As promised in my last
Rabbinic Message I am now going to discuss two books that I have been trying to
get through in the last few weeks. But this is not a book review; it is really
about an area of much greater importance: the issue of practical belief. So
first, some opening reflections: The most recent Pew Research study on American
Christianity (released just a few days ago) shows an almost 8% drop since 2007.
Such a major shift is remarkable. Those self-identifying as no religion jumped
from 16% to 23%. One could say that America is becoming more secular, and many
could find some pleasure in that.
But what
will take up the slack? I have always been very interested in such questions. I
have always had the greatest difficulty with orthodoxy (which means “right thought”). How can one really KNOW
for sure what is right thought versus, let us say, right action which can be
seen, quantified, and measured? Attempts in Judaism to come up with dogma
statements have always met with mixed results and less then universal
acceptance. Judaism has always been much more an orthopraxy (right action) faith as are most Eastern
faiths. Buddhism is even clearer on
this; every premise Buddha said must be tested to see if it is right.
So what
does this have to do with the two books that I said I would discuss this month,
Healing with God's Love by Rabbi Douglas Goldhammer and The Art of
Kavana by Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld? Both are rather short (267 and 177
pages respectively). Even with a busy schedule, I should have plowed through
both easily in my late-night reading schedule. Sheepishly, I have found BOTH
rather daunting not because of length but due to the inconvenient questions
they pose in their individual ways.
To the
more troubling book, I have met and had Rabbi Goldhammer speak in my previous
congregation. By the way, he is a Reform rabbi. Nothing he said or did at that
time could have prepared me for this book. In many ways it has challenged me to
look into an area of my thought that I
have really tried to avoid in my life: whether faith and prayer really can
cause things to happen. I guess since adolescence, I have been a Doubting
Thomas, thinking it would be nice if words could change anything, but
rationally thinking that, at best, they were uplifting aphorisms. But what if
the mind was more powerful than that and words uttered with REAL belief could
reach Divinity?
Rabbi
Goldhammer was diagnosed with Klippel-Trenaunay
syndrome, a rare vascular disease, in 1976, and the prognosis was he would lose
one, if not both, legs. To make a long story short, he ventured into a
specifically Jewish healing methodology which turned around his condition, and
he has been using what he learned to help many individuals as a congregational
rabbi in the Chicago area ever since. This does seem to be rather difficult to
believe. If modern Western medicine and science says something, we have been
raised to believe it. But in my limited experience, I have met a number of
people whose life stories contradict the fundamentalism we have been taught
that cannot be true. This book is very challenging even for someone who “wants
to believe” in a different paradigm.
I found
The Art of Kavana, by Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld, to be much less of a test
to my credulity even though its thought dovetails with Goldhammer’s belief in
being able to train one's mind to see the world as miraculous. It makes no
claims and tries to get the reader to see the world with new eyes. Let me close
with a quote from Rabbi Goldhammer:
“In my
special room, I visualize in front of me, in huge letters, YHVH. Or I visualize
the Burning Bush, or a room filled with light. And, I speak with these images
with the same passion and trust that I would speak with my best friend. I first
say Ribbono shel Olam, Master of the Universe, numerous times. This
alters my level of consciousness. I then say Ribbono shel
Olam-Hineini, Master of the Universe, I am here to do whatever
You want, many times. After each time I say it, I visualize an experience
that God and I succeeded in together... I then thank God for everything I have
that I consider great or wonderful, and I mean everything...the best
advice I can give you is to talk to God every day. Set aside the same time
every day to hear Him.”
- Rabbi Yosef Zylberberg, May 2015
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