And then he will feel welling up within himself, a burning thirst for that inner substance and vision which transcends the obvious surfaces of existence, and remains unaffected by the world's catastrophes. From such inner sources, he will seek the waters of joy, which can quicken the dry outer skeleton of existence."
The simplest state of human awareness is a self-referral field of pure consciousness, a field of all possibilities. Knowledge is structured in consciousness, and we are not in the world, the world is within us. Welcome to Simplest State, where together, we explore the nature of consciousness and self-realization.
We are honored to welcome a guest whose journey beautifully illustrates the unity that lies beneath all spiritual traditions. He began his path as a spiritual leader within the ancient and profound depths of the Jewish mystical tradition,
But his inner calling eventually led him to the science of consciousness and the timeless wisdom of the East, and his life is a testament to the idea that while the maps may differ, the destination—the awakening of the heart and realization of our true nature—is one and the same.
He speaks not just of one tradition, but of the universal current that flows through them all. His story is a reminder that the light is the same, wherever it shines.
He is here to share how the deepest mysteries of the west and the east converge on the path of self-realization.
Rabbi Alan Green, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Simplest State.
Thank you. That was quite a beautiful introduction. I, I hope I can live up to it.
You've well deserved it, and you've already lived up to it. Your legacy speaks for itself, Rabbi Green.
So where to begin? Maybe at the beginning. I began my Jewish career, I, I should say, when I was a kid. We, grew up in the San Fernando Valley, if you're familiar with Los Angeles. And I went to a typical conservative synagogue and Hebrew school, and got a Bar Mitzvah, and even attended Hebrew high school. None of it impressed me very much, I must say. I spent actually a month at a Jewish summer camp, Camp Ramah, which did impress me, but there was very little continuity between my experience there and my experience in my home, and in my life.
And so, by the time I was in high school, I, I felt like I was pretty much done with being Jewish. And fortunately, I had some friends who were practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, and I was in a bad way by the time I was in 12th grade. And they told me, you do this technique of meditation, it'll make you happy. And I thought to myself, how could that possibly be true? But it turned out to be true. I felt a great sense of relief from the very first time I, I transcended in meditation and that sort of set me on my spiritual path.
Now, being Jewish was still not part of that. I was still pretty, far away from, my previous Jewish existence. And I had no interest really in going back to it. But then I went to TM teacher training, had a lot of exposure to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and a lot of his concepts about the depths of human experience, particularly as embodied in the Vedic tradition of India. And, I felt transformed by that experience. Still far away from Judaism.
But then, in the funny way that things work, I was introduced to a book, which I want to share the beginning of with you. It's the "9 1/2 Mystics, The Kabbala Today," written by a reform Rabbi, Herbert Weiner. The book consists of interviews with some of the leading Jewish mystical personalities of the 20th century. But I must say that from the very first page of this book, I was hooked on, on Kabbalah. And Kabbalah, I must say, has led me back to Jewish tradition in all different kinds of ways.
But I want to just share with you some of the content of the first two pages of this book. He begins with a quote from an Israeli poet named Eli Siegel. And Eli Siegel says, "substance is what remains when everything you can think of has gone." This accorded so clearly with my experience of meditation, I thought there's, got to be more in this book, and so I kept on reading.
And in the very next paragraph, he brings up this Hebrew word, very common word in Hebrew, the word yesh. Yesh is part of the verbs of possession. So, yesh li means, literally, there is to me, but this is how you say, I have.
So, yesh means 'there is', and sometimes the word yesh occurs all by itself. And if you have the word yesh occurring all by itself, you have simply, yesh, there is. Again, a concept, or an experience, that accorded very closely with what I've been experiencing in Transcendental Meditation for the previous few years.
Then he goes on, and he says, there was one particular person in Jewish tradition that, for him, embodied these qualities of yesh. And yesh is not just flat Being, but rather, it encompasses what the kabbalists, delineate as the 310 worlds that underlie our material reality. How do they get 310? There's something in Jewish interpretation called gematria, where according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, they're assigned numbers. So, the first letter is aleph, one. Second letter is bet, two, and so on, throughout the alphabet. The gematria of the word yesh is 310. And so, the rabbis, Kabbalistic rabbis, derive from this, 310 worlds that underlie this world. So not just silence, but also dynamism. And dynamism as embodied in certain outstanding individuals, like Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.
Now, the rabbis say that when someone tells you your own story, you are on the road to redemption. So, on the second page of this book, "9 1/2 Mystics," I encountered my story, in a quote by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and I just want to read that for you because it embodies everything that got me started on the spiritual path, even before I knew that there was anything spiritual about Judaism.
And this is what he says. " So long as the world moves along accustomed paths, as long as there are no wild catastrophes, man can find sufficient substance for his life by contemplating surface events, theories, and movements of society. He can acquire his inner richnesses from this external kind of property. But this is not the case when life encounters fiery forces of evil and chaos. Then, the revealed world begins to totter. Then, the man who tries to sustain himself, only from the surface aspects of existence, will suffer terrible impoverishment, begin to stagger, and then he will feel welling up within himself, a burning thirst for that inner substance and vision which transcends the obvious surfaces of existence, and remains unaffected by the world's catastrophes. From such inner sources, he will seek the waters of joy, which can quicken the dry outer skeleton of existence."
It was my story. I had encountered in, in high school, the philosophy called existentialism. Existentialism, basically the belief that existence precedes essence, which is another way of saying everything is essentially meaningless, except for the meaning that we can make for ourselves.
Now, when I encountered this in 11th grade, it kind of shattered my world because couldn't accept it. And yet I realized that the entire background of the culture and, and education in which I was being raised, had that as its basic assumption. And I thought, my God, what am I doing in this world?
And all of a sudden, I was thinking, going to college, getting married, having children, having a career. It made no sense. And so, I went into this huge tailspin where nothing made any sense. this essentially is what Transcendental Meditation rescued me from. First, relieving me of all the stress and anxiety that that caused me. But then, as I got deeper into the knowledge aspect of it, I realized that there was order in the universe, and a purpose for life. And that basically saved my Jewish soul, I would say.
So, the fiery forces of evil and chaos that Rabbi Kook is talking about here, I experienced already, when I was in high school. And I needed relief from them, and couldn't get any relief from anything external because that's not the nature of the external world. The external world is a pretty chaotic place. And, it can lead you into all kinds of blind alleys, which is, I became quite expert at blind alleys. So, I needed to find something within. That, that inner substance to which Rabbi Kook refers, that nourishes, that, that enlivens the dry outer skeleton of existence.
I just, I thought that phrase was just so powerful and pregnant with meaning,
cause that is what the external reality is, when it's not being nourished from within.
It is hollow otherwise. Absolutely.
Hollow, and not very palatable.
Yes, correct.
So, Reb Kook was, was speaking in a Jewish context. And this completely blew my mind because I had no idea that rabbis were concerned with such things. When I was growing up in synagogue, it was all about Jewish history, Jewish sociology. Israel was a very important thing. And so, the issues were survival issues, basically. And, survival issues are not progressive issues. They're not spiritual issues. They're very, very basic. And so, I needed to get beyond that somehow.
What you've just said is, is precisely why I was so excited to have you on the program, because you are indeed somewhat unique in that you've inspired thousands of people as a very popular, much loved, and respected leader of a particular religious denomination.
And yet, your uniqueness is that you've gone beyond those surface level aspects that you just mentioned: the study of Judaism, the historical values, et cetera, and you've looked at the underlying essence of your faith, which, of course, is the universal essence that underlies all true religions and spiritual teachings.
And if I may say, in one of your writings that I researched, I noticed you said something that really caught my eye. You said, I've spent 31 years talking about God, it's now time for me to start experiencing God directly." And you've spoken about, what you call transcendental Judaism.
Right.
I wonder if you can, can say a little bit more about that, because those are both fascinating statements.
Transcendental Judaism is a, is a great little term, which I did not make up. It was coined by a friend of mine, unfortunately passed away young, David Lieberman. And he wrote a book actually, by that title, "Transcendental Judaism." It's available on Amazon. I highly recommend it. It's a slim volume, but it's, it's packed with meaning.
And, basically, he's saying that the transcendent in Judaism is hidden in plain sight. In other words, if you go to a typical synagogue and typical service, and typical sermon. You're probably not going to get very much, in the way of spiritual depth. You may get other kinds of depth, you know, you know, there's part of being the Jewish people, which is, it's, I, I don't discount that, and in fact, I love it. I've, I've come to love it, very, very much.
In fact, these days I say, I've been meditating for 55 years now. The longer I meditate, the more Jewish I become. So, a lovely aspect of being just part of a, a nice congregation and, and the Jewish people. But, spiritual depth, I think is, is lacking, in most Jewish venues.
I think that's equally applicable to every one of the organized religions.
Could be.
People talk about going to church, or doing whatever is the performance required in their particular religion, but it doesn't nourish the soul on the deepest level.
You know, Abraham Joshua Heschel was a great Jewish theologian of the last century, and he said something so profound, it's never left me. He says, people, are searching for God in different ways, but mostly those ways are limited to God being an object outside of themselves. They look for God outside themselves, and as long as they continually place God in the category of 'object of perception', they're never going find Him. What they need to realize is that God is the subject, and we are the objects of His perception.
It's so timely that you say that because, not long ago, I was speaking with George Barselaar, who gave a, a beautiful representation of Kashmir Shaivism, in which he explained that the essence of it, is that God and the individual are one. And, he explained in that, how his teacher, Swami Lakshmanjoo, had explained that, I think you have this habit of thinking of God as being outside somewhere, dwelling up in heaven and, and looking down.
And that has given you this separation. But in reality, God dwells within you, and I think the Kabbalistic teachings seem to run along those exact same lines as the ancient Vedic traditions.
There's no question about it. How did they experience God? They must have gone within, because that's the only way you can actually experience God. So, God is within. God is the subject. We are the objects of His perception. So, if we want to be able to perceive God, we're going to have to find a way to reverse the direction, the usual direction of our awareness, 180 degrees. Allow it to project within.
And by golly, what are you going to find there? Unbounded awareness, lack of boundaries, timelessness, spacelessness, a feeling of tremendous expansion. I won't say that you're going to necessarily have an immediate clear perception of God, but you will be on a platform upon which God becomes a much more obvious reality. I'll put it that way. The way it's put in the Book of Genesis is very interesting. They say that God created human beings in His image, in His likeness. And so, if you want to know the true image of God, of a human being, you're not going to find it by looking in the mirror so much. You're not going to find it shopping for the nicest fashions or, or working out in the gym so that you get the most muscles. You're going to find it within.
