PREFACE
THE SEARCH FOR SPIRITUAL INSPIRATION and understanding is universal. Although there have been periods in history when the idea of the divine has become externalized, grounded in the material and the secular, there have always been those people whose direct experience of the mystical reality proved otherwise. Most recently in Europe, the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries saw a rejection of the mystical in favor of social, material, intellectual, and scientific progress. In Judaism this tendency gained great strength under the name of the Enlightenment, the Haskalah, which promised release from the insularity of the Jewish community vis-à-vis the dominant Christian society.
Yet at the same time, the explosion of Hasidism as an expression of the belief in the mystical and the essential importance of the spiritual master, the tsadik, in attaining soul liberation, counterbalanced this materialistic tendency. Indeed, personal direct experience of the divine through the intervention or inspiration of a spiritual master has always been accepted by devotional groups within Judaism. Perhaps because of the waves of persecutions the Jews had experienced in European society over the centuries, Jews had developed a tendency to look inwards for their sustenance and strength. In this milieu, many great spiritual leaders appeared, mystics and moralists who gave form to their spiritual practices and developed complex systems of meditation and mystical symbolism.
By the mid-twentieth century, the intellectual Jew was careful not to abandon himself to emotional or ecstatic types of worship, nor to acknowledge the beauty and inspiration offered by the complex symbolism of the kabbalists. The modern intellectual regarded the mystical as mysterious, confusing, and somehow untrustworthy. For the mainstream religious Jew of western society, God became an abstraction rather than a living being. As a transcendent abstraction he could not answer prayers. For the intellectual, there was no room for a living spiritual master, a teacher who could put his disciples in touch with the divine holy spirit, the ruah ha-kodesh of the Bible. Anyone could have access to the abstract divine being – intermediaries not needed and not welcome – or at least this was the maxim taught to the masses and the youth.
In recent years, Judaism has moved on towards a more mystical approach. No longer is there shame associated with devotional ecstasy. Attitudes often reflect a cyclical spiral, and so today there is a “renewal” movement in Judaism that has brought many people in touch with the mystical nature of their being. These are people seeking a more immediate experience of God, who invest their religion with renewed hope for spiritual transformation. They are not afraid to seek masters, leaders, rebbes, tsadiks, holy men and women, under whose wings they can grow towards a first-hand experience of God.
In 1977, the noted scholar and practitioner of Jewish mysticism, Arthur Green, anticipated this shift in attitudes when he wrote his article “The Zaddiq [tsadik] as Axis Mundi in Later Judaism.” In this article, he explodes the myth that in Judaism there are no holy persons who bring the divine reality to the human level. He discusses the history of the concept of the tsadik as the pillar who connects heaven and earth, divine and mundane, who is the source of all blessings that flow to man on earth, and who acts as the channel through which man can return to the divine. Green recounts how various contemporary scholars have corrected this one-sided presentation of the religion and have demonstrated “the perseverance with which myths of sacred persons survived and developed in the literature of later Judaism.”1
The purpose of this book is to rediscover the spiritual masters of Jewish history whose teachings have brought inspiration and spiritual solace to generations of Jews – from the prophets of the biblical period through the mystics and rabbis of antiquity; to the hasidim (pietists) of Germany, the Sufis, and kabbalists of the Middle Ages; to the messiah figures of all periods, later kabbalists and wonder workers, and finally to the tsadikim of Eastern European Hasidism.
The spiritual level attained by these individuals will always remain a mystery for us, both because of limitations of our own experience and the impossibility of assessing another person’s spiritual experience. The depth and degree of their influence on their disciples also would have varied according to the receptivity of those disciples. The dominant threads, however, we can discern: the yearning for spiritual understanding, for closeness to God, relief from the sufferings of the material world – all these the living spiritual masters shared. The richness of the literature they left behind is a witness to the great creative surge that the inner spiritual quest inspires.
It is my own experience with a living spiritual master that has inspired me to dive into these three millennia of Jewish life to bring to the surface the evidence of those great teachers and mystics who dedicated their lives, physically and spiritually, to continually renew the heart and soul of Judaism. They have been a channel for the divine power to enter the physical realm of human life, and a ladder through which others might ascend and experience the divine.
Working on this book has given me the opportunity to focus on the mystic heart of my own inheritance. It has been inspiring to discover the continuum of voices within Judaism that resonate with the voices of the great spiritual leaders and masters of other ways and paths to God. It is this discovery that has been thrilling and humbling for me, with my deep roots in Judaism, as I have researched material for this book.
In essence, this book is concerned with the universality of spiritual truth as expressed through the Jewish experience. In its natural unfolding as a mostly chronological study, The Mystic Heart of Judaism attempts to demonstrate the primacy of the spiritual master as the teacher and transmitter of truth. It presents the living teachers and their living teachings, their inner spiritual life with the divine, their relationship of love with their disciples.
It is my hope that this book will be of value particularly to other readers with a Jewish heritage who are searching within their tradition for knowledge of the one God who is common to all humanity. And if their search takes them to a living spiritual master who can inspire and guide them on the path of mystic awakening, they will be most fortunate.
The twenty-first century is witnessing a growing dialogue among adherents of the world’s religions as they explore their common foundation of spirituality while respecting the differences arising from history and culture. It is hoped that this book will make a positive contribution to that dialogue by bringing to light the perspectives of Judaism’s great spiritual teachers and mystics.