Madonna may be the poster child for Jewish mysticism these days, but she doesn’t know squat about the cabala.
At least that’s the impression one took away from a recent conference on Jewish spirituality in Evanston.
Three nationally known rabbis recently led a weekend retreat at Beth Emet synagogue in Evanston that showed participants a holistic approach to their faith that embraced their bodies, spirits and minds. And, in the process, the conference took the air out of those trendy celebrity notions about cabalistic study.
While such gatherings are common fare in New York and Los Angeles, “the Midwest often gets overlooked in these kinds of adventures,” said Andrea London, the Beth Emet rabbi who spearheaded the retreat, which was sponsored by eight Chicago-area synagogues.
London got the idea for the weekend from a series of weeklong retreats for rabbis in which she participated. Her teachers were Arthur Green (textual study), Sheila Weinberg (meditation) and Myriam Klotz (yoga). The sessions so deepened her spiritual life, she said, that she enlisted other Jewish congregations for help in bringing the trio of rabbis to the Chicago area.
Welcome unity
The unity of the weekend was not lost on Chicago corporate consultant Amy Stein, who said she has been dismayed by some of the bickering she has seen between Jewish denominations.
“The unity is something that I miss, something that I yearn for,” she said. “So I’ve been very uplifted by everybody experiencing this together.”
The blending of traditions was palpable in the Shabbat service, where Klotz led worshipers in arm movements and Weinberg gave breathing lessons.
“Become aware of your next out-breath,” she said. “This doesn’t require any effort on your part. It’s a gift and a blessing.”
Most in the sanctuary welcomed the flourishes, but a few were taken aback by the changes.
“Oh, my God,” muttered one woman to her companion in the back row after one such moment. “I don’t believe this.”
Imagine if she’d stuck around for the drum circle that evening.
About 50 people–from toddlers to grandparents–created quite a racket as they beat on percussion in unison. They sang and chanted in Hebrew and English:
Yad Elohim Bakol
For with you is the source of life
In your light we see light.
The melodic clamor was so infectious that a number of women left their chairs to dance spontaneously.
“If you would go back 3,000 or 4,000 years, Jews drummed and Jews danced to pray,” noted Eve Brownstone, one of the dancers and a Chicago expressive-arts therapist.
“Psalm 150 says to praise God with drum and dance,” added fellow dancer and Chicago artist Yehilla Newman.
In her yoga sessions, Klotz also reclaimed the body as an integral part of spirituality. She quoted the Book of Leviticus, which gives instructions for temple worship and mentions that the fire on the altar should never go out. She urged her listeners to think of their yoga mats as the altars and themselves as the offering as they searched for the presence of God within themselves.
“Envision that place as an altar,” she said. “This is a full-bodied way of offering ourselves to that wholeness.”
While yoga and meditation are more commonly associated with Eastern religions, Menachem Cohen, a young rabbi who leads the Mitziut congregation in Rogers Park, says Jewish meditation is surging in popularity.
“A lot of people end up in Buddhist meditation halls and ashrams looking for the esoteric,” he said. “It’s really important that we let people know that we have it right here at home in Judaism.”
Weinberg made her meditation session as earthy as possible for her novice students. She spoke of her own search for the benefits of silence, ending with a tongue-in-cheek ethnic joke.
“I couldn’t find silence in a Jewish environment,” she said.
She eased the two dozen people in the room into quietness, telling them to regain their focus if their minds wandered.
“If you’re feeling tired, it’s not a bad idea to keep your eyes opened,” she added.
Eventually she read them Psalm 33 and instructed them to concentrate on a phrase or sentence that grabbed their attention.
Marge Eiseman, a teacher and musician who drove down from Milwaukee for the conference, said she signed up for Weinberg’s session specifically because silence is difficult for her.
“It was hard,” she said. “It was hard not to fall asleep; it was hard to pay attention. When your attention wanders, you have to bring it back. I was doing a lot of bringing it back. But I didn’t get up and walk out, and I’m fascinated by what other people get from that.”
Not mere `hocus-pocus’
But for degree of difficulty, understanding the cabala sets the bar pretty high too.
The cabalistic text is the Zohar, which dates from the 13th and 14th Centuries and is a commentary on the first five books of the Bible.
Beth Emet’s London noted that one Zohar translator has credited conference speaker Green with saving the Zohar from both the “faddists,” like Madonna, and the “fundamentalists.”
In Judaism, London explained, studying biblical texts has several layers. The first layer is the surface meaning; the second is the allegorical. Deeper yet is the mystical meaning, the cabala. Tradition taught that people should be well grounded–at least 40 years old, married and versed in Jewish practice–before studying the cabala. But that’s not what many are doing, she said.
“The cabala was supposed to be a mystical overlay to traditional Jewish practice,” London said. “My concern is that, for a lot of people, it just becomes a lot of magic or hocus-pocus, like `stick this book under your pillow.’ You know, `Wear red strings and somehow you’re going to be protected.'”
The cabala, added Green, teaches that “each of us has an innermost point–the presence of God within us.”
Green put Jewish spirituality in pluralistic terms, saying that Christianity and Islam are equal spiritual paths.
“God is not Jewish,” he said. “He speaks Arabic as well as he speaks Yiddish.”
But many retreat guests, such as Glenview social worker Ruth Sterlin, said their spiritual search is leading them to explore and embrace their Jewish identity.
Sterlin ran into the associate rabbi of her Buffalo Grove synagogue in the dinner buffet line at the retreat.
“She asked me what I thought of the retreat,” she said. “I said I really liked the spirituality but it’s the God part that I’m not sure what to do with.”
The rabbi suggested that Sterlin read one of Green’s books and offered to study it with her.
“I was just touched,” said Sterlin, “because she was clearly reaching out to me. I was needing that.”