And that is, that is the true divine image. And there are people who have, I would say, a very transparent, a very clear image of God, that they carry within and project without. And these
are the people that you want to meet
and learn from.
Right, right, right. Now to the outsider, Kabbalah seems sort-of secretive, mystical, complex. And, if you were to explain to someone the essence of Kabbalah, to someone who'd never heard of it, with a specific focus on self-realization, how might you define or describe it?
I think it might be best to refer to another book. It's called the "Zohar, The Book of Splendor."
Right, right.
Now, the Zohar is not a slim volume like this. It's more like a 13 or 14 encyclopedic length of mystical interpretation of the Torah. But there's one passage in this particular book, written by the founder, really, of the modern study of Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, that says so much about the essence of, not only the Zohar, which is the classic text of Kabbalah, but Jewish mysticism as a whole. And he talks about the Torah.
Now, we haven't mentioned the word Torah, so, just to clue in your listeners, Torah refers, classically, to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. In other words, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Those five books are, I would say, the fountainhead from which the rest of Jewish tradition springs—many thousands of interpretations, a whole library really, of different ways of, of looking at those five books of the Bible. But this is what Rabbi Shemen has to say about the Torah.
"The Torah, in all of its words, holds supernal truths and sublime secrets. Thus, the tales related in the Torah are simply her outer garments, and woe to the person who regards that outer garb as the Torah itself.
Its narrations, which relate to things of the world, constitute the garments which clothe the body of the Torah. People without understanding see only the narrations, the garments. Those somewhat more penetrating, see also the body, but the truly wise, those who serve the most high king, and who stood on Mount Sinai, pierce all the way through to the soul, to the true Torah, which is the root principle of all.
Just as wine must be kept in a jar in order to be preserved, so the Torah must be contained in an outer garment. That garment is made up of the tales and stories. But we, we are bound to penetrate beyond."
That is fascinating. it is just astonishing to me how much we see parallels between the Vedic understanding, and the understanding contained, as you have described it, in the Kabbalah and the Torah. I came across one concept, or one phrase, one bit of terminology. I think it may be pronounced shekhinah.
That's, that's very good.
It, it describes as the indwelling presence of God. And it caught my attention because I'm wondering, does that concept, does that resonate with that Eastern idea of the divine residing within each of us, as atman?
Okay. That's a good question. The shekhinah, that's, that's how it's pronounced in modern Hebrew, the shekhinah
Okay.
is the feminine divine.
Ah.
So, it's more than just atman. But it's that aspect of God which is imminent in creation. So, the aspect of God which is closest to us, is called shekhinah. And it's actually related to the word shakhen, which means neighbor. So, this is like God being neighborly with regard to humanity and the rest of creation.
Right.
In Kabbalah, you asked for the essence of it. I would say the essence of it is that they took a kind of microscope to divinity. Now, prior to Jewish mysticism, the concept was, or I would say even the experience of God was one. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. And that is like a fundamental Jewish belief.
One is supposed to begin one's day with it. One is supposed to end one's day with it. One is actually supposed to end one's life with it. It should be your last thought in this world, the oneness of God. So that's a very, very important thing in Judaism.
But the Kabbalists took a microscope to the oneness of God. And what they found is that there was a structure to that oneness, and there was a flow to that structure. There was a, an inner life, a kind of divine organism, a living being that was more complicated than just oneness.
Now, they didn't want to say that God wasn't one, certainly. But in the same way that a diamond has many facets and still is a diamond, or you could say even the way a human being has many different parts, but we're still one human being. So, God has his different facets, his different aspects, his different dynamism.
And so, I would say that the essence of Kabbalah is to say that there are, I don't want to say two aspects because it's all one, right, but they talk about ein sof, the infinite, and then they talk about the 10 sephirot, the 10 more manifest aspects of God, which are like a delicate lattice that connect the infinite to God's creation. A kind of ladder, if you will. But, again, it's, it's talking about it in, in much too physical a sense.
Right.
Now, when we talk about shekhina, shekhina is the, the 10th of the 10 sephirot. It's the one that is called the womb of the universe. It's because all these different tendencies and, and paths, and, and energies that go into creating creation, coalesce and are sown like a seed in the womb of shekhina, and are actually birthed through, if you will, the birth canal that is shekhina. And as such, the shekhina is like the mother of all creation, and it's that aspect of God to which we are related most closely.
Is that like the shakti, the manifesting creative intelligence from the pure consciousness, as described in the Vedic literature, that then bubbles up, we could say, into the appearance of a creation within the realm of pure consciousness itself?
Now, actually, I would say that you've described, very beautifully, the whole mechanism of how the 10 sephirot operate, because within that, that structure, there is a side that is masculine, and there is a side that is feminine. And they interact, and there is a third column that goes in-between that is both together, that combines them in a harmonious way. And the shekhina is at the basis of, of all that interaction. And it's where that, that seed of creation is sown and where it, it manifests as creation. But you've described the whole process being, you know, in, in very poetic terms.
The whole thing, I think, being a kind of shakti, yes.
That's tremendous. Now, within the teaching of Kabbalah, I'm just curious if there is any explicit talk or descriptions of the whole idea that's conveyed in the Eastern philosophy of evolution, and higher states of consciousness, and enlightenment, and self-realization in, perhaps not in those terms, but in any terms, is there some sort of explicit explanation, or description, or understanding conveyed in the Kabbalistic teachings?
Definitely. There's a number of ways we can approach this. One is by talking about the four universes of Kabbalah. Four, not distinct entities, because they all fit one within the other, and you could say, something like a tennis ball. They all fit together and they all nourish, and interact, and sustain one another.
But at the same time, there is a kind of hierarchy there. And so, beginning from, say the lowest level, is the physical universe. And then contained within that is the universe of, of feeling. Contained within that is the mental universe. And I, I want to say mental, but it's not like we think of mental, it's more like cosmic intellect mental. Alright, a very high level of discernment. And finally, beyond that, there is the world of what's called atziluth, the world of emanation, which is a spiritual universe.
And each universe corresponds to one of the letters that make up the name of God in Hebrew: yod, he, vav, he. And this requires, maybe a moment of explanation. Yod, he, vav, he, are the letters drawn from the verbs of being: to be, was, is, will be. So, the name of God in Hebrew is the name of pure existence. And each one of these letters corresponds to one of these universes of Kabbalah.
And so, as one evolves from the physical, through the world of feeling, through the world of cosmic intellect, and into the world of spirituality, one experiences, of course, higher and higher states of consciousness, and greater closeness to God and His creative process.
Now, there's another way we can look at this. There are also what are called levels of soul. And again, I would say, probably levels of consciousness would be a better explanation, or definition.
We have at the very basis, something called nefesh. Nefesh, I would say, is body, mind, senses—that aspect of soul which is most connected to the world.
Beyond nefesh, we have something called ruach. Ruach literally means wind, or it can mean spirit. But again, connected to the emotions, ruach.
And beyond ruach is something called neshemah. Neshemah is related to the word for, for breath. Neshom means to breathe, in Hebrew. And, so I think of neshemah as being a, a spiritual soul, which we experience in meditation as that quiet breath of contemplation, where you're feeling so settled that there's really hardly any need to breathe at all. That would be, I think, neshamah.
And beyond neshemah, there's something called chaya. It means life. This is really where the individual being of a person comes into existence, chaya, life.
And then beyond that, we could say, is the world, or the soul level, of yechida. Which means oneness. Basically, where you're hardwired into divinity. And my speculation is that yechida is what we would call atman, in Sanskrit.
The thing is, they, they knew all these things somehow, right? And, one wonders how they knew, because people think, well, Judaism, bunch of dry rituals and, and a lot of details of observance. These people were highly observant individuals, and yet at the same time, they had clear experiences of expanded states of consciousness.
How else could they have known all these things?
Definitely.
One point I want to make is something that my Jewish teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi told me, many years ago. He said, if you're focusing exclusively on Kabbalah, it's like focusing too exclusively on the chocolate chip and ignoring the cookie.
Are you saying it's wrong to focus on the chocolate chip and ignore the cookie?
Not wrong at all, not wrong at all, but you don't want to eat
chocolate chips all day.
The cookie provides a balance point. It's true. It's true.
So, the way I've come to experience the rituals of Judaism, which you know, they're easily dismissed. But I think when you have the transcendent lively in your awareness, they actually become triggers for transcending. And that is a very interesting thing.
That is a very interesting thing I have to say. Because, I'm interrupting you for two seconds because, of course, it naturally reminds me of, even in the Vedic traditions, even though we talk of Advaita Vedanta, and consciousness is all there is, there are many performances that are strictly adhered to, in order to help cultivate and promote that understanding.
So interesting, isn't it?
It is. Fascinating.
So, simple acts like lighting candles on Shabbat. Okay. Simple can be a trigger for transcending. Or, washing one's hands in the ritual way that one does before one partakes of the, the motzi, the bread blessing; trigger for transcending. One makes kiddush, a sanctification prayer, over wine or grape juice; trigger for transcending. And of course, when you transcend in activity, that is a hallmark for a true higher state of consciousness.
One transcends in meditation and it's wonderful, delightful. But what you're aiming at in a meditation or spiritual practice, is to have that in your everyday life, to have that in your activity so that it never, hopefully, leaves your experience. And, I think these rituals are actually designed to culture and cultivate that.
Fantastic. I'd like to go back for a minute to something you said, because you've mentioned a couple of times now, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the importance of them, and their sequence. And, from what I gather, the Kabbalah seems to place a great emphasis on those letters as vibrational forces.
And, and does this corresponded any to the use of, of mantras in Vedic traditions? Because in the Vedic tradition as well, there's tremendous importance placed on sound, and the correctness of sound, and how those sounds are produced and how sound eventually manifests, and its vibratory qualities eventually become the appearance of a manifest creation.
Are these functionally the same, the way Kabbalah looks at the letters of the alphabet and the way the Vedic traditions do?
Very similar. One aspect of the Kabbalah is to study the process by which God created creation. And so how do you do that? You go back to the very beginning, the Book of Genesis, and you discover that God created the universe by calling it into being.
So, He says, when He wants to create light, He says, yehi 'or, let there be light. And how God did that, there must have been some vibratory component. Even before the vibratory component, there must have been some, some thought component that went into that. And so, a Kabbalist will take the words yehi 'or, and they will try to find out the steps leading back to the source, which allowed that light to be created and which, actually, it continues to allow light to be created, because creation is something, in the Jewish understanding, that is going on every single moment that we're alive.
So, yehi 'or, and all the different callings into being that God utilizes to create creation are taken very seriously by the Kabbalists because they believe that it provides keys to understanding how creation came to be. And if one can traverse those steps, back to the source, then one has this tremendous experience and understanding of God's creativity. And of course, that manifests as increased beauty and, and harmony, and creativity within the human life.
