Teaching & Practicing Jewish Meditation: A Workshop

Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Yosi: How do we know that the Holy One, Blessed be He, prays? Because it says: I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in the house of my prayer. It does not say, 'their prayer,' but 'My prayer': Hence [you learn] that the Holy One, Blessed be He, prays. What does he pray? Said Rabbi Zutra ben Tuvia in the name of Rav: May it be My will that my compassion will conquer my anger, that my compassion will prevail over my other attributes, that I behave towards my children according to the quality of compassion and that I enter before them within the line of the law. It was taught [in a baraitha] Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha said Once I entered to offer incense in the innermost sanctuary and I saw Akatriel Yah, the Lord of Hosts. He was seated on an elevated and exalted throne, and he said to me: Yishmael, my son, bless me. I said to him: May it be your will that your mercy will conquer your anger, that your mercy will prevail over your other attributes, that you behave towards your children according to the quality of compassion and that you enter before them within the line of the law. He nodded his head to me. From here we learn that a blessing from a simple person should not be light in your eyes.

(11) And Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see you again, and here God has let me see your children as well.”

Prayer comes in its perfected form only with the consciousness that the neshama is always praying. Does she not fly, and join to her beloved (Shir haShirim 8:5) without any break. at all? It is only that, in the time of active prayer, the soul’s ceaseless prayer is revealed in actuality. This is her fineness and her pleasure, the glory and beauty of prayer, which is like a rose that opens its fair petals to greet the dew or the sun’s rays which appear on her in her radiance. Therefore, “Oh, that one would pray all day long!” (Berachot 21a)

(1) [One] should not stand up to pray unless he is in a serious frame of mind {lit. "heavy of head"}. The original pious ones used to wait one hour and then pray, in order to direct their hearts towards the Omnipresent. [While one is reciting Shemoneh Esrei,] even if the king greets him {lit. "asks about his welfare"}, he should not respond to him, and even if a snake wraps around his heel, he should not interrupt.

Sometimes we pray that G–d fulfill our request via messengers, and sometimes we even specify the names of these angels. Because in truth it is fitting that the essence of what is sought in prayer be to join oneself to the will of HaMakom, blessed be He and not the attainment one’s desire. And since the purpose of any request is actually the fulfillment of the true will of the One who desires to give, and just as it is His will to increase His loving kindness in the world, so too it is His will that this come about through those specific pathways by which, in His wisdom and will, he ordered for guidance of the world, as it were; if so, just as it is fitting to pray for a particular request it is fitting to pray that it be fulfilled through the orders relevant to it. On the contrary, this is the wholeness of prayer, that through it one reveal their will that the will of haMakom be done in the world. More than the desire for the fulfillment of a request, it is right to desire that the order of the transcendent lights be fixed, whose path to repair is found in the fulfillment of the principles of prayer – this is the concept of prayer according to the order of the sefirot. And since we have merited the principle of prayer, that His will be done, which occurs through the outpouring of G–d’s loving kindness according to the extent to which the lower vessels have been prepared, then the very act of prayer is itself a tremendous preparation in the highest fashion for the outpouring of good and loving kindness through the revelation of the holy lights.

…rather while immersed in the joy of mitzvah. [ibid.]
A mitzva comes to realization also outside of the soul of the one who performs it. In truth, joy is the sensation of inner wholeness which the upright soul feels in the rightness of her path and its goodness. And, in that prayer is the choice fruit of time (see Kuzari 3:5) and its purpose inner soul perfection⁹⁹For more on the notion that the purpose of prayer is inner perfection, see sections 1:4 and 4:4, it is fitting that it reveal itself through the pleasure of a whole inner life, through the joy of mitzvah.
Our Sages teach – one who prays must direct his heart toward heaven. Abba Shaul says a sign for this is “You will prepare (tachin) their heart, You will cause your ear to hear.” (Tehillim 10:17) [ibid.]¹⁰⁰The whole verse is “You shall hear the desire of the humble, O LORD, You will prepare their heart, You will incline Your ear.” The Hebrew word תכין means to set on a sound basis for what comes and shares the root כון with the word , kavana כוונה. See the Radak on Psalms 10:17 who says that here, in relation to prayer, it means to remove all distractions of the world which trouble the heart. Compare this to the Rambam’s comment on the Mishna Berachot 5:1 "The first chassidim would wait an hour (shohin) [until thoughts ceased-Rambam] before prayer, in order to align (lchavein) their hearts with Place." Rav Daniel adds - Shehiyya is sitting in stillness in order to align your heart with the Place. The one who sits in stillness learns that in truth he carries this place within him. It is the very life which he has, and the revelation that things are so clears the way for standing before the Shechina.
There is particular kavana¹⁰¹Compare this section to section 4:8, which is alignment with the meaning of the words and ideas of prayer. There is all-inclusive kavana, which is an alignment of the heart with the greatness of G–d and the soul’s elevation suitable to her illumination by the light of G–d, for which the hour of prayer is uniquely favorable. This is what we learn here, that aside from aligning with the words and ideas in their particularity, one must direct align their heart with heaven and the loftiness of G–d to the extent that their soul can bear. And through this remembering¹⁰²The link between kavana and memory flows from a reading of ‘to remember’ as to “re-member.” Since memory is always located in the present, every act of remembering is a summoning up of past events, experience, states of consciousness and attaching them to my present awareness. The subject of memory is nominally the past, but it is a past accessible only through the lens of present identity. We do not remember everything, and what we do remember is most often not a factual “first-person account” of the past but rather a blend of our experience of it then and now. Just recall an important event with a sibling, parent or old friend and compare accounts. Or think of an event which occurred more than 5 years ago in your life which you said ‘nothing will be the same after this.’ Now ask yourself if you understand that even now more or less than when it happened. In this sense, memory becomes a process of telling a story of the past which fits into present identity, which provides it with a sound basis. But the present passes in an instant. Unless we engage in regular consciousness practices like meditation, mindfulness and reflective prayer then we may find it extremely difficult to be present to the present. Most of our identity exists in a tension between memory and aspiration/anxiety for the future - the story of what was and the story of what will be. Therefore the whole picture of memory is the telling of a story of the past that shapes present identity which is oriented toward the future of which we dream. Or dread. This is why R’ Kook says that through the remembering of G–d “the soul is lifted up to the wholeness of prayer’s purpose” which is what aids its acceptance. We are praying for the future, for something toward which we aspire, and the question which lies behind so many of the thoughts in this introduction is – am I the person I need to be in order to receive the things I desire? Memory of G–d is a deliberate connecting of present consciousness to a heart’s conception of His awesome greatness and the openness of soul which allows me to receive His light. And when my present self is wholly aligned to that feeling, idea, experience – I become, if only for a moment, the one to whom G–d would grant such a request. And if we pray often, with deep enough alignment, we can reorient ourselves and the world around us to the future for which we pray.
The Holy Ba’al Shem Tov teaches that memory is the secret of redemption
בעל שם טוב דברים פרשת עקב ח. ורם לבבך ושכחת את ה' אלהיך וגו'. אמרו בגמרא (סוטה ה' א) אזהרה לגסי הרוח דכתיב ורם לבבך ושכחת, והרב מוהר"ם מקוצי מנה זה במצוות לא תעשה, וכתב אשר נגלו אליו האלהים בחלום הלילה, שעיקר אזהרת כל התורה הוא מצות הזכירה, וההיפוך הריסות התורה חס ושלום הוא השכחה, וביאר הוא (רבינו הבעש"ט זי"ע) כי כאשר יש עכירות בדם אז האדם הוא בבחינת אחוריים גימטריא תשכח, כי הזכירה נמשך משמות זכר, והשכחה מאחוריים דאבא ואמא גימטריא תשכח כמו שכתוב ביחודים, וכמו שהוא בפרטות אדם אחד כך הוא בכללות, שנמשך הגלות מהשכחה, ומהזכירהיב) בא הגאולה, ודברי פי חכם חן: (בן פורת יוסף דף ע"ג ע"א, צפנת פענח דף צ"ו ע"ד)
Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov Devarim Parshat Ekev “…lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the LORD your God…” (Devarim 8:14) They said in the gemara (Sotah 5a) This is a warning to the proud in spirit, as it is written ‘lest your heart grow haughty and you forget.’ The Rav Moshe m’Kotzi counted this as a negative commandment and wrote that God revealed to him in a dream, that the essential warning of all the Torah is the commandment to remember and that forgetting, which is its opposite, God forbid destroys the whole Torah. And the Holy Ba’al Shem Tov explained - when the blood is clouded, then one is in the aspect of the ‘back end’ which has the numeric value of ‘and you forget’ because memory flows from male names (?) and forgetting from the ‘back end’ of Aba and Ima which is the numeric value of ‘and you forget’ as is written in the Yichudim. As it is with an individual, so it is with humanity – exile flows from forgetting and redemption from remembering. “The words of a wise man’s mouth find favor…” (Kohelet 10:12)
See Shmonah Kvatzim 1:416 from R’ Kook on the relationship between memory, miracle, consciousness and redemption: of G–d and His greatness, the soul is lifted up to the wholeness of prayer’s purpose, which of necessity aids its acceptance. And Abba Shaul said that this is what ‘prepare their hearts’ means - that through remembering G–d, their hearts are prepared for justice (see Yishayahu 45:19) and rectitude. Like the words of Rabbenu Yonah¹⁰³Sha’are Teshuva (Sha’ar 2, siman 1, sha’ar 3, siman 27) on the verse “It is through the Lord that all the offspring of Israel have vindication and glory.” (Yishayahu 45:25) There he says that through recalling G–d, the seed of Israel becomes righteous and praiseworthy, because through this recollection their soul is lifted up to every good trait, to every practical capability and heart’s wisdom. And so G–d is the One Who prepares their hearts, because their hearts are lifted up to great things through the remembering of Him and His might. And through this ‘You will cause Your ear to hear.’ This teaches that aside from the particular kavana, that is absolutely primary, the all-inclusive kavana is certainly required. This type of kavana is indicated by ‘prepare (tachin) his heart to heaven,’ it aids the acceptance of prayer.¹⁰⁴אלשיך על תהלים י:יז והנה תאות ענוים שמעת ה', ומה שלא עניתם הוא מפני שעדיין רחוק לבם קצת ממך, והוא הנודע מרבותינו ז"ל (ספרי האזינו שו) כי שמיעה היא מרחוק, האזנה או הקשבה מקרוב, שעל כן אמר ישעיה (א ב) שמעו שמים והאזיני ארץ, לכן תכין לבם ואחר כך תקשיב מקרוב אזנך:
Alshich Psalms 10:17 You shall hear the desire of the humble The reason You have not answer until now is that their hearts were still somewhat distant from You. It is known from our Sages (Sifre Ha’azinu 306) that ‘hearing’ indicates from a distance, while ‘giving ear’ or ‘listening’ are from up close, as in “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken…” (Isaiah 1:2) This is why it says ‘prepare their hearts,’ because only after this will Your ears hear from up close.