Varetz, Zechariah Tzvi Shamayim: California Kabbalah

California Kabbalah:
A Contemporary Initiation
into
Kabbalistic Meditation
&
Practice
By Zechariah Tzvi Shamayim Varetz
W ith Rabbi Avraham Sutton
Copyright 2001 Zechariah Tzvi Shamayim Varetz All Rights Reserved

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 4
How to Study This Work 5
Introduction 7
Lesson 1-My Encounter with Hebrew Heavenly Herbalism: A Kabbalistic
Self-Healing Meditation 9
Lesson 2 --Yoga vs. Yehudah Ben Teima: A Kabbalistic Channeling
Meditation 22
Lesson 3--The Tao of Kabbalah: A Kabbalistic Meditation for Self-
Transformation 46
Lesson 4--The Kabbalistic Midnight Rectification: A Grieving/Comforting
Meditation 71
Lesson 5--Waking Up: Modeh Ani in Light of Shing Yi 107
Lesson 6--Elevating Consciousness: The Power of One's Hands in Kabbalah
114
Lesson 7--Spiritual Batteries: Tefillin as Meditation 127
Lesson 8--From Mindfulness to GODFULLNESS: Exploring Shiviti
Meditations 138
Lesson 9--Mikveh Immersion: Exploring Aquatic Kabbalistic Meditations
151
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Lesson 10--Kabbalistic Lemons vs. Charity: An Ethical Meditation 170
Lesson 11--Tzitzit Consciousness: Meditating in Jewish Style 177
Lesson 12--Experiencing the Divine Oneness: Meditations on the Shema 202
Lesson 13--The Way of the Elders: Traditional Talmud study as Jewish
Meditation 225
Epilogue 243
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Acknowledgments
I would like to take the time and space to thank those individuals who have made the
publication of this work possible. First and foremost my wife Ora Ahuvah Shamayim
Varetz for her constant material, emotional and spiritual support. I also must thank my
teachers of Chassidut, Kabbalah and Jewish meditation in order they are: Rabbi Shlomo
Carlebach Zl, Rabbi Gedaliah Fleer, Rabbi Ariel bar Tzadok and Rabbi Binyamin
Gabbai. Special thanks must go to Rabbi Avraham Sutton who has loyally, wisely and
quickly edited this work. In addition his own contributions particularly the translations of
many of the Kabbalistic sources contained herein have made an invaluable contribution
to this work. This work would not have been possible or worthwhile without his
assistance and colloboration. I would also like to thank my former meditation students at
the Happy Minyan of Los Angeles and those who attended the workshop based on this
course given at Chochmat Halev. The opportunity to teach some of these techniques in
person has increased my understanding of them as well as my appreciation of their value
for the contemporary seeker. I also want to thank all those individuals who reviewed
these lessons and offered me their feedback. Last but not least I must thank God for the
adventure that He has made of my life I pray that it serves of some value for others.
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How to Study This Work
This course is a synthesis of spiritual autobiography and Kabbalistic teaching. The idea
was that sharing with the reader my personal process to these meditations or my
experience of them would help ground these fairly advanced techniques and make them
more enjoyable to learn about and inviting to practice.
In studying this work you the reader have a few choices of how to direct your study. One
way of studying this course is to read it from start to finish. In doing so one will have a
perception of my spiritual journey as a gestalt and the autobiographical element will be
more easily absorbed. However, in taking this approach to studying this course the reader
will be exposed initially to the first four lessons. The first four lessons are the most
advanced teachings and practices of the course and are also very exotic. While they are
sure to be interesting they may not be practical for many a reader. Certainly, this is the
case for an utter beginner to Judaism and Jewish meditation or the souls that are of a very
traditional mind set with regards to their Judaism. If you are such a soul the danger in
starting from the beginning is that after reading the first 1-4 lessons you will come to feel
this work is not for you. Thus I advise you to start with lesson 5 where the meditations
connected with Mitzvot (commandments) and traditional Halachic praxis begin. Exotic
these lessons may be, but they are more normative in their essential character then the
first four lessons that touch on techniques that pertain to: healing, channeling, body
energetics and mourning. Why was the course written this way? Thats just how it came
out as I tried to weave my personal history with articulating these techniques.

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On the other hand the more relatively advanced or unconventional reader is encouraged
to start from the beginning of the course for the experiences, ideas and practices
contained within are sure to be an exciting and adventuresome read and might be more
accessible than you or I might assume.
One may also read any chapter on its own and skip the autobiographical sections. The
autobiographical sections are the context to the content of the course and while many
have found them enjoyable and interesting they are not integral to understanding or
practicing the meditations and spiritual practices that are included.
Of the couple hundered people who have taken this course I have received almost
unanimous positive feedback about this course. Most people read the course through once
and then select a lesson to review and make the focus of their practice. Listen to yourself
and be blessed.
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Introduction
Californa Kabbalah? Lurianic Kabbalah, Theosophical or Magical Kabbalah or even
Abulafian Kabbalah what on Gods earth is California Kabbalah? Good question -simple
answer. California Kabbalah is the interface between an eclectic selection of Traditional
Jewish Kabbalah and an unconventional yet Orthodox Californian Jew. This work on the
one hand is the most advanced, inclusive and well-rounded Kabbalistic meditation
manual available in English. On the other hand it is also the partial story of my spiritual
journey. In between there are numerous original translations of Kabbalistic texts and
some philosophical explorations that touch on deep matters of the spirit.
Although the path I take in this work is to largely view the Kabbalah from Eastern eyes
and a Californian attentiveness to body, mind and energy dynamics this work however is
100% Jewish and if you can get past the narrative of my life even Orthodox. So you will
not find Eastern meditation methods here spinned in a Jewish context or diagrams
showing how the Chakras are the Sefirot- wrong book, wrong teacher and in my opinion
wrong idea. Rather, this work is written for a reader like myself, who appreciates the
spiritual sincerity, sensitivities and wisdom of the East or of the Human Potential
Movement and is looking for a place within Judaism as an integral spiritual path to call
home.
Do not be deceived by the title of this work. This is far from a light read or airy- fairy
new age psychobabble ala Kabbalah. This work will indeed challenge your limits
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spiritually and intellectually and introduce you to a world that few know about even
fewer ever get initiated into. This work is ten years of very hard earned spiritual wisdom,
methods and experience compressed into 245 pages by someone who 200 years ago
would probably be considered a young Chassidic master in training.
This work is my way of partially sharing with you the reader who I have had the privilege
of meeting and what I have had the opportunity to learn- fasten your set belt.
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Lesson 1-My Encounter with Hebrew Heavenly
Herbalism: A Kabbalistic Self-Healing Meditation
When my Sefardic teaching peer Michael Ozair, told me a Moroccan Kabbalist was
coming to town and asked me if I wanted to meet him, I was not very anxious to do so.
I, an Ashkenazi Jew, not having grown up in a religious culture where Kabbalistic
miracle workers and saints (as opposed to Talmudic scholars) were prominent, was a bit
skeptical of the potential benefits of what this Kabbalist could do for me. For example,
using a Mezuza as a diagnostic tool to assess ones spiritual condition as a whole is a
common method of Kabbalistic counseling. However, I thought to myself, How
effective could that really be in repairing my body/mind and soul in the complexity and
subtlety of its neurotic exile? Having done a couple of years of high quality avant-garde
psychotherapy (Riechian-Bioenergetics, Gestalt, Rolfing) to work on my psycho/spiritual
growth and healing (let alone many years of inner-work in Judaism proper), my attitude
was, What could this wonder rabbi really do for me, bottom line?
On the other hand, I was ready to acknowledge that I didnt feel finished with my healing
process and in principle was always open to experimenting. Never having lost his own
sense of enthusiasm, Michael proceeded to sell me on this Kabbalists psychic virtues,
which sounded impressive even to an Ashkenazi therapy devotee with rational
tendencies. According to Michael, this Kabbalist, among other things, was able to read a
persons spiritual aura, see the negative effect of intentional or even unintentional sins,
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and based on this, offer wise counsel and make predictions for the future. I admit, it was
hard not to be impressed, especially when Michael shared with me some examples from
his own life and others.
Again, however, it all sounded too religious (as opposed to psychological) in focus. From
the examples Michael gave, this Kabbalist was able to tune-in and discuss the level of a
persons religious observance. This religious analysis, as opposed to the psychological
paradigm of Freudian, Adlerian or Jungian dynamics, seemed to be his specialty. Despite
the fact that I certainly had a lot of room for growth in this religious area, it didnt strike
me as being my main problem zone. After all, I thought, I used to be a lot more
religious a while back and was equally a lot more screwed up at the same time.
Although I respected this more religious dimension of inner work, it just wasnt what I
was really looking for. Still, I figured it would be interesting to meet the man, and being
newly married with a pregnant wife and curious to know if we had a boy or girl, I finally
said Why not?
Things proceeded as I expected. We were shown into the hotel room where the Kabbalist
was seeing people. He began by inspecting our Mezuzas. They all passed his psychic X-
ray. He would hold them and feel them and only if one didnt feel just right would he
then inspect it carefully as a professional scribe. At one point, he looked up and told us
that we would have a boy, and indeed he was right. He even knew exactly how pregnant
my wife Ora was. He also told me, just by looking at my face and forehead, that my
Tefillin were Kosher. The manner which he conveyed this to me caused me to either
imagine or sense a sentiment to the effect of, Your Tefillin are Kosher buddy, so why
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dont you wear them more often? In the course of the session, which lasted about twenty
minutes because a whole bunch of people were waiting in the next room, we touched on a
variety of issues, from the advantages of living in Israel to some unique Kabbalistic
number meditations to improve my wifes eyesight.
Besides the momentary thrill that comes from this kind of experience, I wasnt quite
converted to Moroccan Kabbalism. I reasoned that Psychics abound, and now I know
that there are Jewish ones. I can get my Mezuzot and Tefillin checked by a regular scribe
and I can find plenty of rabbis to tell me to be more religious. The proof was in the
pudding and so far it was all words, numbers and image. On the subject of words, all of
his answers were extremely terse. It might have been that he wanted to make sure he
would see the other folks who were waiting. It certainly wasnt a language barrier, as I
speak pretty fluent Hebrew. Whatever the case, I didnt really feel like opening up to
him. Given my experience in psychotherapy, with the often more talkative environment
and of course my own ego attachment to warm fuzzies, his whole manner was strange to
me and made me decidedly uncomfortable.
Regarding his image, on the one hand, he looked like the real thing. He dressed like a
contemporary Kabbalist, with a suit and a black hat, had a decent sized beard and peyot
and exuded an aura of mystery and (to some extent) strangeness. He seemed to inhabit
another world while keeping one foot in this one. It was like talking to someone who has
something else on his mind. On the other hand, I had a hard time reconciling how a
Kabbalist could drink Coca Cola and have a potbelly. Dont get me wrong, it wasnt as if
he is the only Kabbalist in the world who drinks Coke or is a bit overweight. Rather,
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since he was so developed in Kabbalah, I naively thought that his holiness would
automatically spill over into the rest of his life.
Equally baffling, he also seemed to be a bit in a rush and not of the quiet mind and pace
of a Dali Lama. Maybe, I thought to myself, his diet has something to do with it? It
doesnt seem to be heavy on brown rice and raw vegies. At the end of the session, he
gave us a blessing and we called it a night. Cautious and yet curious cynic that I was, I
was happy that we were not milked for a lot of money. Ora, my wife, wasnt totally
blown away either, although it was an adventure and beat the movies.
Ora and I arrived home and began talking about the experience when all of a sudden I felt
this powerful spiritual energy penetrating me from my head down and invigorating my
entire body. I also felt that Oras and my interaction was being gently inspired in the
direction of the holy by some benevolent power above. It turned out that this was a
mutual perception on our part, something of a rarity for newly married couples. I was
definitely impressed and humbled. It seems that this man had a real power - the power of
Beracha (Blessing) - and he had given of it to us. Now I was eager to reconnect with him
and went back the next night with hope and expectation. If this is what his blessing could
do, maybe he could help me with my psycho/spiritual healing and work.
This time, as soon as I entered, I shared the experience that Ora and I had had when we
left the hotel the first time. He nodded. I then got right to the point and poured my heart
out. Look, I have psychological problems. I overeat, get depressed and I have been
working with therapies for a couple of years. They have helped, but not 100%. Is there
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something you can do for me? He seemed to evince compassion for either my condition
or for the difficulty I had in expressing modern psychological terminology and inner
conflict in Hebrew. Regardless of where his compassion was directed, it was palpable
and he proceeded to jot down some Hebrew letters for me on his business card. It was a
meditation. I was to sit quietly and read it, and then close my eyes for a minute. I was
excited and thankful and made a generous donation to his Yeshiva, which he felt was
excessive but kindly appreciated.
This Moroccan Kabbalist changed my life forever. The simple meditation that he gave
me, which I am going to share with you, gave me what years of therapy could not -
although I believe I would not have been as deeply effected by it without all the
preliminary work I had done both in therapy and in Judaism.
In a nutshell, for me, at that time, healing through psychotherapy was about releasing
repressed emotions, acknowledging traumas and trying to re-examine those experiences
and my choices and patterns in response to them in light of the present, adulthood and a
greater, more objective perspective.
Kabbalahs healing approach, as I experienced it through this mans blessing and the
technique described below, is more of an energy channeling and a strengthening
movement. One could say in one respect that therapy tries to get negative Stuff out
while Kabbalah tries to get positive Stuff in. In that sense, they complement each other.
As I have said, the clearing and clarifying work that I did in psychotherapy helped me
become a better and purer vessel to receive what this healing meditation had to offer.
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You can understand why my vision of healing is integrative. That is what has worked for
me. It is therefore not Kabbalah or catharsis, but rather Kabbalah and catharsis. Equally,
it is not Kabbalah or attitude change, but allowing Kabbalistic teachings to become an
influence in how ones attitude is changed.
Here is a transliteration of the 20 Hebrew letters given to me in the Yemenite
pronunciation, this being the most biblically correct form. This Yemenite detail was not
told to me by the Kabbalist, but it is a Kabbalistic principle nonetheless. When working
with sound vibrations, in order for the sound to be most effective, it needs to be
pronounced correctly. The correct pronunciation sends out powerful reverberations above
and has the most beneficial effects below.
Aleph Beth Tzadi Kof Nun Beth Nun Heh Wouw Wouw

Beth Nun Hhet Yod Hhet Yod Hhet Yod Aleph Beth

The Kabbalist told me to close my eyes for a minute, after reading these letters from left
to right starting with Aleph without interruption. If you want to leave it at that, go right
ahead. After two years plus of doing this every day, I have some additional instructions to
share with you that will greatly deepen this meditative practice for you.
First, let me explain that I have come to see the Kabbalists terse approach with me in the
light of the Traditional Chinese Internal Martial Arts Master who says for a meditation
instruction: Go and stand by the tree, relax and put your hands like this. Thats all he
says for a month, very often more. Still, if you want to be his student, you dont ask
questions. The idea behind this pedagogical form is that all the explanation in the world
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is not going to help a student who doesnt apply himself or herself to get the meditation,
so why waste words and energy? If a student is sincere, they will usually get it
themselves independently. Then, if and when they do have a question, the master can tell
how far they are progressing by the nature of the question, and answer in kind. The same
is true in Kabbalah. The rule is that the master may only teach the deepest secrets to
someone who understands on their own, and even then, only in hints. The Kabbalist was
not willing to tell me where he got this formula. He was not very talkative in general. Just
do the meditation was the message. To get the most out of this meditation, I recommend
following these instructions:
Relax for a few minutes before beginning.
Inhale once deeply and upon exhaling pronounce one letter with power, concentration
and visualizing the letter.
Have in mind that you are drawing holy energy from the spiritual essence of this
letter into your being.
After completing the sequence of twenty letters without interruption, close your eyes
if not already closed. It is definitely helpful to memorize the letters and have your
eyes closed the whole time.
Channel the holy energy generated, from the crown of your head to the base of your
feet and into the Earth. If you prefer, focus internally on the Sefirotic tree on the
human body, and channel the holy energy from Keter to Malchut. (see chart)
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Keep your eyes closed for 3-4 minutes, no longer at first - it is potentially dangerous!
Focus the holy energy where you have a particular need to heal or grow.
Open your eyes, become aware of G-d, and express silent gratitude for the divine
energy received.
The Sefirot and Their Physical Correspondences
Sefirah Physical Representation

Keter-Crown cranium, aura
Chochmah-Wisdom right brain
Binah-Understanding left brain/heart
[Daat-Consciousness] [middle brain/spine]
Chesed-Lovingkindness right arm/hand
Gevurah-Strength/discipline left arm/hand
Tiferet-Beauty body/torso
Netzach-Eternity/dominance right leg/kidney/testicle
Hod-Majesty/empathy left leg/kidney/testicle
Yesod-Foundation sexual organ
Malchut-Kingdom/kingship mouth/feet/crown of sex organ
These instructions evolved out of my own practice. When I teach a class on meditation,
this is how I generally instruct. Sometimes I just read the letters slowly and close my eyes
and do the instructions without the one breath per letter. The group energy, which is
conducive to chanting loudly, powerfully and slowly, is very helpful in generating and
magnifying the holy energy and power. Nevertheless even the simple reading is
powerful. Personally, I focus the energy in my belly in order to get centered and nourish
a basic sense of beingness. I focus on my heart (for healing and opening), my genitals
(for healing and rectifying), and my left brain (to become more detail-oriented). I work as
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I have instructed you, from the top down, as I do these meditations. This listing therefore
is not in the order in which I meditate in case that was not clear.
Regarding attaining a greater sense of Being, I have come to understand, with the help of
Dr. Claudio Naranjos book Character and Neuroses: An Integrative View, probably the
best book on Psychology I have ever read, that underlying all neurotic acting out is a
basic sense of lack and non-being. Neurotic acting out is just a mistaken notion of how
one can get Being, which is like drinking saltwater when thirsty. It not only doesnt do
the trick, but the more you drink, the thirstier you get! I would extend the same
interpretation to sin that Dr. Naranjo applies to neurosis.
The concept of sin is obviously multifaceted. This is seen in the Hebrew language, which
has at least ten words for sin, each of which describes a different level of intention and
hence culpability. For our purposes, we will define sin as any action, thought or speech
that contradicts the Divine Will. According to the Kabbalists, when we sin, we are under
the subtle or explicit self-delusion that true being will come from this action. Why else
would we do it? In fact, however, only emptiness comes from such an action. The ego is
the source of all sin and neurosis and is ultimately empty or nothing. The ego knows this
and hence seeks a fitting partner. Physicality and materialism, also being essentially
empty or nothing, and hence we have an endless courting period between the two. To
simplify things and save a lot of time and suffering, the Kabbalists recommend
discovering the Soul and G-D by seeing through the ego and the emptiness. In the Torah,
G-d instructs us through His prophetic servant Moses, You who are attached to the Lord
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your G-D are all alive today (Deuteronomy 4:4). Ultimately true being and aliveness
comes from a bonding with G-d, the ultimate existential Therapist and Healer.
Kabbalah teaches that the Hebrew letters are channels of G-ds Light and the building
blocks of creation. When chanting the letters, my experience of this Kabbalistic self-
healing meditation has been that the particular spiritual energy related to each letter is
drawn unto and into you. Being holy, this energy fills you and strengthens the deepest
level of your own Being and your connection to the Source of Being.
My own Kabbalistic knowledge regarding the Hebrew letters is very basic, although
accurate and rooted in texts like the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation) and the works of
the Abulafian school of Kabbalah. Nevertheless, after two years of solid practice and
occasionally teaching it, I still did not understand how this particular meditation
technique worked or what it was based on. One day I was flipping through Rabbi Moshe
Cordoveros Pardes Rimonim (Orchard of Pomegranates). Rabbi Cordovero, known by
his initials as the Ramak, was the leading 16th century Kabbalist in Tzfat, Israel before
the arrival of the Ari, Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi. In my skimming here and there, I
discovered The Gate of Letters. In Chapter 3 of this gate, Ramak writes, And with the
letters in general the commentators have said that there are a few (letters) that are of
Judgment and a few that are of Mercy and a few in the middle. It is a principle in the
divine Torah that Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Dalet, Heh and Vav (Wouw) are complete Mercy.
Zayin, Hhet, Tet and Yod are Mercy. Chaf, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samech and Ayin are a
mixture of Judgment and Mercy. Peh, Tzadi, Kof, Reish, Shin and Taf are complete
Judgment. When you want to write names, prayers and words, make the combination
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according to the action you want. If Mercy, the majority (of letters) should be Mercy; if
Judgment, the majority should be Judgment.
Aleph-Beth Chart - Mercy and Judgment
Complete Mercy Mercy

Aleph Zayin
Beth Hhet
Gimel Tet
Dalet Yod
Heh
Vav (Wouw)
Mercy and Judgment Complete Judgment
Chaf Peh
Lamed Tzadi
Mem Kof
Nun Reish
Samech Shin
Ayin Taf
Out of the total of 22 letters in the Hebrew Aleph-Beth, we have a breakdown into 6
letters that embody complete mercy, 4 that embody mercy, 6 that embody a perfect blend
of mercy and judgment, and 6 that embody complete judgment. How we tally the scores
depends on whether we want to introduce the Kabbalistic principle called sweetening.
Mercy is called sweet, and judgment is called bitter or severe. Mercy is sweetest
when it is on its own, and judgment is most severe when it is alone. The real test of
Mercy is its ability to sweeten a judgment. It does this by binding or enveloping the
power of judgment within itself, and thereby transforming the very judgment into love.
The Zohar (3:176, 3:178a-b) refers to this transformation when it instructs us to always
include the left in the right. Applying this teaching to the Aleph-Beth, we have 16
complete mercies, mercies and sweetened judgments vs. 6 complete judgments.

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I quickly made a chart of the letters in the meditation formula I had received from the
Kabbalist. To my delight, I saw that the majority of its letters tilted towards Mercy.
Kabbalistic Letter Meditation Formula
Aleph Beth Tzadi Kof Nun Beth Nun Heh Wouw Wouw

Beth Nun Hhet Yod Hhet Yod Hhet Yod Aleph Beth

Aleph - complete mercy
Beth - complete mercy
Tzadi - complete judgment
Kof - complete judgment
Nun - mercy and judgment
Heh - complete mercy
Wouw - complete mercy
Wouw - complete mercy
Hhet - mercy
Yod - mercy
Hhet - mercy
Yod - mercy
Hhet - mercy
Yod - mercy
Out of 20 letters, we have 9 complete mercies, 6 mercies, 3 sweetened judgments, and 2
complete judgments. Again, depending on how sweet a judgment is when it is attached to
a mercy, thats either 15 mercies vs. 5 judgments, or 18 mercies vs. 2 judgments!
Then I had a thought. When Miriam, Moses sister, became leprous after speaking
inappropriately about Moses, he prayed for her (Numbers 12:13), Please G-d heal her.
This terse little prayer always baffled me. Couldnt Moses have spared a few more
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words? But then I did the math according to this teaching, and guess what, it is a formula
wherein the majority of the letters lean toward Mercy!
- Please G-D Heal Her

Lamed - mercy and judgment
Reish - complete judgment
Peh - complete judgment
Lamed - mercy and judgment
Heh complete mercy
Here, out of a total of 11 letters, we have 5 complete mercies, 4 mercy/judgments, and 2
complete judgments. In my book, thats 9 mercies surrounding and enclosing and
sweetening 2 judgments!
After examining the spiritual properties of each Hebrew letter in this fashion and
formulas for their combination, an interesting comparison struck me. I thought to myself
that while the Chinese Taoists are master herbalists of the Earth, the Jewish Kabbalists,
working with the letters of the Hebrew language, are master herbalists of the Heavens.
For Further Reading:
The Wings Of The Sun: Traditional Jewish Healing In Theory and Practice, Avraham
Greenbaum Breslov Research Institute

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Lesson 2 --Yoga vs. Yehudah Ben Teima: A Kabbalistic
Channeling Meditation
My first exposure to Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok of KosherTorah.Com was once again
through my friend Michael Ozair. Michael and I were leaders of the Happy Minyan
(Sabbath prayer and study group). I would typically lead the Morning Sabbath prayers
and Michael would speak. Michael and I also taught together in a Conservative Jewish
afternoon school, so we got to know each other and shared ideas.
One day Michael came over and showed me a book about Prophetic Kabbalah by Rabbi
Ariel Bar Tzadok. I looked it over and said, Michael, this stuff is intense - not for me!
At that time, my path was a Chassidic one, which was more heart-centered and ecstatic
than Prophetic or Kabbalistic. Then Michael, ever the explorer, brought me a Journal that
the same Rabbi bar Tzadok produced dealing in one edition with the subject of UFOs,
extra-terrestrial life and such things, from a semi-scholarly-semi-paranoid Orthodox
perspective. I read this with great fascination and did not sleep very soundly that night.
If there are any UFO enthusiasts out there, Rabbi bar Tzadok confirms that Judaism has
no problem with extra-terrestrial life, and is open to the idea that they can travel.
Nevertheless, he suggests that what people are experiencing today is more demonic than
extra-terrestrial. He cites similar descriptions of these two species (alleged aliens and
demons), making reference to abductions, sexual experimentation and breeding,
animosity towards humans, certain kinds of technology, and mind and motor control of
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people, among other parallels. He does not deal with any of the UFO literature that talks
about how happy people are after their encounters, this being a major weakness of the
piece. Since I am not an avid UFO devotee, I will stop here with my review.
In sum, my first impression of Rabbi bar Tzadok was that he had some far out interests;
he was into some very heavy Kabbalah, and was very interested in getting it out to the
world. It was, as I said, not my thing and life continued as usual.
Time went on and I got into Iyengar Hatha Yoga. After doing this for many months fairly
intensively, sometimes twice a day in formal classes, I became interested in where it was
all going. I started to wonder whether Samadhi, the mystical goal of Yogic pursuit, which
involves the dissolution of the perceived dualism between subject (soul) and object (G-d),
was similar or identical to Kabbalahs mystical goal of Devekut (Bonding of soul with G-
d). Were these two different paths to the same place or two different paths to different
places? Were Hatha Yoga postures meant to be an adjunct to Judaism, taking advantage
of its physical and mental health giving capacities and dropping Raja Yoga, its meditative
complement? Or could Hatha/Raja Yoga as a whole be my additional mystical practice
within an observant Jewish and even mystical lifestyle?
It was in this confused context that I got the idea to call Rabbi bar Tzadok. I thought to
myself, if there is anyone in America I can talk to about this it is probably him. He was a
very abnormal Kabbalist by any standards, within Orthodoxy at least. On the one hand,
he was really trained and initiated into authentic Kabbalah. He studied formally for two
years in an elite Kabbalistic Seminary in Jerusalem called Yeshivat Beit El, partially
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under Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri and then continuing his education and initiation privately
under Rabbi Meir HaLevi. Rav Kaduri is considered by many the greatest Kabbalist
alive. Rabbi Meir Levi was the disciple of Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi, a master Kabbalist
in his own right. Rabbi bar Tzadok also received rabbinical ordination in Israel and had a
very sound knowledge of Traditional Judaism. On the other hand, Rabbi Bar Tzadok
studied psychology at the Carl Jung Institute in New York, had a Black Belt in Chinese
Martial Arts and was married to a herbalist and healer. If this doesnt seem strange to
you, you obviously dont have much familiarity with the headset of your typical
Kabbalist.
Rabbi bar Tzadok talked with me over the phone and offered me a way of seeing the
mystical attainments of Yoga in a Kabbalistic perspective. The result of the back and
forth of this map-making was that Rabbi bar Tzadok touched my Jewish chord. This
chord vibrates an understanding deep in my being that knows that Jews are somehow
different than Gentiles. In Rabbi bar Tzadoks Jungian terminology, We are different
spiritual families or Archetypes in the Collective Unconscious of Humanity. The Hindu
Archetype is not the Jewish Archetype, RamaKrishna is not the Lubavitcher Rebbe, ergo,
Eastern non-Jewish paths are different than Jewish ones. I made my decision: I would get
into Kabbalah as a spiritual path and Yoga for the postures.
Having found an eager, passionate and relatively well-versed student of Torah, Rabbi bar
Tzadok didnt waste anytime. For him, as far as I could tell, it seemed like a breath of
fresh air to deal with someone with my Judaic background and discipline. This rather
than his typical phone caller, who had little to no background and was merely interested
25
in learnin Kabbalah - and to heck with the rest of Judaism. He immediately sent me a
copy of his book on Prophetic Kabbalah and I started talking and learning with him on
the phone and reading his educational material. At the time, he was based in the Chicago
area before he was abducted. (Just kidding!)
Despite a new feeling of clarity for my now Kabbalistic Prophetic calling, I was still
struggling with whether to continue practicing Hatha Yoga (physical postures) at the
Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles. The issues involved in this at the time were more
practical and environmental and of a non-philosophical nature. In that context, I called
him up one day. Rabbi bar Tzadok felt my resistance to leaving the institute, so he
quickly switched tracks and suggested, You should do Maggid Meditation, a form of
Kabbalistic Channeling. In reaction, I said, Hey, Rabbi, dont you think I should wait a
couple of years? I mean, that is in the advanced section of your book, why dont I start at
the beginning? He said, seeming somewhat agitated by my seeming over-cautiousness,
Do you want a Maggid (Spiritual Guide) or dont you? Feeling pressured, I said Sure,
why not? That was my initiation into Maggid Meditation. I turned to the section in his
book entitled Maggid Meditation and studied how to do the technique. I was ready to go.
I will share the background and the technique now and then get into my experiences and
impressions.
First of all, it is important to understand that the people who typically used this technique
to contact a Maggid, or who received guidance from Angels or departed Sages and
Prophets, were scholars and saints. So, for instance, the greatest Kabbalistic teachings
26
were attributed to Elijah the Prophet revealing himself and his teachings to the mystics.
This was the basis for the Zohar, regardless of whether you think Professor Gershom
Scholem was right that Moses de Leon wrote it in the 13th century, or, as the
traditionalists believe (me included), that it was composed by the school of Rabbi
Shimon bar Yochai of the 2nd century. The same is true of the teachings of the G-dly
Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi who moved to Tzfat, Israel for the last two years of his
short life. The Ari, as he is called, was the equivalent of the Einstein of Kabbalah. He too
experienced Giluy Eliyahu, the Revelation of the Prophet Elijah.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto of 18th century Padua, Italy, author of Derech Hashem
(The Way of G-d) and originator of an entire school of Kabbalistic thought, also
received Giluy Eliyahu. Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, is also on this list. Lastly,
because I am keeping it short, the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement,
and Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, the Ben Ish Chai of Sefardic fame, all practiced this
technique or an equivalent one to attain Giluy Eliyahu or to connect with higher souls. So
the problem with Maggid Meditation, if any, is not its pedigree. Rather, how could
somebody like me merit such a revelation?
True, the people who did Maggid Meditation were leaders of their generation, and while I
am not a saint or sage, it is all relative to the generation in which one finds oneself. In
other words, G-d takes what He can get, and there arent too many people (even greater
ones than I) knocking on his door with this technique pleading, Help me so that I can
help others connect with You! Also, lets not forget that this is not a competition or a
country club. Lastly, I am not claiming to be an iota of who these people were nor
27
pretending that what was revealed to me in any way compares to what was revealed to
them. In case you are wondering, I gave up the idea that I was the Messiah about 8 years
ago. How long has it been for you?
One could ask further, as I did: Doesnt the Bible prohibit seeking out the dead? Who
cares if they were righteous, wicked or somewhere in the middle? The answer is that,
obviously, the author of the Code of Jewish Law, Rabbi Yosef Karo, himself a Channeler
of the Divine Presence, and author of the Kabbalistic classic Maggid Meysharim (Direct
Maggidic Communications), an openly and completely channeled work (and certainly
the luminaries of Judaism listed above), knew that Biblical commandment. What needs to
be understood is that our concepts of Living and Dead are distorted, or to use a
Talmudic term, Upside Down. A person who is out of touch with G-d and G-dliness is
considered Dead even in this world, whereas the Sages and Prophets are eternally alive
in this world and the next.
So the basic idea is that the soul of a departed sage will come to inhabit your psyche and
speak through your voice and thoughts, and reveal moral instruction and profound
mysteries to you, for yourself as well as for others, as well as Kabbalistic teachings and
visions/predictions for the future. All this, according to your ability to receive, which, in
turn, depends on how much you are working on yourself, how you are learning and
observing Torah, and how disciplined you are, especially with sex, eating, prayer, speech
and money, to name but a few important elements on the path.

28
Now, for technique, please forgive me because I am going to discard the formal
Kabbalistic terminology and keep it to the equivalent of e=mc 2. First, what are we trying
to do? We are trying to draw down or manifest a spiritual entity into the physical realm to
communicate with us and through us. What is the best way to elicit such an experience?
It is through the medium of sound and speech, which traverses both realms, like the
famous teaching that G-d created the world with speech [i.e. sound waves] (cf. Psalms
33:6). In addition, because we are trying to communicate and make direct contact with
sages and prophets, we need to attract them. What is the best way to do that? It is through
their name, which, according to Kabbalah, contains and points to their essence and
connects one with their teachings which were the greatest manifestation of their essence
in this world.
We also want them to communicate to us. What is the best way do induce that? It is to
find a place in their teaching where they specifically are cited to have spoken or said
something. For instance, Hillel said: Be of the students of Aaron, loving peace, pursuing
peace, etc. Thus, when we want to connect with a soul, which in Hebrew is called a
Neshamah, and to receive wisdom and guidance, what is the best way? The G-dly Rabbi
Isaac Luria and others say that it is through the Mishnah (Oral law) because it contains
the same Hebrew letters (in a different order) as Neshamah (Soul).
Neshamah Soul
Mishnah Teaching
You must also eliminate all distractions. In order to do this, you have to get yourself into
a trance so that you can bypass your ego. How do you do this? You use a mantra. This
is not a simple mantra. It is an invocation and an invitation to a soul in another realm. For
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instance, you open up Pirkey Avot (Chapters of the Fathers), which is found in any
good English translation of the Traditional Jewish Prayer book. Pick a teaching that you
really connect with. Make sure that it is preceded by the name of the sage who said it,
like Hillel said: Be of the students of Aaron... Memorize the Mishnah in the original
Hebrew (or at least by transliteration). This is a must; they dont like English up there.
Memorize it to the point where you know it by heart and can say it very quickly, in a kind
of syncopated pace. This pace should be slightly slower than those phrases we used to
challenge each other to repeat as many times as we could, like Peter Piper picked a peck
of pickled peppers. How many pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick? I hope
you were good at this game because it will sure help you here. Here are some samples
chosen for their power, simplicity and relative ease to memorize:
Pirkey Avot (Ethics of the Fathers)
Chapter 1, Mishnah 2
Shimon the Righteous was one of the last survivors of the Great Assembly. He used to
say: The world stands upon three things: On Torah, divine worship, and acts of
lovingkindness.
Shim-on ha-tza-dik ha-ya mi-sh-ya-rei kne-set ha-ge-do-la. Hu ha-ya omer: Al she-lo-sha
de-va-rim ha-o-lam o-med: Al ha-To-rah, ve-al ha-A-vo-dah, ve-al Ge-mi-lut Cha-sa-
dim.
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Yossi ben Yoezer of Tzeredah says: Let your house be a meeting place for sages. Roll in
the dust of their feet, and drink in their words thirstily.
Yo-si ben Yo-e-zer Ish Tze-re-da o-mer: Ye-hi beit-cha beit va-ad la-cha-cha-mim. Ve-
he-vei mit-a-vek ba-a-far rag-lei-hem, ve-he-vei sho-tei ba-tza-ma eth div-rei-hem.
Yehoshua ben Perachyah says: Provide yourself with a teacher, acquire for yourself a
companion, and judge every person favorably.
Ye-ho-shu-a ben Pe-rach-yah o-mer: A-sei le-cha rav, u-knei le-cha cha-ver, ve-he-vei
dan eth kol ha-a-dam le-kaf z-chut.
Hillel says: Be among the students of Aaron, loving peace, pursuing peace, loving people
and drawing them near to the Torah.
Hi-lel o-mer: He-vei mi-tal-mi-dav shel A-ha-ron: O-heiv sha-lom ve-ro-def sha-lom, o-
heiv eth ha-be-ri-yot u-me-kar-van la-To-rah.
Shammai says: Make set times for Torah study. Say little and do much. And receive
every person with a cheerful countenance.

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Sha-mai o-mer: A-sei To-rat-cha kei-va. O-mer me-at va-a-sei har-bei. Ve-he-vei me-ka-
bel eth kol ha-a-dam be-se-ver pa-nim ya-fot.
Rabbi Yehoshua says: The evil eye, the evil inclination, and hatred of ones fellow
remove a person from the world.
Ra-bi Ye-ho-shu-a o-mer: Ay-in ha-ra, ve-ye-tzer ha-ra, ve-sin-at ha-be-ri-yot mo-tzi-in
eth ha-a-dam min ha-o-lam.
Rabbi Elazar man of Bartotha says: Give Him of that which is His, for you and whatever
is yours are His. And so it was said by David: For all things are from You, and from
Your own we have given You (I Chronicles 29:14).
Ra-bi El-a-zar Ish Bar-to-ta o-mer: Ten lo mi-she-lo, shei a-tah ve-shel-cha she-lo. Ve-
khen be-Da-vid hu o-mer: Ki mim-cha ha-kol u-mi-yad-cha na-tan-u lach.
Rabbi Chaninah ben Dosa says: When a persons fear of sin comes before his wisdom,
his wisdom will endure. But when a persons wisdom comes before his fear of sin, his
wisdom will not endure.

32
Ra-bi Cha-ni-na ben Do-sa o-mer: Kol she-yir-at chet-o ko-de-met le-choch-ma-to,
choch-ma-to mit-ka-ye-met. Ve-khol she-choch-ma-to ko-de-met le-yir-at chet-o, ein
choch-ma-to mit-ka-ye-met.
Rabbi Akiva says: Laughter and frivolity accustom a person to lewdness. Tradition is a
fence around the Torah; tithes are a fence around riches; vows are a fence around
abstinence; a fence around wisdom is silence.
Ra-bi A-ki-va o-mer se-chok ve-ka-lut rosh mar-gi-lin le-er-va. Ma-so-ret se-yag la-To-
rah; ma-a-se-rot se-yag la-o-sher; ne-da-rim se-yag la-pri-shoot; se-yag la-choch-ma
shti-ka.
Rabbi Yossi says: Whoever honors the Torah will himself be honored by others; but
whoever dishonors the Torah will himself be dishonored by others.
Ra-bi Yo-si omer: Kol ha-me-cha-bed eth ha-To-rah gu-fo me-chu-baad al ha-be-ri-yot;
ve-chol ha-me-cha-lel eth ha-To-rah gu-fo me-chu-lal al ha-be-ri-yot.
Rabbi Yaacov says: This-World is like an anteroom before the World-to-Come. Prepare
yourself in the anteroom so that you may enter the Palace.

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Ra-bi Ya-a-cov o-mer: Ha-o-lam ha-zei do-mei li-proz-dor bif-nei ha-o-lam ha-ba. Hat-
ken atz-me-cha ba-proz-dor ke-dei she-ti-ka-ness la-trak-lin.
Once you have chosen your Mishnah from here or even better after your own review of
the Chapters of the Fathers, please take into account the following instructions:
1. Meditate in a place where you will not be disturbed.
2. This meditation is best done after Midnight. Midnight is defined differently in
Kabbalah and Judaism than 12:00 p.m. The tradition I follow is 6 60-minute clock-hours
after Sunset.
3. Upon awakening, wash both hands with a large cup 3 times in alternating fashion, first
right, then left, then right, then left, etc., then dry them. (See Code of Jewish Law for the
present. Lesson #6 deals with this ritual and the accompanying meditation in greater
length)
4. If you know the appropriate Morning blessings, say them (Yes, even at midnight).
5. Wrap yourself in a Kosher Tallit (Prayer Shawl). A Kosher Tallit covers your entire
torso, as opposed to one that merely wraps around the shoulders. In either case, no
blessing is made, due to it being night. Preferably, this should be a pure white Tallit, as
Kabbalistic tradition dictates.