Thank you. That is brilliant. And it makes me want to ask you that, given your very unique position, integrating Judaism and Vedic science, I'm wondering what do you think would be the most important lesson for the Jewish community that they could learn from Eastern spirituality and vice versa?
I think that there needs to be more of an inner component to Jewish experience. My teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, again, used to say, that Judaism, these days in particular, is terribly over verbalized and under experienced.
Over verbalized and under experienced. I like that.
Yes, we talk a lot about it, but we don't get that sense of elation, that, that sense of happiness, that sense of, of joy, that comes from experiencing our tradition in a deep way. There's not enough joy in Judaism. There's certainly a lot of sorrow to be experienced.
But, to be joyful in the face of all that; that's really the essential message of Hasidism, the great spiritual revival of the 18th century that was piloted by a man named, Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, master of the good name. He taught that joy was an absolutely essential component of being a good servant of God, and that without that, it really wasn't worth the effort.
Wonderful.
Without cultivating the inner value of pure consciousness, the bliss inside, one becomes as if emotionally dry, or hardened, because it's just performance on the surface level, as you just described it, but without the most important element, which is the inner bliss.
You know, there's this word mitzvah in Judaism, it means commandment. And, it's a word that doesn't sit well with many Jews these days. They don't like to be told what to do, even by God. But the, the inner aspect of a mitzvah is what's called, lehitlavot, to accompany, to connect with, to, to be with God in the performance of this commandment.
So, yes, it might be a commandment, but the command, the inner command, is connect with your creator, and derive the benefit of that. And, there's evidence of that throughout the prayer book and certainly throughout the Kabbalah.
In fact, I wanted to maybe, quote a few things from some of the great masters of Kabbalah that, that accord with, with this kind of, experience of the transcendent in activity, and closeness to God. So, from the 16th century, a Kabbalist by the name of Moshe Cordovero. He says, "God is found in all things and all things are found in God. There's nothing devoid of divinity, heaven forbid. Everything is in God, and God is in every thing. And beyond every thing, there's nothing besides God."
That's fantastic. That is wonderful. Again, in doing the research, I've come across that sentiment expressed within the teachings of Kabbalah several times. And, and, in particular there is, there is something... I don't know if I got it right, you'll have to clarify it for me, Rabbi Green. But it talked about fragmentation, and I think the word is tzimtzum. Tzimtzum, which was something about a feeling of God forsakenness, the emptiness, and this fragmentation that comes from a separation of individuality from the divinity.
Can you say a little bit more about that, because I'd like to understand that more fully.
Okay, you're, you're actually talking about two different things.
But you could say that the root of fragmentation is contained in tzimtzum. Tzimtzum actually means contraction.
Right, right.
The way that God creates creation, it's so interesting how this unfolds. It's not, initially, an act of expansion. It's an act of contraction. And why is that? Because if God is nothing but infinite, there's no way that creation can come to be, because there's only the infinite.
There's no space. No space, no time. So, God must self-limit himself in order to create, at least a primordial space, into which creation can flow.
Right, right.
So, if you want to know the origin of fragmentation, boundaries; there's this initial boundary which is not really a boundary, it's, it's a necessity in order for creation, even to be.
So, tzimtzum is the first step of creation. And after that, God starts to manifest creation into that primordial space. But, at least according to Lurianic Kabbalah, this is the Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria, which became dominant, actually. It wasn't there at the beginning, but he brought this out in the wake of some very difficult Jewish experiences, which accorded with people's experience of, of their lives. And it made sense.
And it still makes sense, actually, in terms of the way we look at the world, because he says what happened is God manifested light, yehi 'or, let there be light, but that he had created vessels to contain the light. And when the light hit the vessels, the vessels broke. And this created a cosmic catastrophe, because what happened is that light got mixed up with the fragments of the vessels, and they fell to a depth to which the light was not originally designed to fall. And it got mixed up in a way in which it wasn't supposed to get mixed up in materialism. And so, the result of all that is our broken universe, and our fragmented way of perceiving it.
And all the difficulty that we experience in our lives, that we experience as nations, as the Jewish people, as history, is as a result of this fragmentation. Of course, there's a cure that's built into this system. In fact, one could say that God intended it for it to be exactly this way, because it then assigns human beings this divine task of separating out these sparks of holiness from the shards of fragmentation, returning them to their divine source, disempowering these, these fragments of what you could call evil, or stress, or impressions, or obstacles, so that we can regain that sense of wholeness that was, ideally, intended from the very beginning. And that will be the Messianic era.
And those shards, or fragments, are what eventually lead us to seek the source, again, because we are isolated, we're fragmented, we are removed from our true identity, and identified with a very small self. And doesn't that, in fact, then lead to the motivation of ultimately finding that what we're seeking is not in the material values of the world, but is actually within us the entire time?
It is quite a setup, isn't it?
Quite a set up. It was rigged from the beginning.
Another way that Kabbalists look at the sense of fragmentation is that, you know, they really feel that God's universe is, is perfect in, in almost every way. The one way in which it is not perfect is us. We human beings, with our incredible, powerful gift of free choice. With that incredible, powerful gift which elevates us over all created beings, including, according to the rabbis, even the angels in heaven, which don't have free will. We have freedom of choice.
And with that freedom of choice, we have made a mess of things. But, but with that freedom of choice, we have the opportunity to restore the originally intended wholeness.
And, and, and upon restoring it. We find it was never messed up at all. It was just as it had to be.
That's astounding, isn't it?
It is astounding.
I wanted to say, that the Kabbalists feel that this impacts on God himself.
Impacts on God himself... what does that mean?
It's a very Jewish concept. But the idea is that God suffers along with us in some sense, and that the fragmentation that we project upon God's universe, actually projects upon God in some way, as well.
Limits in some way.
Actually, they say divides.
Divides. Okay.
Now, we say in Judaism all the time, God is one. God is one. God is one. Okay, we accept that. But, Kabbalistically, because we have this fragmented vision of the universe, and inevitably of God also, they say that we have created a rift in the divine name. So that, on one hand there's Yud Hei, and on the other hand there's Vav Hei. And this split is something that cannot abide forever, because God really is one, and we really are whole beings. But for the time being, our fragmented view of creation actually fragments God in some way.
So, in Jewish prayer, we're not just praying for ourselves. We're not just praying for the world. But this is a concept: We're praying for God. We are actually praying for God, and God needs us to pray for him.
That's a wonderful perspective, actually, and it gives life a larger purpose beyond ourselves, which is always a good thing.
There's, in Judaism, this idea that we are partners with God and
Partners with God.
Partners with God. We have a covenant with God, a kind of contract with God, where he says, I will be your God if you will be my people. And you know, implied in that, if you will not be my people, I will not be your God.
So, we're really in this together. And that's why you have this phenomenon of Judaism where, some very holy people, will argue with God, they'll bargain with God. They'll harangue God, even, because they're not just going to say, okay, boss, we accept this world that you've created the way you have.
They'll say, no, this is not good enough. You know, you are God, and, and you know, we need you to be more than this.
So, this is all in the name of deepening their own understanding, then. It's like the ancient principle of debate to reveal deeper levels of understanding and discriminatory knowledge.
And that is a lot of what Jewish tradition is about, is that precise process. That's what the Talmud is all about.
All right.
It's question, after question, after question. It's answer, after answer, after answer, and it really never ends.
Wow. Wow. What a, what a beautiful explanation. And, one of the things I came across that kind of struck me was, there's some concept in the Kabbalah of collective consciousness, and the coming of the Messiah linked, somehow, to a shift in collective consciousness. Is this sort-of what's happening now, that we're seeing this shift in collective consciousness, with all this turmoil and upheaval?
There's a concept in Aramaic, it's called, Ikveta-diMeshicha. That's good Aramaic for saying the footsteps of the Messiah. And, there are many different descriptions of the coming of the Messiah, and the nature of the Messiah. There's no agreement, universally, in Judaism about any of this.
But many authorities hold that as the Messiah gets, gets closer, as the Messianic era comes closer, there will be greater degrees of chaos. There will also be degrees of clarification, where the good will be clear and the, the not good will be clear. And the two will conflict in some way, and hopefully peacefully. That's ideal. Peacefully, the good will overcome the evil. And yes, collectively, all of mankind will enjoy the benefits.
What does Kabbalah say about the Messianic era? What is the significance? What will happen? How is the shift in collective consciousness realized?
There are many explanations, but I want to just share something, again from the Zohar, here. Shed some light on this. They begin with a quote from Genesis, and God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And the explanation: this is the primal light which God made. It is the light of the eye. This light God showed to Adam, and by means of it, he was enabled to see from end to end of the universe.
Rabbi Isaac is now commenting in the Zohar. He says, at the creation, God irradiated the world from end to end with the light. But then it was withdrawn, so as to deprive the sinners of the world of its enjoyment, and it is stored away for the righteous. As it stands written, light is sown for the righteous.
Then will the worlds be in harmony, and all will be united into one. But until the future world is set up, that is the Messianic era, the light is put away and hidden.
So, there's this idea that this primordial light, the light of consciousness, basically, is something that will irradiate the whole world, at a time when evil is annulled, and everyone will be able to enjoy the clear perception of the way things are really supposed to be.
When you were reading that it reminded me when you spoke of the light being taken away, and then chaos prevails. That would be, I think, the immersion in maya, the loss of the self, the loss of self knowledge, the immersion in maya, the attention only directed outwards with no anchor, with no awareness of the pure consciousness within. That is the way I interpreted that.
Is that the way you were saying it?
Absolutely, absolutely, yes, absolutely. They knew about this somehow. They must have experienced it, themselves.
Right, right.
So, I find all this kind of talk very inspiring.
Certainly.
Because the Jewish world could use a lot more of this, and hopefully, in in the coming years, it will.
I have to say it is not just the world of Judaism. it's everywhere and it's in every religion, and in those who don't practice religion.
In that regard, I like to come back to you and ask, well, let's say for Jewish people, or people of any faith, they're living life in a very fully engaged manner. It means they have families to raise, they have to work, they have to maintain bills. How would you recommend that these people practically incorporate, and appreciate, and make best use of, the higher states of consciousness that you've so beautifully described in the Kabbalah?
There is a tradition of meditation in Judaism. It's not like meditation in the East because, at least my sense of it, is that it was a mainstream practice. In both the Indian tradition, Vedic tradition, Buddhism, they have these highly developed traditions of meditation.
In Judaism, I think you find that meditation is reserved for an elite. You referred to this earlier, that Kabbalah is sort of secret, kept away from the masses. That has been the case, I think, until fairly recently.
