Jewish Spirituality In A Nutshell
by Velvel "Wally" Spiegler

Generally speaking, spirituality is the awareness that an unseen spiritual world exists simultaneously with our everyday world of thoughts and feelings. This dimension of life generates the most significant values that mankind can attain—love, wisdom, healing, forgiveness, just to name a few.   Religious traditions throughout human history always understood the need for making contact with the spiritual realm, but each culture’s style varies widely. Jewish spirituality is intimately tied into our tradition, and I know of no other spiritual practice as potent as Judaism for the Western sensibility.

How can modern Jews live today’s pace, go through the mechanics of raising a family, attend to the pressures of the workplace and yet find time and energy to pursue spirituality in their lives? The present ultra-orthodox style of living in ghetto-like communities originated by necessity in the European countries in which they were forced to take refuge. Certain laws of the Torah made it necessary for everyone to reside close to one another; these people found joy and warmth and satisfaction from living in close proximity to each other. They not only lived among each other, but they followed the same dress code, ate the same foods and spoke the same language, all to remain distinct from the outlying community.  Their spirituality came from clinging to God in every feasible moment. But is it possible for us, living in the 21st Century, in an ultra-technocratic society where change happens faster than we can keep up with it, to establish some level of spirituality.

The ultimate objective of Jewish spirituality is a kind of Divine perception that Jewish mystics have struggled towards for many centuries. They labeled it “Devekut”—the union with God.  This kind of enlightenment doesn’t take place with blinding flashes of insight. It’s nature is to experience God in all our daily activities. It’s meaning is encapsulated from the verse from psalm 140 “Shviti I stand before God at all times”, and its origin lies in the spring festival of Pesach. In the stories surrounding the redemption, we find the stiff-necked nation of Israel enslaved, to the taskmasters of Egypt, for nearly 400 years.  They preferred the hardships of Egypt to the great unknown of liberation. You and I follow similar paths. It takes many plagues to dislodge us from our captivity to the world of matter and concepts. After God redeemed the Israelites with an outstretched arm, the people journeyed for the next forty years toward the land of Canaan, the Promised Land.  Egypt is our exile; the road to Canaan symbolizes our Devekut.

The great stumbling block in achieving Devekut reflects upon the understanding of exile, a kind of existential loneliness. Ever since the Israelite captivity in Babylonia, some three thousand years ago, exile came to be identified with distancing oneself or an entire nation from God. Today, our estrangement from God is defined by our attachment to external influences—material possessions and much of our self-centered behaviors.  Jewish historical records go on to trace the hardships that had befallen the Jewish people for their disobedience to God’s commandments.  The shame of the golden calf incident became the symbol of our ultimate exile; when enraged by that sinful deed, God threatened the total annihilation of the Israelites. Where are we today? How distant from God have we become? To answer that, you may just need to look around and perceive all the suffering, destruction and pain that we’re exposed to daily.

The return trip from exile is a process we call T’shuvah (from the Hebrew verb “to return”) is at the heart of Jewish spirituality. It is thought of as a process; it is not instantaneous, it takes place over time. T’shuvah, does not, as commonly believed, mean to refrain from consciously hurtful actions. The motivation for such actions lies rooted deeply in our subconscious; they are out of our conscious control. T’shuvah is the complete about-face from our present behavior patterns to one guided by Divine wisdom, the result of clinging to God. The process of T’shuvah is inaugurated at Rosh HaShanah, but the effort of turning towards God is meant to continue all year long. Through self-awareness exercises, which helps us to see ourselves more objectively, the process of turning inward is initiated.

Are contemporary synagogues capable of fostering spirituality? Despite much grumbling that synagogue services are often lifeless and uninspiring, they still offer us an environment in which to grow spiritually. Synagogues provide us with a community whose mere presence provides the means for strength and support for our prayers. Prayer, the leading Jewish spiritual practice arouses our hearts in praise of God; it inflames our innate aspect of love. Synagogues also provide us with rabbis and teachers under whose guidance we can receive deeper insight into the mitzvot and the teachings of the Torah.

Mitzvot and Torah are prayers of a different order. Any religious obligation that helps direct our attention to God is prayer. Rabbi Abraham Heshel’s statement comes to mind as he marched for civil rights from Selma to Montgomery and declared, “I’m praying with my feet”.  Mitzvot, the Divine commandments require action by the physical body, like the holidays and Shabbat; while Torah narrative engages the mind on how God functions in the world. By integrating all three modalities prayer (emotions), mitzvot (action) and Torah (mind) we’re brought to a deeper understanding of the workings of spirit, and ultimately to union with the Divine Source. Yet, with this in mind, one urgent ingredient is still missing. We must learn to pay careful attention to everything our mind, body and emotions communicate to us. The kind of focusing—kavannah, in Hebrew— in prayer and in deeds momentarily nullifies our sense of self, and opens our perception to Divinity. It’s like a meditation on becoming aware of ourselves.

Spirituality requires a certain behavior pattern expected of people pursuing a spiritual path. As Jews seeking access to the spiritual realm, we must behave in a manner conducive to Jewish expectations. Even before opening a holy text, we must learn to act with humility, with compassion, with kindness, with trust, with generosity, with all the characteristics that define us as “b’tselim elohim”, created in the image of God. Jewish spirituality depends upon each individual’s penetrating, inner-directed exploration; it is more than merely the practice of Jewish customs. Spirituality is striving to integrate our body and mind with the spiritual dimension in order to align ourselves with the Source of Creation.