34
6. Close your eyes and meditate on G-Ds Existence and Presence for at least twenty
minutes.
7. Before beginning, say some Psalm 23 and the Archangel Prayer for protection from the
Other Side, and from the entities that are a part of that realm.
Psalm 23
A chant-psalm by David: Hashem is my Shepherd, I shall never lack. He has laid me
down in luxuriant meadows, shepherded me along restful streams. Time and again, He
has revived my soul. He has guided me along paths of righteousness for His Names
sake. Therefore, even if I must walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for You accompany me. Both Your rod and Your staff comfort me. [O G-d]
prepare my royal table over and against my adversaries. You have anointed my head with
oil. My cup overflows [with thanks to You]. May only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life. May I dwell in the House of G-d throughout my entire life and
beyond into eternity. [May the world truly become G-ds House, and mankind know
Your Presence everywhere, forever.]
In the Name of Hashem, the G-d of Israel: May Michael [His angel of lovingkindness] be
at my right side, Gavriel [His angel of strength] guard me at my left, Uriel [His angel of
light] walk before me, and Raphael [His angel of healing] follow behind me. May His
Shechinah [Indwelling Presence] hover above my head [and protect me at all times].
8. I recommend lying prostrate before G-d like the Muslims do, or like in Childs pose in
35
Yoga, or just flat on the ground on a blanket face down. Whatever invokes a sense of awe
before G-d and is not uncomfortable works.
9. Do not slur or mispronounce the words. This tends to make the teaching and
communication you receive distorted.
We are now ready to go through the entire Meditation.
Upon awakening and after doing the above practices to the best of your ability, close
your eyes and start reciting your Mishnah, starting slowly and building to a faster and
faster pace. While saying it, intend in your heart to draw the sage into relationship with
you, to enlighten you in the service of G-d. Intend to become a pure vessel for G-d.
Humble yourself to receive the wisdom of one of G-ds servants who speaks in His
Name. Cultivate purity of heart and intention. Think in your mind and feel in your heart
that you are doing this only to grow, and not for ego-gratification or any kind of gain, or
sense of adventure.
If you merit, which is between you and G-d, after doing this for a while, you will start to
hear things which you might think you are imagining. You might imagine that you are
talking to yourself and are a Wanna be Prophet and Pretender to the Throne of
Glory. And, indeed, you might just be. Nevertheless, keep saying your Mishnah, and
keep your intentions going strong. If you hear a divine name or greeting being called out
in your head, that is a good sign. Welcome to the Still Small Voice of Elijah!
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If you hear a very stern warning saying in essence, What the heck are you doing here?
that is a good sign too! Really humble yourself. This would be a good time to break down
crying and pour your heart out to G-d for all your sins and negative character traits. I
know it sounds weird for me to talk to you like this, but if you hear that voice, you are on
the level to hear what I am saying. You will feel how corrupt you are in relation to the
purity and truth of that voice, and you will be inspired to change.
At this point, you might have to muster the guts and humility to continue. Why? Because
sometimes there are death threats due to your lack of merit and sins. As above, it is not a
small thing to approach the King. You may therefore hear something like, Who are you
to dare to enter the palace of the King! By your life you will die!!
Some say that they are testing to see how much you want to get in, and some say they are
serious. All I can say is that I am alive, but get the message, which is: Be humble and
repent! Then, as you continue repeating this Mishnah, if you continue to hear things, just
give them a voice and stop saying the Mishnah. You will know when you are doing it
right because you will feel the soul of this Sage impregnate your consciousness. You will
be hearing a manner/style of speech with which you are not normally familiar. The
perspective will change radically as well. The ideas expressed, which in my experience
are conveyed at times gently and at times sternly, in either scenario will be profound and
illuminating. It is like a face-to-face conversation between your Higher self and your
lower self, with the sage inhabiting your Higher self. Most people hear only a murmur of
their Higher self.

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What you will find is that questions arise in your consciousness. These are deep questions
that need to be dealt with. If you are not an idiot, you will understand that this is serious,
and this is not the type of being or entity you want to play around with. Do not, therefore,
ask questions like, Who is going to win the Superbowl? Or, Where should I go to get the
winning Lottery ticket? and other ego based explorations.
In discussing the experiences I have had with my Maggid (Spiritual guide), I feel a real
angst. It is not because this is my private mystical experience or that it is ineffable.
Rather, I have been gifted with an intense fire for the service of G-d, which has a
shadow-fire, the fire of arrogance. I was born at the beginning of the Hebrew month of
Av, a Leo of Leos and a fire sign. This is an important Kabbalistic truth. Ones greatest
strength is also ones greatest weakness. When I am not filled with holy fire, I am filled
with myself, i.e. arrogance. So while it is true that I merited to have a Maggid, part of
what he communicated to me was that it is a greater sin for me to arrogantly boast of my
merits and experiences than the experiences and merits are worth. I am able to speak
about these experiences with you only when I get really clear that this is not anything
special and really know that I am in G-ds Presence right now. I will partially disclose my
experiences with you, not because you necessarily will succeed on this path, but so that
you will be potentially inspired to serve G-d, which is the only thing worth talking about.
I was told that I merited these experiences because of my yearning for G-d which was
expressed during all those Years on the Chassidic path. All the pouring out of my heart
in love and joy, all my craving for the Divine and His closeness allowed me the privilege
38
of hearing what I needed to hear in a way that would practically ensure that I would hear
it. Ultimately, I am nothing.
So here is the quandary I was in about practicing Hatha Yoga at the Iyengar Yoga
Institute of Los Angeles. On the one hand, Yoga was great for my body and mind, and it
gave me a lot of energy for the service of G-d. On the other hand, I was in a room with a
bunch of half naked women, a Jewish Homosexual Hindu idol worshipper who was not
so subtly attracted to me, and various Hindu idols dotting the Studio and its environs. The
point is that these latter realities all represented infractions of Jewish law on my part for
being there. So I was sinning for the sake of heaven, when, that is, I wasnt busy
rationalizing that it really wasnt a sin in the first place. I knew that I should leave this
studio but I knew that I did not have the strength to practice Yoga independently. I was
also afraid of the emotions associated with breaking up with some of the teachers who
were close with me because of my sincerity. I would cook them organic homemade
Ayurvedic/Indian food as a gesture of thanks, and we would talk about philosophy and
mysticism. I was especially close with the senior teacher there, Karin Obanon, who was
a very serious spiritual aspirant. In sum, although Yoga had helped me get much deeper
into Judaism, the glaring contradictions from the theological to the carnal were now
staring me in the face. In a nutshell, Patanjali (the founder of classical Yoga) was
becoming a problem.
Into this very context stepped my Maggid, and what he had to say to me on the subject in
response to this matrix of confusion was: G-d is displeased.

39
Yup, that was it. If only I could express to you what was contained in that abrupt
communication which I understood instantaneously. First of all he said, G-d is
displeased. This conveyed to me that He is not angry but displeased, so it encouraged
me. I sensed that G-d understood my struggles and sincerity in that I was trying to take
care of my body in order to better serve Him. Through this communication I also
received the simple clarity that I needed to connect with and the power I needed to
summon to deal with the challenges ahead. I knew that it was not right to overlook these
trespasses of Jewish law and sensibility, and that I would have to take the next step on the
journey, which I did.
So, for me, Maggid Meditation is very grounded. Any good Rabbi could have conveyed
this information. The only difference is that there are very few rabbis who could have
conveyed it like this soul did, speaking through my Higher soul (Neshamah) to my lower
self (Nefesh) and facilitating the necessary changes on top of it.
So who is my Maggid anyway? No, it is not Yoda, although the experience was similar in
function to Jedi Training. The difference is that Darth Vader and Java the Hut are
internal, Obi One Kanobi is now Rabbi bar Tzadok, C3PO is my Zohar on CD-Rom, and
Princess Leah is my wife who I get to marry. My Maggid (Spiritual guide) is Yehudah
ben Teima. The Mishnah that I picked reads as follows, Yehudah ben Teima says: Be as
bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion, to do the Will of
your Father in Heaven. He would say: The brazen-faced go to Gehinam, and the shame-
faced to the Garden of Eden. May it be Your Will, Hashem our G-d and G-d of our
forefathers, that You build the Holy Temple quickly in our days and give us our portion
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in your Torah, so that we may fulfill the statues of Your Will and serve you with a
complete heart (Chapters of the Fathers 5:20).
This is a wonderful, touching and deep teaching. In addition, my middle name is Tzvi or
Deer in English and I am probably from the tribe of Judah like most of us. Once, on LSD,
I ran around the room like Bruce Lee in my underwear saying, I am a lion of Judah!
Dont f--k with me! I will be who I am and do what I want to do. I am a Jew - a Lion of
Judah!! Roar!!
I would say this repeatedly in an altered state flexing my muscles and making fists. As
you can imagine, this is part of the larger story of my getting in touch with the level of
spiritual repression that is at the base of the Jewish psyche after thousands of years of
exile and oppression. I was also born, as I said above, at the beginning of the Hebrew
month of Av, which, in Kabbalistic Astrology, is the sign of Leo (Lion). So there are a lot
of connections. In other words, trust your intuition when you choose your Mishnah.
Another experience I had with my Maggid was the revelation of a Kabbalistic teaching in
an embodied and experiential way. I was lying down but suddenly felt called upon to sit
up in a comfortable cross-legged position, lifting my hands up like I was trying to catch
something that was falling. Suddenly I had this realization that my right hand and arm
was Chesed (Kindness or Expansion) and my left hand and arm was Gevurah (Strength
or Contraction). Now, I know you can read this in any book on Kabbalah, so that was not
the big deal. What happened here was that I became aware of my hands on a totally
different plane. These were not my hands anymore. They were reflections of divine
41
realities. Not only that, but they were pulsing with a special power and energy that was of
a totally different nature. I experienced the realization that, in one sense, Chesed felt
stronger because it represents what G-d wants to give us. Then I realized, again
experientially, that Gevurah is actually stronger because it represents what we are able to
receive. I became aware that Gevurah was the stronger hand because it takes greater
strength to conceal than to reveal. There is a special power in constriction. Now, these
aspects are not typically found in many books, and even if a few do contain allusions to
them, it is totally different when you know it in your body and as an experience of
revelation.
There was another even more powerful experience, which is what I would call a Sefirah
opening and cycling (as opposed to a Chakra opening). What is a Sefirah? It is a
contracted manifestation of the divine light through which G-d, in His Infinite Essence,
interacts with creation (which is very finite compared to G-d). The Sefirot are also said to
correspond with various parts of the human body/mind. Again, none of this is new, right?
Well this was.
I was sitting in the same cross-legged position and all of a sudden I felt my entire pelvic
region flowing with energy. This energy had a quality to it that was of the character of
creativity and a longing for G-d. I had experienced longing for G-d in my heart but not in
my loins! This was a very new and powerful feeling. I realized experientially that this is
why the Kabbalists stress sexual discipline so much. I knew that if my mind strayed to
fallen sexual thought, then immediately this energy would be converted into sexual
energy and I would go off into the abyss.

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The next dimension of this experience was that I intuitively realized that I could cycle
this energy up and down my body, up to the crown of my head and down to the bottom of
my feet. It felt like a Sefirotic Roto Rooter job, and I felt very clear, flowing and blissful.
I was also excited to have discovered such a phenomenon within Judaism. It gave me a
deep respect for who the Kabbalists were and are.
Once, I was told that I was a spark of Zechariah the Prophet and that his soul received
elevation through my struggles and righteousness. I later found out that he was a prophet
that was killed by sinful Israelites (which makes me wonder about my future as a
teacher). I was able to get an experiential sense of the different orders of spiritual
magnitude of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Prophets and Talmudic Sages. It is generally
understood that one was higher than the next, the highest being the Patriarchs and
Matriarchs. It is again quite a different thing to experience a taste of who these beings
were and still are. One time I was able to draw down healing and energy from the
Maggid to strengthen me when I was weak and sick. Another time I was told to be
stringent in a law that many in the Orthodox Jewish Community are lenient in.
There was usually a lot of general spiritual instruction on a variety of topics, from
humility to interpersonal relationships to politics. Again, what was unique, generally
speaking, was not the information but the intensity and authority with which this soul
spoke, and how it helped me grow to have this quality of communication. There were no
games, no equivocating, just pure truth, like it or not.

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One could argue that if a person is blocked in whatever way, they will not be able to hear
the truth of the Maggids words. As a result, they will distort them and thereby not
benefit and even be harmed. On the other hand, if they are not blocked, why do they need
the Maggid? My answer is that while this makes sense as a criticism, it is just too logical.
When it comes down to the nitty gritty, you just have to experience it and see for yourself
to determine the right path for you. There is a middle ground, a place in the middle where
you can do some good work despite the concern for distortion, which is real. One
guideline I can give you; it is one that all Kabbalists would agree on, with the exception
perhaps of Jesus, Paul and Shabtai Tzvi. The guideline is that if what is revealed to you
contradicts the expressed revealed will of G-d as found in the Torah then assume you are
distorting the revelation or that due to your sins are being fooled and getting played with
by a demon.
For me, these experiences were so powerful, I would liken it to a very powerful Torah
Trip. Consequently, I have chosen not to have many of them since there is no point to just
doing it for the sake of the experience. It is more important to integrate the experiences
and grow. I have so much on my plate from what I did two years ago that I have not
really pursued it further. I have also not gone into business and opened a Psychic Shop.
This would be ridiculous. Truth be told, I am scared to re-encounter my Maggid. I dont
know if I could live up to the experience. Also, right now, I feel that my work is not to
focus on cultivating the intense devotion that is required to have such an experience but
rather on my commitment to being more considerate, helpful and loving towards my wife
and children. So in this respect I am getting feedback from my wife, who is as clear if not
clearer than my Maggid ever was. One thing for certain, dont go knocking unless you
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are open to going through the door and respect your fear. Welcome to the world of
Maggid Meditation.
Here is a translation of this technique from the Fourth Gate of Shaarey Kedushah
(Gates of Holiness). These are the methods that Rabbi Chaim Vital received from the
G-dly Rabbi Isaac Luria. Interestingly, the first technique presented is that of Maggid
Meditation, the idea being that before you proceed to the more advanced techniques you
should have your Maggids permission. Any additional instructions listed above or
discrepancies that you see between what is translated here and what is described above
represent what worked for me and was part of a living Kabbalistic transmission from
teacher to disciple. May the Kedushah (G-dly Holy force) be with you!
Rabbi Chaim Vital writes:
Meditate alone in a house, wrapped in a prayer shawl. Sit and shut your eyes, and
transcend the physical as if your soul has left your body and is ascending to heaven. After
this divestment/ascension, recite one Mishnah, any Mishnah you wish, many times
consecutively, as quickly as you can, with clear pronunciation, without skipping one
word. Intend to bind your soul with the soul of the sage who taught this Mishnah.
Do this by intending that your mouth is a mere vessel/conduit to bring forth the letters of
the words of this Mishnah, and that the Voice that emerges through the vessel of your
mouth is [filled with] the sparks of your inner soul which are emerging and reciting this
Mishnah. In this way, your soul will become a chariot within which the soul of the sage
45
who is the master of that Mishnah can manifest. His soul will then clothe itself within
your soul.
At a certain point in the process of reciting the words of the Mishnah, you may feel
overcome by exhaustion. If you are worthy, the soul of this sage may then come to reside
in your mouth. This will happen in the midst of your reciting the Mishnah. As you recite,
he will begin to speak with your mouth and wish you Shalom. He will then answer every
question that comes into your thoughts to ask him. He will do this with and through your
mouth. Your ears will hear his words, for you will not be speaking from yourself. Rather,
he will be speaking through you. This is the mystery of the verse, The spirit of G-d
spoke to me, and His word was on my lips (II Samuel 23:2).
Safed Spirituality: Rules of Mystical Piety, Lawrence Fine, Classics of Western
Spirituality
Rabbi Moses Chaim Luzzatto: His Life and Work, Rabbi Yirmeyahu Binderman,
Jason Aronson Publishers

46
Lesson 3--The Tao of Kabbalah: A Kabbalistic
Meditation for Self-Transformation
In this instance, the way I came to study this meditation was not a particularly exciting
adventure. I first learned it with Rabbi bar Tzadok from a Traditional perspective, and
then again after my own reviews with Rabbi Eliahu Klein from a Traditional/Academic
perspective as well.
On the other hand, the way that I came to appreciate this teaching and meditation is more
on the fascinating side of things - at least for me.
After I left the Yoga studio due to my encounter with a Jewish Yoda, I did not know what
to do in terms of exercise. I tried to practice Yoga independently but it didnt work for
me on a regular basis. I felt that I needed a teacher, but since I wasnt rich enough to hire
(for reasons of modesty) a private male Yoga teacher, I was in a quandary. I also was not
in the mood to jog, go to the gym or participate in any Western form of exercise, having
been deeply impressed with the wisdom of the East in their mastery and understanding of
the body. Nor was I thrilled about getting into External Martial Arts (Karate, Kung Fu,
etc.) due to its violent nature. Yoga was very attractive because, as I saw it at the time, I
was preparing for prophecy, while these other forms seemed more removed from the
spiritual.
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G-d, as always, came through in a way that was perfect. This in the form of a young man
my own age named Gabriel Orshan. Gabriel, although not technically Jewish, like many
half-Jews had a fascination with Judaism and Kabbalah, on the one hand, but had his
primary experience in the Eastern mystical traditions.
Gabriel had studied with Taoist masters among others and was an energy healer. He
loved dance, internal martial arts as well as some futuristic feminine forms of body
exploration, movement and healing like Continuum and BodyMind Centering. Gabriel
was looking for a place to stay in Los Angeles and was excited by the idea we came up
with that he would live us, some Jewish mystics in the making. We made a barter
agreement wherein he would earn his rent and food by teaching my wife and I privately
each for an hour a day from his bag of wisdom and goodies. In the months that followed
we all learned a lot from each other and it was Gabriel who gave me in part the Keys to
a deeper understanding of the potentials of the Kabbalistic experience.
One of the several practices into which Gabriel initiated me was a stationary meditation
posture that was part of a Taoist spiritual system called Nei Gung. The posture and
meditation I learned uses the mind/awareness to dissolve energy blockages throughout
the bodymind/soul and cultivate energy or Chi. This type of meditation is the basis for
the power behind the Chinese internal martial arts (Tai Chi, Pa Kua, Shing Yi) and
empowers a master, amongst a whole lot else, to be lethal with one blow.
In Nei Gung, once one comes to rest in the stationary position, the meditation instruction
is to dissolve, from the crown of ones head to the base of ones feet, any energy
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blockages one comes to experience. One does this by simply becoming aware of them
and allowing them, through ones awareness, to melt away. To turn from ice to water to
vapor to nothing was the image Gabriel conveyed. What was great about Nei Gung,
besides any physical benefits, was that it gave me a way of relating to the meditation that
is to follow. Now, having had some experience with the Chinese/Taoist form of
dissolving energy blocks as well as prior exposure to and experience with the Meridian
theory of Acupuncture, I had a vessel for understanding the kind and quality of
experience of a parallel nature that I was looking for in the meditation you are about to
learn.
Here is a translation of the First Gate of Rabbi Chaim Vitals Shaarey Kedushah - The
Gates of Holiness, the source of this transformative Kabbalistic meditation. If this large
selection is to complex for you due to its size, language or ideas, you can try skipping to
the last three paragraphs and do the best you can with it.
Section One Gate One
The purpose of the first gate is to make known the [spiritual] damage that is brought
about when a person sins by transgressing the commandments of the Torah.
Herein I will teach and enlighten you regarding the great evil that a person causes [for
himself and the world] as a result of transgressing any one of the 365 negative
commandments, or in failing to perform any one of the 248 positive commandments.

49
It is known to the masters of the sciences that a persons body is not his essence [but
rather a vehicle for his soul]. The body is therefore referred to as mans flesh, as in the
verse, Cover me [my essence] with skin and flesh, and surround me with bones and
sinews (Job 10:11). It is also written, Do not anoint the flesh of a man... (Numbers
30:32). [In both these verses] we find that the inner being is the true self, while the body
is merely a garment with which the Soul covers itself while [sojourning] in this world. At
the moment of death, when the Soul departs, this garment is removed, and it is clothed in
a pure, clean, spiritual garment. It is thus written, Remove the soiled garments... and you
shall be clothed in fine robes (Zechariah 3:4) - these fine robes are none other than the
Chaluka DRabbanan [literally, Rabbinical Mantle, or spiritual energy body with which
the soul is clothed when it enters the Garden of Eden].
Just as a tailor makes a suit of clothes to fit a persons physique, so did the Holy One
blessed-be-He make the body as a garment to clothe the soul. And just as a suit is cut and
tailored according to the exact proportions of a persons limbs, so did the Holy One make
the body according to the pattern of the soul. The body thus has 248 organs/limbs, along
with 365 blood vessels which connect them and transport life-giving blood from one to
the other, similar to a system of pipes.
After the formation of the body is completed, He breathes into it a living Soul composed
of 248 spiritual organs and 365 spiritual conduits. These become clothed within the 248
organs/limbs and 365 blood vessels of the body. The 248 organs of the soul are thus said
to act through the organs of the body, the latter serving as the instrument of the former,
just as a woodchopper uses an ax to chop wood. This [concept of the spiritual clothing
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itself within and acting through the physical] can be verified by noting that the organs of
the body function - the eye sees, the ear hears - only as long as the soul activates them.
When the soul departs, however, the eyes darken in their sockets, and all the senses of the
248 organs/limbs become nullified.
The 365 spiritual conduits of the soul are similarly clothed within the 365 blood vessels
of the body. In this way they transport physical nourishment, which is [the nutrients in]
the blood, to the 248 bodily organs and limbs, along with the inner spiritual nourishment
it contains, to sustain the 248 organs and limbs of the soul. And again, when the soul
departs, life-force ceases to flow, and, like the 248 organs and limbs, the blood vessels of
the body decompose and decay as if they had never existed. We thus find that mans
inner being is his Soul, which is clothed within the body, which serves as its garment [in
its sojourn] in this world.
Know that after Adam sinned and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, his
soul and body each became a composite [admixture] of good and evil. This [evil] is none
other than the poison of the Snake [Zuhamat HaNachash] with which he infected Eve
and Adam. This evil and poison are the cause of all diseases, infections and ultimately
death, both to the soul and to the body. This is the mystery of [the double form of the
verb in] the verse, For on the day you eat from it, mot tamut [literally, die you will
die] (Genesis 2:17). Mot alludes to the death of the soul, and tamut alludes to the death
of the body.
We will now explain exactly what this good and evil were that become part of them.
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When Adam sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, he caused
this admixture to be present [to varying degrees] in every dimension of reality. [As a
result] nothing exists that doesnt contain some [admixture of] good and evil.
[For example] the human body is formed from the four lower elements - fire, air, water
and earth - each of which contains an admixture of good and evil. The body itself is
comprised of the good aspect of each of the four elements, while four humors are formed
from their evil aspect, namely, white bile [corresponding to the lymph ducts], black bile
[corresponding to the spleen], red bile [corresponding to the blood], and green bile
[corresponding to the gallbladder]. When the evil aspect of any of these overpowers the
good, diseases and infections beset a person. If it completely overwhelms the good, death
ensues.
We have noted that this admixture of good and evil exists in every dimension of reality.
This is true regarding mans soul as well, for was it not hewn from the same four
spiritual elements from which all the supernal dimensions were formed? And these are
none other than the four letters of the Blessed Name Havayah [YHVH]. Concerning this
[four-fold aspect of the soul which is rooted in the four letters of the Name] G-d told the
prophet, Thus says ADNY YHVH, Come from the four ruchot [spirits/directions], O
ruach [spirit], and breathe upon these slain [bodies], so that they may live! (Ezekiel
37:9).
The above refers to the good [and holy] aspect of mans essential Soul. [As the wise King
Solomon said, however:] G-d has also made one thing opposite the other (Ecclesiastes
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7:14). [That is, everything holy is opposed by an equal and opposite force of evil or
impurity. Thus, paralleling Adam dKedushah, the Holy Man, referring to the entire
System of Good which includes all the holy souls that were part of Adam] we have Adam
Bli-yaal [the Rebellious Man, referring to the System of Evil and the oppressed souls
that are trapped in it], which consists of the Four Primary Forces of Destruction [Arba
Avot Nezikin] and the Four Primary Gradations of Skin-Infections [Arba Marot
Negaim], all of which are [manifestations of] the Four Evil Elements. It is from there
that man receives an evil soul which is called the Evil Inclination. When this soul
overpowers the good Soul, the latter suffers untold damages, afflictions and mental
illness. If it overwhelms the Soul, death ensues.
The pure soul, which is the fruit, is thus composed of 248 + 365 = 613 spiritual
organs/limbs and conduits. These, in turn, are clothed within the 613 organs/limbs and
conduits of the unclean soul, which is called the shell of the fruit. Both of these together
are clothed within the 613 organs/limbs and blood vessels of the body. [Thus, similar to
the soul which is clothed within the body which itself is dressed in clothes] the spiritual
limbs of the pure Soul are clothed within the spiritual limbs of the evil soul, which are, in
turn, clothed within the organs/limbs of the body.
Both of these souls [the good/holy/pure and the evil/unholy/impure] require spiritual
nourishment. The holy soul receives its spiritual nourishment by fulfilling the Torah
which is composed of 613 commandments, which themselves correspond to the souls
613 organs/limbs and conduits. This [spiritual nourishment that the soul receives from the
Torah] is called Bread, as per the verse wherein G-d Himself invites us to Come,
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nourish yourselves with My Bread! (Proverbs 9:5).* Each of the 248 organs/limbs is
nourished by the particular commandment that is associated with that organ/limb. As
long as a person is deficient in fulfilling any commandment, the nourishment coming to
that particular organ/limb associated with that commandment will also be deficient.
[* Note: One of the reasons why Bread is the Staff of Life and is so important and special
in Judaism is because of the numerical value of its letters. In Hebrew, Bread is Lechem,
which is spelled Lamed (30), Hhet (8), Mem (40) = 78. The Four-Letter Name Havayah
(YHVH) = 26. Multiplying 26 x 3 also yields 78. In addition to providing physical
sustenance, Lechem also embodies the three Mochin - Brains (i.e. three levels of higher
consciousness) called Chochmah, Binah and Daat. These three levels are embodied in
three Havayahs, namely, the Havayah of Chochmah, the Havayah of Binah, and the
Havayah of Daat. This is what Rabbi Chaim Vital means when he says that the spiritual
nourishment the soul receives from the Torah is called My Bread - G-ds Lechem.]
[As above] this nourishment flows to it from the four letters of the Divine Name Havayah
[YHVH]. This is alluded to in the verse, VeAtah Mechayey Et Kulam - And you give
life to them all! (Nehemiah 9:6). For all the commandments depend ultimately on them
[the letters of the Name].
Our Rabbis of blessed memory alluded to this in their explanation of the verse, G-d said
to Moses, Tell the children of Israel that YHVH, the G-d of your fathers, the G-d of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, sent me to you. This is My Name forever and this is My
Memorial for all generations (Exodus 3:15). In Hebrew, this last phrase reads, Zeh
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Shemi LeOlam VeZeh Zichri LeDor VaDor. The Rabbis (Zohar 1:24a) explained that
when you add the numerical value of Yod and Heh [the first two letters of the divine
name YHVH] to the word Shemi [My Name], the total is 365. When you add the
numerical value of Vav and Heh [the two final letters of the divine name YHVH] to the
word Zichri [My Memorial], the total is 248.
Yod = 10 Vav = 6
Heh = 5 Heh = 5
Shin = 300 Zayin = 7
Mem = 40 Khaf = 20
Yod = 10 Resh = 200
365 Yod = 10
248
As noted, the four roots of the elements of ones holy Soul are likewise drawn from them
[the Four Letters of the Name]. We thus find that such a limb dies completely [when it is
deprived of the spiritual nourishment it normally receives from the Name via the
commandments of the Torah]. And with the departure of its holiness from it, a spirit of
impurity from the four elements of the unclean soul clothes itself therein. The Rabbis
alluded to this mystery [of impurity coming to lodge where a great degree of sanctity was
once present and has departed] in their statement: Tyre will be filled only through the
destruction of Jerusalem (Rashi on Genesis 25:23; Pesachim 42b; see also Megillah 6a;
Zohar 2:236a, 2:238b).
We thus find that such a limb [which lacks the spiritual nourishment it receives from the
Name via the commandments of the Torah] is nourished by unclean and disgusting
bread from the side of impurity. This is the meaning of their statement that Even when
they are alive, the wicked are still called dead (Berachot 18b; Zohar 3:123a). For the
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holy Soul, which is from the Living G-d, departs from the limbs, to be replaced by the
power of Death which is called Avi Avot HaTumah [the most powerful source of
impurity].
Conversely, when a person is careful not to transgress any of the 365 negative
commandments, he receives the full nourishment of the positive commandments that he
does. This is alluded to in the statement of the Rabbis that, If a person sits and refrains
from transgressing, he is given credit for having performed a [positive] commandment
(Kidushin 39a). Thus, when a person fulfills a positive commandment, the above
mentioned spiritual nourishment is now transmitted through the souls 365 conduits to
give life to its 248 organs and limbs.
When one transgresses, however, the particular conduit associated with that transgression
is blocked by unclean nourishment from the shells [of impurity] which attach themselves
there. And as the conduit atrophies, the corresponding organ/limb atrophies as well,
although it is not removed completely as is the case when one is deficient in a particular
positive commandment. Nevertheless, it does become blemished, in the mystery of the
verse, Their sins shall be [inscribed] upon their bones (Ezekiel 32:27), for [as noted]
when the side of impurity ascends, the side of holiness departs.
In light of the above, you should make every effort to fulfill all 613 commandments.
When fulfilling any positive commandment, intend to remove the impurity of the evil
shell from the particular organ/limb of the soul associated with that commandment.
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After the impurity has departed, the corresponding organ/limb of that holy
commandment will descend upon it [and illuminate it].
Conversely, when one has the opportunity [and the impulse] to transgress, he should
not act on it, but rather intend that the impurity of the particular soul conduit
associated with that transgression be removed thereby. He will then be able to draw
down the spiritual sustenance which flows through that spiritual conduit, and his soul
will consequently become a throne and a chariot for His Blessed Holiness. This is the
mystery of The Patriarchs themselves are a chariot (Bereshit Rabbah 47:6, Zohar
1:173a).
If what Rabbi Chaim Vital is describing seems complex perhaps it would be wise to
inform you that Kabbalists often recommend reviewing their teachings somewhere
between 17 and 101 times.
My own experience of doing this meditation described in the italicized paragraphs is that
it is a powerful way of experiencing the Holiness and the tangibility of Jewish
Spirituality. I often encounter people who feel that Jewish spirituality is about stories
with morals, that it is largely communal, and that its spirituality is intellectual or
normative like prayer. What I am able to show these people, because this is not a big turn
on for me either completely, is that Judaism also contains an energetic approach which is
intensely mystical, body inclusive, individualistic, meditational and self-transformative.
In Judaism and Kabbalah, a person is cultivating an energy-state and field, the positive
polarity of which is called Kedushah [Holiness], and the negative polarity of which is
57
called Tumah [Spiritual impurity]. There is a neutral state called Taharah [Pure], which is
pretty amazing, but not Holy. The laws of keeping Kosher, particularly those involving
not eating any forbidden animals (which is a longer list than just pigs) are a part of this
path. Sexual laws (which also contain a longer list than the prohibition against incest,
adultery, sex during menstruation, etc.) are a small part of this path as well. Today, even
Kabbalah is a head-trip for most people like with the rest of Judaism. That is fine, but
there is also an energetic path which needs to be re-emphasized.
Let us review the meditation again and I will add some comments and instructions:
When you are about to fulfill a positive commandment, intend to remove the impurity of
the shell from the particular organ of your soul that is related to that commandment.
This will make room for the holy energy of the commandment to come to rest within you
after the impurity departs. Conversely, when you are on the verge of doing something
wrong, restrain yourself. Simply contain the energy, and intend that the power of
impurity associated with that particular transgression (which has somehow gained
entrance into and taken up lodging in your being) be removed. A powerful influx of
spiritual energy will then begin to flow into you and your soul will become a throne and
a chariot for G-d's Holiness.
The above meditation posits a relationship between certain commandments and certain
organs and blood vessels (and nerves). The problem is that Rabbi Chaim Vital, Master
Kabbalist that he was, did not feel it necessary to provide you with a detailed list of these
correspondences. He kind of expected you to have the background or to merit

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independent mystical revelation. In order to give you some practical tools, I therefore
want to share with you how I have come to work with this meditation. I will start out by
giving you a detailed example of how I work with one organ/commandment
correspondence. Following that I will cite some correspondences which you can explore
and cultivate on your own based on another primary Kabbalistic text from 16th century
Tzfat, the Sefer Charedim.
The Brain
Most people are so concentrated in their thoughts that they literally forget that they have
a brain. The mind is spiritual; the brain is physical. Lets work with the brain a bit.
Become aware of your brain. Imagine what it looks like (look at pictures if necessary)
and even try to become aware of what it feels like inside your brain and its various parts.
After a few minutes of doing this, become aware of how you have misused your mind
and its faculties, which are based in the brain. Think about how you have misused your
Memory of your past hurts as an excuse for acting inappropriately. Think of how you
have misused your Imagination with inappropriate fantasies. Think about how you
have misused your Intellectual and Intuitive powers to lead yourself and others
astray at times. After doing this for a few minutes, try to get a sense of the Kelipah
(husks) and the Choshekh (darkness) that have insinuated themselves into your energy
system as a result of your actions. Sense how wrongdoing has caused a layer of impurity
to cover your brain and mind.

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Intend that by studying the sacred Torah (teaching) that you have self selected and that is
now in front of you, you are removing these shells of impurity and drawing down upon
yourself the holiness of the Torah. As you let go and release the Tumah/negative energy,
try to experience the Kedushah/positive energy permeating your brain and mind.
Try to stay with this for a few minutes, even if it isnt easy. (If you are doing this right, it
will be very powerful.) To go deeper into the experience, oscillate back and forth
between releasing Tumah [impurity] and drawing down Kedushah [holiness].
There is a big spectrum here to work with. At a very high level, you want to get to a place
wherein you can honestly say that you will never revert to a particular inappropriate
action again. Higher yet is where you purify yourself of the desire to do anything but G-
Ds Will. This takes more than a lifetime, but enjoy the progress you are able to achieve
and the holiness that you can attain. This can be done as a separate meditation practice or
as part of ones daily Torah study. Ultimately your Moach [brain] should become Cham
[hot; burning] with holiness. [Moach and Cham contain exactly the same letters in
reverse, that is transformed, order.]
Torah study is initially an intellectual pursuit and is the fundamental of all fundamentals
of Jewish spiritual practice, as the sages say Great is studying for it leads to [proper]
doing. Torah study thus corresponds to the brain, which is the intellectual center and one
of the most fundamental organs of the human body. Here are some more correspondences
from the Sefer Charedim:
Inspired by and based on Sefer Charedim (Book of the Holy Tremblers)

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by Rabbi Elazar Azkari
Organ/Commandment Correspondences
The Heart (Seat of Emotion and Thought)
Sefer Charedim, Chapter 9 - Commandments of the Torah associated with the Heart and
which can therefore be fulfilled by anyone at any time in any place
Faith in Hashem - To know and believe that there is a Supreme Being who brought all
things into existence from complete nothingness. To believe that He guides and oversees
everything that happens, and that His authority and sovereignty is absolute and eternal.
This pure faith is a rectification for having believed in or relied on any other power
besides His, of for having doubted (in thought) or denied (in speech) G-ds existence or
constant providence.
Unity - To believe in G-ds absolute Unity. To be willing to give your life up for this
belief. Again, this is a rectification for having believed in or relied on any other power
besides His, or for thinking that any other power exists besides His.
Love - To love G-d with all your heart. To be lovesick for G-d. To be passionate in
expressing your love, to sing, to be enraptured with the love of G-d. To cause others to
love Him. To constantly yearn for and seek Devekut (union, communion and attachment)
with G-d. This is a rectification for having followed after physical passions and lusts.
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Awe - To fear and revere and respect G-d. To contemplate the awesome fact that behind
the universe we see is an Infinite Being who made all this. To be overwhelmed with how
infinitesimal and insignificant we are, on the one hand, and yet what an awesome
responsibility He has placed on us - nothing less than to bring the entire creation to its
perfection by rectifying our thoughts, speech and actions.
Inner Service of the Heart - To pray and meditate. To concentrate and focus on Who it is
we are speaking to. To express our deepest longings and yearnings to the Only One who
can fulfill them. To express our fears, our frustrations, our physical aches and our
spiritual and psychological pains. To sing when we pray, to rejoice in serving the Blessed
Creator. To know and feel His Presence among us and to internalize this and take it with
us into every aspect of our lives.
Emulation - To emulate G-d, to be compassionate, loving and caring for others, like G-d.
To be truthful, righteous, upright, honest and loyal in all our relationships.
Trust - To trust in G-d, that He is running the show, that He is with us, that He hasnt
abandoned us to fate, that He is ever watchful over us, especially when we are trying to
serve Him. This rectifies having believed and trusted in other powers, or even in our own
power to succeed independently of or in rebellion against Him.
Memory - Look back over your whole life and realize deep down that G-d has been with
you from the beginning, long before you ever really knew or understood anything about
Him. Remember all the kindnesses that He has done and is constantly doing for you and
for every other creature on this planet. Be thankful for all these kindnesses - both the
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large ones (when your life was saved for no reason, or when things fell into place in your
life in an unexpected way, etc. etc.) and the small ones (as if breathing was a small thing).
Loving and Respecting G-ds Creations - Love and respect (and forgive) your parents,
even if they have hurt you. Dont blame them, but rather in sharing your suffering with
G-d, ask Him to heal not only the pain but the relationship. Seek to transform your
relationship with your parents by doing kind things for them and telling them how much
you appreciate the good things they did (or at least tried to do) for you. Love the teachers
and righteous masters of our people. Love your fellow Jew as yourself. Appreciate
him/her. Be respectful, merciful and compassionate towards all G-ds creatures. Judge
others fairly and on the scale of merit.
Acknowledge and Accept G-ds Justice - Work on cultivating positive thoughts about all
that happens to you. Dont hold a grudge against G-d for negative things that have
happened. If youve endured some heavy times, try to see that they were ultimately for
your good. Only He who knows our souls (including our former lifetimes) knows why we
had to go through these particular trials and tribulations. Know that the day will surely
come when you will look back and understand that all was for the good. Try to
internalize that perspective now. Try not to let your anger take you over. Anger is
tantamount to idolatry, because, at the moment a person gets angry, it is as if G-d doesnt
exist for him. Even if you naturally tend to be an angry person, pray for assistance in
overcoming this despicable trait, and work to curb your anger. No matter how many
times you seem to fail, keep trying. At one point, you will surprise yourself and
succeed. After that, one success will lead to another.