Over the last 40 years or so, the study of Kabbalah has proliferated throughout the Jewish world, and even beyond the Jewish world. So, I think it's, it's finding, its audience now.
And along with that, there are Kabbalistic techniques of meditation that are coming to the fore. And I've encountered them, and I know about them. They broadly fall into the categories of concentration and contemplation. I think that for some people they work well. But, of course, with my experience and knowledge of Transcendental Meditation, that all seems very complicated and, just not as direct, certainly. Not as effortless.
I recall Maharishi saying that anything as simple and natural and effortless as TM must actually be TM.
And these are not that. But I think they do provide the opportunity for some degree of inwardness, some degree of transcending. People seem to enjoy it. And so, there's some hope there.
Now, I should tell you that I had a conversation with Maharishi about this, specifically. I asked him, and this is on the phone, I asked him, I am a rabbi in a synagogue. The concern here is very much with cultural integrity. Everything that I do here has to, in some way, come from the Torah tradition of Israel. How is it possible for me to teach Transcendental Meditation to my congregants when it's clear that Transcendental Meditation comes from the Vedic tradition of India?
And, he gave such a great answer. I hope it's recorded somewhere. The first thing he says is, Torah and Veda are exactly the same thing.
Wow.
That's a big statement.
He then spent about 40 minutes explaining what he meant by that, because it is a huge statement. But basically, what he described was, how that the very first manifestation of creation is the Ved. It's kind of a hum. And he said on the level of that hum, Torah and Veda are really exactly the same thing. And so, he said, you should have no hesitation teaching your people how to do Transcendental Meditation. You can just tell them that you're teaching them the pure essence of Torah. And so, what did I do with that? I did not teach them TM, but my wife, actually, was able to teach many of our congregants Transcendental Meditation. And that's how we realized that on the level of the practical.
But I've never forgotten that. And that has proved to be my experience down through the years.
Am I pronouncing the word correctly, kavanah? Intention, in the Kabbalistic teaching, the,
Yes.
Power of attention, intention.
Intention, yes. Very important.
And how does that influence the development of consciousness?
Usually, when, when people talk about having kavanah in prayer, it means being sincere, knowing the words in their intellectual value. At least, having the understanding of what the prayer is about. That would be I think, a pretty common understanding.
But, Kabbalistic kavanah would be at a fine level of consciousness, and it would have to do with how you can cause things to manifest in a beautiful way. Like the gardener who's wise and knows how to make a flower that is pink, or a flower that might have pink petals and white stripes, that sort of thing. And there are people in Judaism who are reputed to have had that ability to have kavanot, that's the plural, at such a fine level that they're able to influence God, and the way God causes things to manifest in our world. And that would be the deepest level of kavanah.
It sounds very much like the development of consciousness and being able to project a thought from subtler, finer values of consciousness, where the effects are more powerful and more far reaching.
Very nicely said, yes. Very nicely, very nicely, clearly stated. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, rabbi. Another thing I want to ask about, because the whole concept of silence, inner silence, is often overlooked, or missed, in most religions. And I've come across this concept of hitbodedut, secluded meditation. It's about the silence, finding silence within; inner stillness. And, is that something that relates to meditation as we find it in Eastern philosophy?
I would say yes. Hitbodedut; it would be a quiet state of inner contemplation. I wouldn't say that it's absolute silence. Actually, I got to tell you a story. Elie Wiesel, he won the Nobel Prize for Peace. He was a great writer and thinker. And, he was once asked about whether there was silence in Judaism. And he replied, yes, there is silence in Judaism, but we don't talk much about it.
And he really, he really hit upon something there, because, you know, we're famous for being so talkative and, and a typical Jewish service is just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
Whether, whether to each other, or to God, it's all very wordy.
Right, right, right, right.
But the fact is, we could use more silence.
Yes.
We could talk about it more.
I can tell you about a specific practice of the particular kind of Hasidism which was taught by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. He was a big believer in hitbodedut.
But what he means by hitbodedut, is, you go off by yourself and you have your own personal conversation with God. Whatever comes to your mind, you just speak it out and address it to God. And that's what he meant by hitbodedut. So, not much silence, but it's actually, from what I hear, and I've never done it, but I hear it's a very powerful practice.
it is a type of meditation, we could say. It's practice within oneself, as opposed to outwardly. Yes. Yeah,
Clearly, there, there are just many similarities and parallels between Kabbalah and the Vedic tradition. And what would you say are the most fundamental samenesses between the two?
And where do these two schools of thought diverge? Where, where do they differ?
The divergence, I think, is because, if you want to look at it this way, Judaism is really Bhakti Yoga, or you could say Karma Yoga.
Bhakti yoga, as the yoga devotion, and karma yoga as the yoga of action. One achieving union with the divine through devotion, one achieving it through one's actions.
So, I would say if there is divergence, and maybe there isn't really divergence, because those are aspects of yoga. But still, what dominates in Judaism is action. Belief in Judaism is important, but it's secondary to action.
Absolutely secondary, and the rabbis even have this great statement. They say that one's level of consciousness is indicated not by what one believes, but by what one does.
Right, right, right.
And so, the active aspect is emphasized tremendously. But I find that, because of that, there's a lot of outer directedness in Judaism, and not enough inner directedness. And I would say, if the Jewish specialization is in the field of action and devotion, and certainly ethics has to be in there. Jewish law is very important, Jewish ritual is very important. Whereas the Eastern traditions, I think, are more expert in the inward direction.
Not that they don't have the other, of course they have the other, but the emphasis is on inwardness, seeking God within. And, in that way, I would say the traditions do differ.
What we could say, I guess, is that, that the silence aspect and action aspect are both there, but the pendulum has swung far over to the action. And, I think we could make that same statement, pretty much, about all the great teachings as they are currently being practiced in the world.
There are some great leaders like yourself that are sort of reviving the really more profound essence of these teachings.
But unfortunately, you need to be replicated many times, Rabbi Green, we need many, many more enlightened religious leaders like yourself.
I would say though, that Jewish meditation is probably more prevalent today than at any time in Jewish history. There are Jewish meditation teachers.
But, unlike the East, where there's a living tradition passed down from master to disciple, I think in Judaism, that is very rare. To find that in Judaism, you'd have to go to some deep dark corner of Mea Shearim, in Jerusalem, and maybe you'd find someone like that.
And there's a story that I, I heard that, someone, he was a friend of mine many years ago,
he was sought out by one of these great masters, and he ended up studying with him. But that's a, that's a very rare thing.
It's interesting because earlier, as well, when speaking about meditation, you talked about how, many of those aspects were hard to find, and they were much more hidden, and more esoteric, not readily available. And, we could say the same is true with the great eastern teachers as well, from India, that, in the past you had to, first of all, find an enlightened teacher, an enlightened master, and then often spend years and years and years of devoted service before some little bit of knowledge was given to you.
And then a little bit more, and then a little bit more. And, what we've seen in recent years—and Maharishi has described this as being due to the very urgent need of the time—is that this knowledge is coming out much more freely, and being given more freely and more readily.
Not because the world at large deserves it. But because we need it, it's a critical time. And if we don't do something now to enliven a deeper value of understanding, and enliven pure consciousness and the underlying unity and harmony, then the world might find itself in a very difficult situation.
As if it's not already difficult.
As if it's not already difficult.
But, yes, yes. This is exactly what's happened with Kabbalah, is that fifty years ago, no one knew much about it, just the academic world, basically. And, the remnants of the Kabbalistic world, because it wasn't much. In fact, many people have reached the decision that the traditional categories, you have to be 40 years old, you have to be a Torah scholar, you have to be male. You know, all these kinds of restrictions really don't apply anymore, because it's just time for the knowledge to get out there in the best way that it can.
That's so interesting. It's not just the decision of individuals to bring this knowledge out, but there's some collective widespread phenomenon where the knowledge itself just feels a need to emerge, and reveal itself more and more. So, it must truly be the need of the time.
Which brings me to an important question I wanted to ask, and that is, if you could distill the message of the Kabbalah from all your, your many years of study and practice, if you could distill it down into one sentence for someone who is seeking self-realization, not necessarily of the Jewish faith, but of any faith, anyone who's seeking pure knowledge, how would you distill the essence of the Kabbalah and explain it to them in a sentence or two?
I had like to sing for you if I could.
Sure. By all means.
And then I'll translate. it's a quote from the Zohar: M'ma-leh Kol Al-min V'So-vev Kol Al-min, U'Mi'Bal-a-de-cha, Ein Shum M'tzi-ut Klal. Lord, You fill all worlds, and surround all worlds, and Lord without You, there is no world at all. Lord, You fill all worlds, and surround all worlds, and Lord without You, there is no world at all.
Beautiful. Thank you, Rabbi.
That's how I would sum it up in one sentence.
As we close now, I want to just read one sentence that I came across in researching to speak with you today, that really made an impression on me. And then, if you don't mind, I'll ask you if there's any closing comments you want to make after that. You wrote, God and the qualities of the divine cannot be confined to a synagogue, or indeed to any other institution, religious or not.
Wow. I like that very much.
You wrote it.
I'd like to know when I wrote that. It's, it's, it's certainly true and I guess you could say that the original sin of all organized religion is this attitude that we have the truth, and no one else does. Or if they do, it's a lesser truth.
You are right, right.
And when the Messiah comes, we'll be the ones that are proved to be the correct ones and everyone else will be... eh.
I've got a joke to tell about that actually.
If we have time.
So, the Messiah comes, and it causes quite a stir, of course. And so, there's a huge press conference, journalists and networks from around the world are there, and they all want to ask the Messiah some of the details, right.
And, the first question is, so, Messiah, is this your first coming or your second coming? And the Messiah replies, no comment. Because if he commented, who knows what would've happened?
Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.
So, the proper response was silence.
Yes. Yes.
A wise and diplomatic Messiah, indeed.
A sure sign of the Messianic era is that "no comment."
Yes. Yes, yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Rabbi Green, it has been a great pleasure speaking with you. I hope we can do this again sometime. In fact, this was such an enjoyable conversation, I hope I can find other, enlightened religious leaders from different faiths who also have a, a deeper, and more insightful perspective on their own religions to discuss these matters.
Because, I think it's very important. Everyone, most people, belong to one religion or another, and I think it's time that people started to realize the underlying universality and sameness, and not dwell so much on the superficial differences of religions, but instead, focus their attention on the underlying, pure harmony that lies beneath them.
I have to say that my favorite activity in my rabbinate was interfaith work. Because, I felt so much in common with other spiritual leaders. Even from, just about any other tradition. I felt a bond with them, like we were really playing on the same team.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Wonderful.
Well, it has been a great pleasure for me. You are a wonderful interviewer and commentator.
