USCJ Review - Spring 2007
Walking in a World of Spirit
As a teacher of Torah, midrash, mysticism, and ritual, I am often asked: “What is spirituality?” or “How can I become spiritual?” Or people say to me: “Everyone talks about this spirituality thing, but I don’t understand what they mean. Can you explain?” These questions are often asked in a tone of frustration, as if the asker has been asking this question a long time and has never gotten a satisfactory answer.
I’m never sure what to say in reply. It’s difficult to describe spirituality because, unlike religion, spirituality has no principles, laws, traditions or customs. it’s not limited to one belief system or way of being. So it’s not easy to get a handle on what someone means by “spiritual” or “spirituality.” Some people would define spirituality as a sense of being in the presence of God, while others might define it as a sense of ultimate purpose or meaning. Still others might describe it as an emotion – a feeling of hope and connection that you get when hearing music, seeing a sunset, or sharing in communal prayer. Others might suggest that spirituality is a sense of being flooded with faith, or belief in your religious truth. Yet some people who regard themselves as spiritual are deeply immersed in a religious tradition, while others are eclectic, not tied to a community of faith. Religion applies to a historical phenomenon; spirituality is an experience.
Yet it’s not an experience that everyone has easily. A friend once told me about an incident involving Sigmund Freud (who, by the way, believed religion was a neurosis). In my friend’s story, Freud mentioned to a colleague that some of his friends had described an “oceanic” feeling: a feeling of blurring their boundaries with the universe, a sense of being part of all things. Freud himself said that he had never had such a feeling and didn’t know what it was all about. (This was perhaps why religion made no sense to him.)
Freud may not have recognized the “oceanic” feeling, but I think I do. It’s the feeling I get when worshippers recite the prayer Lecha Dodi on Friday night and everyone turns to the back of the room to welcome the Sabbath bride. It’s the emotion that overflows when I read the book of Ruth or a poem by Rumi or Nelly Sachs or Hildegard of Bingen. It’s the sense of being part of a universe that is deeply alive, a sense I get when I look up at the night stars. The circumstances are different, but the feeling is the same: it is as if I am a cell in a larger organism of light and darkness, as if I am part of the triumphs, sorrows, and redemptions of all beings, as if the vast weaving of energy and matter we call the universe is good and loving in spite of its flaws, and I can contribute to its goodness. It feels, as the “oceanic” imagery suggests, like being a single wave in a sea.
It’s interesting that this kind of feeling has been described by Jews in marine terms for thousands of years. The sages of the Talmud also imagined the presence of the Divine as related to the ocean. In an ancient tale, Rabbi Joshua of Sichnin asks how it was possible for the Shekhinah, the tangible Divine Presence, to dwell in the Tabernacle, the sacred shrine of the Israelites. If the Shekhinah is everywhere, how could She (the word Shekhinah is always gendered female) be especially in one particular place? Rabbi Joshua answers his own question:
It is like a cave by the shore of the sea: when the sea roars, the cave becomes filled, but the sea itself lacks nothing. So too, the sacred shrine became full of the radiance of the Divine Presence, but the world lacked nothing of the Presence. (Numbers Rabbah 12:4)
That is, the presence of divinity is like the ocean. The sea is wide; it spans many shores. Yet the cave by the beach can become filled with the sea. This does not diminish the ocean; rather, it draws the cave to be part of the ocean. If we think of ourselves as being like the shrine or cave, spirituality is the sense of fullness that occurs when the sea (which might be God, or spirit, or the wonder of the universe) rushes in.
Some scientists, based on research, feel there is a biological basis to this feeling; that is, humans are born with a place in their brain that is primed to experience a sense of bliss and oneness with the world. This theory make many wonder: Is spirituality “real”? Do I really experience unity with an immense Divine being? Or do I only think I do because my body is primed to feel that way? What if I don’t feel “spiritual”? Am I failing to perceive hidden truths of existence? Am I more rational than others? Or am I just wired differently than my more ethereal friends and neighbors?
These are important questions. Yet the irony, for me, is that spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean “spirit.” That is, spirituality doesn’t always have to arise in response to something we cannot touch, hear, see, or smell. I do believe in a world of the spirit; that is, I think there are phenomena, such as the soul, that science cannot (or at least cannot yet) observe or define. Yet much of my spirituality comes not from contemplating things I cannot see, but rather from observing the world of the senses. For me, a stalk of grain or the spiral of a seashell brings me as close to the heart of the universe as prayer does. Contemplating the vast line of human beings who existed before me and whose lives enabled my existence makes me feel humble and grateful in the same way that the Yom Kippur prayer of Kol Nidre might. I believe in an embodied spirituality: a way of touching the Divine that comes through the flow of summer to fall and winter to spring, that comes through service to other human beings and goodness to myself. While my religious practices and beliefs are important to me, it is even more important to me to be an active and compassionate member of the web of life.
I don’t think this belief in embodied spirituality is at odds with my tradition in any way. There is, in fact, a Jewish practice of blessing what is wondrous and beautiful in the physical world. Over awe-inspiring natural things like lightning or mountains, we say: Baruch ata adonai, eloheinu melekh ha’olam, oseh maaseh vereishit (blessed is the Divine who makes the work of creation). Over beautiful things like flowers, people, and trees, we say: Baruch ata adonai eloheinu melekh ha’olam, shekachah lo be’olamo (blessed is the Divine who has put such things in the world). Over the ocean, we say: Baruch ata adonai eloheinu melekh ha’olam, she’asa hayam hagadol (blessed is the Divine who has made the great sea). These blessings offer gratitude to the Creator for the splendor of creation. Taken more broadly, they invite us to feel connected to these things, to feel that our enjoyment of them is meaningful, that mountains and humans are somehow part of a conspiracy of life and beauty in the world. They invite us to contemplate, act, protect and preserve.
I often think people separate the feelings they have in synagogue (or any place of worship) from those they have when they see a great painting or a tulip or a friend’s face. So if shul feels boring or alienating, or if traditional faith doesn’t seem to have meaningful answers to life’s questions, people get the idea that they are not spiritual. But religion isn’t synonymous with spirituality (although ideally religion provides a context for people to be spiritual). Religion is what people create to pass down, or propagate, the spiritual insights they have had. It’s as if religion is the shell of a hermit crab, and spirituality is the body inside. The shell is supposed to protect and preserve what is inside, but the two are not identical. Some people love theology and some people hate it. Yet spirituality arises not only in response to religion, but in response to all awe-inspiring things.
This is why I think, when people say to me that they are not spiritual, that those people might be surprised by what I think is spiritual. Those who don’t share my religious practices or beliefs might nevertheless share with me a sense of responsibility for the earth and for others. While we might not both get the oceanic feeling at the same moment, we can still share a feeling of awe at the complex beauty of existence. To me, that’s plenty spiritual.
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001. She is the author of The Jewish Book of Days and Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women and the director of Tel Shemesh (www.telshemesh.org).