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Teshuvah - Intend that you want to Return and Rectify anything that you have ever done
wrong and which may have caused any kind of damage (physical, emotional,
psychological, spiritual) for yourself or anybody else (in this lifetime and all previous
ones). If necessary, try to make amends with anyone you may have hurt. If that is
impossible, plead before G-d that He should help you get clean in this lifetime so that if
and when you may have to come back to this world, you can come as a conscious Jew
who knows and serves G-d (as opposed to having to come back like most of us did in this
lifetime).
Commandments Associated With The Eyes
Sefer Charedim, Chapter 10
Tzitzit - The tzitzit strings on your Tallit Katan or Tallit Gadol allude to the entire system
of 613 commandments. Contemplating the tzitzit strings is conducive to remembering the
commandments and doing them. More important, they are conducive to remembering the
Commander who commanded the commandments. The commandments, after all, are the
means that He gave us to get close to Him.
Torah - Learn Torah. Use your eyes to read holy books (and websites). This rectifies
having read all kinds of literature that deflected you from the truth and blemished your
mind and soul.
Crying - Cry holy tears. Cry for the exile of the Shechinah, the exile of the Jewish people,
the destruction of the Temple, the death of the tzadikim (righteous). Cry for the pain of
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being human, of having been born amnesiac as to your real identity as a soul. In the end,
cry for joy for being alive!
Sexual Stimulation - Try not to look (and certainly to stare) at any-body or any-thing that
is sexually arousing. In Judaism, the sexual act between a husband and wife is considered
a Divine act of creation. It is therefore always to take place in the DARK, thus
eliminating all VISUAL stimulation, while enhancing the AUDIAL and TACTILE.
Kabbalah teaches that, until Mashiach comes, the sense of sight is blemished. Until it is
rectified, it is too easily fooled by what the Zohar calls Chizu dHai Alma [The Optical
Illusion of This-World]. It is therefore extremely important to guard ones eyes. Although
this seems nearly impossible in todays world, it is a tried and tested fact that G-d helps
those who make the effort.
Commandments Associated With The Ears
Torah - Speak words of Torah. Hear words of Torah from teachers. Listen to the Torah
reading in the synagogue, listen to the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah and the Megillah on
Purim. Listen to the blessings that others utter so that you can say Amen. Be attentive to
truth. Listen and be attentive to your own words when you pray.
Rebuke - Be open to admonition and correction. Dont get ornery, grouchy and irritable
when someone tells you (obviously, in the proper way) that you are doing something
wrong.
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Listen to and heed the words of the tzadikim.
Lashon Hara - Dont listen or accept or in any way become an accomplice in talebearing
or spreading damaging information about others. Dont get caught up in listening to
falsehood, slander or any other prohibited forms of speech. This rectifies the blemish of
having heard all that junk on the radio all those years.
Commandments Associated With The Mouth - Speech
Speech - Speak respectfully at all times to parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, etc.
When you study Torah, even when you are alone, speak it out.
Verbal Commandments - Recite the blessings, the Shema, the prayers, the Kaddish,
Kiddush, Havdalah, Hallel, the Passover Haggadah, the Counting of the Omer, and other
commandments that depend on speech.
Viduy - It is a positive commandment to confess (i.e. to come clean) before G-d, for
anything you have ever done that needs Teshuvah.
Truth - Speak kindly. Speak softly. Speak only words of truth and peace. Give good
advice to others that is for their benefit.
G-ds Name - Never mention G-ds Name in vain. Never swear falsely or bear false
witness.
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Clean Speech - Never utter profanity, falsehood, slander, mockery, flattery, deception.
Dont insult or embarrass others. Dont instigate strife.
Commandments Associated With The Mouth - Eating
Seudat Mitzvah - To eat the choicest foods on Shabbat and Holidays, as well as at joyous
occasions such as circumcisions, weddings, etc.; to eat Matzah on Passover, to eat and
drink more than usual on Erev Yom Kippur (the day before Yom Kippur), to eat in the
Succah on Succot. To nevertheless avoid gluttony.
Kosher - If and when you eat meat, chicken and/or fish, make sure they are kosher (as
defined by the Torah and the Oral Law).
Commandments Associated With The Hands (or in general with any of the limbs of
the body)
Actively honor your parents, grandparents, rabbis and elders; don Tzitzit and bind
Tefillin to your arm and head; touch the Tefillin from time to time; affix Mezuzot to your
doorposts and gates; make sure there is a wall or railing around your flat roof if it is flat -
keep your eyes open for any and all possible danger spots in your immediate environment
and either fix them or get rid of them.

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Cheerfully give charity to the poor and to the learned. If you have the means, lend money
without interest Pay workers on time. Return lost or stolen objects.
Do kind deeds, viz. Visit the sick, bury the dead, comfort the mourners, etc.
Assist others when necessary, help to save anothers life.
Do not make or worship any object of idolatry, do not commit murder G-d forbid, do not
to strike another person, do not steal, do not borrow anothers possessions without
permission, do not act deceitfully.
Commandments Associated With The Legs
Standing for parents, sages and elders. Running to do their bidding. Standing in the
presence of a Torah scroll.
Accompanying the dead to their burial.
Commandments Associated With The Circumcision
A father is obligated to have his son properly circumcised according to Jewish law. If,
upon reaching puberty, a boy has not been circumcised, he is responsible to have it done
by a competent Mohel. Converts must be properly circumcised.

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It is a positive commandment for a Jewish man to marry a Jewish woman. In Hebrew,
man is Ish (Aleph, Yod, Shin) and woman is Ishah (Aleph, Shin, Heh). When a couple
marries, the Yod of the Ish unites with the Heh of the Ishah to form the Divine Name
YaH. This is the meaning of the statement of the Rabbis (Sotah 17a) that when a man and
wife are worthy (i.e. when they are completely loyal to each other), the Divine Presence
dwells in their midst. When they are they not worthy, G-d forbid, they are consumed by
their very passion, as hinted in the remaining letters of the names (Aleph-Shin Aleph-
Shin) which spell Esh Esh, Fire Fire.
A husband must fulfill his marital obligations, to rejoice with his wife in sanctity and
modesty. Conversely, he must avoid any physical contact immediately prior to and
during her menstrual period. It is thus a positive commandment for a wife to immerse in a
Mikveh at the conclusion of her menstrual period (after counting an additional seven
clean days without seeing any blood). As we will learn in Lesson 9, a Mikveh is a
natural body or gathering of water like an ocean, lake, river or natural spring. It can
also be a gathering of rain water or snow in a man-made pit with a minimum volume of
40 Seah = approximately 200 gallons. Today, as in the past, we construct such
artificial Mikvehs (Mikveot in Hebrew), and house them in buildings.
[The reason Mikvehs abound is because you cannot have babies (i.e. sex) without one. So
if the Jews (at least the Orthodox ones) are going to procreate and have a sex life, there is
going to have to be a Mikveh in town or within driving distance. If not, there are going to
be a lot of ladies bathing in some pretty cold water like our great-great-grandmothers did
in White Russia and Poland when no alternative existed.]

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It is thus a positive commandment for a husband and wife to engage in holy marital
relations. According to Kabbalah, the main reason for this is in order to bring exalted and
holy souls down into the world who will awaken the rest of us from our slumber. The
minimum fulfillment of this commandment (according to the ruling of the School of
Hillel) is to bear a son and a daughter. Of course, since the number and gender of the
children we bear is not totally in our control, you might ask what the reason is for making
such a demand? The answer again involves G-ds Name, Yod-Keh-Vav-Keh (YHVH).
For the purpose of the nuclear family is to embody G-dliness in the world, to make a
place where G-d can dwell. And although each human being embodies a complete
YHVH, still, individually, the father embodies the Yod, the mother embodies the first
Heh, the son embodies the Vav, and the daughter embodies the final Heh.
In Chapters 21-34, the Sefer Charedim now lists all the negative or prohibitive
commandments in the Torah, limb by limb. In Chapters 35-51, he continues listing all the
positive and then negative commandments that are not mentioned explicitly in the Torah
but which are part of the Oral transmission. The Sefer Charedim was just published in
English by Jason Aronson check it out.
Dont let this whole list veer you away from the simplicity and power of the mediation.
The point to focus on is that every mitzvah is an energetic opportunity to increase the
holiness of ones spiritual field or G-d field. These correspondences aside from the
commentary can help you become aware of the various parts of your being that you are
employing to do the Mitzvot and to help you become aware of their potential for
sacredness. I have said elsewhere that in the Jewish meditation tradition, particularly in
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its Kabbalistic school, a person is expected to apply themselves. I have given you the
basic understanding and direction. Go and work with it. They say a good student makes
their teacher wise.
Anatomy of the Soul, Rebbe Nachman of Breslovs teachings on the body and soul,
by Chaim Kramer and Avraham Sutton Breslov Research Institute

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Lesson 4--The Kabbalistic Midnight Rectification: A
Grieving/Comforting Meditation
Having penned the above title, I become aware of grief as a persistent emotional and
spiritual theme that is embedded in the Jewish psyche. This tendency has been reflected
in a joke that is told. The joke arises out of the Jewish encounter with Buddhism and the
Zen koan, a mystical method of using paradox (i.e. logical contradiction) to bypass the
rational mind. A typical Zen koan would be something like, What is the sound of one
hand clapping? A meditator would chew on that until he/she attained a degree of
enlightenment, with, of course, much prior meditative and moral preparation. The joke is
the Jewish version of this koan. But let me hold off for a while before I get to it, and talk
about the concept of paradox, in particular, the Jewish approach to paradox.
Jews have their own unique attitude towards and relationship with paradox. In fact, the
Jewish religion can be seen like one big Koan. Of course, there are those Paradox-deniers
among us who foolishly try to do away with the idea of logical contradictions in religion.
The Kotzker Rebbe, on the other hand, was a real mystic. It is therefore not surprising
that he allegedly said (in the words of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach of blessed memory), A
G-d that I could understand I wouldnt be interested in!
Judaism and Kabbalah are founded on a set of extremely finely tuned paradoxes. For
example, how can G-ds Omniscience (meaning that He knows what you are going to do
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before you do it) be reconciled with Human Free Choice? G-d already knows what you
are going to do, and since G-d does not make a mistake, you have to do it!
Some Paradox deniers dont even understand the problem. They try to dissolve it by
positing that because we dont know what G-d knows, somehow that solves everything!
In reality, as my first Kabbalah teacher, Rabbi Gedaliah Fleer, would go into a near fit
about, This solves nothing! Your own lack of knowledge is utterly irrelevant; the point
is that if G-d knows what you are going to do, you cannot do anything but what He
already knows. When Rabbi Fleer talked about this, it was as if he was trying to explain
to a Martian what popcorn was. He would get very frustrated over how people could
possibly miss what to him was such an obvious point.
The rationalists come up with flashy ideas like time machines and the like to promote
their assertion. They claim that because G-d is beyond time and we are not, there is no
problem. Rabbi Fleer again would point out that Maimonides (who knew more Talmud
and rational philosophy than all these guys put together) considered this a great problem.
In his own words:
Perhaps you will say to yourself: Behold, the Holy One knows all that will be. The
question is: Did He know beforehand that so-and-so was going to be righteous or wicked,
or didnt He? If He knew that he was going to be righteous, it is impossible for him not to
have been (i.e. no human free will). And if you say that He knew that he would be
righteous and yet it was still possible for him to be wicked, that is tantamount to saying
that His knowledge of the future was not clear and unequivocal (no Divine Omniscience).
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Know that the answer to this question is longer than the land and wider than the sea. In
addition, numerous important principles and high mountains (i.e. profound paradoxes)
depend on it... (Yad Hachazakah, Laws of Repentance 5:5)
Maimonides employs the image of high mountains to suggest that one must climb up
very high - far beyond the limited scope of the either/or logical analytical mind - to begin
to resolve such a paradox. High mountains means there is no rational answer to this
problem. In the end, although G-d knows everything, there is still free will, and man is
responsible for his deeds. It is not one or the other, but both, and anyone who tries to
maximize (or minimize) one side of the paradox is falling into a half-truth or if you prefer
a lie. The truth contains both sides and thats it!
This Judaic jousting was just a small but fascinating and entertaining part of my learning
with Rabbi Fleer, with whom I studied in Jerusalem for over two years. He summed up
his feelings about these pseudo-philosophical resolutions with the phrase, Boggle them
with brilliance and baffle them with Bullshit. To give you a context, Rabbi Fleer is a
Brooklyn raised Kabbalistic thinker who was close friends with the late rabbinical and
kabbalistic genius Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan of blessed memory. Being prone to philosophical
brilliance and penetrating psychological analysis, Rabbi Fleer could get quite annoyed at
what he viewed as well meaning stupidity. By the way, if you think the language Rabbi
Fleer used is gruff, you should see what some of the Talmudists would say about views
that they felt were less than worthy and the people who promoted them. The Talmudists
and Kabbalists were passionate truth seekers and fairly ego free, such that this kind of
name-calling and critique rarely led to anything but greater clarity of truth (although
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sometimes, hurt feelings did result and even tragic results ensued). Sorry if this is a little
rough but get used to it if you are going to hang out with any Kabbalistic teachers,
particularly if they are Sefardic or from Brooklyn. I am from California so it been rough
on me too. As Jackie Mason would say, Dont get me started.
Thus, the suggested way through (not around) the above paradox is by way of Faith in
both assumptions. Yes to Moral Free Will. And Yes to Divine Omniscience. Skepticism
aside, faith is a radically different state of consciousness than rational inquiry. Faith is the
beginning, middle and end of Judaism. It is the ability to maintain two seemingly
contradictory positions at the same time - something the rational mind cannot do. Faith
gives birth to what stymies the rational mind. Faith is a quality of the soul. Faith is the
heart-beat of the soul.
Maimonides, a major, if not the major medieval rationalist Jewish philosopher,
discourages us from rationally dwelling on these matters. The reason is obvious: there
can be no rational solution to a paradox. Bound as it is by logic, you cannot square a
circle in this world. There is, however, something beyond this world.
In the agrarian past, we were called upon to sacrifice to G-d what was near and dear to
us, namely our animals. Today, on occasion, we are called upon to sacrifice our rational
minds for G-d. Man can deify the self in a variety of ways. The Greeks deified the
physical and the ability of the rational mind to understand the cosmos. Following in their
footsteps, we Westerners tend to deify thinking. In my humble opinion, we too would do
well, on occasion, to offer (and thereby elevate) our rational minds onto the altar of
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Paradox as it is embodied in ancient Judaic and Kabbalistic teachings. This call to Faith
is not a repudiation of rational inquiry. It is an acknowledgment of the limits of the
rational mind to grasp ultimate reality.
This view of the rational minds limitation is something Buddhism and Judaism share in
common. The distinction being that Zen koans are not G-d centered while Judaic koans
are. In Kabbalistic terminology, we let go of Binah (Rational Understanding) and
transcend into Chochmah (Creative Intuition/Synthesis).
The above paradox can be considered the foundational paradox of normative Judaism.
Judaism is based on the rule of Divine Law (Torah) and the principle of Freedom of Will.
Without it, the house of cards collapses. For if there is no true choice, then there is no
true responsibility and hence what meaning can a commandment possibly have?
The Kabbalah, which is rooted in normative Judaism, is grounded in an even more
profound paradox. On the one hand, we not only say that G-d is One, but that there is
nothing but G-D! This is the Kabbalistic reading of the verse, You have been shown [on
Mount Sinai] and you now know that G-d is the Only G-d. Ein Od Milvado - There is
nothing else but Him (Deuteronomy 4:35). On the other hand, you and I are assumed to
exist. The whole foundation of Judaism as a religion, to which the Kabbalah is loyal,
rests on the assumption that this perception of self-existence (even if only on a spiritual
level) is to be maintained.
So to repeat, the whole Kabbalah rests on one paradox: How can anything other than G-
Ds Infinite Oneness exist and G-D still be One? Based on mystical revelation, the
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Kabbalists propose the concept of Tzimtzum (literally, Contraction) as a paradoxical
solution to this paradoxical problem.
The underlying idea of the Tzimtzum is that, preceding creation, G-d contracted the
Light of His Infinite Essence and created a Void in which this Light was so-to-speak
absent. As opposed to the situation that obtained before the Tzimtzum, this now allowed
for something other than G-d to come into existence. In the language of the Ari (the G-
dly Rabbi Isaac Luria):
Before all things were created... the Supernal Light was simple [i.e., complete and
perfect]. It filled all existence. There was no empty space which could be characterized as
space, emptiness, or void. Everything was filled with that simple Or Ein Sof [Light of the
Infinite]. There was no category of beginning and no category of end. All was one
simple, undifferentiated, Infinite Light.
When it arose in His Simple [i.e. perfect] Will to create worlds and emanate emanations...
He Tzimtzem [constricted] His Infinite Essence away from the very center point of His
Light. [Of course, since Infinity has no centerpoint, this is only said from the point of
view of the Space that is about to be created.] He then Tzimtzem [contracted] that Light
even more, distancing it to the extremities around this center point, leaving a Vacated
Space and Hollow Void...
After this Tzimtzum [constriction], which resulted in the creation of a Vacated Space and
Hollow Void in the very midst of the Infinite Light of Ein Sof, there was now a place for
all that was to be emanated [Atzilut], created [Beriyah], formed [Yetzirah], and
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completed [Asiyah]. He then drew a single, straight Kav [Ray] down from His Infinite
Surrounding Light into the Vacated Space. This Kav descended in stages into the
Vacated Space. The upper extremity of this Kav touched the Infinite Light of Ein Sof
[that surrounded the Space], and extended down [into the Vacated Space towards the
center] but not all the way to the bottom extremity [so as not to cause the Vacated Space
to collapse and merge back into G-ds Infinite Light]. It was through this Kav, serving as
a conduit, that the Light of Ein Sof was drawn down and spread out below... Through this
Kav the outpouring Supernal Light of Ein Sof spreads forth and flows down into the
universes that are located within that Space and Void (Etz Chaim, Drush Igulim
VeYosher 1:2).
The paradox here is: How can there be a place where G-d or G-ds Light does not exist?
By definition, according to Judaism and Kabbalah, everything is sustained by G-d. If G-d
would withdraw or absent Himself or His Light from a place, it would immediately cease
to exist. On the other hand, if G-d was there, how could the Void exist? It would
necessarily be nullified by the G-dly Light?
Our response: We replace one paradox with another in Kabbalah. Here, too, we revert to
Faith, as the mystical prophet Habbakuk tells us, The righteous lives in his faith
(Habbakuk 2:4).
What happened to the joke? Well the joke or Jewish koan goes like this, What is the
sound of one Jewish hand clapping? Answer: take the palm of your right hand, slap
yourself on the forehead, and say Oy!

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Sorry if this is anticlimactic, but this whole discourse on paradox is just a preparation for
the more personal paradoxes of our lives. Since I am writing, I will be getting into some
of my own.
In principle, Judaism is a religion of joy. The late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach of blessed
memory would teach in the name of a Chassidic Rebbe, How can I not be blissed out
when I know there is one G-d? Paradoxically, in his own words though, Sometimes
you have to go through hell to get to heaven.
The Talmudists presaged Rabbi Carlebach on this latter insight. On the verse, Rejoice
with Jerusalem and be glad with her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all
who mourn for her (Isaiah 66:10), they commented, Whoever mourns deeply over the
destruction of Jerusalem will merit to witness her rejoicing (Babylonian Talmud, Taanit
30b). The meaning is: Only those who mourn over Jerusalem, over the loss of her
holiness, and over the exile of the Shechinah (Divine Presence), will merit to witness her
rejoicing even now. This is the meaning of the phrase, Rejoice with her in joy, all who
mourn for her - rejoice with her now even as you behold her destruction!
The Kabbalists of 16th century Tzfat developed a Midnight Rectification and meditation
called in Hebrew Tikun Chatzot. Its function in part (at least on this plane of existence)
is to allow one to express the grief we all feel about the spiritually related sorrows of this
world. Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, thus wrote: It is befitting
for every person with true awe of heaven to feel sorrow and pain over the destruction of
the Temple (Orach Chaim 1:3).

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In the meditation and prayer, once you grieve, you are slowly led to be filled with
comforting and eventually joy - which is how you are then to encounter the world
throughout the following day. This is to be done from just after Midnight (again, by
Kabbalistic definition: six 60-minute hours after sunset) until approximately two and a
half hours before sunrise, allowing yourself an hour to do this meditation. The weather
section of your local paper should have this information. The timing here is key. There is
a certain energy available at this time, based on what is going on Upstairs, and we need to
ride this spiritual wave.
King David said, Chatzot Lailah [Midnight], I rise to thank You for the judgments of
Your righteous charity (Psalms 119:62)... Rav Oshayah said in the name of Rabbi Acha:
This verse teaches us that King David always arose before the stroke of Midnight. Rabbi
Zeira said: Until Midnight, David would snooze standing like a horse (in small
increments). From Midnight onwards, he would spend the entire night composing songs
and praises to the Holy One blessed-be-He... Rabbi Shimon Chasida said: A lute was
suspended above Davids bed. At the stroke of Midnight, a north-wind would blow, and
its strings would play of themselves. Immediately, he would arise and immerse himself in
Torah until the dawn light would shine in the east. (Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 3b)
It is written, Chatzot Lailah [Midnight], I rise to thank You for the judgments of Your
righteous charity (Psalms 119:62). Why did King David use the expression Chatzot
Lailah [Midnight], and not BeChatzot Lailah [At Midnight]? Rather, he was
addressing the Holy One blessed-be-He, calling Him Chatzot Lailah. But is the Holy
One called Chatzot Lailah? Yes, because at the exact moment of Midnight, the Holy
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One and His Shechinah enter the Garden of Eden to delight with the souls of the
righteous. [Since it is G-ds way to reveal Himself in the Garden of Eden at Midnight,
King David addressed Him by the name Chatzot Lailah.]
Lailah (the 1st half of the night, before Chatzot) is the time when judgment dominates...
Chatzot, on the other hand, is when the world is nourished by two different levels
simultaneously, namely, by judgment and by love. Only during the second half of
Nighttime is there an illumination from the side of love. It is for this reason that David
said Chatzot Lailah, meaning, from the moment the second half of Nighttime begins
[and love dominates]. (Zohar 1:92b)
Chatzot Lailah [Midnight], I rise to thank You for the judgments of Your righteous
charity. Pay attention to the construction of this verse and the way we have translated it.
It is based on Rabbi Nachman of Breslovs understanding of the above passage from the
Zohar. Rabbi Nachman explains why Midnight is the perfect time to thank Hashem for
the judgments [Mishpetei] of Your righteous charity [Tzidkecha]. As the Zohar itself
says, the first half of night is always judgment, while the second half, after the Holy One
and the Shechinah have entered the Garden of Eden, is an illumination of the light of
Morning, the light of love. Midnight is thus the perfectly balanced meeting point between
Mishpat-judgment (the first half of the night) and Tzedek-righteous charity (the second
half of the night leading to the revelation of morning). Nighttime-Exile always precedes
Morning-Redemption.
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In the light of what we said above, Midnight is the perfect Point of Paradox between all
the pain of the world on one side and all the joy on the other.
Accordingly, trying to do the Midnight Rectification at three in the afternoon would be
like celebrating the Sabbath on Tuesday or blowing the Shofar at your Bar or Bat
Mitzvah. Similarly, dont choose a Friday night or Jewish Holiday when mourning of any
kind is forbidden. Rather, select a Regular weekday to rise just before Midnight.
Upon awakening, wash your hands according to Halachic practice (See Code of Jewish
Law or Lesson #6) and ideally say the Morning Blessings before moving on to the
Midnight Rectification. To really do this right, get dressed all in black or if you have a
sackcloth available in your wardrobe that will be fine as well. Burn a couple of pieces of
paper to get ashes and keep them in a bowel for later use. You can plant a tree if this is an
issue or make use of one of the unfortunate smokers on the planet. It should be obvious
that you dont want to use someones cremation remains, but hey, I do not know who is
reading this!
Sit barefoot, ideally near and under a Mezuzah and on the floor with a mat or towel
underneath you. Turn off the lights and light some candles so that you have some reading
light and to set the mood. Sit cross-legged or kneeling if necessary. In Kabbalistic
terminology You are to bury your face in the ground out of grief.
To assist you to come to this point, what is soon to follow is a translation of the entire
Tikun Chatzot (Midnight Rectification). At various points you will be instructed to
Intend to cry over This is, for our purposes, the most important part of the
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meditation. Take the time to deeply reflect on and grieve over these losses or take the
time to struggle with why you do not feel the significance of these losses. If you know
some Jewish Religious somber melodies it would be wise to sing them to the words as a
means of emotional inspiration or just to sing them as one reflects on these losses. I
recommend the tape or CD by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach Nachamu Nachamu.
I want to share with you two personally profound, paradoxical and transformative
mystical experiences I had while doing this Midnight Rectification. One relates to
psychological healing and the other relates to saving the Jewish World.
I woke up before midnight and did the appropriate routine - Modeh Ani, Handwashing,
Morning Blessings - and I prepared myself to do the Midnight Rectification. After
settling down near a door post and hence a Mezuzah, I began reading, with kavannah-
intention, the first part of the Rectification, the Tikun Rachel. I felt the sadness and the
mournful tone of the words and reflected on the suffering of our people and the world on
an individual and collective level. Then I started to meditate on the destruction of the
Temple as one is instructed to do when one first begins. This is a powerful image for a
Traditional Jew. The lack of the Temple is a symbol of Jewish exile and Jewish exile
requires no explanation in terms of what that touches in our psyche.
I recited Psalm 137, By the Rivers of Babylon, and as I came to the words If I forget
You, O Jerusalem... I remembered a song my teacher Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (of
blessed memory) had composed to these words, and that my friend Michael Elias had
sung under my wedding canopy in accord with ancient Jewish custom (most people just
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say them). I decided to sing the song, knowing that it would make this recital of the
Rectification an experience beyond mere words.
I started to sing softly so as not to wake my wife and son who were thirty feet away in the
master bedroom of our home. Singing this mournful melody of Rabbi Carlebach sent me
straight into tears. This was a big deal in itself because as a wounded and semi-closed
hearted man it has not been easy for me to let go and be comfortable with allowing the
pain and grief in my heart to surface. There is usually sufficient fear, distraction and
rigidity to block off the emotion. This song and the dynamic of the midnight hour
together helped me through all this.
I started initially crying for the Temples, for the Holocaust, for all the Jews lost in the
Middle East Wars, for all the Jews lost in the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades, and
for all the Jews lost in the Bus Bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It is impossible to
convey fully how just the thought of these events brought me to tears. They were all
laced with this sense of loss, of potential unrealized, of bitter regret and of the whopping
question Why?
What happened next, as these images passed through my mind and I cried, was that I
flashed on my own tragedies, on my parents divorce, on my distance from my family, on
my painful search for truth and on the people whom I have hurt along the way. I would
cry as each of these images came up, letting out frozen emotions and feeling the release
of years of built-up and blocked-up energy. I would see images of my father and mother,
sense the essence of who they and I were, and of our negative dynamics, and just cry.
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At different times during this experience, I decided that I was not going to let things get
out of hand. At other times, I wished it would go on forever and that I could let it all out.
In the end, through performing this Kabbalistic ritual, I managed to have a profound
cathartic release that was self-induced and manageable. Experiencing this release of
personal grief in the context of the greater grief of the Jewish people in such an
experiential way was very healing. In some respects it added a certain cognitive
reorganization to my way of looking at reality. First it gave me some perspective. My
grief and suffering in the face of the Holocaust was no less real, but I could sense that
there were levels of suffering and that mine was on the fairly low end. I also felt that I
found religious meaning in my suffering because it allowed me to empathize with the
sense of brokenness that G-d feels about the world due to the suffering that riddles it. I
was able to tune in to G-ds grief for the world and be present with that and get out of my
own perspective. Instead of looking at the world from my eyes, I was seeing it through
G-ds eyes and it was very freeing and illuminating despite the woeful perception of the
human tendency towards self-destruction.
I was very grateful for having discovered a way of moving from grieving to healing
within the normative Kabbalistic tradition and being able to connect my spiritual path
with my psychological issues.
What was paradoxical about this experience was the liberating realization I had during all
this crying that the greatest personal and collective suffering and evil that I and the
Jewish people have endured was ultimately for the good. So the crying hurt, but it was
simultaneously laced with joy. This might sound cliche in print, perhaps it sounds so
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because often people mouth this as either a theology or a truism and arent living it in
their hearts and in their lives when it comes to the deepest matters and experiences. To
really be thankful to G-d for the evil one has endured requires a healing from the
existence of the ego itself. I do not claim such a feat but I have had precious moments
and minutes where I have tasted this reality and truth. Even talking about this now is
uncomfortable because this can only really be understood through experience.
I sat there buried with my face as close to the ground as I could when I had a vision. I
saw destruction in America, and Rabbis of various denominations (those who were left)
all dusty and in torn clothes, their heads held low. They were coming together to piece
together what was left of the Jewish people. The Voice of G-d, of Truth, spoke to me as I
saw this, with utter convincingness in the still soft voice: Because you did not come
together in joy and love, you come together in tears and mourning!
This course, among other things, is my attempt to reach out to my fellow Jews and to
come together (the heaviness of this chapter aside) in love and joy. If the Jews who are
most committed to spirituality and meditation cannot make peace, who can? This vision
was a prophecy in my view and I deeply got it that I am obligated to act. Jewish
Spirituality without grief is in denial and Jewish Spirituality without joy is G-dless. Most
importantly, Jewish spirituality without authentic Jewish unity, evolution and cooperation
is doomed to another Holocaust like blood/soul-letting. It is time to act.
The social paradox here is that we need to come together through respect, joy and love.
Practically, this means acceptance of each others differences. However, we need to

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equally come together to search for truth and to passionately fight for the collective
surrender to its message. We cant all be right about everything. And agreeing not to kill
each other while we disagree is only a half way measure. Something has to give. We
need one integrated Judaism for one integrated Jewish people. This as opposed to half a
dozen mini Jewish religions that march in parades together. Pluralism means tolerance
and is usually seen (at least within Orthodoxy) as a strategic stance till the other side dies
out, marries out, is converted, or a saddening lesser of two evils. The people who take
pluralism seriously scare me more because it shows that their convictions are made of
Jello. In the 60s we had free love and in the 90s we have free religion. Go figure. How
can I simultaneously believe that if I commit a certain action I am destroying myself and
live my life based on that and then accept ever so politely that if you do it it is of no
consequence because you have a different interpretation. The message here (which is not
so subtle) is that religion is a matter of your mind, as if it is all in your head, as the
saying goes. The Kabbalists think this is bunk. There is Truth and it is the seal of G-D.
Maybe the Orthodox dont have it all - that is probably for certain - but then again they
might have more than you think.
Perhaps Rabbi Nachmans paradoxical teaching will shed light on this issue. In the words
of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach of blessed memory, People think that peace will come from
truth, so what happens? Everyone tries to convince the other of their truth and in the end
we have war! The truth, Rabbi Nachman says, is that peace will come through love. This
is because when people love each other, each will be open to the truth that the other has.
In my own words: Along with the love of truth we need to cultivate (all the more) the
truth of love.
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Here is the meditation.
Tikun Chatzot - The Midnight Rectification
Brief Summary of Laws
1) The time for Tikun Chatzot is from Midnight until the first dawn (Amud HaShachar).
Begin by reciting all the Morning Blessings, then the Vidui (Confession).
2) Remove your shoes and sit on the floor on a pillow, carpet, blanket or sheet (or
anything else between you and the bare floor), preferably beneath the mezuzah of a door;
dab a small amount of ashes above your forehead where the head-tefillin are placed; light
a candle, place your head between your knees, face the ground, and begin Tikun Rachel.
3) On Shabbat and Festival nights, the Intermediate Days of Passover, Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur, Tikun Chatzot is not to be said - neither Tikun Rachel nor Tikun Leah.
4) On Rosh Chodesh, and days on which Tachanun is not said, as well as during the Days
of Repentance (between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), the Intermediate Days of
Succot, the Days of the Omer, and during the Shmittah year in Eretz Yisrael, in a house
of mourning, and in a bridegroom's house, only Tikun Leah is said.
5) After concluding Tikun Rachel, and before beginning Tikun Leah, get up from the
floor and sit on a chair. On those nights when only Tikun Leah is said, you needn't sit on
the floor or remove your shoes.

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Preparatory Prayer
For the sake of [the revelation of] the Unity of the Holy One blessed-be-He and His
Indwelling Presence, with awe and love, with love and awe; for the sake of the Unity of
the letters Yod and Keh with the letters Vav and Keh, in a complete Unity, in the name of
all Israel, I am now prepared to recite Tikun Rachel and Tikun Leah as our rabbis of
blessed memory have arranged, in order to rectify these two aspects of Divine Providence
in their supernal source, in order to please our Maker and perform the Will of our
Creator. May Hashem our God's pleasantness [flow down] upon us; may He establish our
efforts [in eternity], and may He establish our efforts [in this world].
Viduy (Confession)
Hashem our God and God of our ancestors, we beseech You, may our prayers enter
before You! Our King, do not ignore our supplications, for, Hashem our God and God of
our ancestors, we are not so arrogant and stiff-necked as to [stand before You and] think
that we are completely righteous and have not erred. On the contrary, [we want to admit
to You and to ourselves that] we have erred, we have sinned intentionally [in order to
satisfy our lust], we have rebelled [and become enmeshed in our sins]. This goes for us,
our parents and the members of our families [whether now or in previous lifetimes].
(Aleph) We are guilty of having sinned; we are devastated by the enormity of our guilt.
(Beth) We have been ungrateful for all the good done to us and even repaid bad for good.
(Gimel) We have stolen. (Dalet) We have been two-faced and spoken damaging slander
behind people's backs. (Heh) We have caused others to deviate from the right path. (Vav)
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We have caused others to do evil. (Zain) We have sinned knowingly and deliberately
[against God and man]. (Hhet) We have acted violently and deceitfully to get what we
want. (Tet) We have framed lies to save ourselves and get others in trouble. (Yod) We
have advised others to do things that were harmful to them. (Chaf) We have spoken
falsely, made unnecessary promises, and not kept our word. We let our anger get the best
of us. (Lamed) We have scoffed and made light of serious matters. (Mem) We have
rebelled against You. We have compromised Your truth for our own convenience. (Nun)
We have repeatedly provoked Your displeasure. We have committed adultery and other
sexual offenses. (Samech) We have turned our hearts away from You. (Ayin) We have
sinned intentionally in order to satisfy our lust. (Peh) We have committed crimes which
have caused us to become coarse and insensitive and therefore unworthy of Your
forgiveness. We have damaged the very things which are most sacred and precious to us.
(Tzadi) We have oppressed. We have caused our parents grief and anguish. (Kof) We
have obstinately ignored all of Your reminders to repent and better our ways. (Reish) We
have acted wickedly and become twisted inside. (Shin) We have corrupted and destroyed
our sense of what is right and what is wrong. (Taf) We have lost our human dignity and
stooped to the level of animals. We have completely gone astray and lost our way in life.
We have misled others to go astray as well.
In sum, we have turned away from Your good commandments and ethical laws, all to no
avail. You, however, are just with regard to any punishment that befalls us, for You have
acted truthfully while we have just hardened our hearts and become more enmeshed in
our sins.
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What shall we say in Your presence, O You who dwells on high? What shall we relate
before You, O You who [lowers Yourself to] dwell in the heavens? We realize that You
are familiar with all our hidden secrets [no less than our] open affairs. You know the
mysteries of the world as well as the hidden secrets of every living being. You search
deeply into our real intentions; Your vision penetrates to our true motivations. Nothing
escapes You; and nothing can be hidden from Your sight. May it be therefore Your will,
Hashem our God and God of our ancestors, to pardon us for all our misdeeds, to cleanse
us from all our sins, and to pardon and forgive us for all the times we consciously
rebelled against Your Will.
Tikun Rachel
Intend to cry for the destruction of the Temple:
Psalm 137 - (1) By the rivers of Babylon, there we made our home [in exile], and we
also wept, when we remembered [the destruction of] Zion. (2) In [Babylon] we hung our
harps upon willows [to hide them, lest we be forced to play]. (3) For there our captors
asked us for words of song, and those who mocked us demanded joy: "Sing for us one of
the songs of Zion!" (4) But [we thought to ourselves] how can we possibly sing the God's
song on alien soil? (5) [We each swore:] If I forget You, O Jerusalem, let my right hand
forget [its skill]. (6) Let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember You, if I do
not raise [the memory of] Jerusalem above my highest joy. (7) Remember, Hashem, [to
punish] the descendants of Edom, who on the day [of the destruction] of Jerusalem said,
"Raze it, raze it, even to its very foundation." (8) O daughter of Babylon, it is you who
will be overturned. Happy is he who will repay you [in retribution] for the way you
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treated us. (9) Happy is he who will snatch your unborn babies and dash them against the
rock [in retribution for the way you treated ours].
Intend to cry for the Jewish martyrs:
Psalm 79 - (1) A chant [to cut away the powers of darkness] by Asaph: Elohim, nations
have entered Your Inheritance [Eretz Yisrael]; they have defiled Your Holy Palace [Beth
HaMikdash] and made Jerusalem into a ruins. (2) They have left the corpses of Your
servants as food for the birds of the heavens; the flesh of Your devoted ones to the beasts
of the earth. (3) They shed their blood like water round about Jerusalem; there is no one
[left alive] to bury them. (4) We have suffered the derision of our neighbors; we have
been scorned and humiliated by those around us. (5) Hashem, O Merciful God, how
long? Will You be angry forever? [How long] will Your zealousness [for that which is
right] burn like fire? (6) Pour Your anger upon the nations who do not acknowledge You
and upon governments that have not proclaimed Your Name. (7) For it [Your Name]
devoured Yaacov, [only then] were they able to destroy His House. 1 (8) Do not recall our
1
"For It (singular) had already devoured Yaacov, only then they (plural) destroyed His House" (Ps. 79:7).
Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch explains: "The subject of 'devoured' is the preceding 'Your Name' in verse 6: In
reality, it was Your Name that devoured Yaacov, because Yaacov was no longer worthy of bearing it. Hence it
was Your Name, and not our foes, that won the victory. And yet, they thought that they had destroyed Your
House" (Hirsch ad. loc.). The source for this idea is in the Midrash (Lamentations Rabbah 1:43): "An accuser
leaped up in front of the Throne of Glory and said: 'Shall a wicked man (Nebuchadnezzar) boast that he has
destroyed the House of God and burned His Sanctuary?!! May a fire from heaven descend immediately and
burn it [before he does].' This is the meaning of the verse, 'From above, He has sent fire to burn my insides'
(Lamentations 1:13). Rabbi Yehoshua said: This is what the Prophet meant when he said, 'Take the millstones
and grind flour' (Isaiah 47:2). People do not grind 'flour'; they ground 'wheat' into flour! How can you 'grind
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former sins; rather send Your mercies speedily towards us, for we have fallen very low.
(9) O God of our salvation, help us for the sake of the honor of Your Name. Save us and
cleanse us of all our sins for the sake of Your Name! (10) Why should the nations say,
"Where is their God?" Let the avenging of the blood of Your servants that has been shed
be made manifest among the nations before our very eyes. (11) Let the moans of the
[exiled] prisoners come before You; release the condemned ones with the power of Your
outstretched arm. (12) Recompense our neighbors sevenfold in their bosom for the
slander with which they have insulted You, O God. (13) As for us, Your people and the
flock of Your pasture, we will thank and acknowledge You forever; we will transmit
Your unending praises from generation to generation!
Lamentations 5 - (1) Consider, O Merciful God, what has befallen us. Look down and
behold our disgrace. (2) Our Inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to
aliens. (3) We have become fatherless orphans, our mothers are like widows. (4) We have
paid money to drink our own water, and been forced to buy our own wood. (5) We have
been oppressed and pursued [with a yoke] on our necks; we have toiled without respite
[and not seen the fruits of our labors]. (6) We stretched our hand out to Egypt [for aid], to
flour'! However, Jerusalem said to Babylon, 'If fire had not been sent to burn me from above, you could never
have overcome me. A dead lion you have killed; ground flour you have ground; a burnt city you have burnt...'"
Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin explains: "How did 'nations defile the Abode of Your Holiness... and destroy Your
House'?! It was because Israel had already weakened and damaged the power of holiness in the world. Only
then was Nebuchadnezzar able to destroy the First Temple and Titus the Second. They only destroyed 'below'
what had already been destroyed 'above.' This is what our Sages meant when they said, 'ground flour you have
ground.' For only once our sins had damaged the Supernal Universes, which are none other than the Beth
HaMikdash above, were they able to destroy the Sanctuary below" (Nefesh HaChaim 1:4).
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Assyria for bread to satisfy our hunger. (7) Our forefathers erred and are no longer here,
leaving us to suffer for their sins. (8) Slaves lorded it over us; there was no savior to
deliver us from their hand. (9) We risked our lives to obtain bread, in the face of the
sword in the desert. (10) Our skin was parched as by an oven, from the burning ravages
of hunger. (11) They violated the women of Zion, and the virgins of the towns of
Yehudah. (12) Nobles were hung by their hands; elders treated disrespectfully to their
face. (13) Young men were forced to bear millstones; youths collapsed under heavy loads
of wood. (14) Elders ceased sitting [in judgment] at the gates; young men stopped
playing their song. (15) The rejoicing of our heart died; our dance was turned to
mourning. (16) The crown of our head [the Temple, the Shechinah] has fallen! [Bend
your head down to the floor and weep] O woe to us, for we have lost our way! (17) This
is why our hearts are grieved; for these things our eyes have become darkened - (18) For
Mount Zion which has become a desolate ruin, a place in which foxes roam. (19) But
You, O Merciful God, You reign eternally! [Above time] Your Throne endures from
generation to generation. (20) Why do You therefore forget us without end? Why do You
abandon us for so long? (21) Return us to You, Hashem, and we will repent! Renew our
days as of old! (22) Even if You have utterly rejected us, and are exceedingly angry with
us - Return us to You, Hashem, and we will repent! Renew our days as of old!
Isaiah 63 - (15) Look down from Heaven, from Your glorious and transcendent abode,
and behold. Where is Your jealousy [for Your desecrated Name] and Your mighty acts
[of salvation]? Why do You withhold Your compassion and Your mercies from me? (16)
Surely You are our Father. Even if Avraham doesn't know us and Yisrael would no
longer recognize us, You, Hashem, are our Father. Since ancient times, we have called
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You our Redeemer. (17) Why, then, Hashem, do You [hide from us and] make us stray
from Your ways! Why do you harden our hearts so that we can't feel Your Awe! Repent,
for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your Inheritance! (18) Your holy people had
possession of Your Temple for such a short time, before our enemies trampled it!
Isaiah 64 - (7) And now, Hashem, You alone are our Father. We are the raw material and
You are our Maker. We are all the work of Your hands. (8) Hashem, do not become
exceedingly angry with us. Do not remember our sin forever. Please see - we are Your
people - all of us. (9) Your holy cities have become a wasteland. Zion has become a
desert. Jerusalem is desolate. (10) The House of our holiness and splendor - where our
forefathers praised You - has become a blazing fire. Everything we cherished has become
a ruin. (11) How can You continue to restrain Yourself, Hashem? How can You remain
silent and afflict us so much?
Isaiah 62 - (6) O Jerusalem, I have appointed guards over your walls. They will never be
silent, by day or by night. [They say:] You who make mention of God, be not silent! (7)
And give Him no rest until He restores Jerusalem and establishes it a shining praise on
earth! (8) Hashem has sworn by His right hand and His mighty arm: No more will I let
your grain be food for your enemies, nor will strangers drink the wine for which you
toiled. (9) Rather, those who harvested it will eat it and praise Hashem, and those who
gathered it will drink it in My holy courts!

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Arise, have mercy on Zion, for the time to favor her, the appointed time, is approaching.
For Your servants take pleasure in her stones and love her dust (Psalm 102:14-15).
Hashem is the Builder of Jerusalem; He will gather the dispersed of Israel (Psalm 147:2).
Tikun Leah
Psalm 42 - (1) Dedicated to the One who grants eternal victory - wise counsel from the
descendants of Korach. (2) As a roe-deer cries out [its longing] for running streams of
water, so my soul cries out for You, O God! (3) My soul thirsts for God, the Living God;
when shall I come again [to the Sanctuary] to appear before God? (4) My tears have been
my bread day and night, while [my enemies] say to me all day long, "Where is your
God?" (5) I remember [my visits to the Sanctuary] and my soul pours itself out [with
longing] inside of me; how I once used to pass with the crowds, walking slowly up to the
House of God, among cries of joy and thanksgiving, amidst throngs gathered for a
festival. (6) Why are you so downcast, my soul, and why do you weep for me? Put your
hope in God, for I have yet to thank Him for the salvations that will come from Him! (7)
My God, my soul is downcast within me; therefore I remember You from the lowland of
the Jordan [where You dried up the waters], from the peaks of Hermon [where You
overlooked our wrongdoing], and from the lowly mountain [Sinai, where You forgave us
for worshipping the Golden Calf]. (8) [But now in exile I suffer as one misfortune
follows another;] depths of water call to depths; [punishment flows down upon me] like
water gushing through a canal; all Your breakers and Your waves have passed over me.
(9) [If only] Hashem would command His lovingkindness each day; [I would be certain
that] in the night [of my exile] His Song [His Divine Presence] accompanies me; this is
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my prayer to the God of my life! (10) I say to God: My Rock [Ground of my being], why
have You forgotten me? Why must I walk blackened under the oppression of the enemy?
(11) While piercing my bones to the point of death, my oppressors taunt me, saying to me
all day long, "Where is your God?" (12) Why are you so downcast, my soul, and why do
you weep within me? Put your hope in God, for I have yet to thank Him for the salvations
[that will come from Him]. He is [the light of] my countenance and my God!
Psalm 43 - (1) Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against a nation bereft of
lovingkindness; rescue me from a deceitful and violent man. (2) For You are God, Source
of my strength. Why therefore have You forsaken me? Why must I go about blackened
under the oppression of the enemy? (3) Send Your light and Your truth; they will lead
me, they will bring me home to the Mountain of Your Holiness and to Your Sanctuaries.
(4) Then I will come to the altar of God, to God, the Source of my joyous celebration;
and I will thank You with a harp, O God my God! (5) Why are you so downcast, my
soul, and why do you weep over me? Put your hope in God, for I have yet to thank Him
for the salvations [that will come from Him]; He is [the light of] my countenance and my
God!
Psalm 20 - (1) Dedicated to the One who gives victory [to the Shechinah and Israel]. 2 A
2
Psalm 20 contains 9 verses, corresponding to the 9 months of birth. It also contains 70 words, which are
said to correspond to the 70 cries of the Mother Deer (Rachel, the Shechinah, the Mother of the Souls of
Israel) in her birth travail. In other words, the Shechinah is seen as giving birth. To whom? To the Messiah,
that one individual and that one generation that will usher in a new world. Also, on a more practical level,
this psalm is to be said over and over when a woman is having contractions ready to give birth. For one
who understand, the two levels are really one.

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cutting-psalm by David: (2) May Hashem answer you on the day of [your birth] travail.
May the Name of the God of Yaacov raise you up [and inspire you]. (3) May He send
your help from [His] Holy Sanctuary, and your strength from Zion. (4) May He
remember all the times you offered up your soul, and may your constant upward striving
remain before Him forever, selah.3 (5) May He grant you your heart's desires, and bring
all your plans to fruition. (6) We will sing for joy when your salvation arrives. We will
raise our banner high in the Name of our God. May Hashem fulfill all your wishes. (7)
Now I know that it is Hashem alone who delivers His anointed Messiah. May He always
answer him from His Heavenly Sanctuary with the mighty salvation of His Right Hand.
(8) Some [nations have relied upon the power of] iron chariots. Others [have relied upon
a multitude of] horses. We, however, have only to call out in the Name of Hashem our
God. (9) They all bowed down [to false gods] and ended up falling [into oblivion]. We,
however, have always risen again and regained our sure footing. (10) Hashem, continue
to save [us]! O King, answer us on the day we call!
Psalm 24 - (1) By David. A cutting-psalm: The earth and all that is in it, the world and all
who inhabit it, belong to Hashem alone. (2) He founded [civilizations] upon seacoasts
and continues to guide [the course of nations] upon rivers. (3) Who can rise up and
ascend Hashem's mountain [to perceive His hand in nature and in history]? And even
3
Verse 4 literally says: "May He remember all your Minchah offerings, and may your Olah offerings find
favor forever, selah." Our translation is based on the Rabbi Hirsch's commentary, in which he explains the
meaning of Minchah and Olah (two very special types of offerings that were brought in the Temple).
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then, who can maintain his footing in the place of His holiness? (4) [For this, God says:]
One must have clean hands and a pure heart! He must not bear My soul [which I have
given him] in vain. He must not swear deceitfully. (5) [Only such a person] will bear
Hashem's blessing and [be worthy of] charity from the God of his deliverance. (6) Such is
the generation that searches for [God's] Hidden Presence, [the children of] Yaacov who
seek Your Presence forever, selah. (7) Lift up the gates of your minds, so that hidden
doors will be raised aloft, and the King of Glory may enter. (8) Who is this King of
Glory? Hashem, invincible and all-powerful, Hashem, almighty in battle. (9) Lift up the
gates of your minds, and raise high hidden doors, so that the King of Glory may enter
[and reveal Himself in His world]. (10) Who is He, this King of Glory? Hashem, the God
of hosts, He is the King of Glory forever, selah!4
Psalm 67 - (1) Dedicated to the Master of Creation who grants victory through melodies.
A chant song [to cut away the obstacles that prevent us from appreciating His blessings]:
(2) May Elohim be gracious to us and bless us. May the light of His Presence shine upon
us and accompany us forever. (3) Let Your way become known on earth, [the power of]
Your deliverance [acknowledged] among all nations. (4) Nations will acknowledge You,
Elohim, all nations together will acknowledge You. (5) Let the nations rejoice and sing
for joy, for You will judge all peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth [to their
4
Verse 10 can alternatively be translated: "Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift yourselves up, O
entranceways to eternity, so that the King of Glory enter. Who is He, this Glorious King? The God of [all
celestial and terrestrial] hosts; He is the King of Glory forever!"

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perfection] forever, selah. (6) Nations will acknowledge You, Elohim, all nations
together will acknowledge You. (7) Then earth [existence] will have yielded its produce
[and fulfilled its purpose]. May Elohim our God bless us. (8) Elohim will bless us and all
the ends of the earth will revere Him.
Psalm 111 - (1) HalleluYah! I shall [praise and] thank Hashem with my whole being, in
the intimate circle of the upright and [in the midst of my] community! 5 (2) [Though] the
great wonders of Hashem's actions [are camouflaged], they are accessible to all who
5
Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch comments: "The theme of this Psalm is one of Instruction... The alphabetical
arrangement of the verses shows us that King David intended it to be kept not only before his own eyes, but in
the minds of all the rest of humanity by constant repetition. Verses 2-5 present for our consideration God's
concern for all His creatures in general, and in particular for those among mankind who fear Him. Verses 6-10
call to our attention the distinguished position that the nation of Israel enjoys among all other creatures and the
rest of mankind, as well as the great importance of the task assigned it when it was given God's Law. From this
is deduced the firm faith in the protection and help which we may surely expect of Him if only we seek to be
loyal and sincere executors of His Law."
"Every single one of Hashem's creations is significant; provision is made for all their desires." Every
single creature of God's is great as such; none among God's creatures is insignificant or of little worth. God's
care extends to each one of them, so that it may find for itself all that it must have in order to live and to
develop. Thus, when God made the world, He took into account even the smallest creature; He did not give life
to any being for which provision had not been made in the world of His creation and in the course of the
development of that world. The thought that no creature is too insignificant for God's loving concern should
make every thinking person aware of the fact that every living thing on earth deserves respect because it bears
the stamp of God, and that we too ought to respect ourselves as creatures of God" (Hirsch, ibid.).
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6
desire [to understand] them. (3) The inner design of His creation is majestic [and
breathtaking], and His righteous altruism [with which He renews creation daily] endures
forever. (4) He established [Shabbat and Festivals as] memorials to His supernatural
miracles, [to remind Israel that] Hashem is gracious and compassionate. (5) He [has
always] provided nourishment for [His people] who revere Him; He is ever mindful of
His covenant [with their ancestors]. (6) He therefore revealed His creative power to His
people, to give them [the land of Israel], the heritage of nations. 7 (7) [He revealed that the
6
Alt: "All of Hashem's creations are important; provision is made for all their desires."
7
"He has therefore revealed His creative power to His people; in giving them the land of Israel, the inheritance
of the nations" (Ps. 111:6). This is consistent with other verses and of course with Rashi on Genesis 1. Rabbi
Hirsch has a completely different translation: "In giving them the Torah which will eventually be the
inheritance of all the nations." He explains: "God has placed Israel as His people... among the rest of mankind
for a special purpose... As contained in the Book of Genesis, He revealed to them the motives and effects of
His sovereignty in the history of mankind, [and how] those spiritual treasures which should be, and one day
will be, the inheritance of all nations, were first communicated to Israel, His people. [See Isaiah 2:2-4 and
Micah 4:1-3 -- 'And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of Hashem's House shall be
firmly established... and all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall go and they shall say: Come, let us
go up to Hashem's Mountain, to the House of the God of Yaacov. Let Him teach us His ways, and we will walk
in His paths. For out of Zion shall the Torah come forth, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem. And He
shall judge the nations and reprove many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears
into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.'] God's
close relationship to earthly affairs and the Law with which He governs those affairs were originally intended
to encompass all of mankind. It was only because mankind strayed from His path that Israel for the present
became the bearer and keeper of God's revelation for all of mankind and the first nation to live by that Law. In
order that the basis of their special relationship and obligation to God (who is after all the God of all men and
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motivation behind] His handiwork is truth and fair judgment. [He revealed that] all the
commandments [of His Torah] are trustworthy. (8) They will remain the foundations of
the world throughout eternity, for they were designed with truth and uprightness. (9) God
has always sent redemption to His people. He has therefore commanded [us to safeguard]
His covenant forever, [in order to proclaim the] holiness and awesomeness of His Name!
(10) The root of true wisdom is awe of Hashem. Insight into what is good and right is
given to all who perform [His commandments with pure motive]. [Through His devoted
people] His praise will endure forever!
Psalm 51 - (1) Dedicated to the One who grants victory [and forgiveness]. A cutting-
psalm by David. (2) When the prophet Nathan came to him after he had come to
Bathsheba: (3) Grant me grace, Elohim, O Just God, in keeping with Your
lovingkindness. With Your great mercies, erase my crimes; (4) Cleanse me of my
transgression; purify me of my wrongdoing. (5) For I know [and admit] my crimes; my
wrongdoing is ever before me; [I therefore beseech You to forgive me]. (6) Against You
alone I have sinned [for I acted in haste and thereby caused Your Name to be profaned]; I
have done that which is evil in Your eyes, such that You are justified in Your sentence,
equitable in Your judgment. (7) Indeed, I was born with a propensity to transgress [by
virtue of the fact that a human being is born without a developed intellect and therefore
nations) be clear to Israel, God set down in the first part of the Book of His Law the providential acts performed
amidst mankind prior to the election of Israel, so that Israel's children may come to understand and appreciate
the significance of their role and their mission among the nations."
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naturally drawn to satisfy his physical needs and appetites even when these contradict the
dictates of intellect]; in addition, I was conceived in sin [i.e. the heat of my parent's
sexual passion, which imbued me with a strong sexual desire as well]. (8) Behold, Your
true desire [on the other hand] has always been that which is covered over [by the body,
i.e. the powers of the soul]; [and it is through these intangible, spiritual powers in me,
these hidden energies, that] You teach me to perceive the Godly wisdom that is concealed
in all things. (9) [I therefore beseech You: illuminate my soul; assist me in overcoming
my urges;] refine me with hyssop [and the ashes of the Red Heifer] that I may be pure.
Wash me so that I may become whiter than snow [and closer to You than if I had never
sinned]. (10) Let me hear of the joy and gladness [that You have in store for those who
return to You]. Let the bones You have crushed rejoice. (11) Hide Your face from my
wrongdoings, and wipe away all my transgressions. (12) O God, create a pure heart for
me, and renew an steadfast spirit within me! (13) Cast me not away from Your Presence,
take not Your holy spirit away from me! (14) Restore the joy of Your salvation to me;
[let me know that You have forgiven me so that I may rejoice in Your salvation]; sustain
[strengthen] me with a spirit of generosity. (15) I will then teach incurable rebels Your
ways [i.e. the ways of Your commandments, the ways of Teshuvah]. Those who have
erred will [understand that they may yet] return to You. (16) Save me from the death
sentence, O God, God of my salvation; my tongue will then sing of Your just charity.
(17) O God, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise; [forgive me and I
hereby swear that I will never stop declaring Your praises]. (18) For You do not desire
that I bring sacrifice, nor do You require a burnt offering [of me]. (19) The [most perfect]
offering to God is a broken spirit. O God, You will never reject a broken and contrite
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heart! (20) In accord with Your desire [to redeem Israel], rectify Zion and rebuild the
walls of Jerusalem. (21) Then You will lovingly accept offerings of righteousness, of
ascent, and of complete dedication. Only then will [we] ascend to Your altar [as] bulls
[i.e. only when we offer up our unreserved devotion to God and His Torah can we truly
call ourselves bulls, i.e. workers in the service of the Lord, and deserve His complete
forgiveness].
O how long will there be crying in Zion and mourning in Jerusalem?!
Stand: Arise, have mercy on Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem.
Our God and God of our ancestors, O Merciful King, have mercy on us! O Good and
Beneficent One, make Yourself accessible for us! Return to us with Your abundant
mercies for the sake of the Patriarchs who performed Your will. Rebuild Your House as
in former times, establish Your Beth HaMikdash on its original site, let us witness its
rebuilding and rejoice in its completion. Restore the Cohanim to their service, the Leviim
to their song and their chanting, and restore Israel to their dwellings! There we will go
up, appear and prostrate ourselves before You.
May it be Your Will, Hashem our God and God of our ancestors, to bring us up with joy
to our land and plant us within our borders. There we will offer before You our
obligatory sacrifices, the regular daily tamid-offerings according to their sequence, and
the mussaf-offerings according to their laws.

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Psalm 126 - (1) A Song of Ascents [from the depths of exile]: When Hashem will [come
out of concealment and] return with the exile of Zion, we will all awaken as if from a
deep slumber. [It will be so wondrous, as if an impossible dream has finally come true.]
(2) Then our mouths will be filled with laughter and our tongues with joyous song. Then
the nations will speak of "the great miracles that Hashem wrought for these." [They will
realize that He had scattered Israel throughout the world purposefully and that a great
degree of Divine Providence had accompanied them everywhere in their exile.] (3) The
hidden miracles which Hashem has continually wrought for us have truly been great.
Knowing this, we have been able to truly rejoice [even now, in the darkness of exile]. (4)
Hashem, retrieve our exiled people! [Bring the redemption quickly! Make the hidden
wellsprings in our hearts gush forth] like flashfloods in the Negev. (5) The Sowers
[Israel, were themselves scattered like seeds among the nations to sow Your secret plan].
With tears [in their eyes, they turned to You, crying and hoping only to return to You].
[Soon we] will harvest [the truth] with great joy. (6) [But now we are like the farmer]
who walks along and weeps as he carries the bag of seeds [of truth and justice to plant in
the hearts of men]. [Soon] he will return with great joy carrying the full grown sheaves of
his harvest.
The Sweetest Hour - Tikkun Chatzot, by Avraham Greenbaum, Breslov Research
Institute
Jewish Spiritual Practices (see section on Tikkun Chatzot), Yitzchak Buxbaum, Jason
Aronson
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Maimonides Principles: The Fundamentals of Jewish Faith, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan,
NCSY/Orthodox Union
Innerspace, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Moznaim Publishing Corporation

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Lesson 5--Waking Up: Modeh Ani in Light of Shing Yi
After about 4 months Gabriel, our resident Taoist master, had moved to Malibu
California to study and work with Dr. Valerie Hunt, a credible scientific researcher of the
Human Aura and author of The Infinite Mind.
Once I knew that Gabriel was leaving, I already began looking for a class in Chinese
Internal Martial Arts to provide a support system for what I was learning from him. I did
not trust my ability to continue independently for a variety of reasons, from laziness to
spiritual engrossment, to alienation from my body, depending on the moment. I finally
found a teacher of Shing Yi, a system of Internal Martial Arts of Chinese origin, in a man
named Stuart Charno.
To understand Shing Yi in a comparative light to other Chinese Internal Martial Arts,
they say that, Tai Chi is the kind way, Pa Kua is the deceptive way, and Shing Yi is the
brave way. In Tai Chi, you use your opponents energy against him, such that he gets
back whatever he puts out. In Pau Ka, you often go around an attack - which means that
there are all kinds of surprises in store for the opponent who usually expects a linear as
opposed to a circular form of retaliation. In Shing Yi, you charge through your
opponents attack, or to put it bluntly, you take the offensive. In essence, you become like
a bulldozer going through a wall - nothing can stop you. In Shing Yi, the attitude is,
What is the quickest solution to end this conflict? The Chinese Martial Artists therefore
say about Shing Yi that, It is not pretty but it works. Although Shing Yi is relatively
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Yang (Masculine) for the Internal Martial Arts, it is definitively Yin (Feminine)
compared to Kung Fu and Karate because it is an energy/spiral based system of health
and self-defense of a very different kind.
Stuart Charno turned out to be an amiable fellow with a great sense of humor. He was
also an excellent teacher. I didnt continue my studies with him for a variety of reasons.
First, I was logistically spoiled after my private at-home tutorial with Gabriel. In
addition, Stuart wanted me to drop whatever I had learned until now in practice. This, so
to exclusively focus on Shing Yi, which is not why I came, although his position made
sense. More to the point was that I also had a bit of a culture shock coming to Stuart from
my studies in Yoga and with Gabriel. Stuart was an actor and had a somewhat sac-
religious personality - at least by traditional religious standards. He would curse in class
to which he brought his girlfriend, who seemed to be a former and continuing student. I
would not say they were all over each other, but it would also be incorrect to say that they
were Catholic in demeanor. From what I could surmise, it seemed that Stuart would eat a
steak dinner before showing up to teach. Besides the ecology and kosher issues (Stuart
was Jewish if you did not pick that up), all this was very un-Yogic in my estimation. I
found his behavior somewhat distracting and incongruent with what I expected a person
of his training to exemplify. I had heard of Crazy wisdom but I wasnt very impressed
with this particular brand. Dont get me wrong, Stuart had a deep respect for his teacher,
his art and his students. I guess it was all the accompanying accessories that turned me
off.
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I did learn some valuable lessons from Stuarts instruction in Shing Yi. Two of these I
will share in a comparative light with you as a way of introducing the meditation of this
chapter.
After a few classes, Stuart taught me a breathing technique to practice first thing in the
morning upon awakening. I was to concentrate my attention three fingers-width distance
below my belly button and breathe 100 times in a certain manner. The effect was
powerful and energizing and beat coffee hands down. This simple instruction showed me
two interrelated things that I believe are essential to understanding any spiritual path. The
first is that any spiritual path demands your total immersion or surrender. The second is
that this is reflected in how you Wake up and, in many paths, in how you go to sleep as
well.
When I heard Stuart tell me to do this breathing first thing in the morning my rabbinical
voice went on alarm saying, Hey, you are supposed to do Modeh Ani first thing in the
morning! Modeh Ani, for the uninitiated, is a phrase one says first thing in the morning
even before washing ones hands in a Kabbalistic fashion to remove the influence of any
negative parasitic forces from one's body after sleep. This is not a biblical, prophetic or
rabbinical commandment, but simply a custom. Nevertheless, as you will hopefully come
to see (or already are aware), many Jewish customs are of a very deep nature and should
not be taken lightly.
The verse in transliteration reads, Mo-deh Ani Le-fan-e-cha Me-lech Chai Ve-Ka-yam
She-he-che-zar-ta Bi Nish-ma-ti Be-Chem-lah, Ra-ba E-mun-a-te-cha. In translation,

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I acknowledge before You, O Living and Sustaining King, that You have restored my
divine soul within me with compassion; great is Your faithfulness.
All Jewish children (within Orthodoxy) learn to say Modeh Ani first thing in the morning
by the time they are at most 3-4 years old, and we continue saying it every morning for
the rest of our lives In other words, its not some radio show in the morning like Rick
Dees that one wakes up to, but Modeh Ani Lefanecha! Now, based on my personal
experience with the Shing Yi morning breath work, I reasoned that there was probably
more to Modeh Ani than meets the eye, given its royal placement as the first thing Jews
have done for centuries when they wake up.
There is a Chassidic story told about Rabbi Abraham Yehoshua Heschel of Opt, the
ancestor of Abraham Joshua Heschel of Conservative Judaism fame. In my own words:
One day, the Opter Rebbe, as he was called, was found standing in mystical paralysis
past noon, not having said his morning prayers which should have been completed hours
before. When asked to explain his tardiness he said, I woke up this morning and
immediately started to say Modeh Ani - I acknowledge - Lefanecha - before You - but I
got stuck trying to figure out who is the I and who is the You that this statement refers
to!
Friends, this is a very deep meditation. Although the custom is to say Modeh Ani before
one washes ones hands (see the next lesson on the Hand Washing meditation), if you are
going to embark on this meditation, wash them before (a detail to which I am sure the
Opter Rebbe conformed). First, because you dont want to do this with a spirit of
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impurity (i.e. negative energy) attached to your body, and second, there is a Kabbalistic
master named Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai (see Kaf HaChaim 1:4) who cites
reliable sources to the effect that they should be washed first in any case. Also, with all
due respect for the Opter Rebbe, if you want to be in tune with the spirit of the Kabbalah
(as opposed to the holy-quirky side of Chassidism), you should get used to waking up
early in order not to miss morning prayer time if you decide to go all out on this
meditation. Of course, this only applies if there is any danger that you are going to do this
meditation for hours. In this respect there is a saying that the Sins of the righteous are
Merits for the rest of us. If only we were in such Danger of missing morning prayers,
due to our rapture in this meditation.
The meditation instruction is hopefully selfevident. As you say (preferably in Hebrew):
Modeh Ani (I acknowledge) Lefanecha (Before You), meditate deeply on
experiencing the essence of your I-ness and the essence of G-ds G-dness or You-
ness. Its that simple.
Now, as you do this, unless you are encrusted in a layer of ego that is as thick as deep
dish pizza, what you will experience is a holy melting of your I-ness into G-ds You-
ness. It will begin to dawn on you that your sense of independent existence is an illusion
and that your true sense of identity and existence is utterly rooted in and is being
mystically born anew every moment from G-d. You will realize that what you call your
I is really Nothing and that you are more like a flowing, inter-dependent spiritual
process than a Freudian ego-object.

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If you carefully look at the word Ani, it is composed of the letters Aleph-Nun-Yod.
Using a basic Kabbalistic technique called Tzeruf - Permutation, the order of this
particular combination of letters can be switched to read Aleph-Yod-Nun, which spells
Ayin, the Hebrew mystical term for Nothingness. So this morning meditation is a
movement from I-ness to Nothing-ness - this being the portal to experiencing G-d
and ones higher Jewish Self or Judah Nature.
This Shing Yi morning breath that I learned from Stuart cultivates what Kabbalah calls
the level of Nefesh - the primal life-force aspect of soul - first thing in the morning.
The Kabbalists are more interested in having us cultivate awareness of the true I - the
level of soul called Neshamah (Heavenly Soul, Divine Breath) first thing in the morning.
This is a general pattern of distinction between Kabbalah and many Eastern paths.
Kabbalah usually works from the top down while others often but not always work from
the bottom up.
In order to do Modeh Ani, we have to empty our ego, connect consciously with G-d, and
desire to be in harmony with His Will. This is spelled out pretty clearly in the actual
sentence structure of the Modeh Ani. Again, we say:
Mo-deh Ani (I acknowledge) Le-fan-e-cha (Before You) Me-lech Chai Ve-Ka-yam (O
Living and Sustaining King) She-he-che-zar-ta Bi (That You Have Restored Within Me)
Nishmati (My Heavenly Soul) Be-Chem-lah (With Compassion). Raba E-mu-na-te-cha
(Great Is Your Faithfulness).

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Besides I and You (G-d), we have My Heavenly Soul. So the question is: Who is
speaking? If I am I, then who is My Soul? But the answer should be obvious. My I, who
is the little conscious ego with which I normally identify, is talking to G-d and thanking
Him for restoring within me the Neshamah, the Higher Soul that connects me to Him. By
saying this, I am emptying my little i and making it a vessel and a conduit for the light
of my Soul. This is the essence of Jewish waking up, not only from physical sleep, but
from the deep spiritual amnesia that characterizes much of human existence on this
planet. Good Morning!

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Lesson 6--Elevating Consciousness: The Power of One's
Hands in Kabbalah
Having shared with you a taste of the power of the Hebrew Letters in the first lesson, I
want to now share with you a taste of the power of the Hebrew Hands. Before I take you
through the Kabbalistic morning ritual of hand washing and meditation for this purpose, I
want to share with you some anecdotes of my journey of discovering the power of the
hands in Kabbalah.
My first awakening to the power of the hands came when I was approximately 18 years
old. I had just dropped out of a Modern Orthodox Jewish high school for Americans in
Israel, this being the 5th high school that I had attended in my highly abortive so-called
education. So upon having the privilege of dropping out of high school I ended up in
Yeshivat Aish Hatorah (literally, Fire of Torah) of Jerusalem. Aish, as it is called for
short, is an Orthodox adult Jewish outreach/education institution. I was turned on to it by
a Kabbalah lecture on the mysticism of the Hebrew Letters by one of their avant-garde
teachers, Gedaliah Gurfein. Aish Hatorah and I were not a marriage made in heaven,
although one of my claims to fame is that I was the youngest person at the time ever
admitted.
I grew up in a Modern-Orthodox Jewish home, my father and grandfather both being
ordained rabbis who went ultimately into different professions. My grandfather moved on
to kosher catering and retired to Israel; my father went into clinical psychology. My
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grandfather is of the old school of Judaism; he studies Talmud daily and can count the
times he has missed Mincha (the afternoon prayer service which people are prone to
miss) on one hand. He doesnt quite understand or appreciate me but I try to tailor
whatever I can from my life to give him some nachat (satisfaction) on those rare
occasions when we meet. My grandfather wants to hear that I pray three times a day with
Tallit and Tefillin, learn the Torah portion every week with Rashi commentary, etc.
Basically, he wants to be assured that I am an unassuming simple person who goes about
their business, gets married, has kids and is a good observant Jew, i.e. a mirror image of
him. He does not relate, due to his own personality and cultural upbringing, to people
who have more of a tempestuous and colorful relationship with G-d.
My father is also counted among the Ultra-Traditionalists of Judaism, despite an M.A. in
English Literature and a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology. He is a very educated, sensitive
and committed Jew who has a lot of wisdom, but again, we are as different as Mozart and
Beethoven. My dad has that mathematical quality of a Mozart, whereas I was born with
the more intense qualities of a Beethoven. (Note: The analogy is meant to be limited to
musical style not sexual proclivities.) Sometimes I wonder what these folks did do get me
as a family member, but then again I think I am living out their unexpressed longings. So
the big questions are, how come I am writing this really off the wall course and didnt
make it as a graduate of Yeshiva University, the bastion of Modern Orthodoxy, like my
Dad? And why am I not a Modern Orthodox lawyer married to a girl from New York
which was my assumed destiny? (If you know please tell my mother)
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Well, at the age of 10, my parents decided to get divorced, and not having ever seeing
them even disagree, you can imagine that it was quite traumatic. To say the least, the
experience shattered my trust in authority figures (probably for the best) forever. I went,
in a very short time, from being this pure, happy, religious kid who was considering
going to the Ultra Orthodox Jewish school in town, to a rebel with a cause. I went from
memorizing Mishnayot (Oral Laws) and participating in Beracha (Blessing) Bee
Contests, to memorizing rock songs. My cause became getting a girlfriend, having sex
and being good looking, not in any particular order. In other words, I was desperate to try
to find some self-esteem from wherever I could get it. To make a long story short, after
many years of frustration and having finally attained my goal of repeated coital orgasm, I
started to wake up to the other meanings of life. Sex was good but not all that it was
made out to be.
It was then that I trucked into Aish Hatorah. Not that Aish Hatorah is into practicing
asexual Judaism (at least for married couples), but after I got disillusioned with my
version of the American dream, Aish Hatorahs Jewish dream became, for the first time,
a real option.
At first, they basically left me alone, giving me the space I needed to study, which I did,
day and night. I was drawn especially to Torah philosophical works and works on self-
development, making up, I suppose, for all those years in school where we learned
What and How but not really Why. After a while, I discovered the treasures of
Chasidut and Kabbalah, of which, the more I read, the more fascinated I became. And
then, like a kid who sneaks into the kitchen to get some cookies from the cookie jar, I got
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caught (so to speak). Hearing that I was getting interested in such things (mysticism!),
my rabbis tried to convince me that it was time to learn Talmud. Not being able to
appreciate what I considered at the time the seemingly overly legalistic side of Judaism,
that was the beginning of the end of my stay at Aish Hatorah.
It was around this time that I succumbed to the self-imposed neurotic delusion that I
should be getting married despite the fact that I was extremely young. I went to see a
Kabbalistic palm reader named Rabbi Abraham Meshi Zahav of Jerusalem to get some
advice from heaven on the subject. He was a very devout man with a large family to
whom many people would come for advice on all kinds of life problems. It was a short
visit. He took some basic information, looked at my right hand and asked me what I was
doing in life and what I was interested in knowing. Upon scrutinizing the lines in my
palm with a magnifying glass he told me that I loved to sing and that I would be a good
doctor. Looking back on the last ten years, his words were prophetic, although at the
time I couldnt figure out why this Ultra Orthodox rabbi was telling me to go to college.
In addition, didnt he have more important things to tell me than that I liked to sing?
After all, who doesnt? However, he was the Kabbalist and I was the customer, so in this
business the Kabbalist is always right. Little did I know that I was about to become a
disciple of the master Jewish spiritual teacher, composer and singer of the 20 th century,
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Nor did I have any idea that I would, a near decade later, have
the privilege of learning Kabbalistic Healing from a Traditional Kabbalist. Not being a
Prophet, I left feeling somewhat jealous that my friend Mark Shaknow was told that he
was the reincarnation of a King in Ancient Israel! Live and learn.

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Around that time, in Tzfat, I met an Orthodox woman palm reader who told me that I had
been fated for divorce but had averted the decree by becoming religious. First she showed
me a break in a line in my hand and then how it had been repaired. Looking back I am
skeptical myself of this reading but who knows? Regardless, this was definitely
interesting and added a sense of excitement to my many hours of study.
My grandfather had a tradition that we were related to the Baal Shem Tov the founder of
the Chasidic mystical revival movement in the 18 th century (although, as you can see
from my profile of him, he had no interest in telling me this). I had heard in Jerusalem
that the Baal Shem Tov once said, There will come a generation where a person who in
Kabbalistic fashion ritualistically washes their hands in the morning will be as rare as
me. Well this is the time if any! I invite you to join the club. We need more mini Baal
Shem Tovs and Shem Tovettes in the world.
The Ritual
First of all, lets look at the entire hand-washing ritual as a whole. In the morning, when
we wake up, we wash twice. The first washing takes place after immediately saying the
Modeh Ani. We have two, preferably large ritual cups filled with water by our bed, along
with a basin to pour the water into. So I suggest you go to a Jewish Bookstore or Judaica
Shop and buy two ritual hand-washing cups and one bowl or basin into which to pour the
water. If this is not realistic, use what you have. Most of what I have to say revolves
around this all important first washing. After this first washing we go about our morning
bathroom ritual, relieving ourselves, washing our face, brushing our teeth, etc., followed
by getting dressed and putting on shoes. We now wash again a second time, preferably at
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a kitchen sink or any other sink that does not share space with a toilet. It is after this
second washing (see below for details) that we raise our hands to eye level or higher and
recite the blessing Al Netilat Yadayim [On the elevating of the hands].
Getting Out of Bed
The ideal Kabbalistic practice is to wash your hands while still in bed, even more ideal
before your feet touch the floor. Hence, you need 2 cups and a bowl by the side of your
bed. Certainly, if this is too difficult or if you forget, or if it disturbs your spouse, you
may also walk to the nearest sink to wash. If this sink is more than 8 feet away, though, it
is suggested that you break your walk into 4 feet intervals, pause, and continue on.
So, ideally speaking, fill the two cups with water the night before while holding them
with your right hand, place them by your bed, and cover them with the bowel you are
going to use to pour the water into. Have in mind that the full cup is blessed i.e. full,
while the empty bowl/basin is cursed i.e. empty.
Now, assuming you prepared the water by your bedside the night before, start by picking
up the filled cup in your right hand. If in the kitchen or bathroom, hold the cup in your
right hand and fill it from the tap. In either case, always begin with the right and only
then transfer the cup to the left to pour enough water to cover every inch of your right
hand from the wrist bone down on both sides. Now transfer the cup to your right hand
and pour over your left hand in the same way. With this, you have completed one full
circuit.
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The idea behind this particular right-left dynamic is that the process of cleansing and
elevation is always Initiated From Above from the Right Side of Overflowing Love. (All
the above capitalized words are key Kabbalistic code-words.) The left side, which
embodies the concept of Strict, Measured Judgment and Awakening From Below, then
serves the right side. This is done by having the left hand pour water on the right hand
first.
This idea of the left serving the right is so strong that, according to the Ben Ish Chai
(Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad), the right hand should not even receive the cup directly
from the left hand. The left hand should rather set the cup down and let the right hand
pick it up independently to then pour on the left hand. The idea again is that the left
serves the right and not vice versa. If the right hand would take the cup from the left, this
would imply that the left hand was compelling the right hand to pour water on it, i.e.
serve it. This problem is overcome by having the left hand set the cup down. The right
hand then picks the cup up as the free-willed gesture of a master, not the forced servitude
of a servant.
This entire right-left-right dynamic also embodies the basic Kabbalistic idea in which
evil/impure/cursed (left) is seen as serving the good/pure/blessed (right). These
nuances, while they might seem a total nuisance at first, are what being a Kabbalist is
all about, namely having a sensitivity to divine patterns and harmonizing with them. The
Kabbalists dont have a Tea ceremony like the Japanese, so here is your chance.
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Although most people perform this alternating washing ritual 3 times, again according to
Iraqi Kabbalistic tradition recorded by the Ben Ish Chai it is done 5 times. Therefore I
suggest doing this 5 times altogether in this alternating fashion. The reasoning behind this
Iraqi Kabbalistic tradition of 5 times is that the first pouring gets the hands moist so the
following water will smoothly descend over the entire hand. The second, third and fourth
pourings are the actual washing, and the final rinse is to remove the water poured on. I
realize that it is not environmentally correct, nonetheless this is the practice.
Dry your hands, relieve yourself, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed, and after
putting on your shoes, wash your hands again, three times according to all opinions in the
same alternating fashion.
Now, however, before drying them, keep your hands level after washing them, the idea
being that we do not want the energy to go down. The next aspect of the ritual is to wring
your hands from the wrist bone down three times consecutively each hand. Simply, first
grab your right hand at the wrist bone with your left hand and firmly do a brush stroke
three times. After the right hand do the left hand and keep the hands level until you raise
them. This practice is called Shifshuf, if that somehow motivates you to learn this. There
are Kabbalistic meditations for each movement but that is the subject of another
reincarnation.
Do not dry your hands yet. Rather, raise them up. In addition, bring your elbows as close
together as possible. Ideally, the same applies to the inside of the forearms. If you can
have them touch, wonderful.

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Bring your wrists together, with both your palms and your fingers separated and hands
raised to eye level or higher. Relax! You have arrived. Now close your eyes and become
aware of your hands and fingers as open vessels and conduits for receiving G-ds energy
and purity. Do this for 2-4 minutes and then make the following blessing.
Baruch Atah Adonai Elohenu Blessed are You, Lord our G-d,
Melech HaOlam King of the universe
Asher Kideshanu BiMitzvotav Who sanctifies us with His commandments
VeTzivanu and commanded us
Al Netilat Yadayim. regarding the elevation of the hands.
As you might have noted in the translation of the blessing Al Netilat Yadayim, Netilah
doesnt mean Washing, but rather Elevating (the Hands), as per the verse, VayiNatlem
VayiNassem - He elevated them and He carried them aloft (Isaiah 23:9). The reason it
is always translated washing or rinsing is because we do not raise our hands up
without first washing them. Netilah thus refers both to the act of washing the hands as
well as lifting them up afterwards.
Here is the next level. The word for hand in Hebrew is Yad (spelled Yod-Dalet). You
probably have two of them. Yod (10) and Dalet (4). is 14; 14 x 2 = 28, the numerical
value for the word Koach (Khaf = 20, Hhet = 8), strength in English. In other words,
this practice is meant to give you strength. You can meditate on these Gematriot
(number-letter equivalencies and combinations). Visualize the word Yad in Hebrew by
your right hand and then think of the number 14; do the same with the left, and then in
between, visualize the word Koach with the number 28. This is a good preparation for the
actual Kabbalistic meditation and blessing, which does involve visualization of divine
names among much else.

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Remember, we mentioned the spirit of impurity that rests on our hands when we are
asleep. I want you to see inside a Kabbalistic text which explains why you go through
this (certainly at first) rigorous ordeal every morning. The classical authorities say that it
is because your soul is returning to your body in the morning and you are like a newborn.
Another, more prosaic reason is that you might have touched various parts of your body
while asleep, and they now require purification. Along the same lines, we are to see
ourselves like a Jewish Priest of old who washed his hands before temple service. These
are all legitimate interpretations. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (18th century), arguably
one of the greatest and youngest Kabbalists ever to live, had this to say:
Behold, at night, the forces of impurity are given dominion, as the verse attests, You
make darkness and bring on night, when all the beasts of the forest stir, when young lions
roar for prey (Psalms 104:20). The reason for this is that nighttime is associated with
Din [Judgment]. It is therefore the time that the forces of the Sitra Achra [Side of
Otherness, Evil], whose job it is to implement divine judgment, take strength and are
allowed to attach themselves to the Kedushah [Side of Holiness] and suck energy from it.
It is for this reason that, before anything else in the morning, one must remove the Sitra
Achra from all the places that it might have lodged. This is in order to insure that it will
not interfere [or attempt to enter where it is not allowed], later, when we elevate the
worlds up to their supernal roots in the Morning Prayer Service. This [removal and
further prevention of interference] is accomplished by four physical acts: Washing the
hands, Tzitzit, Hand Tefillin, Head Tefillin...