Thank you so much. The pleasure has been all mine. I can say, sincerely, this was a delightful conversation; I was looking forward to it for weeks, and it has lived up to expectations, and beyond. So, I thank you so much for your time today, Rabbi Green.
And I thank you for yours, and I hope that you can make a really good program out of our talk today.
Thank you so much.
And any parting thoughts or words that you would like to share with our viewers and listeners?
I only want to say this, that people should not lose hope.
Beautiful.
One of the great Hasidic masters, I mentioned before, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. One of his main teachings was, lo tit’ya-esh; do not despair. Do not despair. Because it's not too late for this world to heal. And we may even see in this lifetime, peace among all nations and all peoples, everywhere in the world.
Perfect. Alan Green, thank you very, very much.
And thank you. Be well.
The simplest state of human awareness is a self-referral field of pure consciousness, a field of all possibilities. Knowledge is structured in consciousness, and we are not in the world, the world is within us. Welcome to Simplest State, where together, we explore the nature of consciousness and self-realization.
We are honored to welcome a guest whose journey beautifully illustrates the unity that lies beneath all spiritual traditions. He began his path as a spiritual leader within the ancient and profound depths of the Jewish mystical tradition,
But his inner calling eventually led him to the science of consciousness and the timeless wisdom of the East, and his life is a testament to the idea that while the maps may differ, the destination—the awakening of the heart and realization of our true nature—is one and the same.
He speaks not just of one tradition, but of the universal current that flows through them all. His story is a reminder that the light is the same, wherever it shines.
He is here to share how the deepest mysteries of the west and the east converge on the path of self-realization.
Rabbi Alan Green, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to Simplest State.
Thank you. That was quite a beautiful introduction. I, I hope I can live up to it.
You've well deserved it, and you've already lived up to it. Your legacy speaks for itself, Rabbi Green.
So where to begin? Maybe at the beginning. I began my Jewish career, I, I should say, when I was a kid. We, grew up in the San Fernando Valley, if you're familiar with Los Angeles. And I went to a typical conservative synagogue and Hebrew school, and got a Bar Mitzvah, and even attended Hebrew high school. None of it impressed me very much, I must say. I spent actually a month at a Jewish summer camp, Camp Ramah, which did impress me, but there was very little continuity between my experience there and my experience in my home, and in my life.
And so, by the time I was in high school, I, I felt like I was pretty much done with being Jewish. And fortunately, I had some friends who were practitioners of Transcendental Meditation, and I was in a bad way by the time I was in 12th grade. And they told me, you do this technique of meditation, it'll make you happy. And I thought to myself, how could that possibly be true? But it turned out to be true. I felt a great sense of relief from the very first time I, I transcended in meditation and that sort of set me on my spiritual path.
Now, being Jewish was still not part of that. I was still pretty, far away from, my previous Jewish existence. And I had no interest really in going back to it. But then I went to TM teacher training, had a lot of exposure to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and a lot of his concepts about the depths of human experience, particularly as embodied in the Vedic tradition of India. And, I felt transformed by that experience. Still far away from Judaism.
But then, in the funny way that things work, I was introduced to a book, which I want to share the beginning of with you. It's the "9 1/2 Mystics, The Kabbala Today," written by a reform Rabbi, Herbert Weiner. The book consists of interviews with some of the leading Jewish mystical personalities of the 20th century. But I must say that from the very first page of this book, I was hooked on, on Kabbalah. And Kabbalah, I must say, has led me back to Jewish tradition in all different kinds of ways.
But I want to just share with you some of the content of the first two pages of this book. He begins with a quote from an Israeli poet named Eli Siegel. And Eli Siegel says, "substance is what remains when everything you can think of has gone." This accorded so clearly with my experience of meditation, I thought there's, got to be more in this book, and so I kept on reading.
And in the very next paragraph, he brings up this Hebrew word, very common word in Hebrew, the word yesh. Yesh is part of the verbs of possession. So, yesh li means, literally, there is to me, but this is how you say, I have.
So, yesh means 'there is', and sometimes the word yesh occurs all by itself. And if you have the word yesh occurring all by itself, you have simply, yesh, there is. Again, a concept, or an experience, that accorded very closely with what I've been experiencing in Transcendental Meditation for the previous few years.
Then he goes on, and he says, there was one particular person in Jewish tradition that, for him, embodied these qualities of yesh. And yesh is not just flat Being, but rather, it encompasses what the kabbalists, delineate as the 310 worlds that underlie our material reality. How do they get 310? There's something in Jewish interpretation called gematria, where according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, they're assigned numbers. So, the first letter is aleph, one. Second letter is bet, two, and so on, throughout the alphabet. The gematria of the word yesh is 310. And so, the rabbis, Kabbalistic rabbis, derive from this, 310 worlds that underlie this world. So not just silence, but also dynamism. And dynamism as embodied in certain outstanding individuals, like Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.
Now, the rabbis say that when someone tells you your own story, you are on the road to redemption. So, on the second page of this book, "9 1/2 Mystics," I encountered my story, in a quote by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and I just want to read that for you because it embodies everything that got me started on the spiritual path, even before I knew that there was anything spiritual about Judaism.
And this is what he says. " So long as the world moves along accustomed paths, as long as there are no wild catastrophes, man can find sufficient substance for his life by contemplating surface events, theories, and movements of society. He can acquire his inner richnesses from this external kind of property. But this is not the case when life encounters fiery forces of evil and chaos. Then, the revealed world begins to totter. Then, the man who tries to sustain himself, only from the surface aspects of existence, will suffer terrible impoverishment, begin to stagger, and then he will feel welling up within himself, a burning thirst for that inner substance and vision which transcends the obvious surfaces of existence, and remains unaffected by the world's catastrophes. From such inner sources, he will seek the waters of joy, which can quicken the dry outer skeleton of existence."
It was my story. I had encountered in, in high school, the philosophy called existentialism. Existentialism, basically the belief that existence precedes essence, which is another way of saying everything is essentially meaningless, except for the meaning that we can make for ourselves.
Now, when I encountered this in 11th grade, it kind of shattered my world because couldn't accept it. And yet I realized that the entire background of the culture and, and education in which I was being raised, had that as its basic assumption. And I thought, my God, what am I doing in this world?
And all of a sudden, I was thinking, going to college, getting married, having children, having a career. It made no sense. And so, I went into this huge tailspin where nothing made any sense. this essentially is what Transcendental Meditation rescued me from. First, relieving me of all the stress and anxiety that that caused me. But then, as I got deeper into the knowledge aspect of it, I realized that there was order in the universe, and a purpose for life. And that basically saved my Jewish soul, I would say.
So, the fiery forces of evil and chaos that Rabbi Kook is talking about here, I experienced already, when I was in high school. And I needed relief from them, and couldn't get any relief from anything external because that's not the nature of the external world. The external world is a pretty chaotic place. And, it can lead you into all kinds of blind alleys, which is, I became quite expert at blind alleys. So, I needed to find something within. That, that inner substance to which Rabbi Kook refers, that nourishes, that, that enlivens the dry outer skeleton of existence.
I just, I thought that phrase was just so powerful and pregnant with meaning,
cause that is what the external reality is, when it's not being nourished from within.
It is hollow otherwise. Absolutely.
Hollow, and not very palatable.
Yes, correct.
So, Reb Kook was, was speaking in a Jewish context. And this completely blew my mind because I had no idea that rabbis were concerned with such things. When I was growing up in synagogue, it was all about Jewish history, Jewish sociology. Israel was a very important thing. And so, the issues were survival issues, basically. And, survival issues are not progressive issues. They're not spiritual issues. They're very, very basic. And so, I needed to get beyond that somehow.
What you've just said is, is precisely why I was so excited to have you on the program, because you are indeed somewhat unique in that you've inspired thousands of people as a very popular, much loved, and respected leader of a particular religious denomination.
And yet, your uniqueness is that you've gone beyond those surface level aspects that you just mentioned: the study of Judaism, the historical values, et cetera, and you've looked at the underlying essence of your faith, which, of course, is the universal essence that underlies all true religions and spiritual teachings.
And if I may say, in one of your writings that I researched, I noticed you said something that really caught my eye. You said, I've spent 31 years talking about God, it's now time for me to start experiencing God directly." And you've spoken about, what you call transcendental Judaism.
Right.
I wonder if you can, can say a little bit more about that, because those are both fascinating statements.
Transcendental Judaism is a, is a great little term, which I did not make up. It was coined by a friend of mine, unfortunately passed away young, David Lieberman. And he wrote a book actually, by that title, "Transcendental Judaism." It's available on Amazon. I highly recommend it. It's a slim volume, but it's, it's packed with meaning.
And, basically, he's saying that the transcendent in Judaism is hidden in plain sight. In other words, if you go to a typical synagogue and typical service, and typical sermon. You're probably not going to get very much, in the way of spiritual depth. You may get other kinds of depth, you know, you know, there's part of being the Jewish people, which is, it's, I, I don't discount that, and in fact, I love it. I've, I've come to love it, very, very much.
In fact, these days I say, I've been meditating for 55 years now. The longer I meditate, the more Jewish I become. So, a lovely aspect of being just part of a, a nice congregation and, and the Jewish people. But, spiritual depth, I think is, is lacking, in most Jewish venues.
I think that's equally applicable to every one of the organized religions.
Could be.
People talk about going to church, or doing whatever is the performance required in their particular religion, but it doesn't nourish the soul on the deepest level.
You know, Abraham Joshua Heschel was a great Jewish theologian of the last century, and he said something so profound, it's never left me. He says, people, are searching for God in different ways, but mostly those ways are limited to God being an object outside of themselves. They look for God outside themselves, and as long as they continually place God in the category of 'object of perception', they're never going find Him. What they need to realize is that God is the subject, and we are the objects of His perception.
It's so timely that you say that because, not long ago, I was speaking with George Barselaar, who gave a, a beautiful representation of Kashmir Shaivism, in which he explained that the essence of it, is that God and the individual are one. And, he explained in that, how his teacher, Swami Lakshmanjoo, had explained that, I think you have this habit of thinking of God as being outside somewhere, dwelling up in heaven and, and looking down.
And that has given you this separation. But in reality, God dwells within you, and I think the Kabbalistic teachings seem to run along those exact same lines as the ancient Vedic traditions.
There's no question about it. How did they experience God? They must have gone within, because that's the only way you can actually experience God. So, God is within. God is the subject. We are the objects of His perception. So, if we want to be able to perceive God, we're going to have to find a way to reverse the direction, the usual direction of our awareness, 180 degrees. Allow it to project within.
