|
|
October 8, 1999/28 Tishri 5760, Vol. 52, No.6
Good things come in small packages
Group gathers to share Sabbath fellowship, prayer, meditation
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
Members of the Jewish meditation havurah end their weekly Shabbat gathering with a havdalah. From right, are Herb LaVine, Ann Polunsky, Willa Laderman, Martin Laderman, Sandor Shuch, Bunny Shuch, Judy Johnson, Rita Lavine, Rosanne Schleifer, Nicholas Grabow and Leah Rosenbluth.
|
In the late 1980s, Ann Polunsky gave a presentation on meditation at a Yom Kippur service at Beth El Congregation, as part of the synagogue's annual participatory program. Afterward, some members of the congregation told her they'd like to form a meditation havurah (fellowship group) with her. And so they did.
The meditation group originally met once a month and now meets weekly in members' homes. It represents a melding of two grassroots movements within Judaism: Jewish meditation, a tradition which is seeing a rebirth after nearly disappearing centuries ago; and havurot, small gatherings of people with like-minded interests.
Polunsky says that when she became interested in meditation more than 10 years ago, she found plenty of information about transcendental meditation and meditation with yoga, but very little on Jewish meditation.
"That led me to do (further) investigation," recalls Polunsky, a former high-school teacher who is now executive director of the Deer Valley Edu- cation Foundation, which raises money for student scholarships and teacher grants. She learned that "Judaism is steeped in metaphysical activity that goes back to the Bible."
Polunsky says group members experimented with formats, including different types of music, settling on songs in Hebrew and English, many of which also are used in regular synagogue services.
The havurah today draws about 10 people to each Saturday afternoon get-together. At a typical gathering, one or two of the members sing while the other members meditate; Polunsky guides a discussion, often based on that week's Torah reading; and the session ends with havdalah (a service ending the Sabbath), though they don't generally wait until sunset. The members then share a meal or snack. The entire meeting usually lasts a couple of hours.
"Shabbat is a day of rest and peace and tranquillity, and meditation lends itself to the whole Shabbat experience," Polunsky says.
The meditation havurah is "a way of supplementing the synagogue experience," Polunsky says. "There's a need for the community experience of coming together (at synagogue) on Saturday morning and hearing the readings and (experiencing) the rituals," she says.
"The chanting and singing (in the synagogue or havurah) bring something more. Jewish people, as a whole, don't understand what the prayers are saying, and if they do read the prayers, (the prayers don't) really speak to them. A lot of people want a more personal, intimate experience."
Bunny Shuch, a social worker and counselor, and her husband, Sandor, have participated in the havurah for about 10 years. She says she and her husband are "old-fashioned and traditional" but she enjoys the group's informality.
"I like our meditation group because gender or marital status or age don't matter," says Shuch, 62. "We all have an interest in developing a more spiritual part of our lives. ... All the things that differentiate the members of our society don't count. It's like a little island in the week, and that's very nice."
The Shuchs belong to Temple Chai and enjoy the havurah as an adjunct to that, she says.
Shuch, who sings for the havurah, explains that many synagogues offer havurot for people at similar life stages, such as young married couples, older couples whose children are no longer living at home, and singles. The groups, she says, help provide "a personal connection with God" while also offering a "connection with the community (and) to the future."
"(Havurot) help people lose that anonymity that people in a large society tend to feel, so they don't feel lost," Shuch says.
Interest in Jewish meditation is also growing, says Michael Shapiro, scholar in residence at the Jewish Center for Spiritual Growth, a center for spirituality and Judaism that meets Monday evenings at the Phoenix Friends Meeting-Quaker house, 1702 E. Glendale Ave. in Phoenix.
Shapiro teaches classes on meditation and on Jewish and world spirituality for the center, which has been in existence for about eight years.
Shapiro says "inner restlessness" is one reason people turn to meditation. "People are under great stress, and they're looking for some rest from that," Shapiro says.
He explains that "ritual alone doesn't authenticate their hearts' need for some kind of direct, spiritual contact; and meditation specifically plays that role."
Despite the fact that meditation has been a part of Jewish tradition since biblical times, Shapiro says there is resistance to the concept from some within mainstream Judaism.
"I think there will naturally be resistance to introducing techniques that have not been used over the last several hundred years," Shapiro says. "It's not paranoia; it's just that they believe in the more time-tested methods of ritual and learning Torah. That's not a criticism; they just want to rely on tradition."
Some local rabbis, however, disagree.
"Why would there be resistance?" asks Rabbi Rick Sherwin of the Conservative Beth El Congregation in Phoenix. "Anyone whose prayer does not extend beyond the words printed on the page is not using true prayer, according to the Talmud."
Rabbi Kenneth I. Segel of Temple Beth Israel, a Reform congregation in Scottsdale, says meditation "has its place" within Judaism.
"Prayer is multidimensional and certainly meditation has always been part of the Reform service," Segel says.
According to information on the Web site of a primary center for the study of Jewish meditation, Chochmat HaLev (www.chochmat.org) in Berkeley, Calif., Jewish meditation was kept hidden for centuries because "rabbis worried that it might lead to idolatry in the Diaspora, or that it might be dangerous for uninitiated people. Meditation was strongly disavowed by secularized Jews at the time of the Emancipation because it was considered 'old-fashioned,' a reminder of ghetto life. And most of the Eastern European rabbis who retained knowledge of it were killed during the Holocaust."
Chochmat HaLev, organized in 1994 by Avram Davis, offers programs in Jewish spirituality and for Jewish meditation instructors.
The center teaches that Jewish meditation can be categorized into three groups: Ayin, "which refers to nothingness or emptiness" and is "a discipline designed to get to the root of the human condition, which is the state of Ayin;" Chesed, "which refers to loving-kindness" and "is the manifestation of the Divine in its purest state in the world;" and kabbalistic meditation, the kind practiced by adherents of kabbalah, Jewish mysticism.
For Polunsky, Jewish meditation is something very personal that enhances the Shabbat experience. "The experience of Shabbat is a gift from our ancestors," Polunsky says. "How profound it is to take a day of the week and allow your body and mind to become nurtured. Those people who observe that find it's very powerful for what it does for themselves emotionally."
To contact the local Jewish meditation group, call Ann Polunsky at 602-997-0227.
|