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The initials of the words Al Netilat Yadayim [Ayin-Nun-Yod] spell the word Oni [Poor
One, referring to the lowest Sefirah, Malchut, and the lowest world, Asiyah/Physical
Creation]... Afterwards, the hands are raised to the level of the head, in order to return the
Chasadim [the forces of Divine Love represented in the Water] to their root after having
done their work. The Kelipot [shells, forces of the Sitra Achra] can now no longer suck
any energy from there. (Ramchal Kitzur Kavanot, p.3)
As for why the core washing consists of three alternate pourings, the Ari (the G-dly
Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, 16th century) had this to say:
Do not pour three times consecutively over each hand, rather pour on each hand in
alternating strokes. It is only thus that the spirit of impurity that rests on the hands at
night, and which is called Shivta Bat Melech [Princess Shivta], is removed. Otherwise
she is wont to jump from the hand that is being washed to the other, and then back again.
By alternating the pourings, however, her grasp on the hands becomes weaker each time,
until she is entirely removed. (Shaar Hakavanot p.1d)
In light of all the above, the Kabbalists state emphatically to not, under any conditions,
before washing your hands, touch your eyes, ears, nose, mouth or any body orifice. If you
need to rub your eyes or scratch your nose, use your PJs or your sheet (Kabbalists do not
sleep naked by the way). Also do not, under any conditions, touch bare food or liquid
before washing. If you touch liquid, it must be thrown out; if you touch food, fruit for
instance, it must be peeled or the part you touched must be cut off, and the remainder
washed three times with a cup. So avoid problems and wash hands first.
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The reason for these stringencies is that sleep is said to be one-sixtieth of death. Yes, in a
very deep way, when we sleep, we are tasting death. With the loss of consciousness, part
of our soul leaves us and it is as if we have died. This is why waking up in the morning is
likened to coming back to life after having tasted the death of sleep.
According to Jewish teachings, a dead body becomes a carrier for a highly concentrated
degree of spiritual impurity. Kabbalistically, this is because, in the absence of the soul
(which is pure), an impure spiritual force comes to suck off whatever life-force is left.
This is why, according to the Zohar, one who comes into contact with a corpse becomes
spiritually unclean and must undergo an entire seven-day process of purification.
Of course, as we said, sleep is only one-sixtieth of death, and therefore the spiritual
impurity that results from sleep is nowhere near that of death. Nevertheless, a certain
spirit of impurity is said to dwell on the body (and especially on certain parts of the body,
i.e. the extremities, fingers and hands) while we sleep, and it is this spirit which must be
banished before we start our day. We therefore take the greatest cleansing agent in the
world, H20, and use it to wash away this spirit of impurity so that we can begin our day
on the right foot, in a state of purity and holiness.
This lesson has been an important introduction into the path of Kabbalah. It is not just
about ideas, meditation or practice as independent domains, but all three as a unified
whole. What I have found is that the hands that prepare the water by the bedside (even
though you are tired), are the hands that are going to benefit most by virtue of ones
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sincerity from the meditation. This is the ultimate Power of the hands in Kabbalah -
even in California.
The Halachot of the Ben Ish Chai (see section on hand washing), Hacham Yosef
Chaim, Ahavat Shalom, Available through your local religious book seller or Mekor
Books
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Lesson 7--Spiritual Batteries: Tefillin as Meditation
My first initiation into wearing Tefillin came when I was 12 years old and I began
practicing how to put them on a year before my Bar Mitzvah.
Tefillin are a set of two specially treated leather boxes that are painted black and strapped
to the arm and head. Each box contains carefully prepared strips of parchment inscribed
with specific passages from the Torah. G-ds Four-Letter Name appears in these passages
a specific number of times. It is these passages and these Names that make Tefillin holy.
In English, Tefillin are called Phylacteries, a Greek word that is completely foreign to
modern man. It is for this reason that I have renamed them Spiritual Batteries.
I remember looking forward to wearing Tefillin and being adult in this respect and I
respected their sanctity and treated them with reverence. My grandfather and
grandmother bought me my Tefillin from Jerusalem where they lived then and still live
today. My grandmother skillfully sewed me my own bag to carry them. I still have those
original Tefillin and the bag my grandmother made.
However, my affinity for my Tefillin became a casualty of my rebellion, a rebellion that
has lingered with me perhaps till today (I guess it depends who you ask). Or perhaps the
question is whether my rebellion is and was a holy rebellion or not.

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I have gone through periods during which putting on Tefillin seemed oppressive and
threatening to my ego. My ego has a sensitivity to spirituality in general. This was
particularly true when I started doing psychotherapy and was letting out my anger and
grief from the past.
The first psychotherapy I did is called Riechian-Bioenergetics. The basic novelty of this
therapy, first developed by Dr. Wilhelm Reich an anti-Nazi German, was that feelings
like anger, grief, sexuality and joy are repressed in the body musculature. While in
Freudian psychology, the unconscious is completely mental, for Dr. Reich, the storehouse
for the Freudian unconscious is the body. Once this axiom was clinically verified by Dr.
Reich, the technique followed, which is that through breathing, body work and specific
psychological techniques like shouting, hitting and kicking (a pillow), one can bring them
to the surface much more quickly and release them more fully than through mere talk
therapy. Dr. Alexander Lowen, an American psychiatrist, made an art form of exercises
and methods that assist in catharsis and therapeutic work and further developed Reichs
thought. At any rate, the normal analytic work follows, once the body work has let the
repressed material out of the closet.
In undergoing this powerful therapy process, I developed an overt rebellion in place of
the covert one which previously was being actively concealed by my depression and
overeating. I came to see that I was depressing myself in order to avoid the power of my
feelings of anger, rage and grief. In my rebellion and letting out much of the pain of my
lower self, Tefillin, which I associated with the past, became a problem.
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Tefillin put me in touch with my higher self for reasons you will soon see. Therapy, on
the other hand, was geared toward getting me in touch with my lower self, which felt
very repressed. I was like a seesaw. On Shabbat, when Tefillin are not worn, I was happy
to be in my higher self, the part that wants to connect with G-d, because it was natural
and easy to connect with G-d on Shabbat. During the week, when Tefillin are worn, it
was harder because my lower self (ego) was much stronger and I was not in the mood to
surrender. Certainly, all the anger and grief I was tuning into did not help matters.
Tefillin for me were a Should and that was becoming a bad word in my vocabulary.
It has only been in the last year that I have come to a place with wearing Tefillin wherein
that which I once met with resistance and perceived as a threat I now value as a necessity
for my existence and a very nourishing practice. On a day when Tefillin are supposed to
be worn I literally cannot go without putting on Tefillin and be minimally balanced
spiritually.
I am reminded of a story of a rabbi who was asked, If your house was burning down,
which two objects would you rescue? My Tefillin and Siddur (prayerbook), he
answered. I am approaching this level of connection with my Tefillin. There is a spiritual
teaching of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov that talks about distance serving the function of
closeness. That is the story with me and my Tefillin. How I came to this reversal of
attitude is a long and complex story. Here is one piece of the puzzle.
Having had some experience with Buddhist, Yogic and Taoist Meditation on an
introductory level, I had been thinking about various different forms of Jewish meditation
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that might compete in the spiritual seekers arena and yet that are utterly rooted in Jewish
tradition.
One day it hit me that Tefillin are a meditation - not some off the wall meditation that I
made up in my own head but real Jewish meditation. I confirmed this intuition when I
went back to the basic Halachah (that is, the legal directives) about wearing Tefillin. To
my amazement I found many of the laws to be meditation instructions. Further, when I
looked at the effects ascribed to the wearing of Tefillin and how Tefillin are perceived in
the mystical literature, I was blown away at the explicit understanding of Tefillin as an
object that is a focus of ones meditation.
Here is a list of explicit meditation instructions I found by just a cursory review of the
laws of Tefillin:
Meditation Instruction #1
With Tefillin on your arm (near your heart) and on your head (near your brain), you are
supposed to maintain constant Awareness that you are wearing them. As I said, Tefillin
contain passages with Divine Names. When you wear Tefillin, you are thus emulating the
High Priest of ancient Israel who wore a divine name on a gold plate on his forehead.
This language of Maintaining Awareness of ones Tefillin is not my translation or
interpretation based on New Age or Eastern influence. This is the actual language of the
classical rabbis. In Hebrew, the term is Daat, which means knowledge, awareness or
consciousness. The law in the Talmud specifically states that you may not, while
wearing Tefillin, be Maysiach Daat which means literally to have a lapse or

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interruption in consciousness. Please take note that Tefillin, based on where they are
worn, address the body, heart and mind.
The idea of not forgetting that you are wearing Tefillin is not to sit around and constantly
think to yourself, I am wearing Tefillin. This would take away from your ability to
engage in other spiritual activities. Rather, the rabbis, who were mystics of the first order,
were alluding to a subtle awareness of the sensation of the holy that Tefillin convey.
So, while in Buddhist Mindfulness one, for example, maintains awareness on the
sensation of ones breath as it goes in and out of the nostrils, Tefillin Meditation involves
maintaining awareness of the sensation of holiness or G-dliness that Tefillin attune to and
channel into your being.
At certain points in prayer (or at regular intervals if they are worn throughout the day) we
are instructed to touch the Tefillin on the arm (near the heart) and on the head. The
exoteric reason is so that you do not forget that you have them on. But you are already
not supposed to forget! Have you ever had a meditation teacher come and touch you to
bring you back to your meditation while you are meditating? From my understanding and
experience this is not unusual. In my view, an additional reason for those more
meditatively advanced is that touching the Tefillin is like twidling an inserted
Acupuncture needle on a meridian point. It amplifies the energy.

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When wearing Tefillin one needs to maintain purity of thought and body. If your mind is
very attached to ego-based thoughts, you are not allowed to wear Tefillin. Likewise, if
you have diarrhea or gas, you may not wear them.
Tefillin are meant to be worn all day (analogous to a meditation retreat) except when
going to the bathroom, working or dealing with mundane matters. In past generations
(and even today) some people who devote themselves to the Jewish spiritual path
(learning, prayer, meditation, education, etc.) wear Tefillin all day. What constitutes
mundane is somewhat relative. There is a Midrash that teaches that the ancient Israelites
would go to battle wearing Tefillin (Shir HaShirim Rabba 4:5).
Here is a list of teachings that further enhance our understanding of Tefillin as a
Meditation:
1) Black leather straps are attached to the Tefillin in order to bind them to our arm and
head. The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chasidic movement, taught that the straps that
bind the Tefillin to the body serve the function of keeping one attached to ones body.
Tefillin put one in touch with a great light. It is very tempting to ascend into the light and
not want to come back. The straps are a reminder to bring the light down.
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2) The consciousness that is produced by wearing Tefillin is very special. This
consciousness brings longevity of life, humility, awe of G-d and respect for and from
others. This can be seen as a result of a person living from a place of their higher self.
3) There are actually two genres of Tefillin, the difference being the order in which the
four passages from the Torah are placed inside the boxes. One order is called Rashi,
which corresponds, according to the Arizal, to the Sefirah of Binah (Understanding) or
the soul-level of Neshamah (Higher Self). The other order is called Rabbenu Tam,
corresponding to the Sefirah of Chochmah (Wisdom) or Spirit. Although the orders are
named after Rabbis who lived during the Middle Ages, the orders themselves are seen as
being very ancient as modern archeology has confirmed. It is for this reason that
Kabbalistic tradition states that both must be worn. In order to fulfill this directive,
Kabbalists wear smaller versions of both pairs of Tefillin at the same time. Chasidim
wear one pair first (Rashi) and the second pair after that. In addition, the Kabbalists wear
a special third pair of Tefillin during the afternoon prayer. All this attention to different
kinds of Tefillin points to different dimensions of consciousness that these different
Tefillin put one in touch with through meditating with them. Just as different meditations
techniques will give you different experiences that are all meditative, so too with Tefillin.
4) The days in which Tefillin are not worn are usually days where an alternative spiritual
nourishment is found like the Sabbath and Festivals. Tefillin are not worn at the very
beginning of the mourning cycle because one is not considered able to receive the
nourishment they offer at that time. Teffilin are not worn at night because night, as we
saw in the last chapter is a time of judgment and restricted consciousness.

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5) All Tefillin must be made in a certain way. The differences between the different types
of Tefillin mentioned above will only involve style and size, not the basic rules that make
Tefillin what they are. Thus, if you take any box of Head Tefillin, you will see that it has
a letter Shin that sticks out of it in relief on both sides. The two Shins on each side of
the Head Tefillin are slightly different. One is a three-headed Shin, and one a four-
headed Shin. The three-headed Shin represents the limits of consciousness in the pre-
messianic era. The four-headed Shin represents the expanded consciousness that will be
available in the messianic era. One is to look at these two Shins - first the three-headed
Shin and then the four headed Shin, before putting the head Tefillin on. One is also to
kiss both Tefillin after taking them off in appreciation of the consciousness received.
7) Tefillin can be worn by Jewish men or women but not by Gentiles. The basic reason
for excluding Gentiles is that Tefillin reverberate the essence of Jewish spiritual
consciousness and the Gentiles have their own paths.
8) Tefillin are made by sacred artisans and scribes for the specific sake of doing G-ds
will. The consciousness of these scribes and artisans permeate the Tefillin, and hence
they are dedicated to the holy from the beginning.
Given all the above, it is certainly within the realm of reason to consider Tefillin an
object that one meditates with. I am curious if there are other cultures where one focuses
ones Awareness on the sensation produced by objects that one wears on ones body.
Once you have procured a pair of Kosher Tefillin and learned how to put them on (see
recommended reading), you may meditate with them as follows:

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Phase #1
The initial phase of meditation with Tefillin is to become aware of the sensation
produced by the head and/or heart Tefillin and to focus your awareness on that sensation
letting go of any other thought. This sensation of the holy can connect one with G-d who
is the source for all that is holy.
Phase #2
Once you have developed a sense of awareness of these sensations and cultivated your
concentration skills, allow these sensations to permeate your entire being very slowly.
Allow your heart and mind to become transformed with G-dliness.
Phase #3
Increase the power of these spiritual sensations by attuning your awareness to the
spiritual power concentrated in the Tefillin boxes. Visualize the sacred parchment with
the divine name of YHVH inscribed on it. Tune into the fact that the Head and Heart
Tefillin are a channel for G-ds Light. Experience or imagine at first a ray of light
flowing into your Head and Heart Tefillin, and through them into your brain and heart,
permeating your being. You can do this one at a time or simultaneously.

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Phase #4
Touch the Head and/or Heart Tefillin and have the intention of amplifying and
transmitting the energy even more powerfully into your entire being. Do this for a few
minutes and then go back to phase one and start all over, going deeper and deeper.
I have called Tefillin Spiritual Batteries. The Tikuney Zohar (159a) has this to say about
Tefillin: A man wearing Tefillin is enveloped by the supernal mind, and the divine
presence does not depart from him. The Zohar (3:81a) teaches that, The man who
wears Tefillin is crowned as on high. He enters the perfection of Unity, and so resembles
his Creator. I would add that this would apply not just for men but for women as well.
Relating to Tefillin as Spiritual Batteries may sound very Californian. It does, however,
sum up what they do for me. Psychotherapy has helped me with my neurotic condition.
Judaism and Kabbalah, much more than therapy, have helped me with my human
condition. Once one makes progress from a neurotic state of consciousness to a human
one, where do you go from there? I have found that being a normal human (to the extent
that I am one) is actually just a more functional form of being empty and having more
communally acceptable forms of filling that emptiness. The Human Condition itself is a
problem, which all spiritual paths are trying to address and remedy, each in their own
way. I have found Tefillin to be the weekday Jewish remedy to human emptiness. When I
wear Tefillin, I am filled with G-dliness. My soul gets charged and then spiritually turns
on the rest of me. As a result I feel secure, full and abundant. My whole being desires to
become one with the Divine. When I do not wear Tefillin during the week, I find that I go
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grasping for the attachments of materialism and ego. I need something to fill this basic
sense of inner reaching out. Tefillin alleviates fallen human nature and helps one soothe
the grasping way of being by bathing oneself in spiritual light and energy.
Tefillin are Spiritual Batteries that we as Jewish humans need to operate and are an
essential practice when you are ready to be turned on to G-d.
Tefillin, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, NCSY/ORTHODOX UNION
Tefilin - A Chasidic Discourse, by Nathan of Breslov, A free rendition by Avraham
Greenbaum, Breslov Research Institute
Halachos Of Tefillin, Rabbi Shimon D. Eider, Feldheim Publishers

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Lesson 8--From Mindfulness to GODFULLNESS:
Exploring Shiviti Meditations
My psychotherapeutic pilgrimage from Jerusalem to California started when I was twenty
and I began to realize that I was a neurotic Jewish mystic.
At that time, my two main spiritual teachers were Rabbi Gedaliah Fleer of the Breslov
school of Chasidic teaching founded by the late Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (18th
century), and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach of blessed memory (20th century), the self styled,
eclectic Neo-Chassidic Rebbe par excellence. Both of these teachers were very deep,
powerful and nourishing, but left me feeling incomplete in terms of my own
psychological healing.
The meditative path of Rabbi Nachman involves talking to G-d for an hour a day
minimally, in ones own native language, in my case English. Ideally, this is done at
midnight, again defined in the Kabbalistic manner, and in total isolation. The real
advanced meditators in Breslov sit silently for an hour before they do the talking to G-d
part. It takes that long to get to a place called Yishuv HaDaat, the settling or silencing of
ones awareness/consciousness. To my knowledge, there are no explicit instructions
about how to attain this mental silence that are unique to the Breslov School. So far as I
was able to determine, you are just supposed to sit or stand there and be silent. Breslov
Chasidim go out into the forests, or when that option is not available, they just find a
room in which to seclude themselves.

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Rabbi Shlomo Carlebachs meditative way involved singing and dancing to G-d. When
Shlomo was alive, his Chasidim (devoted followers) together with Jews from all walks of
life who were drawn by Shlomos special way, would gather for ecstatic and joyful
communal Sabbath song and dance, and incredible teach-ins that would last well into the
night. Shlomo also had a very somber, longing-filled and heart-searching side to his
music. Typically he would go back and forth between tunes that broke ones heart and
tunes that exalted it. Now after his passing, Shlomos spirit is still alive in the growing
number of Shlomo prayer groups that are popping up in every major city in the world.
Each of these teachers had and continue to have a profound impact on my life.
Nevertheless, although they both imparted the Torah to me in a very personal and
psycho/spiritual way with an emphasis on spiritual self-development, this wasnt enough
to save me or help me find a way out of my dilemma.
On the contrary, what started to happen after three years of serious spiritual practice,
meditation and study is that when I wasnt meditating, praying, singing, dancing or
learning Torah, I was overcome by depression, and I dealt with it by eating it (for the
moment) out of my consciousness. This created a feeling of being energetically stuffed,
typically I would be fine for a day or sometimes two but then my depression process
would start up again.
Initially, I thought this was the spiritual ups and downs Rabbi Nachman taught about as
the warp and woof of spiritual life. However, I had a very deep suspicion that Rabbi
Nachman was talking about something else and that this was not a spiritual issue coming
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to the surface but a psychological one. After months of this, I called my Shrink/Dad,
from Israel and described my problem to him. He sent me a book for my birthday entitled
Current Psychotherapies by Dr. Raymond Corsini. I began reading through the chapters
and felt that I had finally found something that was addressing my issues. After three and
a half years in Israel I decided to go back home and begin the process of healing.
My first therapist was a man named Paul Bindrim Ph.D, a very seasoned therapist with
40 years experience. He was also a wild and brazenly independent man who had
originated various innovations in psychotherapy like Aqua-Energetics (Body/mind
psychotherapy in a pool). Paul worked with me with Riechian-Bioenergetics and a
California version of Gestalt therapy techniques. Doing the cathartic work I described in
the previous lessons, I started to feel better and there was now more time between each of
my depressive eating bouts.
Nevertheless, I started to freak out after about six months because I realized I was
becoming less religious as I discovered my lower self and its desire to be free. I was
going from one extreme to the other and my soul went into emergency mode. I thus quit
therapy after about six months and returned to Israel to try to heal myself with Judaism.
After a few months I realized that was not possible, given the way it is being interpreted
and practiced, and I realized that I had to be a spiritual commando by attempting to
elevate the sparks without burning my soul to a crisp. I think that, to some extent, I have
succeeded. The idea of elevating sparks is a Kabbalistic teaching that much of the evil in
the world is concealing an underlying potential good. Think of money, technology,
medicine, politics and science, and you will hopefully get the idea. I returned to work
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with Paul for a while and did Classical Gestalt group therapy with a Dr. Gary Yontef as
well. Eventually, I transferred my neurosis to Dr. Jack Haer, a therapist who added
Rolfing and a Carl Rogers person-centered approach to the picture. Jack had a similar
style but a totally different personality than Paul. Being a real therapy-devotee, I then
complemented my work with Jack with BodyMind Integration ala Cathy Triegger.
What I did find is that each therapy helped in its own way, but each was partial and
incomplete. Each was also relatively expensive. Thus, although I was nowhere near
completely healed after two years of psychological work, I was ready for a different
solution. I didnt and still do not believe in drugs (unless a person is dangerous to himself
or others), but I thought that maybe meditation would work. I had heard as much, so I
began researching the matter.
I purchased a book that analyzed current scientific research done on Meditation as
psychotherapy (or as an adjunct to psychotherapy). Based on the positive findings, I
decided that it would be very effective in either case. I went to the Bodhi Tree bookstore
(where I later worked in sales and doubled as a lay rabbi amongst numerous witches),
and got one of Ram Dasss books on Meditation. I read the instructions on Vipassana, a
form of Buddhist meditation, and started to meditate in seclusion in my room.
After about three months of doing Vipassana, I started to see real results in terms of being
able stop destructive behavior. The way Vipassana works in my understanding is to have
you stop identifying with your ego which is the source of all neurosis. You detach from
the ego and learn to recognize your true nature as that of Pure awareness or the
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Observer. This is accomplished by focusing awareness on your breath as it goes in and
out of your nostrils, letting go of any thoughts that interrupt focus. This helps you sever
the identification with your mind and thinking (along with everything else), which is
where most westerners (me included) live - often destructively. Vipassana cultivates
awareness, concentration and equanimity, and that is a lot better than what usually passes
for being human in Los Angeles. I was grateful for this financially free, and what I
thought at the time, religiously compatible, way of dealing with my neurosis. Vipassana
did not heal my ego or my neurosis, but it did help me detach functionally from acting
from it when I would meditate regularly, something I could do whenever I wanted. This
was the exact opposite of the Riechian-Bioenergetic kind of therapy that I had gone
through. There, I attached to my ego with the claim that if I only could get all these
emotions out I would someday be a healed and happy person. I just did not have the time,
patience or money to wait that long. I also could not figure out how this Riechian vision
of being healthy related to a more traditional spiritual vision of being human. I
associated health in the psycho/spiritual sense less with Riechian catharsis and the dream
of an ultimate orgasm, the success indicator of Riechian therapy, than with perspective,
egolessness and self-discipline. For the moment, therefore, meditation was exactly what I
wanted and had been looking for.
For the moment. As I began meditating more regularly and for longer periods of time, I
started getting interested in the meditation for its own sake and not just as an instrument
to help me serve G-d better by stopping me from acting out my neuroses. This led me
into the study of Buddhist thought and trying to figure out how Nirvana, the aim of
Buddhism, fit with Judaism. Before I got anywhere near answering that question,
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however, I started having difficulties with my Judaism because of my Vipassana
meditation practice.
For example, in moments of prayer I would start to hear this voice saying, Hey, what are
you doing? Youre Attached! Let go! There is a higher place! What I felt happening
was that by having modestly advanced in my Buddhist meditation, I had experienced a
different spiritual dimension than what Judaism (even Chasidic Judaism which is
devotional and monotheistic in nature) was interested in. This was before my initiation
into Kabbalah, but even after it I still feel that this dimension of Pure awareness is not
compatible with any (even mystical) Jewish aspirations.
Due to this war of aspirations I had to make a choice between my Judaism and my health
as improved through Vipassana. I chose Judaism. I do not regret this, although initially
my suffering was increased and my therapeutic process has taken longer and been
much more costly. Ultimately, what worked and is still working for me vis-a-vis neurosis
was a variety of psychotherapies like Riechian-Bioenergetics, Re-decision therapy,
Classical Gestalt therapy and Rolfing. All this, coupled with Macrobiotic and Ayurvedic
eating, exercise, marriage, Kabbalistic healing, having children, devoting myself to a
deeply nourishing Jewish Chasidic/Kabbalistic spiritual path (and lets not forget time
and hard work) has brought me some relief
So while I have dropped all forms of Eastern meditation, I have kept an eye on getting
what I got from them from my Judaism. This is why I consider myself a Californian
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Kabbalist because I am finding the Jewish parallels to what the East offers. So what is
the parallel to Mindfulness in Judaism and Kabbalah?
Surprisingly, when one opens up Orach Chaim (Way of Life) the first book of the four
section codex of Jewish Law called the Shulchan Aruch (Set Table), by the master
Sephardic Kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Caro (16th century), one is very soon greeted with a
meditation instruction added to the text by the Ashkenazi commentator Rabbi Moses
Isserles. Rabbi Caros opening words are:
Rise up in the morning like a lion to serve the Creator. Indeed, rise while it is still
dark so that you actually awaken the morning [instead of being awakened by it]!
In his gloss on Orach Chaim 1:1, Rabbi Moses Isserles writes:
Shiviti Hashem lenegdi tamid - I place G-d before me at all times! (Psalms
16:8) [that is, one should visualize the Four-Letter Name of G-d in his minds eye
at all times]. This is a great overriding rule of Torah observance, and [one of the
essential] devotional practices of the righteous tzadikim who walk before G-d at
all times [i.e. who live with a constant awareness of G-ds Presence in all aspects
of their lives].
For a persons sitting, movings and dealings when he is alone in his house are not
like his sitting, movings and dealings when in the presence of a great king.
Similarly, his speech and informal conversation in the presence of the members of
his household and his relatives are different than the way he conducts himself and
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speaks when in a royal palace. This must be all the more true when a person
realizes that the Great King, the Blessed Holy One Himself, stands above him and
sees all his actions, as it is written (Jeremiah 23:24), Can a man hide in secret
places, that I not see him? says G-d. Do I not fill heaven and earth?
Regarding the visualization of the Four-Letter Name, the 20th century commentary on
the above code by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan HaCohen entitled Mishnah Berurah (Clear
Teaching), has this to say:
Visualize in your minds eye at all times how you are standing before the Blessed
Name, for the radiant glory of the Blessed Holy One fills the entire world. It is
also written in the name of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria), that one should visualize
the Name YHVH constantly before his eyes with the vowelpoints of the word
Yirah (Awe), namely, Chirik, Shva, Kamatz. This is the mystery of the verse,
Shiviti Hashem lenegdi tamid - I place G-d before me at all times! and it is a
powerful aid in experiencing true Awe.
The above meditation can be done in the following ways. Look at the first two as theme
and the second two as variations:

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Meditation #1 - Shiviti Hashem Lenegdi Tamid
Close your eyes and become aware that you are in G-ds Presence. Since G-d is not a
thing or a concept, this is essentially a meditation on Ayin (Nothingness) - which is not
G-d but one of the highest ways of experiencing Him - beyond any Attribute, Name or
Concept. When you try to get a sense of G-d, everything else that comes to mind must be
blanked out. This makes Ayin-Nothingness Meditation much more difficult than focusing
awareness on your breath. It is very understandable how the experience of ones breath is
easier to handle than that of G-d. Nevertheless, this is the main meditation to use to refine
your Sense of G-d. After meditating on Nothingness for a while, one starts to
experience ones sense of G-d more deeply and for longer periods of time.
This Shiviti meditation achieves everything Mindfulness does within a Judaic context of
there being One G-d and of us being human beings with divine souls living on this earth
plane in harmony with the Divine Will. Shiviti, as this meditation is called, fosters
Awareness of G-d, and, in a nullified state, awareness of ones higher self (Neshamah),
concentration and equanimity. Shiviti also smoothly leads to the observance of the Torah
whereas with Mindfulness the raft tends to float towards Buddhism and/or a Buddhist
interpretation/revision of Judaism and Kabbalah. The wise will understand.
Of course, Buddhist Mindfulness and Jewish Shiviti are similar in that they both help
you detach from your ego. The point I want to emphasize is that Shiviti Meditation has
provided me with what Vipassana did in relation to helping me go beyond my ego and its
neurotic style in a Judaicly congruent way.

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Meditation #2
The above meditation is probably very hard to do for many, certainly without meditative
background, so the second way might be more accessible.
Level I Visualize the Four-Letter Name YHVH in black letters.

Level II Visualize the same Name with the vowel points from the word in
Hebrew for Awe referring to awe of G-d. The Chirik goes under the
Yod, the Sheva goes under the Reish and the Kamatz goes under the
Aleph.
It will take a while to be able to hold this Name in your minds eye, so be patient and
keep coming back to the visualization, letting go of all thoughts. As above, you are
working here to become aware of G-ds Presence through the medium of His Ineffable
Name. After you do this for a while, you will be having G-ds Name color your life.
Awe of G-d is the most perfect complement to Love. It is like the necessary respect
each partner in a couple has to have for the other so that the love between them will
remain long lasting and meaningful.
Meditation #3
Visualize the four letter name of G-d YHVH in black letters as before, without vowels.
Then understand that: The Yod is a mirror of your spiritual connection to G-d. Focus on
this letter and see if it communicates with you on any issues relating to your spiritual
connection to G-d.
The first Heh is a mirror of your intellectual connection with G-d. Focus on this letter and
see if it communicates to you on any issues relating to your mind, thoughts or fantasies.
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The Vav is a mirror of your emotional connection to G-d. Focus on this letter and see if it
communicates to you on any issues relating to your emotional life, relationships and
character vis-a-vis your divine service.
The final Heh is a mirror of your physical connection to G-d. Focus on this letter and see
if it communicates with you on any issues relating to your actions or your body vis-a-vis
divine service.
If you do this right (unless you are a saint) you are going to see that a given letter or
letters are harder to picture than the others. This itself is a communication. The
communication beyond that is psychic; it is probably not going to be some booming
voice. This is a Name of G-d; it is not an English word. It is therefore alive with the spirit
of G-d and can be a vessel for G-d to communicate with you if you are open and sincere
as it says is Psalms, The secret of YHVH is with those who are in awe of Him (Psalms
25:14).
This is a meditation based on the G-dly Rabbi Isaac Lurias teachings. I have found it
very valuable as a method of checking myself spiritually. Whenever I am in doubt about
my situation, I visualize the Name and it clues me in almost immediately.
Meditation #4
Interlace the Four-Letter Name of YHVH with the letters of your first Hebrew name.
Example: DVD (David) intertwined with YHVH: YDHVVDH

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Example: MRDChY (Mordechai) intertwined with YHVH: YMHRVDHChY
Example: MRYM (Miriam) intertwined with YHVH: YMHRVYHM
Example: YChBD (Yocheved) intertwined with YHVH: YYHChVBHD
Know that the Blessed Name encompasses your name (your essence) - which is the
whole idea of the meditation. You can focus on this visualization as a means of purifying
your consciousness and being. This meditation is found in the writings of the Sefardic
mystic Rabbi Yoseph Chaim of Baghdad (19th century), based on the writings of the G-
dly Rabbi Isaac Luria.
Body Position
Eastern meditation techniques are best suited to Eastern mystical aims, and Jewish
meditation techniques are best suited to Jewish ones. The same applies to body positions.
The Lotus position and its variations work great for Yoga or the equivalent in Buddhist
meditation practice, but neither in my experience are suitable for Shiviti Meditations.
To experience why, ask yourself this question: What would I feel and what
corresponding body position would I assume if G-d in His Infinite Essence revealed
himself to me right now? More likely than not, you would sense the humbling and
surrender that this would engender. I have found two positions that best reflect this type
of intense humility. One is a kneeling-bowing position, this entails kneeling on the
ground on a mat with your head between your knees to the extent possible. The other is a
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full prostration involving lying on your belly with arms and legs stretched out and
forehead on the floor, as if you were prostrating yourself before a King.
You can start by sitting in a chair and letting this consciousness develop or you can take
these positions which will engender these states of consciousness. With all due respect to
synagogue pews, I do not think they are going to exist in the Third Temple. G-d is just
too powerful an experience for one to sit nicely in ones chair like that.
These meditations are both preparatory for more advanced Kabbalistic meditations and
themselves are advanced when done regularly and intensively. Estelle Frankel, a sensitive
Jewish meditation teacher in Northern California, once wisely remarked, The way I
judge any meditation is, does it make me a better person? What I have found is that
building a solid foundation in the fundamentals is the wisest way to travel. I repeatedly
come back to Estelles wise words in my meditative life. Is this practice, text or teacher
making me a better person? So Kabbalah, in this practitioners vision, is meant to be safe,
balanced and kind. After all, we are in the presence of G-d - even in California.
Conscious Community: A Guide To Inner Work, Translated with an Introduction by
Andrea Cohen-Kiener, Jason Aronson Publishers

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Lesson 9--Mikveh Immersion: Exploring Aquatic
Kabbalistic Meditations
There is a Talmudic phrase that the rabbis use when talking about esoterica of revealing
a handbreadth and concealing 2000 handbreadths. In talking about my experiences on
LSD we are going to navigate somewhere as yet undetermined in this range.
I think a good way to start is to first explain that I was never really a big drug
connoisseur. In retrospect, I am sure that this was largely a result of growing up in
Orthodox Judaism in the 1980s as opposed to growing up in Reform Judaism in the
1960s. In my own mind, however, I was initially not into drugs because women seemed
much more pleasurable than anything I imagined you could smoke. Women were not
illegal, at least by state law, and were free in some sense, if you deduct all the work and
money that goes into being with one at this fairly primitive level of consciousness. Also,
being gifted at the time with a second helping of emotional neediness, I was not going to
find my neurotic fix through pot; I didnt want a thing I wanted a Mommy. Instead, my
addictive/oral personality played itself out initially in comic/tragic high school trysts.
Later in my religious evolution, the drama unfolded in the form of wanting to get married
at the age of 18 years old. Sure, I inhaled this or that by the time I was 20, but it was
uneventful. In fact, I was so oblivious to drugs that in high school I roomed with a major
pot-head and didnt even know it! I thought his strange choice of music, late hours and
cigarette smoking accounted for whatever quirkiness I observed. Even more, when I got
back into Judaism and lived for nearly five years in the Old City of Jerusalem, I actually
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lived (for a small part of that time) with a Jewish Baal Teshuva drug dealer without
even having a clue! I only found this out when he later was arrested for growing pot in
another apartment, just as he had been doing in ours - unbeknownst to me. So you get the
idea that drugs were not my thing; my script just seemed to have different lines.
Well, at a certain point in time, these narratives started to coalesce. After I got over my
rebellion against the religion of my youth, at least in its overt form, my main thing was
self- exploration, healing and mysticism. While pot or hash never led me to any
particularly brilliant profundity, other than some good humor and basic insight, I was
open to the idea that other drugs had more to offer. Drugs like Magic Mushrooms,
Ecstasy and LSD were intriguing but I was not in a world by that time that provided
much access to these particular substances. This was due to my never really appreciating
the Grateful Dead enough to go to a show, having a phobia of going to East LA and being
too self conscious to imagine myself dancing at a Rage party. Nancy Reagan succeeded
in scaring me away from Cocaine and Heroin, and I probably should not forget to
mention that my father was the Clinical Director of the Chabad drug rehabilitation
program for nearly a decade. Perhaps heaven rewarded him for his tireless efforts, that
his own son be spared the fate of many an addict.
Psychedelic Drugs became an option for me when I was told by my younger sister
Sharone that they could be a profound experience as opposed to a Hippie alternative to
Disneyland. Before I describe my own experience, however, I want first to set the stage
by telling you what was going on in my life at the time in question. I was in my early
twenties and living in California, mostly on my own. I was working at a take out non-
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kosher Chinese restaurant, which means that I was obviously feeling quite alienated from
Orthodoxy. I was doing a body oriented psychotherapy as part of my healing process. I
had been involved in therapy for a while. I was also single and somewhat lonely and was
starting to seriously contemplate dating (lets be real, having sex) with non-Jewish
women. I was a Shabbos Jew. During the week I was doing my thing, and on Shabbos,
when it was enjoyable, I kept Shabbos. The problem in part was it was not very enjoyable
due to the lack of likeminded and kindred spirits within Orthodoxy. So was my life. Now,
here we go.
One evening, as I was working at Wok Fast placing orders-to-go for Kung Pao Chicken
and Pork-filled Potstickers, I get a call from my sister Sharone. She called to say hello.
She was visiting and staying at my moms and step-dads house, who were away on
vacation. We talked and I asked her when we were finally going to trip together - she
being an experienced tripper and a Dead Show veteran. She replied that now was as good
a time as ever. I told her that I would be there immediately after work. When I arrived,
we lit some logs in the fireplace, put on some strange music, and off we went.
For the first 30 minutes or so after dropping acid via chewing on some cardboard, I just
sat around waiting for it to take effect. I had heard that this stuff could be intense and was
a bit anxious to see whether I would survive. Who knows, I thought, maybe I wont be
able to handle it and well have to call an ambulance.
Well, I was standing by the fireplace when things started to get blurry, and then wack! It
started to take effect - I was losing my mind! It is very hard to convey what this felt like.
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If any of you have ever been afraid of going crazy and losing control of your thought
processes and imagination - that is what it was like. The difference was that this wasnt
just the fear - it was actually happening. I frantically called to Sharone. She came over to
me and helped me lie down on the floor. Like a pro, she instructed me to do some
breathing - to relax, to let go, not to fight it, to let it happen, etc. etc. She encouraged me
saying, You are tripping; youre going to be okay. It will be over soon - just 12 hours
(ha ha) - dont freak out!
When I was able to calm down and give in to having my mind ripped from its
comfortable place of perception, I sensed that I was descending at super-fast speed into
my unconscious, like a free-falling elevator whose cables have been cut. When I felt like
I had hit bottom, I started to cry uncontrollably and seemed to regress in alternating
fashion between being a baby and a little boy. One of the things I was soon to firmly
discover is that this drug cuts through ones defenses faster than any therapist could
possibly do, and for much less money. This is why LSD was successfully used for
psychotherapy and psychiatry before the Hippies ruined it for everybody with the willing
assistance of the U.S. government. I look at acid trips as 10-12 hours of free self-analysis.
In case you are wondering, I am not in psychedelic therapy anymore.
I made it through losing my mind, which lasted approximately 10 minutes of clock time,
but which seemed like an eternity. Now I was going back and forth between looking at
the walls of the room vibrating and pulsating, and exploring buried feelings that my
therapy had brought up from childhood. This was also when I started running around the
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room like Bruce Lee saying, I am a lion of Judah! Dont f--k with me! I will be who I
am and do what I want to do. I am a Jew - a Lion of Judah!! Roar!!
My peace-loving sister decided to nap through this episode.
Ill share one experience that I had with my sister Sharone that night which was
personally profound and extremely relevant in my view to Judaic life. We will then go on
a trip of a different kind.
Sharone grew up Orthodox as I did, but from a very early age felt alienated from
Judaism. Like me, she has gone through much experimentation - everything from Neo-
Paganism to Shamanism to Native American religion, for starters. She has a Jewish
identity which unconsciously expresses itself in a Feminist, Ecological and Save The
Minorities kind of mentality. Basically, she is one more Jewess who is living her life for
other nationalities, alienated as she is from her own. I usually respect the battles but am
concerned about the home front. At times, especially when we would get intellectual on
each other, I would bash her idolatrous tendencies as spanning the spectrum from stupid
to misguided. She would try to explain that the Pagans really believe in one G-D and
would try to encourage me just to see what these sophisticated Romans were really
alluding to in their myths. In other words, we were not communicating, because the real
conversation was an emotional one which was too intense to have in our normal state of
consciousness. Blood would boil, after which we wouldnt talk for a while, followed by
trying to find other things to talk about like therapy, her smoking habit or our parents.
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Well, our acid trip provided a space that allowed a real communication to occur between
us.
We sat by the fireplace and Sharone shared a dream with me. She told me that she saw a
vulture hovering over a bunch of human bones. It had apparently already devoured the
flesh off these bones. She intuitively felt that the vulture was Judaism and the bones were
of a poor Native American girl who had been attacked by this monstrous bird. Sitting in
front of a fireplace on a good dose of quality acid, I was able to hear her heart as opposed
to her head.
In being raised, I thought to myself, this poor girl has been stripped of her self; her
femininity has been spit upon and straight-jacketed. She is really just looking for a way to
be a whole human being. What could I say? I just listened and took in how traumatic my
sisters life experience had been. I sensed very deeply what it must have been like
growing up in a very masculinized Orthodox Judaism in which femininity was not
respected half as much as masculinity. Later, at one point in this vastness of time that had
been created out of watch time, after we had moved away from the fireplace, I noticed
that she was sitting over in some corner and crying. I went to her and asked her what was
wrong. She told me that feelings were coming up for her about the dream. I just hugged
her with the most open and purest of hearts. It was like I was five years old, before our
parents divorce, before all the pain that closed my heart and exacerbated the sibling
rivalry between us, and we were once again brother and sister, heart to heart in love,
peace and solidarity.