And by golly, what are you going to find there? Unbounded awareness, lack of boundaries, timelessness, spacelessness, a feeling of tremendous expansion. I won't say that you're going to necessarily have an immediate clear perception of God, but you will be on a platform upon which God becomes a much more obvious reality. I'll put it that way. The way it's put in the Book of Genesis is very interesting. They say that God created human beings in His image, in His likeness. And so, if you want to know the true image of God, of a human being, you're not going to find it by looking in the mirror so much. You're not going to find it shopping for the nicest fashions or, or working out in the gym so that you get the most muscles. You're going to find it within.
And that is, that is the true divine image. And there are people who have, I would say, a very transparent, a very clear image of God, that they carry within and project without. And these
are the people that you want to meet
and learn from.
Right, right, right. Now to the outsider, Kabbalah seems sort-of secretive, mystical, complex. And, if you were to explain to someone the essence of Kabbalah, to someone who'd never heard of it, with a specific focus on self-realization, how might you define or describe it?
I think it might be best to refer to another book. It's called the "Zohar, The Book of Splendor."
Right, right.
Now, the Zohar is not a slim volume like this. It's more like a 13 or 14 encyclopedic length of mystical interpretation of the Torah. But there's one passage in this particular book, written by the founder, really, of the modern study of Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, that says so much about the essence of, not only the Zohar, which is the classic text of Kabbalah, but Jewish mysticism as a whole. And he talks about the Torah.
Now, we haven't mentioned the word Torah, so, just to clue in your listeners, Torah refers, classically, to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. In other words, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Those five books are, I would say, the fountainhead from which the rest of Jewish tradition springs—many thousands of interpretations, a whole library really, of different ways of, of looking at those five books of the Bible. But this is what Rabbi Shemen has to say about the Torah.
"The Torah, in all of its words, holds supernal truths and sublime secrets. Thus, the tales related in the Torah are simply her outer garments, and woe to the person who regards that outer garb as the Torah itself.
Its narrations, which relate to things of the world, constitute the garments which clothe the body of the Torah. People without understanding see only the narrations, the garments. Those somewhat more penetrating, see also the body, but the truly wise, those who serve the most high king, and who stood on Mount Sinai, pierce all the way through to the soul, to the true Torah, which is the root principle of all.
Just as wine must be kept in a jar in order to be preserved, so the Torah must be contained in an outer garment. That garment is made up of the tales and stories. But we, we are bound to penetrate beyond."
That is fascinating. it is just astonishing to me how much we see parallels between the Vedic understanding, and the understanding contained, as you have described it, in the Kabbalah and the Torah. I came across one concept, or one phrase, one bit of terminology. I think it may be pronounced shekhinah.
That's, that's very good.
It, it describes as the indwelling presence of God. And it caught my attention because I'm wondering, does that concept, does that resonate with that Eastern idea of the divine residing within each of us, as atman?
Okay. That's a good question. The shekhinah, that's, that's how it's pronounced in modern Hebrew, the shekhinah
Okay.
is the feminine divine.
Ah.
So, it's more than just atman. But it's that aspect of God which is imminent in creation. So, the aspect of God which is closest to us, is called shekhinah. And it's actually related to the word shakhen, which means neighbor. So, this is like God being neighborly with regard to humanity and the rest of creation.
Right.
In Kabbalah, you asked for the essence of it. I would say the essence of it is that they took a kind of microscope to divinity. Now, prior to Jewish mysticism, the concept was, or I would say even the experience of God was one. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. And that is like a fundamental Jewish belief.
One is supposed to begin one's day with it. One is supposed to end one's day with it. One is actually supposed to end one's life with it. It should be your last thought in this world, the oneness of God. So that's a very, very important thing in Judaism.
But the Kabbalists took a microscope to the oneness of God. And what they found is that there was a structure to that oneness, and there was a flow to that structure. There was a, an inner life, a kind of divine organism, a living being that was more complicated than just oneness.
Now, they didn't want to say that God wasn't one, certainly. But in the same way that a diamond has many facets and still is a diamond, or you could say even the way a human being has many different parts, but we're still one human being. So, God has his different facets, his different aspects, his different dynamism.
And so, I would say that the essence of Kabbalah is to say that there are, I don't want to say two aspects because it's all one, right, but they talk about ein sof, the infinite, and then they talk about the 10 sephirot, the 10 more manifest aspects of God, which are like a delicate lattice that connect the infinite to God's creation. A kind of ladder, if you will. But, again, it's, it's talking about it in, in much too physical a sense.
Right.
Now, when we talk about shekhina, shekhina is the, the 10th of the 10 sephirot. It's the one that is called the womb of the universe. It's because all these different tendencies and, and paths, and, and energies that go into creating creation, coalesce and are sown like a seed in the womb of shekhina, and are actually birthed through, if you will, the birth canal that is shekhina. And as such, the shekhina is like the mother of all creation, and it's that aspect of God to which we are related most closely.
Is that like the shakti, the manifesting creative intelligence from the pure consciousness, as described in the Vedic literature, that then bubbles up, we could say, into the appearance of a creation within the realm of pure consciousness itself?
Now, actually, I would say that you've described, very beautifully, the whole mechanism of how the 10 sephirot operate, because within that, that structure, there is a side that is masculine, and there is a side that is feminine. And they interact, and there is a third column that goes in-between that is both together, that combines them in a harmonious way. And the shekhina is at the basis of, of all that interaction. And it's where that, that seed of creation is sown and where it, it manifests as creation. But you've described the whole process being, you know, in, in very poetic terms.
The whole thing, I think, being a kind of shakti, yes.
That's tremendous. Now, within the teaching of Kabbalah, I'm just curious if there is any explicit talk or descriptions of the whole idea that's conveyed in the Eastern philosophy of evolution, and higher states of consciousness, and enlightenment, and self-realization in, perhaps not in those terms, but in any terms, is there some sort of explicit explanation, or description, or understanding conveyed in the Kabbalistic teachings?
Definitely. There's a number of ways we can approach this. One is by talking about the four universes of Kabbalah. Four, not distinct entities, because they all fit one within the other, and you could say, something like a tennis ball. They all fit together and they all nourish, and interact, and sustain one another.
But at the same time, there is a kind of hierarchy there. And so, beginning from, say the lowest level, is the physical universe. And then contained within that is the universe of, of feeling. Contained within that is the mental universe. And I, I want to say mental, but it's not like we think of mental, it's more like cosmic intellect mental. Alright, a very high level of discernment. And finally, beyond that, there is the world of what's called atziluth, the world of emanation, which is a spiritual universe.
And each universe corresponds to one of the letters that make up the name of God in Hebrew: yod, he, vav, he. And this requires, maybe a moment of explanation. Yod, he, vav, he, are the letters drawn from the verbs of being: to be, was, is, will be. So, the name of God in Hebrew is the name of pure existence. And each one of these letters corresponds to one of these universes of Kabbalah.
And so, as one evolves from the physical, through the world of feeling, through the world of cosmic intellect, and into the world of spirituality, one experiences, of course, higher and higher states of consciousness, and greater closeness to God and His creative process.
Now, there's another way we can look at this. There are also what are called levels of soul. And again, I would say, probably levels of consciousness would be a better explanation, or definition.
We have at the very basis, something called nefesh. Nefesh, I would say, is body, mind, senses—that aspect of soul which is most connected to the world.
Beyond nefesh, we have something called ruach. Ruach literally means wind, or it can mean spirit. But again, connected to the emotions, ruach.
And beyond ruach is something called neshemah. Neshemah is related to the word for, for breath. Neshom means to breathe, in Hebrew. And, so I think of neshemah as being a, a spiritual soul, which we experience in meditation as that quiet breath of contemplation, where you're feeling so settled that there's really hardly any need to breathe at all. That would be, I think, neshamah.
And beyond neshemah, there's something called chaya. It means life. This is really where the individual being of a person comes into existence, chaya, life.
And then beyond that, we could say, is the world, or the soul level, of yechida. Which means oneness. Basically, where you're hardwired into divinity. And my speculation is that yechida is what we would call atman, in Sanskrit.
The thing is, they, they knew all these things somehow, right? And, one wonders how they knew, because people think, well, Judaism, bunch of dry rituals and, and a lot of details of observance. These people were highly observant individuals, and yet at the same time, they had clear experiences of expanded states of consciousness.
How else could they have known all these things?
Definitely.
One point I want to make is something that my Jewish teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi told me, many years ago. He said, if you're focusing exclusively on Kabbalah, it's like focusing too exclusively on the chocolate chip and ignoring the cookie.
Are you saying it's wrong to focus on the chocolate chip and ignore the cookie?
Not wrong at all, not wrong at all, but you don't want to eat
chocolate chips all day.
The cookie provides a balance point. It's true. It's true.
So, the way I've come to experience the rituals of Judaism, which you know, they're easily dismissed. But I think when you have the transcendent lively in your awareness, they actually become triggers for transcending. And that is a very interesting thing.
That is a very interesting thing I have to say. Because, I'm interrupting you for two seconds because, of course, it naturally reminds me of, even in the Vedic traditions, even though we talk of Advaita Vedanta, and consciousness is all there is, there are many performances that are strictly adhered to, in order to help cultivate and promote that understanding.
So interesting, isn't it?
It is. Fascinating.
So, simple acts like lighting candles on Shabbat. Okay. Simple can be a trigger for transcending. Or, washing one's hands in the ritual way that one does before one partakes of the, the motzi, the bread blessing; trigger for transcending. One makes kiddush, a sanctification prayer, over wine or grape juice; trigger for transcending. And of course, when you transcend in activity, that is a hallmark for a true higher state of consciousness.
One transcends in meditation and it's wonderful, delightful. But what you're aiming at in a meditation or spiritual practice, is to have that in your everyday life, to have that in your activity so that it never, hopefully, leaves your experience. And, I think these rituals are actually designed to culture and cultivate that.
Fantastic. I'd like to go back for a minute to something you said, because you've mentioned a couple of times now, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the importance of them, and their sequence. And, from what I gather, the Kabbalah seems to place a great emphasis on those letters as vibrational forces.
And, and does this corresponded any to the use of, of mantras in Vedic traditions? Because in the Vedic tradition as well, there's tremendous importance placed on sound, and the correctness of sound, and how those sounds are produced and how sound eventually manifests, and its vibratory qualities eventually become the appearance of a manifest creation.
Are these functionally the same, the way Kabbalah looks at the letters of the alphabet and the way the Vedic traditions do?
Very similar. One aspect of the Kabbalah is to study the process by which God created creation. And so how do you do that? You go back to the very beginning, the Book of Genesis, and you discover that God created the universe by calling it into being.
