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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Rabbi Alan Lurie: The Mystical Experience: A Question of What's Beyond

Author, "Five Minutes on Mondays: Finding Unexpected, Purpose, Peace and Fulfillment at Work"

Posted: October 17, 2010 06:49 AM

Several months ago, as I was riding on the New York City subway, I glanced up at the usual band of advertising that ran over the windows and noticed something unusual: a small square poster that contained the logo of the New York Public Library, along with the following quote: "If we had keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heartbeat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence." From Middlemarch, by George Eliot.

I had not read Middlemarch (or any George Eliot, for that matter) and didn't know the context, but I was immediately drawn in to this beautiful sentence, with its description of the dulled state in which most of us live and the yearning to peel back this dullness in order to experience the powerful presence of life itself. This quote struck me because I, like countless others, had briefly and partially heard this "roar", had seen the place on the "other side of silence", and had felt a kind of dying. These encounters showed me that there is a purposeful presence that underlies all creation, and that there is a oneness to everything. The experience of this presence is often called "mysticism," and Eliot's sentence is an astonishing evocation of the mystic's journey.

All mystics share a similar understanding; that there is a presence, which goes by many names (and that I will refer to as God), that creates and animates everything, from the squirrel's heartbeat to the spinning of galaxies, and that we can, through our own consciousness, connect to this presence, which is a deeper and truer reality than the one that most of us experience in our everyday lives. And through this encounter we are transformed.

When exploring mysticism, there are four essential questions that naturally arise:
1. How can one access this deeper reality?
2. What does this have to do with religion?
3. Is this "deeper reality" real, or just a biochemical reaction or delusional state?
4. Why should one care about accessing this deeper reality?

These are difficult questions to answer accurately (and briefly), because the mystical experience, like an aesthetic response to a painting or the pleasures of sexual union, transcends and resists words. So mystics, like poets, always talk in metaphor and allusion. For help in these answers, then, I will turn to quotes from a diverse, and perhaps unexpected, group of mystics:

1. How can one access this deeper reality?
Mystics, like Eliot, know that our usual experience of reality is dulled, incomplete or illusory. As Eliot notes, though, this dullness is actually a protection that keeps us from being overwhelmed by the power of the true nature of things. Mystics, however, yearn to lift this dullness, and to experience the force of life as directly as possible. In order to experience this we must, as Eliot writes, penetrate to the "other side of silence". In other words, we must first quiet the constant mental chatter that dulls and distracts us, and once the mind is quieted and there is inner silence we can begin to perceive the "roar" that lies beneath. This is the meditative practice, which is the mystic's doorway to experience God's presence. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the early 20th century Supreme Court Justice, described this dynamic, in terms very similar to Eliot's, with his yearning to transcend normal perception and arrive at a truer, more powerful reality: "I wouldn't give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity."

2. What does this have to do with religion?
We can -- and much too often do -- argue about the different teachings of various religions and their many attempts to describe the nature of God. But the true purpose of all religions is to help facilitative a connection to this deeper reality, and the mystical experience is the original spark that informs religions. Because religion often gets hijacked by those who seek power or control, we may loose sight of this mechanism, but, as Henri Bergson, the French Philosopher who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921, wrote: "Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science."

The mystical experience, however, is by no means limited to the realm of religion and does not require the life of a pious ascetic. And one certainly does not need religion or a proscribed belief structure in order to experience this presence. Mahatma Gandhi affirmed this with his simple aphorism, "God has no religion."

3. Is this "deeper reality" real, or just a biochemical reaction or delusional state?
The mystical experience is, I assume, a measurable biochemical phenomenon. This does not diminish or negate it, though, because everything that we experience, from the feeling of love to the perception of the apple in front of us, is some form of biochemical reaction in our bodies. That's how we operate. And just as we can explore the tangible qualities of the apple, we can also explore the intangible qualities of love -- and of the mystical experience. Mystics know, however, that they have glimpsed only a small part of the whole, because as human beings we are limited by our five senses, our level of development, and our cognitive abilities. But their descriptions are remarkably consistent across cultures, times and places, and give us a sense of the qualities of this deeper reality, with the recognition of an omnipresent consciousness that is the actual "material" of all existence. The 17th Century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza saw this clearly, and in his treatise "The Ethics" wrote, "Besides God no substance can be granted or conceived."

Scientists who have peered deeply in to the essential nature of reality have also seen this presence. Max Planck, the founder of Quantum Physics, famously observed, "All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force ... We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind."

4. Why should one care about accessing this deeper reality?
Plato addressed this question more than 2,300 years ago in his famous "Allegory of the Cave." In this allegory, Plato imagines a cave in which people are bound motionless in front of a wall, staring at shadows of cut-out images which, lit from a fire and natural light behind them, slowly move across the wall. These people come to believe that these shadows of shadows are all that there is to reality, and debate endlessly about the nature of these fleeting two dimensional images. One man, though, is freed from his chains and stumbles to the light at the mouth of the cave. As he slowly adjusts to the brightness he is able to see the sun and feels its warmth. Plato writes, "He would understand that the Sun is the source of the seasons and the years, and is the steward of all things in the visible place, and is in a certain way the cause of all those things he and his companions had been seeing."

For the first time in his life this man experiences freedom, as he sees that he had been living in a cold dark cave, separated from his fellow prisoners and ignorant of his true nature and reality. This is an experience of God's presence, in which the sense of separation and the desires of the ego are clearly seen as foolish and dangerous illusions that keep us bound and ignorant. The impulse to seek this presence is to know ourselves, each other and our world as clearly as possible in order to live at the highest level.

