning, calculating, reasoning, remembering along with a whole host of mental activities. We’re all over the place, but not here, now.  We’re always thinking about what happened or what will happen. That’s the root of all our trouble, the stress, the anxiety, the anger, and the fear. So meditation teaches us to control our thoughts by paying attention to one thing at a time, and as a result we enter the present moment, the antechamber of God, where there is no time. In that timeless space, where there is no past and no future and all of our worries cease to exist.

I used to jog several miles a day, but never really enjoyed it except for the infrequent  “runner’s highs” which were few and far between. I ran for years with the motivation that it was good medicine. As I grew older, I became less tolerant of the outdoors—running in the rain, the snow, the heat, the cold, so I joined a health club to continue running on an indoor track. I quickly found that zooming around the continuous loops became impossibly monotonous. Then one day I noticed a glass walled room adjacent to the track in which groups of about twenty were working out together to music and with an instructor. They looked like they were having a great time. I wondered if this was for me. “Nah, I’m too unstructured to show up for scheduled classes” and I dismissed the idea. Eventually, my preconceived prejudice broke down and soon I joined in the fun. Now after seven years of step aerobics, I’m still enjoying each workout.

That’s the way it should be with meditation. It shouldn’t be boring otherwise you’re not going to do it for very long. Just three minutes of focusing whenever you have a chance produces results. Couldn’t we all devote just three minutes at spare intervals, each day, to become aware of the undisciplined nature of our mind?  Three minutes a day or as many conscious moments that you have the time for, naturally the more you put in, the more you get out.

Prayer and mitzvot could be considered Jewish meditations, as well as quiet periods of mindfulness. They are all exercises in becoming aware of the present moment, the timeless space where we find God; there are really no differences between them, they’re just alternate tools for entering the present moment. Actually all of Jewish tradition centers upon the Shiviti from the biblical verse: "I have set God always before me" (Psalm 16:8). A three-minute meditation could be a prayer or a mitzvah. Many of us shudder at the thought of mitzvot. A mitzvah, contrary to common opinion, is not a good deed like helping an elderly person to cross the street. A mitzvah is one of God’s commandments designed to uplift our spiritual awareness.

Here is one three-minute meditation: The next time you sit down for a meal, take a few moments to quiet yourself then recite the appropriate blessing before partaking of the food and focus your mind on the source of this bounty. As you savor the first morsel direct your mind on how this meal got to your table and how you can put its energy to the highest good. That should take no more then three minutes. Gerushin, the meditative act of contemplating a verse of Torah is also an effective Jewish meditation that can be handled in three minutes. Simply center yourself, select a meaningful verse and try to memorize it, so that whenever you have a moment or two to spare, you could concentrate your entire attention on the text.

Meditation has made an impact on the Jewish scene today. What becomes clear, as you read through the contemporary books on Jewish meditation is that much of it is a variation on Buddhist meditations with a twist of Jewish ideology.  I’m not sure if the writers are former Buddhists, Jewish Buddhists or Jews who once traveled to India in search of a guru. Either way much of what we call Jewish meditation today is a hybrid form tinged with Oriental religions, a clear departure from unbroken Jewish tradition.  That’s not to deny the existence of an authentic Jewish meditation, which is exhibited in texts like Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s, Kabbalah and Meditation. Rabbi Kaplan suggests that without a degree of fluency in classical Hebrew, authentic Jewish meditation, which dates back to the Middle Ages, is far too complex for the American contemporary mind to grasp. So for that reason, Jewish Meditation Made Simple is the answer to so many people’s urgency to practice spirituality day by day, and reap the harvest of the good life. This article outlined two suggested meditations; there are virtually dozens of three-minute Jewish meditations, which will be featured each month on JewishLink at http://www.jewishealing.com/mini_meditation.html Check it out now and come back each month.