So, He says, when He wants to create light, He says, yehi 'or, let there be light. And how God did that, there must have been some vibratory component. Even before the vibratory component, there must have been some, some thought component that went into that. And so, a Kabbalist will take the words yehi 'or, and they will try to find out the steps leading back to the source, which allowed that light to be created and which, actually, it continues to allow light to be created, because creation is something, in the Jewish understanding, that is going on every single moment that we're alive.
So, yehi 'or, and all the different callings into being that God utilizes to create creation are taken very seriously by the Kabbalists because they believe that it provides keys to understanding how creation came to be. And if one can traverse those steps, back to the source, then one has this tremendous experience and understanding of God's creativity. And of course, that manifests as increased beauty and, and harmony, and creativity within the human life.
Thank you. That is brilliant. And it makes me want to ask you that, given your very unique position, integrating Judaism and Vedic science, I'm wondering what do you think would be the most important lesson for the Jewish community that they could learn from Eastern spirituality and vice versa?
I think that there needs to be more of an inner component to Jewish experience. My teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, again, used to say, that Judaism, these days in particular, is terribly over verbalized and under experienced.
Over verbalized and under experienced. I like that.
Yes, we talk a lot about it, but we don't get that sense of elation, that, that sense of happiness, that sense of, of joy, that comes from experiencing our tradition in a deep way. There's not enough joy in Judaism. There's certainly a lot of sorrow to be experienced.
But, to be joyful in the face of all that; that's really the essential message of Hasidism, the great spiritual revival of the 18th century that was piloted by a man named, Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, master of the good name. He taught that joy was an absolutely essential component of being a good servant of God, and that without that, it really wasn't worth the effort.
Wonderful.
Without cultivating the inner value of pure consciousness, the bliss inside, one becomes as if emotionally dry, or hardened, because it's just performance on the surface level, as you just described it, but without the most important element, which is the inner bliss.
You know, there's this word mitzvah in Judaism, it means commandment. And, it's a word that doesn't sit well with many Jews these days. They don't like to be told what to do, even by God. But the, the inner aspect of a mitzvah is what's called, lehitlavot, to accompany, to connect with, to, to be with God in the performance of this commandment.
So, yes, it might be a commandment, but the command, the inner command, is connect with your creator, and derive the benefit of that. And, there's evidence of that throughout the prayer book and certainly throughout the Kabbalah.
In fact, I wanted to maybe, quote a few things from some of the great masters of Kabbalah that, that accord with, with this kind of, experience of the transcendent in activity, and closeness to God. So, from the 16th century, a Kabbalist by the name of Moshe Cordovero. He says, "God is found in all things and all things are found in God. There's nothing devoid of divinity, heaven forbid. Everything is in God, and God is in every thing. And beyond every thing, there's nothing besides God."
That's fantastic. That is wonderful. Again, in doing the research, I've come across that sentiment expressed within the teachings of Kabbalah several times. And, and, in particular there is, there is something... I don't know if I got it right, you'll have to clarify it for me, Rabbi Green. But it talked about fragmentation, and I think the word is tzimtzum. Tzimtzum, which was something about a feeling of God forsakenness, the emptiness, and this fragmentation that comes from a separation of individuality from the divinity.
Can you say a little bit more about that, because I'd like to understand that more fully.
Okay, you're, you're actually talking about two different things.
But you could say that the root of fragmentation is contained in tzimtzum. Tzimtzum actually means contraction.
Right, right.
The way that God creates creation, it's so interesting how this unfolds. It's not, initially, an act of expansion. It's an act of contraction. And why is that? Because if God is nothing but infinite, there's no way that creation can come to be, because there's only the infinite.
There's no space. No space, no time. So, God must self-limit himself in order to create, at least a primordial space, into which creation can flow.
Right, right.
So, if you want to know the origin of fragmentation, boundaries; there's this initial boundary which is not really a boundary, it's, it's a necessity in order for creation, even to be.
So, tzimtzum is the first step of creation. And after that, God starts to manifest creation into that primordial space. But, at least according to Lurianic Kabbalah, this is the Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria, which became dominant, actually. It wasn't there at the beginning, but he brought this out in the wake of some very difficult Jewish experiences, which accorded with people's experience of, of their lives. And it made sense.
And it still makes sense, actually, in terms of the way we look at the world, because he says what happened is God manifested light, yehi 'or, let there be light, but that he had created vessels to contain the light. And when the light hit the vessels, the vessels broke. And this created a cosmic catastrophe, because what happened is that light got mixed up with the fragments of the vessels, and they fell to a depth to which the light was not originally designed to fall. And it got mixed up in a way in which it wasn't supposed to get mixed up in materialism. And so, the result of all that is our broken universe, and our fragmented way of perceiving it.
And all the difficulty that we experience in our lives, that we experience as nations, as the Jewish people, as history, is as a result of this fragmentation. Of course, there's a cure that's built into this system. In fact, one could say that God intended it for it to be exactly this way, because it then assigns human beings this divine task of separating out these sparks of holiness from the shards of fragmentation, returning them to their divine source, disempowering these, these fragments of what you could call evil, or stress, or impressions, or obstacles, so that we can regain that sense of wholeness that was, ideally, intended from the very beginning. And that will be the Messianic era.
And those shards, or fragments, are what eventually lead us to seek the source, again, because we are isolated, we're fragmented, we are removed from our true identity, and identified with a very small self. And doesn't that, in fact, then lead to the motivation of ultimately finding that what we're seeking is not in the material values of the world, but is actually within us the entire time?
It is quite a setup, isn't it?
Quite a set up. It was rigged from the beginning.
Another way that Kabbalists look at the sense of fragmentation is that, you know, they really feel that God's universe is, is perfect in, in almost every way. The one way in which it is not perfect is us. We human beings, with our incredible, powerful gift of free choice. With that incredible, powerful gift which elevates us over all created beings, including, according to the rabbis, even the angels in heaven, which don't have free will. We have freedom of choice.
And with that freedom of choice, we have made a mess of things. But, but with that freedom of choice, we have the opportunity to restore the originally intended wholeness.
And, and, and upon restoring it. We find it was never messed up at all. It was just as it had to be.
That's astounding, isn't it?
It is astounding.
I wanted to say, that the Kabbalists feel that this impacts on God himself.
Impacts on God himself... what does that mean?
It's a very Jewish concept. But the idea is that God suffers along with us in some sense, and that the fragmentation that we project upon God's universe, actually projects upon God in some way, as well.
Limits in some way.
Actually, they say divides.
Divides. Okay.
Now, we say in Judaism all the time, God is one. God is one. God is one. Okay, we accept that. But, Kabbalistically, because we have this fragmented vision of the universe, and inevitably of God also, they say that we have created a rift in the divine name. So that, on one hand there's Yud Hei, and on the other hand there's Vav Hei. And this split is something that cannot abide forever, because God really is one, and we really are whole beings. But for the time being, our fragmented view of creation actually fragments God in some way.
So, in Jewish prayer, we're not just praying for ourselves. We're not just praying for the world. But this is a concept: We're praying for God. We are actually praying for God, and God needs us to pray for him.
That's a wonderful perspective, actually, and it gives life a larger purpose beyond ourselves, which is always a good thing.
There's, in Judaism, this idea that we are partners with God and
Partners with God.
Partners with God. We have a covenant with God, a kind of contract with God, where he says, I will be your God if you will be my people. And you know, implied in that, if you will not be my people, I will not be your God.
So, we're really in this together. And that's why you have this phenomenon of Judaism where, some very holy people, will argue with God, they'll bargain with God. They'll harangue God, even, because they're not just going to say, okay, boss, we accept this world that you've created the way you have.
They'll say, no, this is not good enough. You know, you are God, and, and you know, we need you to be more than this.
So, this is all in the name of deepening their own understanding, then. It's like the ancient principle of debate to reveal deeper levels of understanding and discriminatory knowledge.
And that is a lot of what Jewish tradition is about, is that precise process. That's what the Talmud is all about.
All right.
It's question, after question, after question. It's answer, after answer, after answer, and it really never ends.
Wow. Wow. What a, what a beautiful explanation. And, one of the things I came across that kind of struck me was, there's some concept in the Kabbalah of collective consciousness, and the coming of the Messiah linked, somehow, to a shift in collective consciousness. Is this sort-of what's happening now, that we're seeing this shift in collective consciousness, with all this turmoil and upheaval?
There's a concept in Aramaic, it's called, Ikveta-diMeshicha. That's good Aramaic for saying the footsteps of the Messiah. And, there are many different descriptions of the coming of the Messiah, and the nature of the Messiah. There's no agreement, universally, in Judaism about any of this.
But many authorities hold that as the Messiah gets, gets closer, as the Messianic era comes closer, there will be greater degrees of chaos. There will also be degrees of clarification, where the good will be clear and the, the not good will be clear. And the two will conflict in some way, and hopefully peacefully. That's ideal. Peacefully, the good will overcome the evil. And yes, collectively, all of mankind will enjoy the benefits.
What does Kabbalah say about the Messianic era? What is the significance? What will happen? How is the shift in collective consciousness realized?
There are many explanations, but I want to just share something, again from the Zohar, here. Shed some light on this. They begin with a quote from Genesis, and God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And the explanation: this is the primal light which God made. It is the light of the eye. This light God showed to Adam, and by means of it, he was enabled to see from end to end of the universe.
Rabbi Isaac is now commenting in the Zohar. He says, at the creation, God irradiated the world from end to end with the light. But then it was withdrawn, so as to deprive the sinners of the world of its enjoyment, and it is stored away for the righteous. As it stands written, light is sown for the righteous.
Then will the worlds be in harmony, and all will be united into one. But until the future world is set up, that is the Messianic era, the light is put away and hidden.
So, there's this idea that this primordial light, the light of consciousness, basically, is something that will irradiate the whole world, at a time when evil is annulled, and everyone will be able to enjoy the clear perception of the way things are really supposed to be.
When you were reading that it reminded me when you spoke of the light being taken away, and then chaos prevails. That would be, I think, the immersion in maya, the loss of the self, the loss of self knowledge, the immersion in maya, the attention only directed outwards with no anchor, with no awareness of the pure consciousness within. That is the way I interpreted that.
Is that the way you were saying it?
Absolutely, absolutely, yes, absolutely. They knew about this somehow. They must have experienced it, themselves.
Right, right.
So, I find all this kind of talk very inspiring.
Certainly.
Because the Jewish world could use a lot more of this, and hopefully, in in the coming years, it will.
I have to say it is not just the world of Judaism. it's everywhere and it's in every religion, and in those who don't practice religion.
In that regard, I like to come back to you and ask, well, let's say for Jewish people, or people of any faith, they're living life in a very fully engaged manner. It means they have families to raise, they have to work, they have to maintain bills. How would you recommend that these people practically incorporate, and appreciate, and make best use of, the higher states of consciousness that you've so beautifully described in the Kabbalah?
