“Meditation, Judaism, and Self-Mastery”
Let’s reclaim our spiritual heritage!
01-24-2021
We will learn about the difference – and similarity – between fear and awe of God.
We will also review more Best Practices for meditation.
Check out our new website! Resource Room For Jewish Meditation
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Student questions
- You have only talked about movement so far, not sound. If you make a sound either during religious prayer or in your Kung fu tests, is that considered a distraction (even if you aren’t aware of it yourself) and would that be considered as similar to movement in King fu?
- I realized that I may have made slight internal movements during meditation but they wouldn’t be noticeable to an outside observer. What are your thoughts on whether this is movement or not.
- Why should we fear God? Wouldn’t it be better to love and respect Him?
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The Amidah as meditation:”The awesome God”
Rabbi Kaplan – “Jewish Meditation” p 114
The peak experiences of the Patriarchs – Jacob
Jacob
Vision of God and the ladder
Sweet and beautiful awe
Was Jacob afraid, or in awe, of God?
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Jacob’s vision: Gen 28.10 – 22
https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0128.htm
16 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: ‘Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.’
17 And he was afraid, and said: ‘How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’
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Rabbi Sacks: don’t make it about you.
“To this, Rabbi Pinchas Horowitz (Panim Yafot) gave a magnificent answer. How, he asks, do we come to know that “God is in this place”? “By ve’anokhi lo yadati – not knowing the I.” We know God when we forget the self. We sense the “Thou” of the Divine Presence when we move beyond the “I” of egocentricity. Only when we stop thinking about ourselves do we become truly open to the world and the Creator. In this insight lies an answer to some of the great questions about prayer: What difference does it make? Does it really change God? Surely God does not change. Besides which, does not prayer contradict the most fundamental principle of faith, which is that we are called on to do God’s will rather than ask God to do ours? What really happens when we pray?”
https://rabbisacks.org/i-silent-vayetse-5779/
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“Sometimes it is when we feel most alone that we discover we are not alone. We can encounter God in the midst of fear or a sense of failure. I have done so at the very points when I felt most inadequate, overwhelmed, abandoned, looked down on by others, discarded and disdained. It was then that I felt the hand of God reaching out to save me the way a stranger did when I was on the point of drowning in an Italian sea on my honeymoon.[1] That is the gift of Jacob/Israel, the man who found God in the heart of darkness.”
“Jacob was the first but not the last. Recall Moses in his moment of crisis, when he said the terrifying words, “If this is what You are going to do to me, please kill me now if I have found favour in Your sight, and let me not see my misery” (Num. 11:15). That is when God allowed Moses to see the effect of his spirit on seventy elders, one of the rare cases of a spiritual leader seeing the influence he has had on others in his lifetime.”
https://rabbisacks.org/depths-vayetse-5778/
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You are afraid when it is about you; you are in awe when it is about God.
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Contemporary insights
Steve Siebold, “177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class”
“Champions handle fear like a snake charmer,” pp 90 – 91
“The great ones don’t give back – they just give,” pp 103 – 104
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Student questions
- You have only talked about movement so far, not sound. If you make a sound either during religious prayer or in your Kung fu tests, is that considered a distraction (even if you aren’t aware of it yourself) and would that be considered as similar to movement in King fu?
- I realized that I may have made slight internal movements during meditation but they wouldn’t be noticeable to an outside observer. What are your thoughts on whether this is movement or not.
- Why should we fear God? Wouldn’t it be better to love and respect Him?
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Best practices for meditation
Bhante Gunaratana, “Mindlfulness in Plain English,”
General rules, pp 57 – 61
Purpose of the postures
Straight back
Clothing
Traditional postures
Chair
The Practice, pp 44 – 47
What is the goal?
Do not change position
Determine a time
Improve naturally
Sit motionless
Be present
Choose a focal point: breath