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I understood two things then and there: First, peoples problems with Judaism are almost
always intensely emotional and that carrying on intellectual wars is utterly ridiculous and
completely misses the point. Second, people need time to heal and sometimes they never
do. Even when they do, it is asking a hell of a lot from a person, after all the intensity of
dealing with the trauma, to go back and fight a war within the religion for a different way
of being. On the other hand, this is ultimately the true test of a persons character and of
their cultivation of equanimity. Judaism and the Jewish people are doomed if we all cop
out and refuse to make this last leg of the journey. So there is a deep part of me that is a
feminist, and how exactly it is supposed to express itself has been one of the more
confusing aspects of my path. I would say that I try not to throw the baby out with the
bathwater. The problem: What is bathwater and what is baby is not so simple.
There is a Hindu saying that a person should seek after enlightenment as a person whose
hair is on fire runs for water to put it out. That kind of sums up my feelings on the
significance of Mikveh in Jewish spiritual life. In other words, for me, Mikveh
immersion is far from bathwater.
A Mikveh, for the uninitiated, is a natural body or gathering of water like an ocean,
lake or river. We learn this from the following verses at the beginning of Genesis which
describe the events of the third day of Creation: G-d said: Let the waters under the
heavens be gathered [yikavu] to one place, so that dry land may be seen. And so it was.
G-d named the dry land Earth, and the gatherings [mikveh] of waters, He named Seas. G-
d saw that it was good (Genesis1:9-10).

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Again, in Sefer Vayikra (Leviticus), the Torah states, The only thing that shall [always]
remain ritually pure is a gathering [mikveh] of water, whether it is a [man-made] pit or a
natural spring (Leviticus 11:36). The Oral Transmission learns from the wording of this
verse that the only difference between a gathering of water in a natural spring and a
gathering of water in a man-made pit, is that the latter requires a certain minimum
volume (40 Seah = approximately 200 gallons of rain water) and the former doesnt.
Thus, rain water or snow, when properly channeled into a man-made pit, can also serve
as a Mikveh that is used for ritual/spiritual immersion. Today, as in the past, we construct
such artificial Mikvehs (Mikveot in Hebrew), and house them in buildings. Without
getting into the complexities of the Rabbinical mind, each option is valid/works, using
the ocean or a river or a lake for a Mikveh is definitely more exhilarating and
adventurous than immersing in a beautiful, clean, warm/hot, womb-like Mikveh, but the
latter obviously has its advantages too.
In terms of timing, when you are in a natural Mikveh you are in control of the time you
go. A Mikveh in a building is run by the people who run it and there are different
philosophies of when women and men should immerse. Generally speaking, men
immerse in the morning hours while women immerse after dark. This does not in
principle have to be a strict rule but usually is in practice.
First, the basics of technique. You clean yourselves by taking a shower and trimming all
your nails down to the flesh. This nail cutting is to remove dirt and is also a significant
Kabbalistic practice. Make sure that all the nail cuttings go into the toilet or garbage
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without touching your clothes. Remove all jewelry, no exceptions, and untangle all your
hair with a comb. You can do all this at the Mikveh. If you are going to the Mikveh after
sexual relations, bring a clean set of clothing to change into. Make sure that you washed
your hands ritualistically in the manner described in the previous lesson. Even the
Mikveh cannot remove the spirit of impurity that comes from sleeping which is a taste of
death. You should not speak in the Mikveh or shower area in general but be focused on
what you are doing. You are not allowed to speak words of Torah in these areas or say a
name of G-d (like Thank G-D) in response to the question, How are you? You should
not do any of these cleaning preparations on the Shabbat or Holiday. In all such cases,
consult your friendly neighborhood Orthodox rabbi. If you need to go to the bathroom,
dont delay, and wash your hands three times afterward. When you are ready to immerse,
here are the mediations.
When meditating in the Mikveh, the meditations are always done when your body is
completely immersed under water, eyes and mouth very loosely closed. Ideally, for an
instant, you should make sure that your entire body is immersed, even if afterwards you
are supporting yourself to stay down longer with the help of a wall or bar (in the case of
an artificial Mikveh). The best way to stay down, of course, is to exhale slowly.
How long you can meditate in the Mikveh depends on how long you can hold your breath
(or how long you can remain without oxygen, after almost completely emptying your
lungs) each time you go under. In some cases, it depends on how many other people want
to use the Mikveh. Another consideration: The water is often very warm, and if you
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meditate for too long, you end up feeling like Jello. Lastly, all meditations are done in
ones mind; no verbalization.
Meditation #1
Level one
The first meditation is to intend to, Remove the spirit of impurity (Ruach Hatumah)
from you.
Level two
A more advanced way of doing this meditation is to intend to Remove the 1st, 2nd, 3rd
and 4th degrees of spiritual impurity from your nefesh (Lifeforce aspect of
consciousness).
If you do this right, you should, after your first immersion, feel a spirit on impurity or
negativity lift from you. You should also feel more pure and open to G-d. Mikveh is part
of the conversion process to Judaism, so if it can transform a Gentile into a Jew, it should
be able to transform a Jew into more of a Jew.
Electives
A) The word Mikveh contains the same letters as Komah, which means Stature. The
Mikveh will restore your spiritual stature, which was lost by your going to sleep or
having any experience that made you spiritually impure. You can have this in mind as
you are in the Mikveh as well.

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B) The word Mikveh can also be broken down into two words: Kav Mah, literally Line-
Mah. For Kabbalists in the making, Kav is a reference to the laser-thin line of coherent
Light that G-d shone down from His Infinite Essence into the primordial Void of creation
to create the entire mega-system of Sefirot and Worlds. Mah has the numerical value of
45 (Mem = 40 and Heh = 5), the same as Adam (Man), thus: Aleph = 1, Dalet = 4, Mem
= 40.
The idea is to imagine a ray of divine energy descending from G-ds Infinite Essence into
the crown of your head and filling your entire being with light.
C) Mah (45) is also a Kabbalistic number that represents a way of spelling out G-ds Four
Letter name YHVH with Alephs. Spelled out thus, it is associated specifically with Olam
HaYetzirah, the World of Formation. Yod spelled out is: Yod (10) Vav (6) Dalet (4) =
20. Heh spelled out is: Heh (5) Aleph (1) = 6. Vav spelled out is: Vav (6) Aleph (1) Vav
(6) = 13. The final Heh spelled out is: Heh (5) Aleph (1) = 6. Altogether, the sum = 45 or
MaH. The result of this Kabbalistic math is that one can visualize this name as it is
spelled out and have in mind to clear and cultivate ones Yetziratic Aura. The secret of
the aura is for another time.
Shem MaH: YVD HA VAV HA (Yod-Vav-Dalet, Heh-Aleph, Vav-Aleph-Vav, Heh-
Aleph)
D) The word Mikveh also can be turned into Kam Vav Heh, literally Arise Vav Heh!
Vav is the third letter of the Divine Name YHVH. Heh appears twice as the second and
fourth letters in the Name. Vav and Heh thus represent the worlds of Beriyah/Creation,
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Yetzirah/Formation and Asiyah/Making where evil is said to reside. As a whole, these
worlds represent the totality of the created realms, as opposed to the pure Divinity of
Atzilut/Emanation, the realm of the Sefirot, corresponding to Yod, the first letter of the
Name.
The intention is to raise ones body, emotions and mind to G-d - these being the Or
Penimi - internal manifestations of these supernal realms. The worlds of Atzilut and
Adam Kadmon (and their soul parallels, Chayah and Yechidah), are called the Orot
Makifim - Surrounding Lights and are not in need of elevation.
Level One is the basic Halachic practice and Level Two is from classical Kabbalistic
practice and understanding. The electives are personal revelations or insights with which
I was blessed, based on my meditation on the word Mikveh and a decade of Mikveh
immersion. I suggest you start with level two and then experiment with the electives,
always having in mind level two first for the first immersion.
Meditation #2
Having removed the spiritual impurity that attaches itself to ones physical body and
lifeforce, we now want to remove the spiritual impurity that attaches itself to the
emotional body. As is common knowledge today, the emotional body has to do with e-
motion, energy-in-motion or motivation. The waters of the Mikveh, by removing the
spiritual impurity from the various bodies, allows ones deeper motivation from the side
of the holy to surface. Spiritual impurity attaches itself to the emotional body through
negative emotional/cognitive characteristics, particularly anger, which is seen to be

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rooted in arrogance according to Kabbalistic thought. Anger can be understood as the
emotional result of the cognitive superstructure or support of Arrogance. The idea is that
if a person was utterly humble and in the presence of the Divine, they would attain
equanimity. This does not necessarily mean that at times they would not take forceful
action, but it would be without anger. The tradition that I have received is that anger is
always wrong, whereas responding to an evil is very appropriate. This is kind of like the
martial artists who always caution a fighter never to react in anger but to react
nonetheless.
Here is a passage from Rabbi Chaim Vitals Gates of Holiness discussing the nature and
significance of Equanimity in the meditative life and showing how to attain it.
Gates of Holiness, Fourth Chapter, Second Gate, Section 5
Compiled by Rabbi Chaim Vital,
based on the teachings he received from his master,
The G-dly Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi 16th century
Quoting Rabbi Isaac of Acco, Rabbi Chaim Vital writes:
Behold, after a person is worthy of attaining the mystery of Devekut (Bonding with G-
D), he will be ready to attain the mystery of Hishtavut (Equanimity). If he is worthy of
attaining the mystery of Equanimity, he will then be worthy of attaining the mystery of
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Hitbodedut (Self-isolation; Meditation). After he is worthy of attaining the mystery
Meditation, he will be worthy of attaining Ruach HaKodesh (Spirit of Holiness). Through
the Spirit of Holiness, he will be worthy of attaining Nevuah (Prophecy).
In explanation of the mystery of Equanimity, Rabbi Avner (may he be remembered for
blessing) told me the story of a sage who came to one of the Meditative Kabbalists
(Mitbodedim) and requested of him to be accepted as an initiate meditator. The Meditator
said to him, Blessed are you, my son, to G-D, for your intention is a good one. But tell
me, have you attained Equanimity or not? The sage replied, Master, explain your
words.
The Meditator said, If one man praises you and another insults you, are the two equal in
your eyes are not? The sage replied, No my master. I feel pleasure and satisfaction
from those who praise me and pain from those who degrade me. But I do not take
revenge or bear a grudge. The Meditator said, My son, go in peace, for you have not
attained Equanimity until your soul does not feel [i.e. is not affected by] the praise of he
who honors you, nor the degradation of he who insults you. You are not prepared for
your consciousness to be attached to the supernal realm, that you should come and
meditate. Go therefore and surrender [humble] your heart more, until you attain true
surrender, until you attain Equanimity. Then you will be able to meditate.
[The lesson here is:] The quality of Equanimity comes as a result of attaching ones
consciousness to the Blessed Name. As above, this attachment or binding is called
Devekut (Bonding). By attaching ones consciousness to the Blessed Name, he no longer

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feels a need to give importance, neither to the honor nor to the disgrace he receives from
others...
Level One
The second meditation is to Remove the spiritual impurity caused by anger, arrogance
and demandingness.
Electives
A) One visualization that I came up with is to imagine the water of the Mikveh putting
out the fire of arrogance that I imagine pervading my being.
B) One movement meditation that I discovered is to allow myself to move, flow and
loosen as if I was becoming water. The idea is that arrogance is a rigid state of
consciousness and response, and the idea is to loosen the rigidity and get to the soft belly
of being.
Meditation #3
Pray internally for the well being and needs of others. The idea is to move towards
selflessness and to see your self as part of a whole, the Community of Israel and the
world as a whole. To immerse in a Mikveh is called tevilah the root of which is taval
(Tet Beth Lamed). By rearranging the order of these letters in Kabbalistic fashion we
obtain Beth Tet Lamed, which spells the word Batel, meaning nullified. concentrate on
nullifying your ego.

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Meditation #4
Pray internally for those things you feel you need in order to serve G-D, first and
foremost G-ds compassion and assistance, and then other important items such as your
soulmate, money, children, education, character-development, teachers, etc. You can also
keep in mind King Davids heartfelt supplication: Lev Tahor Bera Li Elohim - A pure
heart create in me O G-D, and a correct spirit renew in me. The Kabbalistic intention
here is that the initials of the words Lev Tahor Bera are Lamed Tet Beth. Rearranged,
these again spell out the words for both immersion and nullification.
Meditation#5
Allow yourself to feel and express internally your deepest longings for G-d and your
regret over your sins.
You can immerse as many times as you like. Pick your favorite Kabbalistic number,
minimally it should be twice. Some people do 13, 10, 7, 5, 3. Whatever works for you.
One rabbi immersed 310 times and lived to talk about it.
Please understand that it usually takes a while of regular Mikveh immersion to start to
feel the purity of consciousness that can develop. After 10 years of going to the Mikveh,
many of these on a daily basis, I feel like a different person when I go to the Mikveh.
After the first immersion, my consciousness is immediately elevated, and I am more
freely able to connect with G-d. I have seen people change their inner and outer lives
based on Mikveh immersion and strongly recommend the practice. Many people in
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ancient times had their own in-house Mikveh. Some Kabbalistic and Chasidic masters
would go more than once a day and attributed much of their holiness to this practice.
The connection between Psychedelics and Mikveh for me is beyond my concern over
some Feminist throwing it out as patriarchal bathwater. The word Psychedelic means
mind manifesting, well the Mikveh is soul manifesting. They additionally share in
common that feeling of needing to let go, immerse and surrender to the experience. When
I have had the occasion to go to the actual Mikveh of the Ari in Tzfat, Israel, it has been
more powerful than any LSD trip I ever took. There is such an angelic and holy presence
there that I did not feel that I would merit to come out alive. I started crying just being in
the water. Every time I immersed I was grateful to be alive. True it was very cold water
but it was way beyond the physical temperature. Further, I have had past live-experiences
on LSD that were related to water. Before I get into this, I just want to emphasize that the
significance of past lives are what they have to do with This life. Judaism is not so
interested in just obtaining information about your past lives; it is interested in what this
information has to do with you fixing this life.
An example, I have had an issue with finishing what I start. My Gestalt therapist
insightfully tells me that that is actually not the issue. The issue is rather how I start what
I start. I do value this wisdom - just as I value the perspective of my astrological chart,
which tells me I have hardly any Earth in my chart - or the shrinks who tell me that
because I was born Caesarian and was not able to complete my first experience in Earth
life (intra-uterine existence), it has been a problem ever since.

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I grew up learning Talmudic dialectics, so these are all possibly correct or incorrect. Past
lives is just another interpretation of why you are doing what you are doing. In my case, I
was a baby in my mothers womb in the holocaust and in a gas chamber was put to death.
I was also a male baby thrown into the Nile River when the Egyptians brutally enslaved
the Israelites. What you notice is that these can also explain my difficulty in finishing
what I start, in that this trait is a result of past life trauma of having ones life interrupted.
This Egyptian past life of being drowned also can explain my irrational and visceral fear
of having my two young sons drowned in the Pacific Ocean or any large body of water. I
experience these fears when I am with them at the ocean typically and thanks to my LSD
trips I have some insight and more control over my feelings.
The perennial and still ever annoying question that people like me get asked whenever I
talk about past life experiences is, How do I know that I wasnt hallucinating or having a
dream etc.? Well, how do you know you exist? Thats how I know! To explain further
the inner choreography of this experience I could say this: When in a deep state of
meditation, regardless of how you get there, what can happen is that your awareness
will be stripped of your normal identity and replaced with one of your past identities.
When I say identity, I mean ones physical sensations, imagination, way of thinking,
memory - the whole cazoo. You literally become another person or entity and you know
it while its happening. You are not actively trying to do anything; you are just sitting
there watching the show. I have experienced myself as everything from a lion to a
warrior dying on a battlefield, from a homosexual sacred prostitute in ancient Babylon to
my womb experience and birthing by Caesarian section. If you think that I went looking
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for this or this is what I would rather be doing, I think you might be aided by a visit to a
neurologist.
My last word on drugs is: Dont mistake real spiritual/psychological work (the follow
through) for what you get out of these drugs (the initial insight and catharsis).
Additionally, ultimately, the ego needs to be worked through, not artificially by-passed.
Nevertheless, I support the broader legalization of Psychedelic Psychotherapy with albeit
specialized training and strict controls. While LSD has opened the mystical and healing
gates for many, in Messianic times we are going to be Dropping ourselves in Mikvehs
and taking Long long Trips to Jerusalem.
Waters of Eden: The Mystery Of The Mikvah, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Ncsy/Orthodox
Union
Total Immersion: A Mikvah Anthology, Rivkah Slonim, Jason Aronson Publishers
Mikveh Directory, Orthodox Unions International Listing of Mikvaot, Arlene L. Eis,
Orthodox Union, [email protected]

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Lesson 10--Kabbalistic Lemons vs. Charity: An Ethical
Meditation
What first comes to mind when I think of introducing this meditation is that I, and
perhaps my parents, are surprised that I am not in need of charity. I dropped out of high
school once, never graduating; and out of college twice, again, never graduating.
Till I met my wife at age twenty four, I dont think I ever made much more than a couple
of bucks beyond minimum wage. At various times I have worked as a waiter in kosher
restaurants, a salesman in the Bodhi Tree bookstore, a shlepper in house construction,
and even a cold-call fundraiser for the Simon Wiesanthal Center (a Holocaust
memorial/prevention center). I spent my college fund largely on a spiritual/healing quest
in psychotherapy, living and learning in Israel for 5 years, and briefly exploring carpentry
and acupuncture as a career. At one time I thought of starting up a fish restaurant. That
was in addition to wanting to become a film writer, psychologist, rolfer, yoga teacher,
Jewish music video-producer and finally a rabbi.
On the surface, my story is one of a person with a lot of talent and various degrees of
discipline. Years of therapy have shown, however, that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Given how much you paid for this course and how much I paid for my therapy, I am not
in the mood to talk about it.

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I met my wife Ora who is nine years older than I at the Happy Minyan. When we met and
subsequently married, she was already well established financially, so that allowed me,
with the help of my college fund, to study to become a psychologist, starting with
undergraduate work at a Community College. My luck - I had the misfortune of studying
Psychology in college after years of therapy. The learning environment was so dead
compared to what I was used to in therapy that I just wasnt willing to tolerate it. I
decided to pursue Orthodox rabbinical ordination, but discovered that the material they
make you study at the time was out of synch with what I really needed to learn to be the
rabbi and person I wanted to be. Classical Orthodox rabbinical training is European
village-based. So for me, how to slaughter a chicken appropriately when I personally
promote virtual vegetarianism, and how to keep the separation of meat and milk when I
have Vegan sympathies, were difficult for me to stomach.
Also, being a Rabbi, at least in my book, involves more than just being a good judge or
lawyer of Jewish Law. Sadly, these Other dimensions are barely addressed in many
Orthodox programs. A good Rabbi is a spiritual guide, therapist and street wisdom
dispenser all rolled into one, in addition to being knowledgeable of Jewish Law. Rabbis
need to be emotionally deep, approachable and humble. I could go on but I think you get
the point. I have stuck to my guns, and slowly but surely the tide has started to turn. It is
not easy being an Orthodox Renewalist.
My parents were overjoyed when I married Ora. I am sure they were worried (so was I)
that I was going to marry some poverty prone holy hippie. Additionally, I was trying to
figure out how I was going to get married given the fact that I had so many years of
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schooling left to become a Shrink. When I met her, Ora was a professional computer
programmer and consultant. When we first got married we were thinking of making
Aliyah (moving to Israel), but due to a sojourn into the realm of Radical Leftism (I
became a student of Noam Chompsky, a prominent radical leftist and intellectual)
wedded to Satmar Chassidic Anti-Zionism, there was a change of plans. With the
Palestine option out of the way, Ora decided to develop her business along different lines.
The result was that, instead of a one-person consultant shop where she billed for her time
and was basically a slave to the clock, she now has 20 people working for her in an up-
and-coming software development company. So now, not only am I not poor but I am
free to write crazy courses like this without looking over my rabbinical shoulder. Go
figure. G-d works in strange ways. By the way, I have since repented of my Satmar Anti-
Zionist views but I will still take Noam Chompskys historical analysis over the New
York Times any day. There is a critical difference between what happened and what
you think about what happened, in Israel or anywhere.
Not everyone has been so blessed financially in this Kabbalistic business and this has
been the source of numerous problems. There are some teachers who, in the name of
Kabbalah, sell people spiritual lemons (i.e. so-called spiritual practices that are
lemons). Some Kabbalah teachers manipulate people in their counseling for monetary
gain in the crudest of ways and pretend to see things spiritually that are revelations
more of their desire to stuff their bank accounts than of any true spiritual insight.
Money corrupts, I find it helpful to meditate and keep focus on what is important, which
is nothing less than doing G-ds will. This does not include making it rich selling
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Kabbalah like a used car salesman or Anthony Robbins. In my book, if you have to ask a
person for money, you are doing something wrong. They should be offering it out of love
and a sense of common cause, not because they are being coerced and/or intimidated.
In this light, I want to share with you a meditation that is very inexpensive. It does not
require writing a check or even a dollar bill, just three coins. Lets, for Kabbalistic
purposes, take a quarter and two pennies, which equals 26 + 1 = 27 cents. Whatever the
value of the coins, they are actually to be given in this order, i.e. first two, and then one.
As for the symbolism of these numbers, 27 is the numerical value of the word Zach
[Pure, Unadulterated. Zach in Hebrew is spelled Zayin=7 and Chaf=20 altogether 27.
26, as you probably know, is the numerical value of the Four-Letter Name YHVH, thus:
Yod = 10, Heh = 5, Vav = 6, and Heh = 5, all together 26. Concerning the intentions you
should have when giving Tzedaka [Charity], the G-dly Rabbi Isaac Luria taught that the
coin represents the Yod of the Name (it is circular and small like the Yod). The hand
(with its five fingers) with which you hold the coins represents the Heh of the Name (the
numerical value of Heh is five). Your right arm outstretched to the poor person represents
the Vav (the arm is a tubular extension like the letter Vav). The five fingers of the poor
persons hand correspond to the final Heh (see Sefer HaLikutim of the HaAri, Parashat
Reeh, siman tet-vav).
Meditate on these letters in one smooth flowing action called a Unification, or Yichud in
Hebrew. In Kabbalistic practice, you are actually supposed to give the coins to a poor
person (or deposit them in a charity box) at a certain point in the Morning Prayer, in the
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section called Vaybarech David, when you say the Hebrew words VaAtah Moshel
BaKol [And You rule over all] U'BeYadcha Koach UGevurah [And strength and
power are in Your hands]. However, you can do this meditation at any time and it is still
special. For those more interested in the traditional practice, here is a translation followed
by a transliteration of the prayer:
David blessed YHVH [Adonai] in the presence of the entire assembly. And David said:
Blessed are You, Hashem, God of Israel, our Father, from the highest world to the
lowest! Yours, Hashem, is the loving greatness, the power, the beauty, the victory, and
the majesty, for [You bind together] all that is in heaven and earth. Yours, Hashem, is the
kingship and the absolute sovereignty over all! Wealth and honor come from You, and
You rule over all (when saying over all give two coins and then one to tzedaka). In
Your hands is the strength and power [to hold things in potential and restrain Your
blessing]. In Your hands is the power of growth and encouragement for all. Now,
therefore, we give thanks to You, our God, and direct our praise to Your resplendent
Name. We bless [and draw down the radiance of] Your glorious Name, though You
Yourself are far beyond any blessing and praise. You alone are G-d. You made the
heavens, the heavens of the heavens and all their hosts, the earth and everything upon it,
the seas and all they contain. You give [existence and] life to them all. The heavenly
hosts therefore bow down [acknowledge and nullify themselves] before You...
Vay-bar-ech Da-vid eth A-do-nai le-ei-nay kol ha-ka-hal. Va-yo-mer Da-vid: Ba-ruch A-
ta Ha-shem, E-lo-hei Yis-ra-el, Avi-nu, Me-o-lam ve-ad o-lam. Le-cha Ha-shem ha-ge-
du-la, ve-ha-ge-vu-ra, ve-ha-tif-e-ret, ve-ha-ne-tzach, ve-ha-hod, ki kol ba-sha-ma-yim u-

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va-a-retz. Le-cha Ha-shem ha-mam-la-cha ve-ha-mit-na-sseh, le-chol le-rosh. Ve-ha-o-
sher ve-ha-ka-vod mi-le-fan-e-cha. Ve-Ata mo-shel ba-kol (when saying ba-kol give
two coins and then one to tzedaka) u-be-yad-e-cha ko-ach u-ge-vu-ra, u-be-yad-e-cha le-
ga-del u-le-cha-zek la-kol. Ve-a-ta E-lo-he-nu mo-dim a-nach-nu lach u-me-hal-le-lim le-
shem tif-ar-te-cha. Vi-bar-e-chu shem ke-vo-de-cha u-me-ro-ram al kol be-ra-cha u-te-hi-
la. A-ta hu A-do-nai le-va-de-cha. A-ta a-ssi-ta eth ha-sha-ma-yim she-mey ha-sha-ma-
yim ve-chol tze-va-am ha-a-retz ve-chol a-sher a-le-ha ha-ya-mim ve-chol a-sher ba-hem
va-a-ta me-cha-yeh eth ku-lam, u-tze-va ha-sh-ma-yim le-cha mish-ta-cha-vim...
In my experience, this meditation is a simple and powerful way to experience the Divine
Name in your body. Your hands and arm (and the coins) actually become the letters of
the YHVH. An unmistakable feeling of holiness descends at that moment.
In light of the above, I advise you to stay away from Used Kabbalah Salesman and so-
called Spiritual practices that are lemons. Judaism - especially Kabbalah - is hard work
and real teachers cant be bought because they are not for sale - even in California.
Jewish Spiritual Practices (see section on Tzedakah), Yitzchak Buxbaum, Jason
Aronson Publishers
The Challenge of Wealth: A Jewish Perspective on Spending and Earning Money,
Dr. Meir Tamari, Jason Aronson

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Faith & Folly: The Occult in Torah Perspective, Rabbi Yaakov Hillel /Ahavat
Shalom/Feldheim
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Lesson 11--Tzitzit Consciousness: Meditating in Jewish
Style
During my five-year spiritual sojourn in Israel, I met many a character. One of these was
David Rosenthal. David was born and raised in Texas and as you can see from the last
name was Jewish by birth. Davids parents didnt know very much about Judaism. He
therefore grew up with hardly any Judaic spiritual content in his life. Only later, did he
become a Baal Teshuvah.
It seems that after he became successful in business, David decided one day that he had
had enough. His dream was to live in Israel as an artist - which he did somewhat
successfully for a while - until he found out about G-d and His Torah. At that point, as
David said, My life became my art - the implication being that the world is the canvas
and the Torah is the palette.
Davids artistic religious life is very much like Piccasos art - strange and crazy to some,
brilliant in some respects to others, and definitely different.
David married a lady named Clarita from Argentina. She was also an official artist once
upon a time - before becoming the proud mother of the Rosenthal clan and transferring
her artistic talents to sculpting her children.

