EVERYTHING IS

THE RADICAL PATH OF NONDUAL JUDAISM

Jay Michaelson

Trumpeter Boston & London

2009

d. Yet perhaps even this ~s insufficie~t; perhaps the embracing heart ell ares for the world 1s less a vehicle than a destination in its If

bich c e . VI is accessible, and real. fbislove

ECSTATIC AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER: THE GLUE OF TRANSCENDENCE

Pra er as a spiritual practice has a long lineage in Jewish tradition-beginning with the very w~rd for "~ray," l'hitpallel, a reflexive verb which indicates that prayer 1s somethmg one does to oneself. The oft-repeated notion that prayer is "the service of the heart" is actually a oor translation of avodah sh'balev, which really means "the service that

p "'h 'thh h is in the heart -1t appens m e eart, not somew ere else. And its rewards are there as well: ecstasy (hitpa'alut and hitlahavut ), union ( ach-dut ), and cleaving to the Divine (devekut). The heart's need for prayer endures notwithstanding the truth of nonduality. As one Hasidic text, rendered here by Rabbi Arthur Green, says:

How many walls there are between man and God. Even though God fills all the world, He is so very hidden! Yet a single word of prayer can topple all the walls and bring you

close to God. 3

This type of prayer is quite different from conventional forms. If tra-ditional prayer is petitionary in nature-asking God to fill one's needs or wants-prayer as a spiritual practice is about forgetting the self entirely. According to R. Dov Ber of Mezrich, the successor to the Baal Shem Tov:

A person must think of himself as nothing [ ayin], and forget himself utterly, and ask in his prayers only for the Shechinah. In this way, he will be able to transcend time, to the World of Thought, where everything is equal: life and death, sea and dry land ... He cannot do this if he is attached [ davuk] to materiality and this world, be-cause he will be attached to distinctions between good and evil · · · Moreover, if he thinks of himself as something [yesh] and asks for

HEART 175

his needs, the Holy One cannot be clothed in . Blessed One is infinite [Ein Sof], and there . hini, becau , is no v se th contain Him, except when one thinks of himself esse} tha e

as noth· t tah ing.4 •• Notice how for R. Dov Ber true prayer is equanimou scendent of the distinctions of this world. It takes O s, or at least

d . b ne to a re I trar1 multiplicity, space, an time, even eyond goodne . a rn be ·

th 'nki f ss, spirit I Yotid ness, or peace. Only by I . ng_ o oneself as nothing is it ua ity, hoJi. make negative space for the 1nfin1te. Possible to

How is this task accomplished? There are two m . ain lllode!

sidic prayer: contemplative and ecstatic. In the conte 1 . s of Ba. . h . mp ative

Prayer acts to replace eg01c t oughts with holy ones p lllode! . re-pra ' thinking of my mortgage payments and to-do list, but post- ra Yer, 1 am it works right, I am thinking of the omnipresence of God p yer, When . . , or the d .1 wonders of human hfe. Contemplative prayer is essentially . a.i Y a vanatio on contemplative meditation, except here the concepts of p n . . rayer pro. vide the subject matter for focused reflection and consideration.

In the ecstatic model, concepts drop away entirely. Instead th 1 , e et-ters and words of prayer, perhaps aided by song, vigorous movement visualization, and heartrending devotion, become a technology for per'. sonal transformation. Here, the change is less from ignorant to grateful, than from ignorant of unity to knowing it-a "knowing" that is less an intellectual concept than an Adam-knew-Eve, in-your-kishkes kind of knowing, the way you know the deepest truths, and the most obvious ones, such as the fact that you're seeing right now. If in contemplative prayer, the mind shifted subjects, now it drops subject and object en-tirely. The "you" is burned away, and God is what is left over. According to one Hasidic source:

Before he begins to pray, a person should cast aside that which limits him and enter the endless world of Ayin. In prayer he should turn to God alone and have no thoughts of himself at all. Nothing but God exists for him; he himself has ceased to be.5

Hasidim spl't h' h Ah n ecstasy . 1 on w 1c model was preferable. For R. aro ' is a necessary . . . fi ry for the , prereqms1te to enlightenment; it is like a re ne

176 ARETZ: PRACTICE

r t purifying it from its sense of

bear , 'b separatio . If with the attn utes and the he n. Precisel b . 1tse d . art, ecstas · Y Y 1nv l · . n away an provide an actual e . y is able to b o v10g ratio xpenence f urn the s sonates with many contemporary enth . o union- a vi epa-

re , . al R D us1asts d ew Which t R Aharon s nv , . ov Ber of L b . an spiritu l BU · . u avitch (n a seekers 6

R Dov Ber of Meznch, quoted above) b 1. ot to be confu d . · · . ' e ieved th se with

rious ecstasy outweighed the cost at the risks f . spu . s-a cancer . 0 ego1c, tes in our own time of zealous fund n which surel na . . . ' amentalist Y reso-

. ht? History 1mtially favored R Do B enthusiasm 7 Wh . rig · · v er- h · o 1s f Chabad. But today, most Hasidic sects f , e ascended to leadershi

o ful h avor the ecst . p Prayer is heart , eartrending, noisy and h . atic mode. Their

. ' h , c aotic. It i l'k . fire withm ones eart, yearning to tast th s i e lighting a th e e sweetnes f .

the Holy One or e Shechinah; engaging all s O union with . h . d . . aspects of the s lf· h

l·ng caution tot e wm . Ind1V1dually thi·s e , t row-. . ' may mean rhyth · . (shuckling), or praymg m one's own words crvin b f m1c swaying ' -, • g out e ore God . h manner of R. Nachman of Bratzlav's hitboded t .1 mt e

• u unti -and this is th critical pomt-the sense of self seems to melt aw . e . ay m tears or laughter or both. The energies that are cultivated in this pr t· ac ice are powerful and erotic-not sexual, but erotic. As the Baal Shem T • ' have said:

ov 1s reported to

Prayer is coupling with the Shechinah. Just as there is movement at the beginning of coupling, so too one must move at the begin-ning of prayer. Afterwards one can stand still, without motion, attached to the Shechinah with great devekut. As a result of your swaying, you can attain great bestirment. For you think to your-self: Why do I move myself? Because the Shechinah is standing before me. This will cause a state of great rapture [hitlahavut].8

To be sure, making love to the immanent Divine Feminine may seem too radical for some-and the Hasidim were alternately ridiculed and condemned for their wild and boisterous prayer gatherings, with shout-ing and singing and banging on the walls. The neighbors of New York's Carlebach Shul make similar complaints today. But particularly for th · h d ffb traditional prayer ose e1t er uninspired or affirmatively turne O Y Ian ful lt rnative whether guage, Hasidic ecstatic prayer can be a power a e '

177 HEART

in its traditional forms, or in new ones accorn . . ' panied b men ts and chants taken from multiple tradit" Y drulll . . , Ions L'k S,111

Practice, ecstatic prayer lowers the barriers of s If ·

1 e any str1i. . e and ec:st .

into an altered state which, because the egoic self is . Puts the ~tic: a quality of union. While the ecstatic prayer state . quieted, oft ltitnd . is not as en h or dissociative as those associated with entheogens d

0therw0 1 as . an sha r di

tices it is nonetheless a g01ng-beyond, an ec-stasis f h manic: p Y , . o t e so I rac:. one day, neurologists will be able to explain such ex . u · Perh penences aps chemical phenomena. Perhaps they will do so for love as neur . as well. B o. they do, would such experiences be any less delightful 1 . ut even if 'any essinr 1rnate?