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Jewish meditation
Jewish meditation includes practices of settling the mind, introspection, visualization, emotional insight, contemplation of divine names, or concentration on philosophical, ethical or mystical ideas. Meditation may accompany unstructured, personal Jewish prayer, may be part of structured Jewish services, or may be separate from prayer practices. Jewish mystics have viewed meditation as leading to devekut (cleaving to God). Hebrew terms for meditation include hitbodedut (or hisbodedus, literally "self-seclusion") or hitbonenut/hisbonenus ("contemplation").
Through the centuries, meditation practices have been developed in many movements, including among Maimonideans (Moses Maimonides and Abraham Maimonides), Kabbalists (Abraham Abulafia, Isaac the Blind, Azriel of Gerona, Moses Cordovero, Yosef Karo and Isaac Luria), Hasidic rabbis (Baal Shem Tov, Schneur Zalman of Liadi and Nachman of Breslov), Musar movement rabbis (Israel Salanter and Simcha Zissel Ziv), Conservative movement rabbis (Alan Lew), Reform movement rabbis (Lawrence Kushner and Rami Shapiro), and Reconstructionist movement rabbi (Shefa Gold).
In his book Meditation and Kabbalah, Rav Aryeh Kaplan suggests that meditation is a practice that is meant to bring spiritual liberation through various methods that can loosen the bond of the physical, allowing the practitioner to reach the transcendental, spiritual realm and attain Ruach HaKodesh (Holy spirit), which he associates with enlightenment.
More recently Tomer Persico presented the lack of a proper definition of the word meditation. He suggests that the word has many different meanings and uses, and that only a few attempts have been made to provide a comprehensive definition. He therefore suggests meditation should be defined as "A voluntary act aiming to generate an alteration in the individuals consciousness, which they perceive as therapeutic or redemptive". Based on that definition, he further presents a five elements typology with which the various Jewish meditative traditions could be distinguishable from one another:
Aryeh Kaplan sees indications throughout the Hebrew Bible that Judaism always contained a central meditative tradition, going back to the time of the patriarchs. For instance, in the book of Genesis, the patriarch Isaac is described as going "lasuach" (Hebrew: לָשׂוּחַ, romanized: lāśūaḥ, lit. 'to meditate') in the field (Genesis 24:63), understood by many commentators to refer to some type of meditative practice.
Most of the Hebrew Bible references to meditation appear in the book of psalms. It is also mentioned in the first chapter of Joshua.
Some scholars see Merkavah-Heichalot mysticism as using meditative methods, built around the biblical vision of Ezekiel and the creation in Genesis. According to Michael D. Swartz: "the texts do not, however, provide any instructions for meditation techniques. Nor do they betray any evidence of consciousness of an interior self, such as the soul or mind, which accomplishes the journey to heaven."
Moses Maimonides, often considered the greatest Jewish philosopher of his time, suggests in The Guide for the Perplexed (3.32), that intellectual meditation is a higher form of worship than either sacrifice or prayer.
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Jewish meditation
Jewish meditation includes practices of settling the mind, introspection, visualization, emotional insight, contemplation of divine names, or concentration on philosophical, ethical or mystical ideas. Meditation may accompany unstructured, personal Jewish prayer, may be part of structured Jewish services, or may be separate from prayer practices. Jewish mystics have viewed meditation as leading to devekut (cleaving to God). Hebrew terms for meditation include hitbodedut (or hisbodedus, literally "self-seclusion") or hitbonenut/hisbonenus ("contemplation").
Through the centuries, meditation practices have been developed in many movements, including among Maimonideans (Moses Maimonides and Abraham Maimonides), Kabbalists (Abraham Abulafia, Isaac the Blind, Azriel of Gerona, Moses Cordovero, Yosef Karo and Isaac Luria), Hasidic rabbis (Baal Shem Tov, Schneur Zalman of Liadi and Nachman of Breslov), Musar movement rabbis (Israel Salanter and Simcha Zissel Ziv), Conservative movement rabbis (Alan Lew), Reform movement rabbis (Lawrence Kushner and Rami Shapiro), and Reconstructionist movement rabbi (Shefa Gold).
In his book Meditation and Kabbalah, Rav Aryeh Kaplan suggests that meditation is a practice that is meant to bring spiritual liberation through various methods that can loosen the bond of the physical, allowing the practitioner to reach the transcendental, spiritual realm and attain Ruach HaKodesh (Holy spirit), which he associates with enlightenment.
More recently Tomer Persico presented the lack of a proper definition of the word meditation. He suggests that the word has many different meanings and uses, and that only a few attempts have been made to provide a comprehensive definition. He therefore suggests meditation should be defined as "A voluntary act aiming to generate an alteration in the individuals consciousness, which they perceive as therapeutic or redemptive". Based on that definition, he further presents a five elements typology with which the various Jewish meditative traditions could be distinguishable from one another:
Aryeh Kaplan sees indications throughout the Hebrew Bible that Judaism always contained a central meditative tradition, going back to the time of the patriarchs. For instance, in the book of Genesis, the patriarch Isaac is described as going "lasuach" (Hebrew: לָשׂוּחַ, romanized: lāśūaḥ, lit. 'to meditate') in the field (Genesis 24:63), understood by many commentators to refer to some type of meditative practice.
Most of the Hebrew Bible references to meditation appear in the book of psalms. It is also mentioned in the first chapter of Joshua.
Some scholars see Merkavah-Heichalot mysticism as using meditative methods, built around the biblical vision of Ezekiel and the creation in Genesis. According to Michael D. Swartz: "the texts do not, however, provide any instructions for meditation techniques. Nor do they betray any evidence of consciousness of an interior self, such as the soul or mind, which accomplishes the journey to heaven."
Moses Maimonides, often considered the greatest Jewish philosopher of his time, suggests in The Guide for the Perplexed (3.32), that intellectual meditation is a higher form of worship than either sacrifice or prayer.