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The Rosenthals lived out in nature in a place called Binyamina, about a mile inland from
the ancient Roman port town of Caesaria. David had leased an old Turkish hotel from the
Israeli government for 99 years. Once used by the pre-Jewish State Zionists to harbor
then illegal Jewish immigrants, the building was quite rundown and old. Davids dream
was to fix it up.
It was here that I did a psychiatric and neo-chassidic residency for 6 months. There was
no electricity or hot water in this hotel - if you can call it that. Instead, there were
uninvited snakes, house dogs, and at one time, a donkey. It was a nice walk away from
civilization, and I am sure civilization was grateful. As I said, it was located in the small
Israeli village of Binyamina, whose residents idea of excitement, as far as I could tell,
was to hang around the local falafel shop or (on special occasions) participate in a public
barbecue.
It was actually a very peaceful and restful scene. We were nestled in between an orange
grove and a farm. While Calrita was busy mothering 6 or 7 kids (I lost track after a
while), David was out learning Torah or giving free advice and help to the Jerusalem
population. He did accept payment when he worked with psychiatric patients, helping
them get off medication.
Davids heart went out to these people. In his opinion, the medical establishment,
certainly its psychiatric component, was generally speaking something akin to the
institutional wing of the Angel of Death. I dont think I really disagree. I dont want to
get into all the horror stories of people who have been misdiagnosed or simply sedated
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and left to rot either in some bed or out there in the world on Lithium and half a dozen
other drugs. The usual story is that the parents and society werent terribly interested in
taking responsibility for the situation. Of course, it is a sick dance with the drug
companies and the medical establishment promoting a simplistic and self-interested view
of the chemical role of the brain in mental imbalance and the value of drugs. It is the
same scene today with Prozac and Attention Deficit Disorder. There is an attention
deficit disorder: Parents and doctors have a deficit of attention for their kids, and in one
way or another, patients are disordered by the lifestyle, values and beliefs of the society
we live in! Anyway, as you can see, like my mentor, I am a fanatic in this field and will
similarly help a person get off medication whenever I can. So while I was in Binyamina,
I was involved with various individuals who were dosed up on this or that medical drug.
Due to lack of financial and professional resources and given the severity of their
conditions (some of these folks had been on medication for up to twenty years) we were
not successful in getting them completely off their medications. Still, we did provide a
more human and interesting lifestyle than what they would have received in an
institution. I remember one guy we worked with who thought he was the Messiah and
could stop a car going down a freeway. Thank G-d this messiah complex was fairly under
control but it was very strange to see how these people interpreted reality. I am not Dr.
R.D. Laing but as I think about it, it seems that the borders between the officially insane
and the normally insane are really just a matter of degree. Dont we all have a high
degree of delusion in terms of who we think we are and what we think we can do?
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David had introduced me to a friend in holy crime by the name of Rabbi Avraham Feld.
Avraham is the founder of Mossad Maccabbee, whose name is too fitting to have been
chosen by chance. Avraham was a black belt in martial arts and a very charismatic cult
deprogrammer partially influenced by the old school of kidnap and de-brainwash the
cult victim. He was very exciting to be around and a genuinely nice guy. Avraham was
usually out on some emergency helping someone in trouble - except when his wife could
rein him in or if he was busy being stabbed by an Arab drug lord. He had a certain grace.
When he was stabbed (thank G-d only once), the Arab essentially stuck a sharp
screwdriver into his chest missing the heart by ever so much. He was standing around
with this thing in his chest when a TV crew came along with the ambulance and the
police. According to David, the news reporter asked him if it hurt... He responded, Not
as much as Israeli taxes. You can see how these guys were more interesting than
Yeshiva on some level.
These emergencies, to which Avraham was wedded, ranged from taking some Jewish girl
out of the Neo-Nazis in Israel (no less), to fighting an Arab drug dealer who was
terrorizing his Jewish prostitutes. Avraham was kind of like James Bond and Modern
Orthodoxy rolled into one tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, clean-shaven, and good-looking
man. I was always looking to join Avrahams Mossad. One day, my turn came.
My mission was to infiltrate a Hare Krishna center run by Israelis in (of course) Tel Aviv.
It was a small center, but it boasted a decent following. In Orthodoxy, because of the
image worship associated with Krishna, we mock it by calling it Kishke. I realize this is
not spiritually correct (sic) today in the New Age, but tell that to our great grandfather
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Abraham the iconoclast and idol basher. There is actually logic to this re-naming. They
make an inaccurate physical representation of G-d whom they refer to by the name
Krishna and we call their G-d and its image by an inaccurate name. True, there is a bit of
hostility coming through in our name calling, but if you take the Bible seriously G-d does
not seem very enthused with image worship, judging by all the commandments to
eradicate it from the face of the planet. Remember, among other things, the second of the
Ten Commandments states, Thou shalt not make a graven image. Also, kabbalistically,
pronouncing the name associated with such a deity is tantamount to invoking its spiritual
power and lending it energy. We are not particularly interested in doing that.
The target was a young man my own age, the son of a Conservative Rabbi in Florida who
had been a youth leader in Young Judea, the Conservative Jewish youth movement. The
objective? Get this guy (and whoever else I could drag with him) out of the center and
into Judaism. If I am writing like this is mission impossible, it is because it did end up
being quite impossible, at least for me, at that time.
I went to the center posing initially as a person who was interested in Hindu spirituality
but who had a strong Jewish background and was confused about the differences between
Hinduism and Judaism. My experience at this center was a big eye opener for me. I came
to understand why these and many other people were attracted to this Hindu group (and
to Buddhist and Taoist groups like it) more than to Orthodoxy.
These were very sincere people. Both the leadership and the devoted following were
deeply spiritual, committed and sensitive. Many Orthodox Jews are too, so what is the
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problem? Well, it is all about archetypes. After over a thousand years of living in Europe,
the main archetype we retained was that of the male rabbi (with or without synagogue),
this being held as the epitome of Jewish Ashkenazic spirituality. This model stresses
sophisticated intellectual, Talmudic learning of Jewish law, custom and ritual, in all their
details. Rabbis participate in communal prayer and give sermons, but they dont
instruct their congregants in Jewish meditation or lead their flock in ecstatic song and
dance.
Again, dont get me wrong. Rabbis are a good thing, just as analogously lawyers, judges
and New York Times columnists are vital. But the Jewish people are not going to survive
(let alone thrive) on this spiritual archetype alone. We need to reclaim the archetype of
Prophet and Prophetess and Priest. We need teachers whose image and sensibility are
reflective Judaicly of the spiritual charisma and wisdom of the Dali Lama, Maharishi,
Ram Dass, Alan Watts and Mother Teresa. When you think of an extremely spiritual
person or icon, these are the kind of people who come to mind today. On the other hand,
when you think of a Jew, Steven Spielberg, Ivan Bosky, Yitzchak Rabin and Golda Meir
come to mind. The Jewish people are the descendants of Prophets and Priests not just
Kings, Queens, Warriors, Scholars and Bankers. Unfortunately, rabbinical religious
expression and contemporary American Jewish life does not express the fullness of our
soul. This is especially true for people who do not grow up in this elite circle of Orthodox
Talmudism. My half brother Yehoshua Moshe is a part of this world. I largely have
chosen not to join. Despite my appreciation of what these scholars are doing, I am more
interested in facilitating the Jewish peoples reconnecting with G-D as a whole rather
than developing elite and abstract Talmudic learning and methods of exegesis as a way of
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connecting to G-d. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who came from this world and could have
been its leader, said it like this, I am more interested in complex Jews than complex
books. Chassidism accomplished this for a couple hundred of years but now has become
co-opted to the Ultra-Orthodox establishment.
These modern Israeli Jews at the Hare Kishke center were looking for a Prophet and
Priest - not a rabbi. And truth to tell, the couple who directed the center were more
reflective of what Abraham and Sarah were about than many of our own people who are
busy making big donations to this or that organization or learning Talmud. While Jewish
religious expression has grown quite sophisticated over the last two thousand years and
more, it might be time to get back to the mystical basics. These people wanted love and
they found it. They wanted G-d and they found it too. Sure, it came along with baggage,
but doesnt Judaism?
These idol worshipers were also not complete fools. They were as learned in their new-
found religion. Sure, they had this crazy idea of G-d in the form of a pink elephant and
blue boy. They could, however, argue semi-rationally that this image is not that much
different than the mental images we are assumed to conjure up about G-d or how we kiss
and dance with our Torah scrolls. They started picking at Biblical verses in Genesis about
the Image of G-d and talking to me about the Kabbalah and the Sefirot as the Body of
G-d. I tried to explain that a physical representation is different than a mental one. I tried
to explain the concept of metaphor but I was dealing with Hindu Bhagvadita
Fundamentalists who applied their literalism to the Hebrew Bible and Kabbalah.
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The singing was - despite the words - very beautiful and spiritual, accompanied as it was
by simple instruments as opposed to the Jewish rock of the 90s. The music reminded me
of what music in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem might have been like, which was
certainly was not like Shlock Rock! Or Hanukah Homeboy!
It was strange and familiar all at once. I walked away in the evenings wishing there was a
Jewish version of it minus the haircut. Maybe a Jewish Ashram or even better a Jewish
Temple. Not a deformed temple but a real one, a house of true worship. The world
would be a different place if Shabbat was collectively kept by the Jewish people with the
same devotion that these idol worshipers adored Kishke. If only we respected the Torah
as they respect the Bhaghvad Gita, and if only we surrendered to the Divine as they
seemed to do to the best of their ability.
As for my mission, I quickly discovered that the young man I was sent to meet knew as
much about Hinduism as I about Judaism. We developed a nice relationship and I pretty
much told him after a while that I had been sent to try to get him back to Judaism. It
didnt really matter. This guy wasnt brainwashed, he was converted, and there is a
difference. If anything was going to work with him, it was an open exploration of the
issues.
We talked and argued this point or that and discussed his family dynamics. I started to
see, however, that it wasnt so simple. Its not as if he didnt understand that Judaism was
potentially spiritual. Neither was he in denial over the fact that he had to work out his
personal issues with his family. The issue was that Judaism, in his experience, wasnt for
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him, and Hinduism was. It is very hard to try to prove that Judaism is better to a person
who is deeply satisfied with his spiritual path and whose very negativity towards Judaism
is based on primary personal experience (albeit his own limited primary personal
experience). Idols arent a button for people causing them to recoil in fundamentalist
angst and disgust like they used to in the old days. Instead they are perceived as novel,
ancient, archetypal and beyond the rationalism of the west. While this is all true, it does
not mean that they are not without their own severe limitations.
We became friends and my goal shifted from getting him out (which was not realistic)
to getting him comfortable and interested in participating (as a guest) in Jewish
observances - mainly the Sabbath. The idea was to let G-D speak for Himself. In
addition, at that point, it became decidedly uncomfortable to have to go to the center and
watch people who were so naive to Jewish spirituality soak up every word these teachers
were saying. Russian Jews were also part of the group. Having finally escaped the
Communists, they are now running to be Kishke-ists. I also got sick of having their
chants popping up in my head during my own spiritual practice so I stopped attending the
evening classes and filed a report with my operator.
Once, this young man came to visit me in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of
Jerusalem. He was mumbling something and rotating his bracelet of beads so I asked him
what he was saying. Of course, he replied Hare Krishna. I should have known.
Part of his spiritual practice was to chant that term over and over again for some
mathematically ghastly figure that I cannot quite recall, all the while using his bead
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bracelet to maintain concentration. It was obvious that this was their way of keeping
conscious of G-d (or at least their perception of Him), which was all about love and
adoration.
I made a note of that, which my brain only retrieved in a deep way just recently. I thought
to myself: What would be the equivalent of such a practice within traditional Judaism and
Kabbalah? Sure, you could take any phrase you want and chant it day and night until
your brain created a special cell area for the memory. What, however, is organic to the
tradition that is meant to have the same effect of maintaining a basic level of Jewish
spiritual consciousness of G-d? The answer that struck was me was Tzitzit!
Now, for those with a Jewish meditation background, this might not have been their first
guess. Perhaps the Shiviti meditation wherein one constantly visualizes G-ds name is
more appropriate, strictly speaking. Tzitzit strings are just a different form of Shiviti, and
they have the additional advantage of being more similar to the Eastern style of using a
bead-bracelet to facilitate meditation. Tzitzit is also something that is worn on a garment,
and we need to come up with an alternative to those pink robes - these being one of the
weakest parts of their religion along with the haircut and the flowers - at least for me.
To give you a basic idea of what Tzitzit are, here is a basic physical description along
with some Kabbalistic connections. First of all, let us take a look at the passage in the
Torah in which the commandment of Tzitzit appears:
Hashem spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to make
tzitzit strings for themselves on the corners of their garments for all generations, and to
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add a string of techelet [sky-blue wool] to the tzitzit of each corner. This will be your
tzitzit, and you shall gaze at it in order to remember [i.e. maintain consciousness of] all of
Hashems commandments and fulfill them. [This awareness will then help you] stop
going astray after [the base desires of] your hearts and your eyes, which lead you to
immorality. [Rather, gaze at them] in order to remember and fulfill all of My
commandments, and thus become wholly sanctified [dedicated] to your God. I am
Hashem your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt [with all of its idols] in
order to be your God. I am Hashem your God. (Numbers 15:37-41)
First of all, the word Tzitzit itself comes from the root Tzatz, meaning to peer or to
gaze. This is seen in a verse in the Song of Songs (2:9): My Beloved is like a gazelle or
a young deer. [I thought He had abandoned me forever, but] behold, He was near the
entire time, standing behind our wall, supervising from the windows, peering (me-tzitz)
through the lattices. Since the whole concept behind the Tzitzit (and the Tallit, the
garment to which the Tzitzit strings are attached) is G-ds Providence, His Constant
Super-Vision and Over-Seeing everything that happens, it is appropriate that in this verse
it is G-d who is peering deeply into our souls through the windows and lattices of this
world. When we then reciprocate and look at the Tzitzit, we remember this Providence,
and get reconnected to why we are here.
This is actually what the Rabbis taught about the sky-blue wool thread that once was (and
is again becoming) part of the Tzitzit ensemble. As in the above passage from the Torah,
the word for sky-blue is Techelet. In addition to signifying the color blue, the word
Techelet itself is identical with (contains the same consonants as) the word Tachlit
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[Purpose]. Capitalizing on this double meaning, the Sages said, Techelet resembles [i.e.
reminds one of] the ocean; the ocean resembles the sky; the sky resembles the Throne of
Glory (Sotah 17a). What color could the Throne of Glory possibly be? If they were just
referring to the color blue, this third allusion wouldnt make sense. Rather, the blue of the
Techelet reminds us to raise our sights beyond this world if we wish to grasp its Purpose
which is to become a metaphorical Throne for G-ds Glory. In other words, the sky-blue
Techelet is supposed to point to a higher Tachlit (purpose) in life. It reminds us that
Hashem is above us at all times and that His Providence is constantly leading Creation to
its ultimate goal, the Great Sabbath. This is why the Sabbath is also called Tachlit
Shamayim VAretz, the Purpose and Goal for which Heaven and Earth were created.
Clearly, Tzitzit are more than mere strings that we tie to the corners of our garments. This
accounts for the numerous laws that govern the way the Tzitzit must be made. First, the
strings should be made of wool, spun, combed and twisted in a prescribed manner, made
especially to be used as Tzitzit. The garment to which we attach these Tzitzit strings is
called a Tallit (the derivation of which I shall reveal to you shortly). You might already
be familiar with the fact that we wear a Tallit Gadol (a large Tallit) when we pray. In
addition, we wear a Tallit Kattan (a small Tallit) under our garments at all times. Both the
Tallit Gadol and Tallit Kattan must be four-cornered garments, with Tzitzit strings
attached to each corner.
Here is where we get into some interesting numbers. I apologize if you are not into
Kabbalistic arithmetic - it is a big part of Kabbalah. Take a Tallit and examine one of its
corners. Note that 4 Tzitzit strings have been threaded through a hole that lies
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approximately 2 to 2 1/4 inches equidistant from the borders of the Tallit. These 4 strings
have been tied in a double knot, such that we now see 8 strings. One of these strings
(which is slightly longer than the rest) was used to wind around the others. Thus, after the
first double knot, we have 7 windings. These are followed by a second double knot and 8
windings, a third double knot and 11 windings, a fourth double knot and 13 windings,
and a final double knot. The remainder of the strings are dangling free.
All together, then, on one corner, we have 8 strings, 5 double knots and 39 (7 + 8 + 11 +
13 = 39) windings. Combining all the strings together (as we do when we recite the
Shema), we have 32 strings, 20 double knots and 156 windings.
The 4 corners and 4 original strings correspond to the 4 letters of the Divine Name
YHVH. This indicates that the Tallit and the Tzitzit together express something about G-
ds relationship to our world, i.e. Divine Providence.
The number 8 or Shemonah in Hebrew shares the same exact letters as Neshamah (Soul
or Consciousness) and in general represents that which is completely beyond the natural.
Six is the number for nature, i.e. six directions of space (space) and the six days of the
week (time). Seven embodies the spirituality that is inherent in nature, i.e. the point at the
intersection of the six directions of space, and the Sabbath, spiritual dimension of time.
Eight, again, is beyond time and space. Like its numerical symbol turned on its side, 8
points to infinity.
The first two letters of the word Tallit are Tet and Lamed. The root Tl signifies elevation
and being carried aloft. This is seen in the verse, VayiNatlem VayiNassem - He elevated
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them and He carried them aloft (Isaiah 23:9). As in all Hebrew verb forms, once you
remove the prefix and suffix and whittle the word down to its barest components, you get
to the root. In this case, the root of the word VayiNatlem is Tl. Tying this in with the
concept of 8, it indicates that wearing the Tallit lifts us up and connects us with G-ds
Providence which is beyond anything we can imagine or understand with our limited
brains. Even the great Prophets stood in complete and total awe when they were given a
peek at the way G-d runs His universe and brings it ever closer to its perfection - the total
revelation of His Providence!
Tal (as a noun) also means Dew in Hebrew. Unlike rain, which results from water
evaporating, rising up and finally precipitating and descending, Tal-Dew, with its
emollient-like quality, doesnt descend as much as it appears magically on grass, flowers
and leaves... Moreover, as the Talmud says (Taanit 2b) the world can exist without rain
(at least for a while), but Tal-Dew is essential. That is why, even during the hottest
months of summer, even during a drought, the morning dew appears without fail.
Tal-Dew thus represents G-ds Overriding Providence that is always present and
operative behind the scenes of history. This concept is seen in the numerical value of Tal,
which is also 39. As we have seen with the Tzitzit strings, 39 is the sum of 7 + 8 + 11 +
13 windings. If you take 7 + 8 + 11 alone, you get 26, the gematria of the Four-Letter
Name, YHVH. Together with 13, the gematria of the word Echad - One, you get the
phrase Hashem Echad, i.e. G-d is One = 39! Hashem Echad touches on the essence of
existence itself. It tells us that G-ds Unity and Oneness permeates all of creation. On an
even deeper level, it tells us that all is included in G-ds Oneness. There is nothing
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outside His Oneness. There is nothing but His Oneness. It is not by chance that the most
propitious time to say the Shema is when we are wrapped in our Tallit Gadol, covering
our eyes in the folds of the Tallit and holding the 32 Tzitzit strings against our Lev-Heart
(Lev = 32) to internalize G-ds Oneness into every cell of our body. It is for this reason
that the entire three paragraphs of the Shema contain 248 words, corresponding to the
248 limbs of our body.
Kabbalistically, as well, we have another level of meaning in the concept of 39.
Hashems Four-Letter Name contains the concepts of Tal-Dew and 39 in its very
construction. In the Tikuney Zohar (Introduction, p. 17a), we find the following famous
passage that is brought at the beginning of all Sefardic Siddurim (Prayer Books). It is
deep commentary on the verse from Song of Songs (5:2) in which Israel speaks to the
Holy One from the depths of Exile, saying: I am asleep, yet my heart is awake; [I dimly
hear] the sound of my Beloved knocking: Open to Me, My sister, My friend, My dove,
My perfect twin, for My head is filled with Tal-Dew and My locks with the drops of the
night!
O Faithful Shepherd, you and the Patriarchs must wake up and sing in order to arouse the
Shechinah, for as long as mankind is unable to perceive Hashems Presence in creation,
the Shechinah is said to be asleep in exile! For, until now, all the righteous have been
slumbering, with deep sleep in their eyes. [But, when the time of the Redemption arrives]
the Shechinah will suddenly give forth three cries in order to awaken the Faithful
Shepherd! She will say to him: Rise up, O Faithful Shepherd, for concerning you it is
written, I am asleep, yet my heart is awake; [I dimly hear] the sound of my Beloved
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knocking [reprimanding me lovingly] with the Four Letters of His Name. And He says
with them: Open to Me, My sister, My friend, My dove, My perfect twin. For, The
punishment for your sin has been terminated, O daughter of Zion; I will no longer carry
you away into exile (Lamentations 4:22). For My head is filled with Tal-Dew [].
What does filled with Tal-Dew [ ]signify? Rather, it refers to the Holy One, blessed-
be-He. He says: Since the day the earthly Temple was destroyed and Israel was sent into
exile, You thought that I was dwelling peacefully in My Heavenly Temple. No! The fact
is that I have not entered My Temple above since the day you went into exile. In order to
prove to you that I have not gone inside during the entire night of the exile, I give you a
sign: My head is filled with Tal-Dew [ ]and My locks with drops of the night.
The numerical value of Tal-Dew [ ]is 39. This is exactly equivalent to the numerical
value of the first three letters of My Name [when each letter is expanded or spelled
out]: is 20, is 6, and is 13. This totals 39 or . The fourth letter, spelled , is
6. This represents My Shechinah [Presence] in exile. When all Four Letters of the Name
are added together, they equal 45. When the last letter, , is separated from the others
[i.e. when Hashems Presence is hidden from mankind], they equal 39. The final letter,
, thus represents the Shechinah in exile which is unable to receive the Tal-Dew of the
first three letters. However, when this Tal-Dew will flow down to fill the Shechinah from
the waterflow of all the Supernal Springs, She will be revived and the Redemption will
have arrived. At that time, the Faithful Shepherd and the holy Patriarchs will immediately
rise up. Here ends the mystery of the unification [of Hashems Four Letter Name, ].
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May the Eternal God be blessed and revealed in this world and forever more, Amen and
Amen!
Now here are two more numerical equivalencies before we get into deeper and deeper
meanings behind wearing a Tallit: The gematria of the word Tzitzit ( )is 600.
= 90
= 10
= 90
= 10
= 400
====
600
Together with the 8 tzitzit strings and 5 double knots on each corner, we get 613, the total
number of commandments in the Torah. As we saw above, this connection between
Tzitzit and the sum total of all the commandments is explicit in the Torah: This will be
your tzitzit, and you shall gaze at it in order to remember all of Hashems
commandments and fulfill them...
As we saw above, the number of words in the entire Shema is 248, the number of limbs
in the human body according to Kabbalah, and incidentally, the gematria of the name
Abraham (), the ultimate archetype or embodiment of Gods attribute of
lovingkindness in the Torah. 248 is also the number of positive commandments in the
Torah whose performance is rooted in ones love of G-d, as it says in the Shema, You
shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, lifeforce and power (Deuteronomy
6:5).
193
= 1
= 2
= 200
= 5
= 40
=====
248
When we take the sum totals of 156 windings on four corners (39 x 4 = 156), 20 double
knots and 32 strings, we get 208, the gematria of Yitzchak (Isaac) ().
= 10
= 90
= 8
= 100
_______
208
This is appropriate since one of the main things we do when we recite the Shema is
intend to give up our lives, like Isaac did, for the sanctification of G-ds Name. We have
to be willing to die for G-d if necessary in order to truly live for G-d.
We have covered one dimension of what Tzitzit are about, namely, G-ds Providence and
Oneness. I would now like to dive a little deeper into another reason behind Tallit and
Tzitzit. In his book, Tzitzith - A Thread of Light, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan wrote:
One of the most obvious points about Tzitzith is the fact that they involve a
commandment directly related to clothing. They are not a mitzvah in their own right as
are Tefillin, but one that pertains to the garments we wear. If we are to understand the
meaning of Tzitzith, we must first explore the significance that clothing plays in human
society... Homo Sapiens is the only species that wears clothing... When anthropologists
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studied primitive tribes in even the warmest climates... [they saw] that people covered
their sexual organs in virtually every human society...
One of the most intriguing stories in the Torah is that of Adams sin. We all know the
story: How the serpent tempted Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,
and as a result, both Adam and Eve were cursed and driven out of the Garden of Eden...
Before Adam and Eve sinned, the Torah says of them, And they were both naked, the
man and his wife, and they were not ashamed (Genesis 2:25). Our sages comment that
they were not ashamed because they had no sexual desire. Sex was as natural a body
function as eating and drinking... As soon as man sinned, his sexuality was aroused.
Immediately after Adam and Eve ate from the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the Torah
tells us, The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.
They sewed fig leaves and made themselves loincloths (Genesis 3:7)...
It is interesting to note how closely the opinions of social scientists parallel the Torah.
Where science seeks with an unprejudiced eye, it is merely another way of approaching
truth... Even more interesting is the fact that some of these concepts are indicated by the
very etymology of the Hebrew language... First of all, the Hebrew word for garment is
Lebush. This comes from the word Bush, which means to be ashamed. The very
structure of the Hebrew language indicates that clothing is worn because of shame.
Another Hebrew word for garment is Beged. This has the same root as the word Bagad,
meaning to rebel. This indicates that man wears clothing because he originally rebelled
against G-d. Before man sinned and rebelled, he was perfectly content and unashamed of
being nude. G-d also understood that in his fallen state man had a need for clothing. The
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Torah states that before ejecting them from the Garden of Eden, G-d made garments of
skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them (Genesis 3:21). From all this, we see
that the main function of human clothing is to act as a barrier against sexual desires. As
such, it is particularly related to the sense of sight. The purpose of clothing is to cover the
body in order that it not be visible as a source of sexual arousal.
We can now understand the purpose of Tzitzith. Here again, we can actually see this in
the etymological structure of the word. The word Tzitzith has the same root as the word
Tzutz, meaning to look. Tzitzith are therefore something that relate specifically to the
sense of sight, something to look at.
The Torah says of the Tzitzith, You shall see them, and not stray after your heart and
after your eyes, which lead you to immorality. The Talmud explains that the injunction
not to stray after your eyes refers to visual sexual stimulation. Clothing in general acts
as a natural barrier to such arousal, and the Tzitzith serve to reinforce this barrier...
The passage of Tzitzith tells us to look at them and remember all of G-ds
commandments, and not stray after your heart and after your eyes. Sexual desire is the
one thing that is most often responsible for leading a person away from religious
observance... [Thus, in addition to telling us that going astray after your eyes refers to
visual sexual stimulation] the Talmud adds that when the Torah says, You shall not stray
after your heart, the reference is to atheism... [In other words, as we have said:] There is
nothing that will draw a person away from G-d more than sexual promiscuity...
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The verse dealing with Tzitzith then says, In order that you remember and keep all My
commandments, and be holy to your G-d. Here again, the Torah is telling us that the
main path to holiness is mastery of ones sexuality. In protecting the individual from
promiscuity, Tzitzith can lead him to holiness.
The passage ends with a reference to the Exodus. The Exodus represents both a physical
and spiritual liberation, but in an important sense, it also involves the liberation from
domination by ones sexual appetites... Egypt was known as a place of extreme sexual
immorality. When the Jews left Egypt, this was one of the things that they were to leave
behind. In serving to check our passions, the Tzitzith tend to reinforce this aspect of the
Exodus. (R. Aryeh Kaplan, Tzitzith, NCSY, p. 43-52)
Let us look more deeply into one of the key verses that Rabbi Kaplan brought in which
garments are mentioned: G-d made [ kotnot ohr = garments of skin] for Adam
and his wife, and He clothed them (Genesis 3:21). The Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 20:12)
on this verse states: In the Torah of Rabbi Meir it was found written [ kotnot
ohr = garments of light] [instead of ( kotnot ohr = garments of skin)]. This refers
to Adams garments.
Rabbi Meirs statement is based on the play of words Ohr-Ohr. Ohr with an Aleph (
- Aleph-Vav-Resh) is Light. Ohr with an Ayin ( - Ayin-Vav-Resh) is Skin. In modern
terminology, Ohr with an Aleph represents Energy, whereas Ohr with an Ayin represents
Matter. Our verse (21) is thus the Torahs equivalent of Einsteins formula: Energy =
mass x the speed of light squared. This formula teaches us that mass and energy are
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different manifestations of the same thing. The difference is that in order to go from
energy to mass, you have to divide and reduce the incredible power of energy by the
speed of the light squared - that is, by dividing and diminishing the power of energy,
you get matter, which is coagulated energy. And vice versa, when you want to go from
matter to energy, you merely multiply mass by the speed of light squared.
Another primary source for this word-play is the Zohar 3:260b: Rabbi Elazar said: It is
written, G-d made garments of ohr-skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
What, he asks, until now, were they utterly naked without that skin? Yes and No!
Rather they wore garments of precious light...
In Genesis 3:21, the Torah is telling us that, as a result of eating from the tree, Adams
Light-Body coalesced into Physicality. It tells us this in a special way. First, on the
simple level, the fact that this verse comes at the end of the Garden of Eden story (just as
G-d is about expel Adam and Eve from Paradise), and spells the word Ohr with an Ayin,
indicates clearly that it refers to Adams garments of skin (i.e. body) after the sin.
Nevertheless, according to the Midrash quoted above, the verse contains hidden within
itself an allusion to Adams body of light before the sin, and an allusion to the process
that occurred that transformed his body from light to skin.
Most people wear their Tallit Kattan only during the day. According to the Kabbalah, on
the other hand, it should be worn throughout the day and night, being removed only when
one bathes. Because the Tallit Kattan represents the Ohr Penimi (Inner Light), the actual
garment is to be worn under or beneath an outer garment like a shirt or coat. On the other
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hand, most people wear the Tzitzit strings attached to the Tallit Kattan dangling outside
so they can be seen. As we saw above, this seems to be in accord with the basic idea of
Tzitzit as written in the Torah: This will be your tzitzit, and you shall gaze at it in order
to remember all of Hashems commandments and fulfill them.
Wearing your Tzitzit out so that you can gaze at them is thus the norm today. Of
course, there are those who wear their Tzitzit tucked into their pants because they do not
want to be identified as being weird. This is not a good reason not to wear them out.
Weirdness is a necessary quality of being a Jew in a world where Ken and Barbie,
Michael Jackson and movies stars and idols and their fashion (sic) are the norm.
Nevertheless, it is interesting that the Ari ruled (for totally different reasons) that the
Tzitzit strings of the Tallit Kattan should not be worn out. This is the prevailing
Kabbalistic custom till today. Lets get down to meditation.
I would encourage you to wear your Tallit Katan inside your clothing following in the
tradition of the Ari. These meditations are therefore meant to be done while wearing a
Tallit Gadol. For those who wear the tzitzit fringes of their Tallit Katan out, they can
adapt these meditations to their practice.
Meditation #1
Gather the 4 corners of your Tallit Gadol (the strings and knots) into your left hand.
Allow the strings to dangle out of your hand, similar to holding the reins of a horse
loosely while riding or to holding a hose while watering the grass. While loosely holding
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the knots, bring your left hand in touch with your heart region. According to the Ari, this
is said to be a rectification for arrogance. Now, wrapped in your Tallit, in this position,
gaze at the Tzitzit. This gazing should allow for total mindfulness as you focus on G-d
through the medium of the Tzitzit strings. If your attention wanders, just bring it back to
the Tzitzit strings/knots.
Try this for ten minutes and see what it does for you. You can also add the following
intentions as you wish: Have your G-d-consciousness via the Tzitzit penetrate through
the shells around your heart and fill your entire being with G-D consciousness.
Alternatively, work on loosening your resistance to surrendering to the Divine Will.
Meditation #2
Hold the Tzitzit in both hands and press them lightly against your closed eyes. Do the
same basic meditation as above: Be mindful of G-d. This time, however, intend that your
fallen sense of sight (which tends to see from ego) be healed. I have experienced the
Tzitzit in this way as very healing to the eyes. Indeed, a Kabbalistic healing tradition
actually suggests using the Tzitzit in this way to improve physical eyesight.
Meditation #3
Let the 4 corners of your Tallit Gadol drape down over your whole body. Visualize G-ds
light coming from His Infinite Essence through and into your Tallit, penetrating your
body, filling it with light, and then spreading outwards to the four directions. Allow this
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light to surround the Earth and then expand out to all creation back into the Infinite
Essence.
Meditation # 4
For those who wear a Tallit Katan (in or out) or a Tallit Gadol, I suggest you become
aware of the energy properties of the garment you are wearing. Try to tune into the fact
that you are wearing a priestly garment. The Israelite nation is a spiritual priesthood. This
garment and its strings are like a Knights holy armor. Tallit = light armor. Meditate on
this quality.
May we all be holy.
Recommended Reading:
Tzitzith - A Thread of Light, by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan OU/NCSY

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Lesson 12--Experiencing the Divine Oneness:
Meditations on the Shema
Experiencing the Divine Oneness! Sounds great, not so hard for a moment. What about
for a lifetime? Sadly, Kriat Shema (Calling Out The Shema), which is an ancient
Jewish spiritual practice (Mitzvah), is a much neglected mystical opportunity. It isnt by
chance that a Jew is supposed to call out the Shema on his or her death (transition) bed.
This, in a Judaic context, coincides much more with the intent of the Tibetan Book of the
Dead than one would think.
Regarding the proper way of calling out the Shema (and praying in general), I have come
to the point where I find it difficult to attend a typical Orthodox synagogue service. In
most cases, the prayers are just too rushed for me (and for those like myself), since it
takes quite a while to settle into a meditative state that is conducive to saying the Shema
properly. As a result, by the time we are ready, the congregation is already davening the
Standing Prayer (Amidah).
I also do not feel comfortable in synagogue calling out the Shema with every ounce of
my strength (as it is supposed to be done), and with clear and distinct audible tones. Not
that I am on the level to do this every time I pray at home either, but at least I have no
excuses at home. The truth is, I am afraid that I would get thrown out of synagogue for
disturbing others if I called out the Shema with the appropriate power and intention. So
this sadness in relation to the Shema is one dimension of my experience with it.
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The Shema also calls to mind an experience I had on LSD. I was alone with my eyes
closed, meditating on 4 or 5 hits of acid, doing some self-exploration. All of a sudden, I
realized that everything I was experiencing was just an attachment to a form, and that, if I
wanted to, I could let go. Soon I understood that even whatever I I experienced was
ultimately an illusion and that I could go further. I felt like I was peeling away layer after
layer of myself. After a while, the process seemed almost to take on a kind of velocity of
its own. I started getting frightened. I felt myself zooming towards death at a very fast
speed. I use the word death because I felt like I was just about to let go of the last traces
of my existence as I knew it. In a while, I thought, my consciousness would be
extinguished and cease to be. There would simply be no more me to acknowledge that
all is form. It was probably the scariest experience I have ever had. I had to muster every
ounce of energy I had left to resist self-extinction, and to break out of the trance I was in.
I will never forget the intensity of that fear, and of the experience as a whole. It remains
ingrained in my psyche forever. This experience, which felt distinctly Buddhist at the
time, was really a gateway for me to a deeper experience of the Shema.
Like most people I struggle with the question, how do I integrate what I know
conceptually (that there is a G-D) with what I am existentially, i.e. a human being who
wishes to live in full relation to the Divine but who is blocked and confined by my all-
too-human limitations. Here is an example of one of the most formidable blocks I have
had to encounter within myself which prevents me from experiencing the Divine
Oneness. This block goes to the core of my own Klipah (husk, false personality). By
working through it here, I hope to give all of us a taste of some of that delicious spiritual
Pri (fruit) that lies hidden behind and beneath the outer shells of our personalities. [In
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Hebrew, the words Meniot / Blocks and Neimut / Sweentess share the same exact
consonants. We learn from this that behind every block lies a secret sweetness that we
couldnt have tasted if we hadnt first struggled to work through the block!] I tell you this
whole story not to indulge in my premature autobiography but to give you a sense of
what the experience of the Divine Oneness that is available in the Shema is going to have
to deal with in us if life is to evolve on this planet.
I have been doing Classical Gestalt therapy for about four years. That might seem like a
long time but it is not when you consider the fact that a 55 minute session once a week
involves around 10 minutes of real impact. Taking this into account, I have had about 30
hours of profound self-insight. That is much more than some, but relative to the greater
Reality, its not much. In addition, understand that Classical Gestalt is not California
Gestalt. I have never once hit a pillow or screamed at an empty chair. Classical Gestalt is
a much more subtle process. My therapist trained with Dr. Fritz (Shlomo) Perls (founder
of Gestalt therapy) himself for five years and is what perhaps could be called a secular
Rebbe, much like Fritz himself. His name is Robert (Berel) Resnick PhD., and he comes
from rabbi stock. I am not surprised.
So, what did my cup-doctor (cup is Yiddish for head) tell me? I have already told you
that I had/have a longtime history of not completing what I start. What is behind it? Or
rather, in true Gestalt ownership linguistics, what is behind Me not completing what
I start? Well, it seems to me that, with my background of trauma and feelings of
impotence (parents divorced, etc.), I have developed a sophisticated or pseudo-way of
feeling powerful: I resist/rebel. Of course, this is understandable. Impotence to change a

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tragedy, heartbreak and pain are not pleasant feelings. So, in line with Carl Jung famous
formulation, I developed my particular neurosis as a substitute for real suffering.
As a teen, I rebelled against my parents and Orthodox culture in general. Then, with
adulthood, I became my own authority, and guess what, I rebelled against that too! In
other words, in the end, I had no one left to rebel against but myself. How did I manage
to do this? I would inevitably turn something that I initially wanted to do into
something that I had to do. Once that happened, then boom! I had something to rebel
against and hence feel poweful, because no one is going to tell me what to do, not even
me! (You hear that, Me!) All this might sound pretty weird and impossible, but that is
most likely because we havent met yet in person. Reb Robert once joked with me that
his definition of maturity is, Doing what you want to do even if that is exactly what your
mother wants you to do! At any rate, equipped with this insight, which points to a
profound split in my psyche (I want vs. I should), I am starting to open up a bit to a great
world out there. I am also acutely aware of how difficult it is to alter a core way of
responding to reality.
I believe that we were created to experience the power of G-D. Eventually, we will. The
problem is that, in the meantime, we opt instead to experience our own pseudo or fallen
power. The same goes for me. The kind of resistance I have created is not real power. It
is like Punk Rock compared to Mozart. The former is not music but noise. To let go of
this pseudo power and go through the pain and emptiness and allow myself to act from a
place of integrity and unified selfhood requires courage and true strength. What I am
finding to be at once terrifying (i.e. letting go of the past response) but at the same time
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nourishing is the Divine Oneness. Divine Oneness -- the Ultimate Unified Field Theory --
is the true source of all strength and power. Strangely enough, however, it is neglected as
much as Solar energy is neglected for Nuclear (with parallel detrimental consequences).
Learning to be nourished from the Source of Life and feeling strong in G-Ds Strength
requires a fundamental adjustment in our psychic orientations (and, like all transitions, is
difficult). Thank G-D, I have been led to some powerful experiences of the One through
my Torah studies, teachers and mystical revelations (this is meant to sound more humble
than it reads). It is to this wisdom and these meditative opportunities that I now turn. I
hope that this sharing and these teachings will inspire you along your own path to allow
for the experience of the Divine Oneness and the integration of that experience in your
daily life and inner path. On a very deep and personal level, this is what the Shema is all
about.
Lets learn how to use the Shema as a meditation. As in the chapter on Mikveh, what
follows is a series of meditations that are meant to be done consecutively. Precede each
meditation by inhaling deeply and slowly, holding your breath for a comfortable period
of time, and exhaling. It would also be wise in the morning to have done the prior
meditations of Modeh Ani, Hand Washing, Morning Blessings, Mikveh, Tzitzit & Talit,
Tefillin, Tzedakah and Shiviti, as well as the main Morning Prayers up to the Shema. In
the least, you should have washed your hands as I have described in the Hand Washing
chapter and recited the blessings over the Torah (see Traditional prayerbook).
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Preparation
Meditation #1:
Creator, Sustainer, King of all, I hereby intend to fulfill Your will and call out the
Shema as You have instructed us to do twice each day, once in the morning and once in
the evening.
The first and most basic meditative requirement is to align oneself consciously with the
Divine Will and hence with the Divine Being behind that Will. As is the case with
numerous commandments, there are also time requirements for Calling out of the
Shema. Kabbalistically (which means ideally), this should be done each morning exactly
5 minutes before the exact moment of dawn (which changes each day), and each evening
from a half-hour after sunset. Again, these are the ideal times, whereas the total time
allotted for saying the Morning Shema extends until approximately three hours after
dawn, and the total time allotted for the Evening Shema extends throughout the entire
night. With regard to the Morning Shema Meditation, you should not eat or drink
anything before doing it (if you want to gain the most out of it). The same directive not to
eat before saying the evening Shema applies as well. If, for some reason, you are unable
to perform the meditation at the right time, change the wording In the morning and the
evening of the meditative intention to read, Like in reading the Torah.
Meditation #2:
Creator, Sustainer, King of all, allow me to acknowledge, experience and integrate Your
Oneness.
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As you say this, contemplate G-Ds Oneness. Meditate on the fact that G-D is all there is.
In doing this, you will realize that G-D is not graspable by thought. Your mind will thus
tend to go blank and you will experience a sense of Nothingness which again is not G-D,
but G-Ds garment, i.e. one way in which we can experience His Presence which is
Beyond anything we can imagine. You might have noticed that I have instructed you to
do this meditation before you say anything of the actual Shema. Most people try to attain
these experiences while in the process of reciting the Shema. I look at these instructions
as analogous to sexual foreplay. As such, they should precede the actual act of declaring
and experiencing the Unity. Additionally, Shema Yisrael literally means Hear Israel
and it is specifically to be said out loud in a loud voice. The reason for calling out the
Shema loudly is that we wish to bring the truth of Gods Oneness contained in the first
line of the Shema to the collective Jewish psyche and the world. In my view, before
calling out to the world, it would be wise to have already tasted this truth beforehand, and
this is best done in silent meditation.
Meditation #3:
Creator, Sustainer, King of all, allow my whole being: body (Nefesh), emotions
(Ruach), mind (Neshamah), spirit (Chayah) and spiritual uniqueness (Yechidah) to be
completely one with You. Allow my whole being to be at-one with You.
This is a powerful intention. As you mentally intend it, become aware of how challenging
it is to let go and literally become one with G-D. You can split this intention into three
parts: once for all five parts of the soul as one, and then once for each soul-part
individually, and then again for all five parts to conclude. For example, you can focus on
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the individual dimension by meditating on your body, spending time and awareness
connecting with every limb and organ of your body, and gently encouraging it to open up
and release all negativity so that it can melt into the divine. The same approach applies
for all the other dimensions of the soul.
Having elucidated this preparation, lets cover some technicalities related to the body and
the Tallit (Prayer Shawl) in this meditation. First, you should be seated. Any seated
position will do, whether it is on a chair or on the floor (as long as your place something
between you and the bare earth or floor -- for Kabbalistic reasons). Second, if you have a
Tallit Gadol (Large Prayer Shawl) draped over you, gather the Tzitzit (Strings or Tassels)
of all four corners together into your left hand between your thumb and first finger, and
hold them against your heart. Third, close your eyes, and if you are wearing a Tallit
(Prayer Shawl), cover your eyes with it with your right hand. If you are not wearing a
Tallit, simply cover your eyes with your right hand.
You are now about to perform the mitzvah of Kriat Shema (Calling Out The Shema)
which consists of two one-sentence declarations, followed by three full paragraphs.
Consult your Siddur (Prayerbook) for the full text of the Shema in Hebrew. We will be
working with the first two sentences, although to do this properly you should then recite
the three paragraphs in Hebrew, English transliteration, or English.
The first line reads (loudly):

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Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohienu Adonai Echad.
[Literally: Hear Israel, the Lord is our G-D, the Lord is One.]
[Meaning: Hear Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashems Essence Unity and Oneness
permeates all existence.]
The second line reads (silently):
Baruch Shem Kevod Malchuto LeOlam Vaed.
Literally: Bless/Increase The Name Of The Honor Of His Kingdom In This-World And
Forever More.
[Meaning: May the Revelation of the Glory of His Providence be blessed and ever
increased in this world and for all eternity.]
Although we will be mainly exploring the first sentence of the Shema in this lesson, I do
want to include the meditation instruction regarding the second sentence. In Kabbalistic
practice as found in the Prayerbook Od Yosef Chai, based on the teachings of the G-dly
Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi as redacted by Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad (Ben Ish
Chai), when you say the word Malchuto / His Kingdom, you are supposed to bow your
head slightly to your chest. The Ben Ish Chai gives a kabbalistic reason, but in my
interpretation, the reason for this is to make the higher, transcendent consciousness that
you have just experienced in the Shema imminent, i.e. to bring it into your heart and
body. In my experience, it is helpful to bow your head down all the way to your chest. It
may be that I require more effort than they did, but whatever the case, this is what works
for me.
We will now examine each word of the first sentence for specific meditative intentions.
This will essentially result in a more expanded translation/interpretation of the above two
lines. [Reminder: It would be wise to review this material more than once so that you can
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get both a general sense of the techniques and then better focus on the specific ones you
are going to work with.]
As we stated above, it is very important to breath while calling out the Shema.
Specifically, you should inhale deeply before each word, and as you exhale, pronounce
that word slowly, letter by letter. In the words of the Baal Shem Tov:
Binding yourself to G-Ds Blessedness may be accomplished by meditating on
the letters of the Torah and the Prayer Service. This is done by binding your
thought and your inner essence to the inner spiritual essence that resides within
the letters [of these words]. This is the mystery of the verse (Song of Songs 1:2),
O may He kiss me with the kisses of His lips. In the Zohar (2:254a, 2:266b),
this is called Devekut Rucha b'Rucha [the attachment of spirit to Spirit]... When
you hold onto a word [of prayer], not wanting to let it go, you are in such a state
of devekut. (Keter Shem Tov 44; quoted in Aryeh Kaplan, The Light Beyond
6:31)
Shema-Hear
They say that Seeing is believing and the Kabbalists dont really disagree. In the
Talmud, the sentiment is expressed that Hearing cannot be compared to seeing.

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Why then do we say Hear as opposed to See in the Shema? Why not Reey Yisrael
See Israel? A good question? It happens to be an original one. The best I can do for an
answer is this: It is interesting to note that Adam and Chava Heard G-Ds Voice only
after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 3:8). This is understood by the
Kabbalists as a hint that before the primal sin they Saw G-Ds Voice -- which is a
higher level. Support for this is adduced from the Revelation on Sinai where the verse
says, And all the people saw the voices (Exodus 20:15). In the Oral Tradition
(Mechilta), Rabbi Akiva is quoted as saying that this is to be taken literally: they saw
what is normally heard. In modern terminology, this is called Synesthesia or the
blending of the senses due to the power of the prophetic influx.
So lets explore the word Shema in Hebrew and see if it contains a hidden visual element.
The Hebrew word Shema is spelled Shin-Mem-Ayin. Many profound ideas are hinted at
in these three letters. For our purposes, the main thing to pay attention to is that the third
and last letter is a larger than normal Ayin. [It must be written extra large in the Torah
Scroll, along with the letter Dalet at the end of the word Echad. As such, they both to
stand out quite noticeably, the usual reason for this being that when you join Ayin and
Dalet, you get the word EID / Witness, meaning that we are standing witness and
testifying to G-Ds Oneness in the Shema.] The question is: does the large Ayin in Shema
mean anything on its own? And the answer is yes. For when we spell out the letter Ayin,
we get Ayin-Yod-Nun, which itself is pronounced Ayin, the Hebrew word for EYE. If
you think that this is a coincidence than you have the wrong religion.
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Lets go further. We have only one Eye / Ayin so far, but you probably have two. Now,
this is all the more fascinating because the Talmud states, Whoever says Shema Shema
is to be silenced. This is, if we hear a person repeating that word (or even the entire line)
twice, we ask him to stop doing so. If he doesnt comply, he can never be a prayer leader
for the congregation again (because it subtly implies that he believes in two domains of
divinity). So we are left with this one Eye. Is it a left eye, a right eye, or perhaps
neither? I would say that it is the Minds Eye. How do I know this? Like any Kabbalist
would, which means, based on a combination of revelation and interpretation with
authentic hermeneutic tools.
Lets go back to the word Shema, spelled Shin-Mem-Ayin. The Sefer Yetzirah (2:3)
breaks the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet into five phonetic families or
groupings: Gutterals in the throat (Aleph-Hhet-Ayin-Heh), Palatals in the palate (B-V-M-
F), Linguals in the tongue (G-Y-Ch-K), Dentals in the teeth (D-Tet-L-N-Tav), and
Labials in the lips (Z-S-Sh-R-Tz). Based on this, Kabbalists have a rule: Letters from the
same phonetic group are interchangeable. In our case, the letters Aleph and Ayin are both
gutterals, so they are interchangeable. [The difference between them is that the Ayin is
much more gutteral (i.e. it comes from a deeper place in the thoat). Anybody who has
ever heard a Sefardic or better yet a Yemenite Jew speak Hebrew will know what I
mean.] Accordingly, we can substitute the Ayin with an Aleph and use it as the first letter
of a new word, in this case Ayin (Aleph-Yod-Nun), which means Nothingness, i.e. our
highest experience of G-D.

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Aleph is also special because of its gematria (numerical value). As opposed to Ayin
which equals Seventy, the gematria of Aleph is One. In the Bible, the movement from
One to Seventy is represented in the story of the Tower of Babel - the archetypal
breakdown from a united mankind with a single common language to seventy separate
nations and languages. If Ayin is a powerful outward thrust of air going off in seventy
directions, Aleph is a soft breath of Oneness. Aleph is the Oneness of your inner
connectedness and of your recognizing and proclaiming the Oneness of G-D to which
you are connected.
It is further very interesting in this connection that G-D is said to have communicated to
the Prophets or Seers in visions. He thus says through the prophet Hoshea, I have
spoken with the prophets and augmented their [spiritual] vision. Through the medium of
the prophets [i.e. through their brains], I appeared [in many forms] (12:11). The verse
clearly implies that G-D didnt appear to the prophets in any physical form. When Isaiah
says, I saw G-D sitting on a high and lofty throne (6:1), he wasnt speaking literally.
No prophet ever saw anything spiritual with his two physical eyes. Rather, G-D, who is
beyond form, manipulated their brain in order to imprint (or download) a message into
their Imagination or Minds Eye. This can be compared to refracting White Light through
a prism in order to produce the color spectrum. White Light itself has no color, or more
correctly, it is all colors subsumed within their source. The same can be said to apply to
G-D and the messages that He refracts through the prism of human consciousness. G-D is
No-Thingness that contains All-thingness.

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This might be why the Talmud (which is a rich Kabbalistic text when you know how to
read it) singles out the word Shema for emphasis. It could have said, Whoever says
Shema Yisrael or Whoever repeats the whole verse. Instead it said Shema Shema.
Again, this is not a coincidence. The Talmudists were telling us to transcend the duality
of physical hearing and seeing. G-D is not physical nor is He limited by the physical. He
is ONENESS within which thing-ness disappears. If you want to see and hear what G-D
has to communicate to you, you must enter within and transcend your fallen eyes and
ears (which is why we have two of each). You must enter into the Minds Inner Eye and
Inner Ear -- the doorway for perceiving the Oneness of G-d.
Based on the above exegesis (or inegesis), the word Shema can be used as a meditation in
the following way:
As you inhale deeply and then exhale and pronounce this word, meditate on:
Really hearing that there is a G-D
Really seeing that there is a G-D
Experiencing the Divine Nothingness
Taking these instructions in their inner literal sense
This should be pretty profound an experience. Lets move on.

