Some Notes and a Summary of Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels “Non-dual Judaism CONCULSION PART TWO

This brings us to the final question raised by Jacobson-Maisels article.  Just how possible is non-duality, as a mental or spiritual state, for people?  We have seen that non-duality as conceived today was a minority trend within Judaism (really, a minority within a minority, the retreat of mystics who had achieved a very advanced level in their understanding of God).

It appears that the non-dual view is also only for a tiny minority of people.  As human beings, we seem to "see" duality in the world.  We even see more than that; we perceive a booming multiplicity all around us.  We live in a dualist world.  Yet we are told that non-duality is our true state.  We are one with everything, and it only appears that we are separate from everything.

This is the hard part.  How do we accept that the world is all there is, that God is part of the world (but not actually the world) and at the same time realize that the same world hinders our ability to see the non-duality of things?  One way we are supposed to cultivate this understanding is through meditation.  Meditation is designed to break down and or loosen the bonds of the self and create a wider sense of reality.  I have experienced this sense both through meditation that has been guided by another person, and through self-mediation.  I can attest that it feels very real.  Done well, and long enough, there is no feeling at all.  There is nothing.


Is this what we are supposed to find?  Is the nothing experienced in meditation the nothing of ayin, of God, of the ALL.  I am told that it is.  But as a mediocre mediator, I am still trying to figure that out.  What is the difference between self-induced illusion and genuine ayin?  For me, the question still stands.


Articles like those of Rabbi Jacbson-Maisels gives us interesting ideas and answers, and many questions.

Some Notes and a Summary of Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels “Non-dual Judaism CONCULSION PART ONE

Non-dual Judaism is not an easy path to follow.  First there are the traditional Jewish reasons it is difficult to follow.  Then, there is non-dualism qua non-dualism as vision of the world that difficult to hold.  First, the Jewish reasons:

The foremost problem is that non-dualism, however defined, is "minority" view within the tradition.  Really, until the rise of Hasidism in the 18th century, there is very little evidence that there was anything like non-dualism within Judaism.  A few Sufi inspired Jews in the Muslim world in the Middle Ages, a small group of Kabbalists in 17th century Safed, flirted with the idea of the non-duality of God, but the embrace was never complete and did not spread to wider audiences of Jews.

It took Hasidism, with its broad base of appeal among common Jews, for something like non-dualism to emerge in Judaism and have a popular appeal.  Many scholars and religious thinkers speak about the near pantheism of many Chasidic masters and their ideas, utterances, and writings about God. 

The problem is, when you go back to the original Hasidic sources that are claimed to be non-dualist, there is actually a great deal of complexity.  Views of God in a massive work like the Sefer Emet, for instance, run the gamut.  God is portrayed as a being, as the world, as everywhere, as absent from the world, and all shades in between.  The early Hasidim were not ham strung by any one view of God.  They used whatever view suited the particular exegetical need before them as they wrote their commentaries.  Non-dualism was not necessary a goal of Hasidic Jewry.  Connection with God was, and whatever form that took, whatever concept of God they had, was never fixed or immutable.


It is the (recent) movement called neo-Hasidism that cherry picks non-dualism from the stack of Hasidic cards and places that value as paramount.  The difficulty with this is that much of Jewish tradition, especially its liturgy, not to mention the Bible, Midrash, Talmud, envision God as a Being and not as the non-entity of non-dualism.   

So to be a Jew and a non-dualist involves a great deal of quick translations, revisions and updates.  How does one sit through the long Yom Kippur services, with its frequent appeal to an entity called "God" who is petitioned again and again like a father in the sky, with a belief that God is not actually a thing out there, but present everywhere in the moment, now, here, and not some agency outside of the moment.  You would have to be an allegorist of brilliant gifts to translate such dualist moments like Yom Kippur into non-dualism.


And there are plenty more dualist moments that need to be squeezed down the non-dualist pipeline in Judaism in its normative, rabbinical form.  What needs to happen is a shift in how we think about basic terms.  A relationship between this idea that ALL is ONE, and the materials, written, sung, voiced, of Judaism.  That is what Rabbi Jacobson-Maisels is calling for, I believe, and it is a steep program with many obstacles in its path.


Next, we handle the problems with non-dualism qua non-dualism.

Some Notes and a Summary of Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels “Non-dual Judaism” PART THREE

Rabbi Jacobson-Maisels ends his discussion on the non-duality of God, and non-dual Judaism, right at the meat of Jewish religious life, the mitzvot.  He quotes the Sefet Emet, a  famous Hasidic book, which calls the mitzvot “'advice' on how to attain liberation.”  The mitzvot are “practices of self-clarification that ultimately bring us an awareness of the omnipresence of the divinity.”

For this rabbi, the mitzvot are “training in mindfulness.”  He uses the term from (pop) psychology to bring the mitzvot into a new focus.  The mitzvot are designed to keep us constantly focused on “the non-separation of ourselves from the All.”  Some self-evident acts of denial and giving, like tzedekah and saying a blessing before a  meal, are to train us in “non-attachment and letting go of many elements from which we build our sense of self.”  They cultivate “humility and submission.”

So, in a paradoxical way, one of the methods to experience that we are all part of the ALL, is to practice the acts of self-denial as laid out in the halakahic system of mitzvot.  Notions of “separation, purity, retreat and cessation are crucial to our development and maintenance of a consciousness of divinity.”  Such a critical Jewish practice  as keeping the Sabbath “gives us the opportunity to cultivate awareness in a way that is difficult in the hustle and bustle of the workday week.”  We find the ALL by keeping ourselves aloof, in a sense, from the world at certain times.

Ultimately, this view transforms the goals of Judaism.  A person practices the mitzvot alright, but not so that salvation will come from “some being” but in the awareness of ayin, the divine that is all around us right now.  This is supposed to be a healing exercise, that if practiced, will give us the “dignity, strength, and spaciousness to meet suffering and confusion with compassion and presence.”  Knocking down wall sthat separate us from others and the world, will bring about the great tikkun, or healing.

Rabbi Jacobson-Maisels' view of Judaism is transformed by notions from eastern religion and modern psychology. His version of Judaism, non-duality, has always been a minority view in the chorus of Jewish opinion about the nature of God, people, the world, and their relationships with each other.

Next, we will examine how well non-duality fits with “normative” Judaism.  And explore some of the problems that non-duality seeks to cure but only washes away.

The Strange Hunger for Non-Dual Judaism

I get hungry to read about non-dual Judaism.  Fact is, there are few modern full length treatments of it, and the classical sources only hint at the non-duality of all that we see and experience within the context of religious Judaism.  Mostly, non-dualism is a minority view in the Jewish world.

So, I gobble the works that are out there, and hope for more. [For example, I just read an essay by Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels about non-dual Judaism, and it is brilliant in how it handles the difficult task of explaining the unexplainable.  But I can’t find a full length book by Rabbi Jacobson-Maisels.]

Which brings me to Rabbi Arthur Green’s These Holy Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life.  Rabbi Green was an early advocate of non-dual Judaism within the context of what is called neo-Hasidism.  This movement advocates for the integration of many Hasidic ideas and practices into modern Jewish life, without fully boarding the mitzvot-Hasidic bandwagon.

Rabbi Green “dictionary” of Jewish thought and practice covers a great deal of ground.  From Adonai to Zehhut and much in between.  There are suggestions of non-dualism here, especially in his treatment of the four letter name of God.  But mostly, this is a primer for liberal Jews without much background in the tradition looking for basic information from a very broadminded thinker. 

Such books as Radical Judaism, Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow and Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology are a more full frontal views of mystical, non-dualistic Judaism than this work