Modern Jewish Meditation

The term “meditation” can refer to a variety of techniques of concentration, contemplation, and mindfulness conducive to heightened self-awareness, physical and mental health, and spiritual enlightenment. The history of Jewish Meditation (sometimes abbreviated JM) has been traced in Biblical and Talmudic references. However, explicit meditative systems are first found in the writings of 13th- to 16th-century Spanish Kabbalists (Jewish mystics). Then, in the 18th- to 20th-century period, several Hasidic leaders popularized meditative methods as an integral part of religious activities, especially prayer. Meditative goals in Jewish texts range from moral introspection, focused prayer, and noetic insights to accessing Divine realms and even attaining prophetic states of higher awareness. Four Hebrew terms describing meditative practices include devekut, hitbodedut, hitbonenut, and kavvanah. These can be translated literally as adhesion (cleaving), self-seclusion, contemplation, and intention, although their semantic range of meaning depends on context. In the 1970s, with the surging popularity of meditative techniques imported from Hindu and Buddhist traditions, Jewish seekers responded by revitalizing and reinterpreting ideas nascent in Jewish tradition. A watershed landmark was the 7th Habad Rebbe’s reaction to widespread involvement of Jews in TM (Transcendental Meditation) led by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In 1979, the Rebbe personally funded research to develop a scientifically verifiable “Kosher Meditation” as an alternative to TM. The popularity of Jewish Meditation in the English-speaking Western world began to spread in the 1980s when Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan translated and published dozens of primary Kabbalistic sources. His books Meditation and Kabbalah (1982) and Practical Meditation (1985) (cited under Aryeh Kaplan’s Reconstruction of JM) became seminal guides for “rediscovering” meditative techniques. Then, in 1997, Stuart Matlins, founder of Jewish Lights Publishing, began marketing books promoting JM for spiritual seekers of all traditions. These bestsellers influenced the Jewish Renewal Movement, providing it with guidebooks for one of its major innovative practices. In the early twenty-first century, more than one hundred Jewish Renewal communities in the United States alone have meditation programs, and many have websites and online course offerings. In addition, contemporary teachers from all Jewish denominations integrate meditative practices reworked from both Kabbalah and Hasidut, as well as Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Cognate topics represented by separate entries of Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies include Hasidism, Judaism and Buddhism, Prayer and Liturgy, Modern Kabbalah, and New Age Judaism. In our current entry the primary focus is on modern Jewish Meditation, thus leaving a bibliographic survey of the medieval Kabbalistic meditative methods and experiences as a desideratum for a future Oxford Bibliographies entry.