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We have just spelled Shema (Shin-Mem-Aleph), substituting Aleph for Ayin. Now, I am
sure that it is just another coincidence that these three letters are what the Sefer Yetzirah
(Book of Formation) calls the Three Mother Letters. [In addition, there are Seven
Double Letters and Twelve Elementals, making a total of twenty-two.] There are
different ways of relating these letters to the body. The system I prefer is that of Rabbi
Abraham Abulafias School of Prophetic Kabbalah. According to Rabbi Abulafia, Shin
corresponds to ones head or consciousness, Mem corresponds to the belly or lower
center, and the Aleph corresponds to the chest or heart. Alternatively, Shin is Aish / Fire,
Mem is Mayim / Water, and Aleph is Avir / Air.
The Three Mother Letters The Three Divisions of the Body

Shin Head/Neurological system
Mem Belly/Digestive tract
Aleph Heart/Pulmonary tract
The Three Mother Letters The Three Primary Elements

Shin Aish (Aleph-Shin) Fire
Mem Mayim (Mem-Yod-Mem) Water
Aleph Avir (Aleph-Vav-Yod-Resh) Air
As you call out Shema! focus on bringing G-D-consciousness into your head, then your
belly, then your chest. Poetically speaking, allow G-D to fuel your fire, which will boil
your water, which will create holy breath or steam.
In the Sefer Yetzirah, these three letters -- Shin-Mem-Aleph -- are spelled in the exact
reverse order -- Aleph-Mem-Shin (pronounced Emesh for short). You are welcome to
experiment. It is very normal to reverse the order of things in Kabbalah as a way of
finding another meaning. According to the commentary cited by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in
his translation (which is just one in approximately two dozen existent commentaries) this
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order reflects the three columns of the Sefirot. You can work with this in the following
way: Focus on the left (Shin), middle (Mem), and right (Aleph) columns in your body-
energy as a way of tuning yourself for what is to follow. Again, this is a different system
than Rabbi Abulafias. Here, the movement is from Gevurah (Shin) to Chesed (Aleph)
via Tiferet (Mem).
If this is all very interesting but overload then just meditate on really understanding that
there is one GOD.
Yisrael-Israel
From Shema we move to Yisrael. Here, the following meditative intentions are available:
Meditation #1:
When calling out Yisrael! Consciously intend to arouse the Collective SuperConscious of
the Jewish people. In Kabbalah, Yisrael is said to be highest expression of this collective,
as opposed to the name Yaakov (Jacob). The difference goes back to when Jacob fought
with the angel and was given the additional name Yisrael. Yisrael, which can be
rearranged to spell Li Rosh / I Have A Head, refers to the exalted consciousness we attain
when we fulfill our mission to be a light to the nations. Yaakov, which derives from the
word Ekev / Heel, refers to the Jewish people in our fallen state.
The idea of Yisrael is that our souls are all bound up in a Supernal Unity. We are all
connected. Whenever I plug into the Divine Oneness, every part of me in every other
Jewish soul is additionally aroused and plugged in. Analogously, you have heard of
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second-hand smoke and the ozone layer? Well, this is like second-hand Shema and an
individual contribution to the replenishing of the G-D field/layer.
Meditation #2:
Yisrael is spelled (Yod-Shin-Resh-Aleph-Lamed). By simply changing the vowels
underneath the first three letters (a common Kabbalistic convention) you can spell out
Yashar El / Straight G-D. This can be taken to mean either Straight to G-D, i.e. a direct
nonstop flight into the Heavenly Realms, or G-d will make you straight. The latter
should precede the former.
ADNY (YHVH)
G-d has different names. The name ADNY (Ado-nai) literally means My Lord or My
Master. It connotes accepting G-D as a personal G-D and being in servitude to Him.
Now it is wise to understand that a child can never be a true servant to their parent. The
child can serve the parent but there is a difference between the relation of the child and
that of the true slave or servant. Slave and Child are metaphors that both point to the
inner life. The ego is a slave for it is constantly following the dictates of the body and its
impulses. The ego, already a slave, must transfer its servitude to a higher source, namely,
to Adonai, the true Master. As Reb Shlomo Carlebach taught, a true master lifts you up
and doesnt put you down. So ADNY is our Lord, our Master, our personal G-D whom
we serve and to whom we are loyal to the point of death. It is thus quite fitting that in the
Standing Prayer (Amidah) which involves numerous bows whenever we say the name
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ADNY our torso must be fully erect and not bowed. The idea is that when you say G-Ds
name you need to be the whole you to express whatever you can of the whole divine.
However, it is important to distinguish what we say from what we see. I refer to the fact
that whenever the divine name YHVH (pronounced Yod-Keh-Vav-Keh or Havayah out
of respect) appears in the Bible or anywhere in our prayers, we do not read it or try to
pronounce its letters. Instead, we only think Havayah but say ADNY.
The reason for this is that Havayah is too holy for us to pronounce in our current fallen
state of consciousness. The basic rule is: Do not try to draw down too much light unless
you have a proper vessel for it. Otherwise, problems arise (to be euphemistic).
YKVK or Havayah thus refers to G-D as the Source of Existence or Being Itself who is
Infinite and Eternal (beyond time and space). It is thus common in Kabbalistic texts to
refer to G-D
Who was, is and will be (hayah/hoveh/veyiheyeh). We check the grosser aspect of our
ego at ADNY, we completely dissolve into YKVK. Alternatively, whereas ADNY
creates an alignment and is like the runway for takeoff, YKVK is the wild blue yonder.
The problem with all this is that most people get so accustomed to saying ADNY (by the
age of 4 or 5) that they forget to think YKVK. To overcome this, the Kabbalists
introduced into almost all Sefardic Prayerbooks the practice of reducing the size of the
letters of the name ADNY and placing it within an expanded version of the last letter
(Heh) of YKVK. This is then followed by a Shiluv / Intertwining of the letters of these
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powerful names into one completely unpronouncable name: . Both of these are
excellent for contemplative purposes. It is therefore highly recommended for beginners to
visualize YKVK together with ADNY and to meditate on both their meanings one after
the other starting with ADNY and moving up the letters of YKVK to the first letter Yod.
When I say Meditate here, I mean Experience. In order to do this in any meaningful way,
you need to take a deep breath. Now, as you begin to exhale, pronounce ADNY and
experience the alignment that comes from acknowledging G-D as your Master, the One
who arranges and directs all the events of your life. Now, while still exhaling the same
breath, concentrate on (do not pronounce) the four letters: Yod - Hey - Vav - and Hey.
Meditate and know that G-D Was - Is - and Will Be Forever.
As above, the Kabbalists want us to go even further. They want you to understand that
ADNY is just an aspect of the Divine, one prism out of an infinity of prisms. They
therefore instructed us to place the name ADNY within the last Heh of the YKVK. For
those with a background in Kabbalah it will be clear that ADNY and the last Heh of
YKVK both represent the Sefirah of Malchut and the dimension of Asiyah, whereas the
entire YKVK represents the Sefirah of Tiferet. Additionally, these two names combined
represent/activate the union of Zeer Anpin and Nukvah, two modes of divine providence
called Partzufim / Gestalts / Personas. This union is meant both figuratively and literally.
Similar to the marital union of husband and wife, two distinct parts become joined as one.
That is, although these parts appear to us as separate and distinct, they are seen to be
complementary parts of a greater Oneness that contains them both and expresses Itself
through them. The same is true Kabbalistically of all of G-Ds Names. They represent
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manifest aspects, frequencies or modalities of an Energy Source that is totally Beyond
Any Of Them.
Another way of seeing the relationship between these two names is that ADNY serves as
a sheath or cloak for YKVK. ADNY is really just YKVK incognito.
As we mentioned, there is one more meditation instruction included here. It involves
blending or intertwining the two names together in our Minds Eye thus:
Again, this is meant to be an experience that lasts during one breath, so breathe deeply
and slow down so the breath lasts. I know that it is hard to believe that this is all
supposed to happen in one breath and one word, but what is worse is that this is the
Kabbalistic kindergarten level of meditation.
The reason why there are many people running around thinking they are doing Kavannot
(Kabbalistic meditations) is because all too often they are relating to it like an
engineering job. These people have to realize that there is a great difference between a
head trip and an experience. Do this for a while and you will see for yourself. Just as
there is a difference between Jung and a Jungian, so all the more so there is a divide
between Rabbi Isaac Luria and those who study his writings. This understanding turns
every blessing in which we invoke G-Ds Name into an opportunity for profound and
safe meditation.
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Elo-hienu
After having a profound experience with the divine names YKVH/ADNY, we now
acknowledge that this awesome insight into the Infinite can only last so long. On a
positive note, we also have in mind that this is our LifeSource. Therefore, when we say
Elo-hienu, we have in mind that G-D is our PowerSource, and that our faith in Him is
what sustains us.
When I intend this I try to get a tangible experience that G-D is the source of my being,
and I intend to increase that experience of being through this acknowledgment.
On a very deep level, in the Shema, we are declaring that Hashems Mercy (ADNY-
YHVH) and His Justice (Elokeinu), though we experience them as diametrical opposites,
are really one (ADNY-YHVH Echad-ONE). In other words, we transcend and die to the
world of dualities (joy vs. pain; light vs. darkness; G-d loves me vs. G-d doesnt care;
giving in vs. active directing; subjective vs. objective; who we are vs. what we know, etc.
etc.). But the truth is, we dont just transcend (if you understand transcendence as
negation of a part in favor of another). NO, as you know, the Jewish approach is
Inclusive, i.e. the Whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Therefore, when a Jew goes
towards Divine Oneness, they goe through the dualities, they fight their way through
them by oscillating and going back and forth between the two extremes. They arent
interested in simply throwing away one or the other, because both are correct and true
(each in their own way). In other words, we have here a beautiful example of Jewish
transcendence which is really a mystical inclusiveness.

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ADNY Echad
G-D is One. This is the time to tune into the Oneness that lies beyond and behind all
names and aspects, and to surrender yourself to that Oneness. The Chassidic master Reb
Elimelech of Lizensk instructs us to visualize fire before our minds eye and upon saying
Echad to throw ourselves into it for the sake of sanctification of the divine name.
Baruch Shem
The first sentence of the Shema is said with full voice while the second sentence is said in
a whisper (with the exception of Yom Kippur when we say Baruch Shem out loud).
Shema is called the Upper Unity or Unification, while Baruch Shem is called the Lower
Unity or Unification. In essence, this is the same relationship that exists between YKVK
and ADNY. When we call out the Upper Unity, we and the entire world melt into G-Ds
Infinite Oneness. When we whisper the Lower Unity, we bring that experience down into
our lives. In doing so, we strengthen the covenant-bond between G-D and the Jewish
people, and between G-D and creation.
We whisper Baruch Shem because while G-Ds Infinite Oneness never changes from the
Divine perspective, from the perspective of creation, Malchuto / His Kingdom (the
revelation of His Presence in creation) is eclipsed. This is the meaning of the idea that the
Shechinah is in exile. In exile, the Divine Presence is not fully manifest. This is why we
say Baruch Shem in a whisper during the entire year, but on Yom Kippur we proclaim
that the seemingly impenetrable eclipse was only an outward appearance. In truth, the
Glory of His Kingdom is Forever.

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For now I will leave you to work with (and savor the sweetness of) the Upper Unity. In
the next course we will make our way down to the Lower Unity as we explore the secret
of a blessing and much else.

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Lesson 13--The Way of the Elders: Traditional Talmud
study as Jewish Meditation
How on Gods earth did a guy like me ever come to view Talmud study as Jewish
meditation? Or better yet, how did I even come to study Talmud let alone learning it so
well that I know many pages almost literally word for word, an accomplishment I might
add for any student of Talmud - black hat or otherwise? Well, despite all the rebellion I
grew up Orthodox and that means I read Hebrew by the time I was 6, learned Mishna by
the time I was 8 and started learning Talmud and how to read Rashi Script by the time I
was 11. So in other words, I have a background. I also did I stint at Rabbi Chaim
Bravenders Yeshiva in Efrat which is like the Yale of Talmud at least for Bal Teshuvas
and studied some Talmud off and on here and there in my various journies to long to list.
Also this last lesson was written some two years after the rest of the course, so I have had
plenty of time to grow. I got seriousely into Talmud (again) after doing a bunch of
writing for my website and feeling that I wanted to get more grounded in Torah texts and
develop my Aramaic skills. I also was not interested in remaining a neo-chassdic
ignoramous forever so I hit the books. Here is an essay that spells it all out followed by
meditation instructions.
We are living in a generation in which there is a renewed interest in Jewish meditation
and mysticism. Our Jewish spirit indeed is seeking release from the limitations within
which modernity has enclosed it. In our search for methods to awaken and cultivate our
spirit we have unearthed and innovated methods of meditation that have inspired us and
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guided us. Yet with all the methods one can still sense within the soul of our
contemporary Jewish seeker the desire for grounding in tradition. Whats more, there is
the thirst for initiation into a distinguished path that has been tread before by masters of
old and where authentic spiritual authority still resides today. Such a meditative path I
have rediscovered and I have called it the Way of the Elders. To be clear, it is not that I
have found anything new. Rather, what I have discovered is a way of seeing the very old
in a way that for us is new but for the elders, the sages and mystics of our peoples past
was taken for granted like the air they breathed. Thus this path could be considered what
Rabbi Meir referred to as, Old wine in new vessels(Chapters of the Fathers 4:20).
I am here to share with you that Traditional Talmud study is an essential and organic
form of Jewish meditation that today is open to all who desire to practice it. I am here to
describe to you in detail its method, nature, the mechanisms which make it effective, the
obstacles in part along the path and the spiritual benefits it cultivates. The best way for
me to initiate you into this practice is through the narrative of my own experience as I
practice, observe and come to understand the effects of this Talmudic meditation in my
life. Thus you will taste my taste of the Way of the Elders and will be in the best position
to have your spiritual appetite whetted. However, as with any meditation method and the
experience and truth it points to, only your individual practice of the method and the
experience that results from this will ultimately directly confirm or deny what I have
described here. Lets then begin our exploration of this Talmudic map and the necessary
travel directions to the territory to which I invite you.

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When I sit down to study a page of Talmud I become aware that I am handling and
peering into a sacred work. A work which others before me have meditated upon and
slowly its sacredness gradually manifests and envelopes me. When I sit down to study
Talmud I seek to understand with my heart and come to know with my mind What is
Gods Will? If you grasp this alone with your heart and your mind then you understand
the essence. Talmud study is an active meditation, a focusing of ones whole being on the
meditation object of Gods Will. Ones awareness, heart, mind, body and passion are all
directed in holiness to know Gods Will through the medium of sacred meditative study.
Passion, a dimension of the psyche that many a meditator nurtured in the Far East has
come to distrust is understood here as spiritual passion or will. One must surrender all of
the poisonous passions and fallen wills in order for this sacred passion or elevated will to
enliven, purify and embolden one. Talmudic meditation calls forth from the depth of the
soul a single-pointedness that is worthy of any meditation tradition of any era and like
any meditation method Talmudic meditation is a paradox. This for it cultivates surrender
to the Divine Mind through intellectual independence and the recognition that one does
not know through the act of knowing. Thus while the Talmud does not cultivate Crazy
Wisdom it does cultivate a sort of Crazy Epistemology.
Let it be said that the Divine Will and tools for its ever present discovery is according to
ancestral tradition what the Talmud houses within its sixty some palaces. The Talmud in
large part is the recorded and edited discussions of the Sages of various Jewish
generations as to what Gods Will is. The revelation at Sinai lives on in the revelation of
Bavel and Yerushalayim and in our own lives, continents and countries. True, it is not
clear often in the Talmud initially and sometimes ever what Gods Will is. It is further
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true that upon a glance of the Talmud one would be impressed with just how human a
work it is, riddled as it is with statements of the Sages. Yet this is not a hindrance. In fact
this is part of the meditation: can you maintain focus on a commitment to knowing Gods
Will even when it is not apparent in the immediate present or ever? Can you see past the
veneer of the vessels for the Divine and perceive and bond with the Divine light and
message contained within? In essence, this even more is cultivating the depth to which
one is attached to the Supernal Will and Being both in ones Talmudic meditation and as
a result in the rest of life.
When I study Talmud I want to know what Gods Will is. The desire to know Gods Will
is rooted in the soul and thus the immersion in Talmudic learning is nursing this innate
yearning and brings one to grow into ones higher consciousness. This evolution occurs
when the Awareness of a person - that observing, empty and choosing dimension of
ones nature - attaches to ones Soul. Ones Soul as Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady has
said, is literally a spark of the Divine(Likutey Amarim Tanya Ch.2). Any thought in the
course of ones study that gets in the way of this expanding process of desiring,
perceiving and bonding with the Divine Will and Being is a meditation obstacle. These
can be ego-based thoughts, fantasies, feelings or desires that are plain and pure
distractions as in any meditation practice. One can sit and contemplate what a great mind
or creative genius one is just as one can sit and contemplate what a great meditator or
bhodisattva one is. Distractions are distractions. In a distraction like this ones
Awareness attaches to the ego and takes one away from ones view of the inner
Promised Land, the Land of Life.

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Unique distractions to Talmudic meditation are misguided methods of study. These
methods are rooted in the poisonous passions, the weeds of the soul. These passions need
to be worked through in the process of purifying ones heart and mind in the attainment
of righteous purpose. These methods are those which turn Talmud study into a secular
leaning critical science as opposed to a creative spiritually inclined art. These methods
are rooted in an often not subtle rebellion against the Divine not an a priori surrender.
Such methods tend to impart a history lesson and not initiate one into an act of Divine
communion. Further, these methods often turn the Talmud into a thing to be completed in
a semester (or paper) not an ever-present connection to the Divine Mind as it
redeemingly reaches out to me in the exile of my soul and world. Studying with such a
non-meditative non-sacred method is an act of garnering information not an act of
relationship and covenant and is essentially self serving and as a consequence limiting.
These methods produce an arrogance that is rooted in their fundamental disconnection
from the Source of Life. Consequently, practitioners of these methods have gone through
pages of the Talmud with very little of the Talmud having gone through them.
Talmud study, let it be clear, is a particular kind of meditation, a meditation that works
largely with the qualities of the mind as opposed to abandoning them. The mind, like our
body, is a creation of God and to be elevated to holiness and higher consciousness, not
left in voluntary solitary confinement. Talmud study on a beginners level is a
concentration meditation. It is generally the sustained act of deep analytical and
dialectical thought touching on the mosaic of Gods Law as it interacts with the dualism
of good and evil of the world we live in. This predominantly but in no way exclusively
mental meditation involves also the memory and the imagination again all for the purpose
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of knowing and ultimately aligning with Gods Will and Essence ones whole being.
Thus, from the Talmud evolved Jewish Law and this is how masters study from one to
the other in harmonious dialectic.
Understand further therefore that it does not matter whether one studies a subject that is
practical in application or otherwise, nor a subject that is abstract or concrete. This
anymore than it does not matter in the least if ones meditation object is a point on the
wall, a sensation in your body, a koan, a mandala or some other symbol. These too are of
no practical value in the world yet have proven viable meditation objects in the path to
mystical attainment and spiritual growth in other traditions. Indeed, do not get distracted
by the details, the names, places, legalism, history and this worldliness. It is
understandable to be in disbelief that this is somehow a meditation, given the fact that we
have been trained in the Far East to leave this world, distinctions and our mind to attain
salvation in the form of Samadhi, Nirvana and Kensho. However, in Talmudic meditation
and Torah proper this attitude is a hindrance to our spiritual aim of Geulah personal and
collective redemption and in Kabbalistic parlance Tikkun the rectification of the world in
Gods holy Presence. To assume that this Talmudic method is impossible would be as
biased for a Talmudist to judge a Dervishs whirling physical movements not possibly a
meditation due to his own method being more cerebral and less somatic in nature.
The Way of the Elders is to go through physical creation and to discover spiritual
creation, which was there all along and only in need of in the phraseology of Gestalt
psychology becoming figure instead of ground. In Talmudic meditation we are trained to
discover unity in multiplicity. For Gods Will can emanate an infinity of things. If you
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are bonded with the Divine Will, the things are of no independent existence for one is
focused on their common denominator from which they all dependently arise and with
which they all interface, namely Gods Will.
Surely, Talmudic meditation requires determination, perseverance and patience. Qualities
I believe any meditation practice will call one to. Just as we have meditation benches and
cushions for the Western aspirants knees so we have Talmudic tractates in English
translation and commentary for the Western Jewish aspirants lack of knowledge of
Aramaic and Judaic background. Just as we have American and Eastern born and trained
teachers of non Jewish mediation methods so to we have European, Israeli and American
teachers trained in the Way of the Elders each as within every tradition with their
respective strengths and weaknesses.
Talmud study as any meditation can be engaged in for as little or as long as one chooses.
Like any good meditation it is habit forming. It can be done in isolation, group, or pairs.
When one opens to Traditional Talmud study as Jewish meditation suddenly one
discovers that there are ready and trained teachers of this meditation. Such teachers of
Talmud one will find who have learned adeptly in the equivalent of Torah monasteries,
this albeit when they were single. This study and initiation was under true masters, which
for many a disciple this monastic discipline and tutorship was for as long as six years and
then continued on while married with the same intensity and even more growth. In fact
not only does one discover teachers but distinct approaches and lineages. Most
significantly, we have no lack of masters to point to even in this post-holocaust
generation. As in every tradition there are masters and there are masters. Not all masters
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attain the same level of piety, profundity or level of integration with Torah and
particularly Kabbalah, but this does not have to be the case with you or your teacher.
Unfortunately, Talmudic prowess is interpreted today either as an academic
accomplishment or some legal religious intellectualism on the part of the Orthodox.
This is far from the Truth. In reality Talmudic masters are masters of concentration and
commitment to Gods Will and if one has ever had the privilege to meet such a master
one would be impressed with the humility, commitment to truth and many other virtues
that such meditative scholars embody. In many cases they shine the light of Torah and of
their soul with a sacred fire that warms the spirit and heart.
What are the benefits in consciousness to be attained by the seeker in their practice of the
Way of the Elders? They are many.
Initially, one will cultivate ones concentration, which will directly help one in the
practice of ones other devotions like prayer and other Judaic/Kabbalistic meditation
forms. One will also attain in short order humility. This through the helpful recognition
of how little one knows, how feeble ones mind is and how dependent we all are on God
and wise persons for understanding, knowledge, guidance and instruction. Like any
authentic meditation method, the Way of the Elders shows one how far one has to go
while nourishing one according to ones capacity along the way.
In meditating on the object of Gods Will which can be done as minimally as a half an
hour to 10 hours as with many masters one then brings that attitude into the rest of ones
life. In the various situations and relationships one encounters one begins to live and
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breathe the meditation What is Gods Will? Again, this process might start in ones
head but in due time it ends up in ones heart, body and every cell of ones being.
The Talmudic method of meditation cultivates a fierceness fitting a warrior in the battle
and search for Truth and a flexibility and fluidity in being able to acknowledge one was
wrong as fitting any dancer in their ability to correct a misstep with grace. Very often in
ones study one will convince oneself or your partner in a passionate sales pitch that this
is what a statement of this sage means or this is what this commentator is asking or
answering. Then after this a new piece of evidence emerges for air and makes you rethink
and you realize that you just bought a lemon. After numerous such purchases you
become more humble and less sales prone. You simply get used to being wrong in
Talmudic study and move on from there. Most people spend most of their lives in fear
and hence avoid or deny being wrong. This is one of the first negative traits to go in this
method.
Whats more one will cultivate an appreciation that having an opinion (something there
are many of in the Talmud) is something to be earned and worked for with great labor if
it is to be of any value and originality. This in contrast to today where an opinion is
understood as a human specifically American God given right. This not to be
misunderstood is not a political theory but a spiritual one. The problem one will soon
come to see through this method is that we have many opinions today and very little
knowledge. This is a fact (in my opinion) not a theory.

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A further benefit to be gained through this method is that the Talmud is an externalized
training ground for learning to internally initially accept and later approach resolution
with the complexities, contradictions and resulting confusion that makes for much of our
lives. Through a passionate attempt to understand, resolve and draw practical conclusions
from Talmudic contradictions one builds ones inner skill set. This is then devoted to
ones own inner contradictions. The skill set is made up of qualities of consciousness
developed through daily study like patience, determination, perseverance and
commitment. Ultimately, it is Gods mercy which enlightens us as to the path we should
choose as the Talmud itself records, One who comes to purify himself is assisted
(Shabbat 104a). Thus the Chassidic master Rabbi David of Lelov was quoted as saying,
When the Messiah comes they will study the Tractate of David Lelov as today they
study the Tractate Baba Kama (Oral Hassidic Tradition). This master is here alluding to
his inner complexity and contradictions and his resolutions largely of them. These
struggles and answers if the seeker ultimately grasps will aid them in their own process of
spiritual maturation. Every Talmudic tractate like the Five books of Moses itself starts
with the Hebrew letter Bet, this letter has the numerical value of 2. This is not an accident
rather it reflects our own division into halves and the goal of study being to reach the
Aleph the numerical value of 1 and a symbol for the One. Through the Way of the Elders
one develops ones capacity to understand and appreciate ever increasing subtlety and
complexity and to find God in this process. The Talmud in this sense is preparatory for
Kabbalah, which comes to teach us that God is as complex as he is simple and subtle as
he is revealed. When one observes in ones Talmudic meditation how two to ten Rabbis
can legitimately perceive a law from different angles one is being trained in tolerance,
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dare I say pluralism and need I say marriage and family counseling. Further, one starts to
become intimately aware that as two Sages can perceive a law from two different angles,
each from their perspective being right and has what to base themselves on, yet we
decide according to the one that works for our world. So too, each of us in Talmudic
terminology has a good inclination and an evil inclination and we can choose to view our
lives from either of these two angles. Each makes total sense according to the inner logic
of these inner voices yet we act in accordance with the soul and the good inclination for
that is what works in this world. Thus Talmudic study and meditation is training one in
the movement from possible truths to functional truth and thus is an initiation into
spiritual pragmatism not adventurism.
The Way of the Elders being a method that causes one to swim in the act of Talmudic
interpretation reminds us that we are first and foremost interpretive creatures. This can be
very helpful in sensitizing oneself and making one aware in various instances that one
might be interpreting reality and ones interpretation might not be reality in this case.
It does not take a psychotherapist trained in the art of recognizing projections and many
other ultimately unhelpful human interpretations to see the benefits of this training and
practice.
The Way of the Elders is also akin to a Mikveh (ritual bath) of the mind. I assume the
reader knows from experience the feeling of spiritual purification and elevation this
assists with. Further, how it also is a great tool for facilitating transitions and conversions
like in becoming a Jew or Jewess even today. So often in our spiritual process we get lost
in a down spin of so many fruitless thoughts, emotions and details. Instead of an abrupt
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break with this all too human process, this method works with where you are at and
transitions you into holy details, sentiments and thoughts with gentleness as in the
homebirth of a child. Thus bringing ones distracted and emotionally stormy condition to
the Talmud will lead one to walk away feeling clear and able to reengage the issue at
hand with more equanimity and even joy.
For those with an interest in Kabbalah this method was perceived by a vast number of
mystics in our tradition as an absolute must and pre-requisite. This, just as in other
traditions there are preparatory methods and advanced ones and one is counseled not to
skip steps. When Maimonides (Laws of Foundations of Torah 4:13) and later the Code of
Jewish Law (Yoreh Deah 246:4 see gloss of Rema and Shach ad loc.) says one should not
enter the Pardes (mystical realm) before ones belly is filled with meat and wine, these
being allusions to Talmudic and Halachic study he was not being spiritually prude.
Unless ones mind and heart is trained in the qualities these preparatory methods
inculcate so as to be a base for ones eventual exploration of Inner Space then one is on a
course to be either like one of the many NASA satellites lost in outer space due to faulty
design, construction and controls or equally analogous one of the unfortunate space
shuttles that goes out tragically and sadly with a blast. The main difference is that the
non-readied student or teacher of Kabbalahs ego usually explodes on his or her students
not in the clear sky. Need it be said that since the creation of the Talmud the greatest
mystics were often the greatest Talmudists and if not the greatest they were nonetheless
well initiated into its study. Rav Abraham Abulafia (13 th century) not considered a master
Talmudist but yet a master- master Kabbalist learned the entire Talmud. His
contemporary Rabbi Shlomo ibn Aderet was one of the master Talmudic and Halachic
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scholars of his generation as well as mystics. The list would go on an on: the Vilna Goan
and Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Rabbi Yosef Karo and the Godly Rabbi Issac Luria
and on and on. Friends and aspiring Kabbalists its time to pick up a Talmud and start
the process. Through regular practice of the Way of the Elders one will come to know
and live the Torah in a more holistic way. One will not only learn what to do which is the
realm of Halacha but one will learn in a systematic and legal sense why? This again is
preparation for Kabbalah which deals in the esoteric sense of the big Why?
It would be rather un-talmudic of me to present this method of meditation and
interpreting it as the Way of the Elders without quoting directly such an elder and
showing that Talmud study was viewed explicitly as meditation. Not to do so would
understandably arouse suspicions of revisionism and projection unto the past the kinds of
which scholars even young ones like myself loathe. So to alleviate any concerns I quote
from the respected Halachic, Talmudic and Kabbalistic scholar Rabbi Avraham Azulai
(16th century) a name that is known to any student of Kabbalah and well-rounded student
of Torah. In his today readily available and encyclopedic work on Kabbalah Kindness to
Avraham he teaches two teachings that pertain to our subject, the first teaching will
introduce the second. Rav Azulai teaches (2nd Spring, 9 th River), The matter is that like
with wheat which is nourishment for the body and effort is required in winnowing,
grinding and sifting it time after time in order to separate the chaff from the fine flour,
which is the holiness [within]. Scripture has thus said, And a tenth of an eipha [Biblical
measurement] of fine flour (Numbers 28:5). So in Halacha the food of the soul, she
garbs in thick husks (these are the four kelipot (shells)), and requires grinding and sifting
in order that the soul benefit from this bread. This is what our teachers of blessed
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memory have said (Baba Metzia 33a), Mishna is a measure and [one] receives upon [its
study] reward Talmud is a measure that there is no higher than it. The [explanation of
the] matter is that the Mishna is food for the soul like the food that has chaff with the
flour mixed in that [the body] does not benefit appropriately and at times this chaff
damages a bit the body. So too is the Mishna literally without the answering of the
difficult questions. However, the Talmud is food and bread of clean and fine flour
without [ultimately] difficult questions like the separations between the chaff of the
wheat from the fine flour and the soul benefits from this appropriately. Therefore it is
necessary to grind the words of the Torah well.
This quotation is brought first so that now in the second quotation when the author
teaches regarding difficult questions of Halacha the reader understands that the author
is referring in this case to the Mishna and when he speaks about breaking them he is
making reference to the Talmud. With this introduction Rav Azulai then teaches us
(2nd spring, 28th river), Know that if your involvement all your days in Torah is without
understanding in her, only you read in her, behold, in this you eat the wheat with its chaff
and the mind is with the kelipot (evil shells). For the difficult questions of the Halacha
these are the secret of the kelipot and you are obligated to ask and to break the kelipot
and cause the mind to come out [of difficulty] and to answer and to be exact with the
word and to understand the hidden. The one who is involved like this in the Torah,
that is without understanding all that is within his capacity he mixes the holy with the
regular and the regular with the holy. Upon him it is said, and one who does not add [to
their learning] dies prematurely [Baba Batra 121b]. Further, he is culpable for the death
penalty [by the hands of Heaven], since it is in his hands to deeply analyze the Torah and
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does not, in this he strengthens the kelipot and establishes them. The matter is- Know that
the Torah is the essence of Atzilut (World of Emanation) that expands and was a divine
creation that through her a person will attach to God and to purify their soul in the True
Light of Life. That is those who are bonded with God in this world and the coming world.
Scripture refers to this when it states, And you who are bonded with God all of you are
alive today (Deuteronomy 4:4), that is, alive even in this world, and certainly in the
world to come. The attachment to God needs to be without a veil that separates between
you and your Torah. This [occurs] when you deeply look at the Torah and she is far from
your knowing and concealed from you through the difficult questions that are the
Kelipot that cover the Torah and hide her from the eye of your intellect. So therefore the
Kelipot are the iron wall between you and God. Therefore if the passionate love in your
heart craves to attach to Him, it is necessary to go after those difficult questions to break
them and nullify them and to attach to the hidden Torah that is concealed within the
kelipot. The one who does this is attached with the ultimate attachment and this is the
greatest meditation that brings one close to the blessed name without a veil and
separation between you and God.
The italics and bold are of course my own but I believe the Talmudic phrase Tu Low
Miydy (no further proof is necessary) is quite fitting.
This textual support is of course based on more than a millennia and a half of practice
and merely records the concepts in which the experience is rooted. It would be wise
therefore to quote a more historically contemporary and once living example of the spirit
of this work where Talmud study is unequivocally seen as a form of Jewish meditation.
239
For this purpose I will share with you a story about Rav Chaim of Tzanz or as he was
known as the Tzanzer. Once Rav Chaim woke up in the morning and started to say what
every religiously educated Jewish man, woman and child says. He started the prayer of
thankfulness to the Creator that reads in translation, I acknowledge before you King
I stop in the midst of the translation for this morning this is what Rav Chaim did. More
than stop here he kept repeating to himself, King! King! King! Apparently, the desired
effect was not achieved by this idiosyncratic Hassidic quirk and so immediately Rav
Chaim, a master Talmudic and Halachic scholar to boot asked his assistant for a
Talmudic tractate and after his morning rituals and blessings sat himself down in bed. He
then passionately learned Talmud for two hours. Upon the completion of his study he
stood up and said, King!!! Now I know that God is King, and he then continued this
unfinished prayer. (see Otzar HaSipurim 11:14 for original and full version)
This is a fascinating story on many levels. For simplicitys sake it demonstrates that for
Rav Chaim of Tzanz Talmudic study was a method of increasing ones awareness that
God permeates and therefore rules metaphorically as a King over all. I think it is fair to
deduce that for the Tzanzer a Hassidic master of the 19th century Talmud study was a
form of Jewish meditation.
I will conclude with the words of my master and teacher whom I merited to receive direct
transmission of the Jewish teaching from for eight years of my life Rabbi Shlomo
Carlebach his memory for blessing. Shlomo as he was called in the Neo-Hassidic spirit of
the times imparted to us on numerous occasions how Jews of learning would go through
the Talmud from memory even in places like Auschwitz. One such Jew knowing he was
240
being sent to his death the next day and therefore unable to complete the Talmudic
tractate he was studying told his nephew, finish where I left off. Friends this is what we
are called to, to finish were our sacred ancestors left off and to carry on the Jewish chain
of spiritual transmission. Lets through a meditative spirit embrace all the holy books and
paths that are ancestors devoted themselves to and through this medium due honor to our
holy ancestors and bond with God. It is through this that we will shine a Torah light to
humanity and nourish and cultivate ourselves in the process. Shalom Shalom
Learn a page of Talmud with Rashi commentary (alone) enough times until you know the
page of Talmud by memory in the original Aramaic. With regards to Rashi you do not
need to memorize anything other than the comments that are essential to your
understanding of the text- the more the better however. In order to accomplish this
memorization of the entire page break up the page into smaller divisions of two lines and
memorize these one by one- this involves a lot of repetition. The deeper levels of
meditation and understading begin when you learn this hard earned page by heart and
review it with your eyes closed with spiritual passion. I have it on good authority that this
is how many of the great Talmudic masters have obtained their original insights and
greatness in learning.
Review/Meditate on what you have learned every day for the rest of your life as much as
possible.
241
You can learn/meditate non-verbally (in your mind) anywhere except in a bathroom and
other unclean places ask Rav for details. A Torah House of Study or Synagogue is most
recommended as a meditation room.
Salik Mesechet Meditation (Completed is the Tractate Meditation)

Hadran Lecha Mesechet Meditation (Will Return to You Tractate Meditation)
Tam Venishlam Shevach Leoseh Shamayim- Vaaretz
Yud Tet Ellul- Shenat Taf Shin Samech
(Complete and Finished Praise to the Maker of Heaven & Earth 19th of Ellul the year
5760)
Recommended Reading:
Sefer Kerem Yehoshua, by Harav Hagaon Yehoshua Cohen Shlita
Kabbalah and Commandment by Zechariah Tzvi Shamayim Varetz,(Section on
Torah Study)
242
Epilogue
This work was written with the exception of the last lesson over the span of
1999. It is now midway through 2001 and I thought it worthy to reflect on
where I am at spiritually since the writing of this course and as I approach my
30th birthday. I have to say that in some ways I am very different and in some
ways very much the same. Meditation wise my main meditation practices are:
Raising of the Hands, Talmud Study, the Amidah (Standing Prayer) & Bowing,
Shema, Teffilin and Mikveh. I also on occasion do the Kabbalistic healing
meditation but it has ceased to be a daily practice. I am thank God still married
and happily so, with two sons and one child on the way. I am basically a part-
time house dad, cook and teacher of my sons and a part-time student and
teacher/writer of Torah. I despite getting heavily into Talmud and Halacha
(Jewish Law) am ever the Californian Kabbalist that I use to be. Just recently I
had a chiropractor friend do a shamanic healing session on me and I have
another friend who is a rolfer who works on me. Another friend, with a major
background in the Vilna Gaons Kabbalah is teaching me the Kabbalistic
parallel to Kundalini Yoga and I just started doing Iyengar hatha Yoga on a
daily basis in the privacy of my own study. I am cooking Ayurvedic food as of
now and where white on Shabat so as you can see I am still somewhat of a
rebel. I am still doing Gestalt therapy and probably so for some time. I have got
a Calfornia Kabbalah II in the planning stages its deals with meditations like:
Shofar, Neo-Abulafian meditation, Kabbalistic bowing, Blessings (Berachot),

243
Shabat ritual and prayer meditations, haircut meditations, Sacred Sexuality
meditations, Visualization meditations on Israel and meditations that touch on
Shema and Mezuzah. My life is as always an inner adventure with all kinds of
spiritual personalities coming through its plot. Thanks for sharing the ride. Be
Blessed.

Varetz, Zechariah Tzvi Shamayim: California Kabbalah

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California Kabbalah:

By Zechariah Tzvi Shamayim Varetz

W ith Rabbi Avraham Sutton

Copyright 2001 Zechariah Tzvi Shamayim Varetz All Rights Reserved

How to Study This Work 5

Lesson 1-My Encounter with Hebrew Heavenly Herbalism: A Kabbalistic

Lesson 2 --Yoga vs. Yehudah Ben Teima: A Kabbalistic Channeling

Lesson 3--The Tao of Kabbalah: A Kabbalistic Meditation for Self-

Lesson 4--The Kabbalistic Midnight Rectification: A Grieving/Comforting

Lesson 5--Waking Up: Modeh Ani in Light of Shing Yi 107

Lesson 6--Elevating Consciousness: The Power of One's Hands in Kabbalah

Lesson 7--Spiritual Batteries: Tefillin as Meditation 127

Lesson 8--From Mindfulness to GODFULLNESS: Exploring Shiviti

Lesson 9--Mikveh Immersion: Exploring Aquatic Kabbalistic Meditations

Lesson 11--Tzitzit Consciousness: Meditating in Jewish Style 177

Lesson 12--Experiencing the Divine Oneness: Meditations on the Shema 202

Lesson 13--The Way of the Elders: Traditional Talmud study as Jewish

person has increased my understanding of them as well as my appreciation of their value

How to Study This Work

more enjoyable to learn about and inviting to practice.

perception of my spiritual journey as a gestalt and the autobiographical element will be

out as I tried to weave my personal history with articulating these techniques.

accessible than you or I might assume.

practicing the meditations and spiritual practices that are included.

Californa Kabbalah? Lurianic Kabbalah, Theosophical or Magical Kabbalah or even

answer. California Kabbalah is the interface between an eclectic selection of Traditional

some philosophical explorations that touch on deep matters of the spirit.

would probably be considered a young Chassidic master in training.

Lesson 1-My Encounter with Hebrew Heavenly

Herbalism: A Kabbalistic Self-Healing Meditation

I, an Ashkenazi Jew, not having grown up in a religious culture where Kabbalistic

using a Mezuza as a diagnostic tool to assess ones spiritual condition as a whole is a

common method of Kabbalistic counseling. However, I thought to myself, How

psychotherapy (Riechian-Bioenergetics, Gestalt, Rolfing) to work on my psycho/spiritual

sense of enthusiasm, Michael proceeded to sell me on this Kabbalists psychic virtues,

which sounded impressive even to an Ashkenazi therapy devotee with rational

his own life and others.

persons religious observance. This religious analysis, as opposed to the psychological

paradigm of Freudian, Adlerian or Jungian dynamics, seemed to be his specialty. Despite

said Why not?

number meditations to improve my wifes eyesight.

me and made me decidedly uncomfortable.

automatically spill over into the rest of his life.

do, maybe he could help me with my psycho/spiritual healing and work.

excessive but kindly appreciated.

preliminary work I had done both in therapy and in Judaism.

repressed emotions, acknowledging traumas and trying to re-examine those experiences

greater, more objective perspective.

technique described below, is more of an energy channeling and a strengthening

it is not Kabbalah or attitude change, but allowing Kabbalistic teachings to become an

influence in how ones attitude is changed.

Here is a transliteration of the 20 Hebrew letters given to me in the Yemenite

told to me by the Kabbalist, but it is a Kabbalistic principle nonetheless. When working

and has the most beneficial effects below.

following these instructions:

Relax for a few minutes before beginning.

and visualizing the letter.

letter into your being.

eyes closed the whole time.

The Sefirot and Their Physical Correspondences