View the original article here

Monday, October 18, 2010

Rabbi Jason Miller: Moving Beyond Denominational Differences in Judaism

Rabbi Jason Miller: Moving Beyond Denominational Differences in Judaism HPFB.init();

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Rabbi Jason MillerRabbi Without Borders

Posted: October 16, 2010 07:26 AMBIOBecome a FanGet Email AlertsBloggers' Index

As a 30-something rabbi, I've noticed that denominational labels were much more important for our parents' and grandparents' generations than they are for us. Today's 20- and 30-year-olds are searching for meaning in religion and are not very concerned with the names of movements or synagogues.

Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg, an Orthodox rabbi, recently wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Jewish Week entitled "Time To End The Reform-Orthodox Wars." He was responding to Israeli chief rabbi Shlomo Amar's attack on Reform Jews and his pressure on the Israeli government to prevent involvement of non-Orthodox movements in state and religion affairs.

I was pleased to read Rothenberg's perspective that it is time for Orthodox Jews to "build bridges of cooperation [to Reform and Conservative Jews] for the sake of the entire people of Israel and its future" without compromising principles or "fidelity to a life of Torah and mitzvoth."

My own sense is that despite some animosity toward other denominations of Judaism, which is often bred on ignorance, there is actually much tolerance and understanding among fellow Jews. We are moving toward a Jewish community in which the borders that separate the denominations are becoming blurred.

Rothenberg recognizes the need to bridge the vast abyss between his brand of Orthodoxy and the more progressive streams of modern Judaism, but he remains concerned that the depths of antipathy will make this too difficult. I disagree.

We live in a time when a Jewish person's Facebook profile identifies her religion as "Recon-newel-ortho-conserva-form." This combination of religious denominations does not demonstrate confusion or haziness, but rather the realization that there is "meaning" to be made from the various pathways to Torah.

I knew when I decided to become a rabbi that the Conservative Movement's Jewish Theological Seminary would be the right place for my training. I had been raised in Conservative Judaism, studying at Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit, and honing my leadership skills in United Synagogue Youth, the movement's youth program. However, it was in rabbinical school that I came into contact with the other "flavors" of Judaism, praying each Shabbat at an Orthodox shul, engaging in Torah study with a Reconstructionist rabbi and training as a hospital chaplain with a Reform rabbinical student.

My first job after graduating rabbinical school was at the University of Michigan Hillel Foundation, an institution that offers five different Shabbat service options. On any given Friday evening I could find myself in a Reform havurah, a Conservative minyan, an egalitarian gathering with separate seating or a traditional Orthodox service. From week to week, I saw many students sampling the various options, less concerned with ideological labels than with finding a comfort level that spoke to them spiritually, intellectually and communally. They were in search of meaning, not a denominational brand.

Last year, I traveled to New York City several times to be part of a fellowship with rabbinic colleagues spanning the denominations. We gathered every few months to study Torah together, to pray together and to dialogue about the important issues of the day. As part of Clal's Rabbis Without Borders program, we found a safe space to share our distinct viewpoints on a host of topics -- from faith perspectives on healing to the economy's effect on religion to the role of music in prayer. We might not have all agreed on how the Torah was revealed to the Jewish people in the desert thousands of years ago, but we each managed to share our Jewish wisdom through the medium of Torah.

Denominational labels are becoming far less important in the 21st century as the borders have blurred. While I may be a card-carrying Conservative rabbi, I work for Tamarack Camps, a Jewish camping agency that serves the entire community, from the unaffiliated to the religious. I lead a Reconstructionist synagogue, Congregation T'chiyah, in which my more traditional practices and beliefs are not compromised, but are respected and admired. I teach teens on Monday nights at Temple Israel, one of the largest Reform congregations in the world. I run a kosher certification business in which I demand the highest levels of kashruth compliance to meet the requirements of our faith and the needs of our community.

Looking beyond the borders that divide our Jewish community is not always easy or comfortable. After all, there are real differences that set us apart. There are always going to be political and ideological conflicts that keep us from praying together or eating together. But we must always seek to dialogue with civility and come together over the issues on which we can agree. A Reform Passover seder may differ greatly from an Orthodox one, but the context is the same: We are all recalling the days our people spent in slavery. Neither Pharaoh nor Hitler differentiated between Reform, Conservative or Orthodox Jews.

Rabbi Jason Miller is a blogger (http://blog.rabbijason.com), kosher supervisor (http://koshermichigan.com) and Jewish educational entrepreneur. He is the rabbi of Tamarack Camps and the spiritual leader of Congregation T'chiyah, both located in Michigan.

Follow Rabbi Jason Miller on Twitter:www.twitter.com/rabbijason

JudaismAs a 30-something rabbi, I've noticed that denominational labels were much more important for our parents' and grandparents' generations than they are for us. Today's 20- and 30-year-olds are searchi...As a 30-something rabbi, I've noticed that denominational labels were much more important for our parents' and grandparents' generations than they are for us. Today's 20- and 30-year-olds are searchi... Read more from Huffington Post bloggers: Edgar M. Bronfman Edgar M. Bronfman: The Jewish State and the Jewish Diaspora Paul Golin Paul Golin: What Is the Biggest Divide in the Jewish Community? Paul Golin Paul Golin: Who's a Jew? Redefining Jewish Identity for the 21st Century

Edgar M. Bronfman: The Jewish State and the Jewish Diaspora

Even as American Jewry extends its political support to Israel, we should never stop questioning how we can make a "better Israel" a reality.

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The guidelines of "Who's a Jew?" must be expanded if the Jewish community -- particularly the American Jewish community -- is to remain relevant well into the 21st century.

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Jewish views on religious pluralism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia