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Many people contact me and ask me if Judaism has a spiritual path. What they have in mind is the connection with the soul. The spiritual wares of other religions, for example, Zen or Tibetan Buddhism, Hindu Yoga, or Sufism from the Islam tradition seem somehow to be more accessible than is the Jewish path. These paths advocate meditation, ascetic practices, or other techniques designed to bring a person into awareness of his own selfishness and of his ego and to come into contact with the Divine part of his or herself the soul.
Since these paths opened up to the West, we find many Jews who are drawn to these spiritual paths. The fact remains that Jews are by nature a deeply spiritual people. And ultimately they are not completely comfortable with the materialism of the Western rationalist culture.
So we need to ask the question Where is Judaism’s spiritual path? Why is it so much more difficult for Jews to access their own path? Indeed, I was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish home in London. We kept all the customs and the rituals of Orthodox Judaism yet I also found myself asking this question.
I, personally, never really doubted that Judaism has a spiritual path because I understood for myself that it would not have been possible for the Jewish people to have survived 2000 years of persecution and dispersion without one. Not only that, but in my view, it had to be a very profound spiritual path, because Jews throughout history, whether formally religious or not, were nevertheless, when in dire circumstances, willing to die for their faith rather than give up who they were. We could not have had this dedication to our faith if it had been based purely on social content, customs, or rituals alone. It definitely had to have a deep spiritual content.
So my question became not “Does Judaism have a spiritual path? but what is Judaism’s spiritual path?”
The answer to this question lies in the unique inclusiveness of Judaism’s spirituality: In other religions, there is a separation between the physical world and the spiritual world. People who wish to dedicate their lives to spirituality live separately from the physical world, as ascetics, hermits, or monks. But Judaism sees the world as a whole. It sees the physical dimension of the world, its physical dimension as being, in itself, spiritual.
Life itself is sacred in all its manifestations and it is through life itself that God communicates with us.
So how does Judaism’s spiritual path work?
The Kabbalah teaches us that every element in this physical world comes directly from the spiritual worlds above. Not only that but our actions and words in this world affect the functioning of the spiritual worlds. So there are invisible but real threads connecting us to the spiritual worlds. Where are these spiritual worlds to be found? Both surrounding us, and within us. Deep within our own soul.
The Torah is the bridge between the physical and the spiritual and all aspects of it are needed, the written, and revealed Torah and the oral tradition, the Halachah and the Kabbalah. All elements need to unite to give us the whole spritual path, , the inclusive spiritual path that is the heritage of every Jew.
This podcast is dedicated in loving memory and for the ilui Nishmat of Feigi Bat Rivka z”l and Aharon Kotler z”l and Sara Kotler z”l, May their memories be a blessing for us.
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