There is a tradition of meditation in Judaism. It's not like meditation in the East because, at least my sense of it, is that it was a mainstream practice. In both the Indian tradition, Vedic tradition, Buddhism, they have these highly developed traditions of meditation.
In Judaism, I think you find that meditation is reserved for an elite. You referred to this earlier, that Kabbalah is sort of secret, kept away from the masses. That has been the case, I think, until fairly recently.
Over the last 40 years or so, the study of Kabbalah has proliferated throughout the Jewish world, and even beyond the Jewish world. So, I think it's, it's finding, its audience now.
And along with that, there are Kabbalistic techniques of meditation that are coming to the fore. And I've encountered them, and I know about them. They broadly fall into the categories of concentration and contemplation. I think that for some people they work well. But, of course, with my experience and knowledge of Transcendental Meditation, that all seems very complicated and, just not as direct, certainly. Not as effortless.
I recall Maharishi saying that anything as simple and natural and effortless as TM must actually be TM.
And these are not that. But I think they do provide the opportunity for some degree of inwardness, some degree of transcending. People seem to enjoy it. And so, there's some hope there.
Now, I should tell you that I had a conversation with Maharishi about this, specifically. I asked him, and this is on the phone, I asked him, I am a rabbi in a synagogue. The concern here is very much with cultural integrity. Everything that I do here has to, in some way, come from the Torah tradition of Israel. How is it possible for me to teach Transcendental Meditation to my congregants when it's clear that Transcendental Meditation comes from the Vedic tradition of India?
And, he gave such a great answer. I hope it's recorded somewhere. The first thing he says is, Torah and Veda are exactly the same thing.
Wow.
That's a big statement.
He then spent about 40 minutes explaining what he meant by that, because it is a huge statement. But basically, what he described was, how that the very first manifestation of creation is the Ved. It's kind of a hum. And he said on the level of that hum, Torah and Veda are really exactly the same thing. And so, he said, you should have no hesitation teaching your people how to do Transcendental Meditation. You can just tell them that you're teaching them the pure essence of Torah. And so, what did I do with that? I did not teach them TM, but my wife, actually, was able to teach many of our congregants Transcendental Meditation. And that's how we realized that on the level of the practical.
But I've never forgotten that. And that has proved to be my experience down through the years.
Am I pronouncing the word correctly, kavanah? Intention, in the Kabbalistic teaching, the,
Yes.
Power of attention, intention.
Intention, yes. Very important.
And how does that influence the development of consciousness?
Usually, when, when people talk about having kavanah in prayer, it means being sincere, knowing the words in their intellectual value. At least, having the understanding of what the prayer is about. That would be I think, a pretty common understanding.
But, Kabbalistic kavanah would be at a fine level of consciousness, and it would have to do with how you can cause things to manifest in a beautiful way. Like the gardener who's wise and knows how to make a flower that is pink, or a flower that might have pink petals and white stripes, that sort of thing. And there are people in Judaism who are reputed to have had that ability to have kavanot, that's the plural, at such a fine level that they're able to influence God, and the way God causes things to manifest in our world. And that would be the deepest level of kavanah.
It sounds very much like the development of consciousness and being able to project a thought from subtler, finer values of consciousness, where the effects are more powerful and more far reaching.
Very nicely said, yes. Very nicely, very nicely, clearly stated. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, rabbi. Another thing I want to ask about, because the whole concept of silence, inner silence, is often overlooked, or missed, in most religions. And I've come across this concept of hitbodedut, secluded meditation. It's about the silence, finding silence within; inner stillness. And, is that something that relates to meditation as we find it in Eastern philosophy?
I would say yes. Hitbodedut; it would be a quiet state of inner contemplation. I wouldn't say that it's absolute silence. Actually, I got to tell you a story. Elie Wiesel, he won the Nobel Prize for Peace. He was a great writer and thinker. And, he was once asked about whether there was silence in Judaism. And he replied, yes, there is silence in Judaism, but we don't talk much about it.
And he really, he really hit upon something there, because, you know, we're famous for being so talkative and, and a typical Jewish service is just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
Whether, whether to each other, or to God, it's all very wordy.
Right, right, right, right.
But the fact is, we could use more silence.
Yes.
We could talk about it more.
I can tell you about a specific practice of the particular kind of Hasidism which was taught by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. He was a big believer in hitbodedut.
But what he means by hitbodedut, is, you go off by yourself and you have your own personal conversation with God. Whatever comes to your mind, you just speak it out and address it to God. And that's what he meant by hitbodedut. So, not much silence, but it's actually, from what I hear, and I've never done it, but I hear it's a very powerful practice.
it is a type of meditation, we could say. It's practice within oneself, as opposed to outwardly. Yes. Yeah,
Clearly, there, there are just many similarities and parallels between Kabbalah and the Vedic tradition. And what would you say are the most fundamental samenesses between the two?
And where do these two schools of thought diverge? Where, where do they differ?
The divergence, I think, is because, if you want to look at it this way, Judaism is really Bhakti Yoga, or you could say Karma Yoga.
Bhakti yoga, as the yoga devotion, and karma yoga as the yoga of action. One achieving union with the divine through devotion, one achieving it through one's actions.
So, I would say if there is divergence, and maybe there isn't really divergence, because those are aspects of yoga. But still, what dominates in Judaism is action. Belief in Judaism is important, but it's secondary to action.
Absolutely secondary, and the rabbis even have this great statement. They say that one's level of consciousness is indicated not by what one believes, but by what one does.
Right, right, right.
And so, the active aspect is emphasized tremendously. But I find that, because of that, there's a lot of outer directedness in Judaism, and not enough inner directedness. And I would say, if the Jewish specialization is in the field of action and devotion, and certainly ethics has to be in there. Jewish law is very important, Jewish ritual is very important. Whereas the Eastern traditions, I think, are more expert in the inward direction.
Not that they don't have the other, of course they have the other, but the emphasis is on inwardness, seeking God within. And, in that way, I would say the traditions do differ.
What we could say, I guess, is that, that the silence aspect and action aspect are both there, but the pendulum has swung far over to the action. And, I think we could make that same statement, pretty much, about all the great teachings as they are currently being practiced in the world.
There are some great leaders like yourself that are sort of reviving the really more profound essence of these teachings.
But unfortunately, you need to be replicated many times, Rabbi Green, we need many, many more enlightened religious leaders like yourself.
I would say though, that Jewish meditation is probably more prevalent today than at any time in Jewish history. There are Jewish meditation teachers.
But, unlike the East, where there's a living tradition passed down from master to disciple, I think in Judaism, that is very rare. To find that in Judaism, you'd have to go to some deep dark corner of Mea Shearim, in Jerusalem, and maybe you'd find someone like that.
And there's a story that I, I heard that, someone, he was a friend of mine many years ago,
he was sought out by one of these great masters, and he ended up studying with him. But that's a, that's a very rare thing.
It's interesting because earlier, as well, when speaking about meditation, you talked about how, many of those aspects were hard to find, and they were much more hidden, and more esoteric, not readily available. And, we could say the same is true with the great eastern teachers as well, from India, that, in the past you had to, first of all, find an enlightened teacher, an enlightened master, and then often spend years and years and years of devoted service before some little bit of knowledge was given to you.
And then a little bit more, and then a little bit more. And, what we've seen in recent years—and Maharishi has described this as being due to the very urgent need of the time—is that this knowledge is coming out much more freely, and being given more freely and more readily.
Not because the world at large deserves it. But because we need it, it's a critical time. And if we don't do something now to enliven a deeper value of understanding, and enliven pure consciousness and the underlying unity and harmony, then the world might find itself in a very difficult situation.
As if it's not already difficult.
As if it's not already difficult.
But, yes, yes. This is exactly what's happened with Kabbalah, is that fifty years ago, no one knew much about it, just the academic world, basically. And, the remnants of the Kabbalistic world, because it wasn't much. In fact, many people have reached the decision that the traditional categories, you have to be 40 years old, you have to be a Torah scholar, you have to be male. You know, all these kinds of restrictions really don't apply anymore, because it's just time for the knowledge to get out there in the best way that it can.
That's so interesting. It's not just the decision of individuals to bring this knowledge out, but there's some collective widespread phenomenon where the knowledge itself just feels a need to emerge, and reveal itself more and more. So, it must truly be the need of the time.
Which brings me to an important question I wanted to ask, and that is, if you could distill the message of the Kabbalah from all your, your many years of study and practice, if you could distill it down into one sentence for someone who is seeking self-realization, not necessarily of the Jewish faith, but of any faith, anyone who's seeking pure knowledge, how would you distill the essence of the Kabbalah and explain it to them in a sentence or two?
I had like to sing for you if I could.
Sure. By all means.
And then I'll translate. it's a quote from the Zohar: M'ma-leh Kol Al-min V'So-vev Kol Al-min, U'Mi'Bal-a-de-cha, Ein Shum M'tzi-ut Klal. Lord, You fill all worlds, and surround all worlds, and Lord without You, there is no world at all. Lord, You fill all worlds, and surround all worlds, and Lord without You, there is no world at all.
Beautiful. Thank you, Rabbi.
That's how I would sum it up in one sentence.
As we close now, I want to just read one sentence that I came across in researching to speak with you today, that really made an impression on me. And then, if you don't mind, I'll ask you if there's any closing comments you want to make after that. You wrote, God and the qualities of the divine cannot be confined to a synagogue, or indeed to any other institution, religious or not.
Wow. I like that very much.
You wrote it.
I'd like to know when I wrote that. It's, it's, it's certainly true and I guess you could say that the original sin of all organized religion is this attitude that we have the truth, and no one else does. Or if they do, it's a lesser truth.
You are right, right.
And when the Messiah comes, we'll be the ones that are proved to be the correct ones and everyone else will be... eh.
I've got a joke to tell about that actually.
If we have time.
So, the Messiah comes, and it causes quite a stir, of course. And so, there's a huge press conference, journalists and networks from around the world are there, and they all want to ask the Messiah some of the details, right.
And, the first question is, so, Messiah, is this your first coming or your second coming? And the Messiah replies, no comment. Because if he commented, who knows what would've happened?
Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.
So, the proper response was silence.
Yes. Yes.
A wise and diplomatic Messiah, indeed.
A sure sign of the Messianic era is that "no comment."
Yes. Yes, yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Rabbi Green, it has been a great pleasure speaking with you. I hope we can do this again sometime. In fact, this was such an enjoyable conversation, I hope I can find other, enlightened religious leaders from different faiths who also have a, a deeper, and more insightful perspective on their own religions to discuss these matters.
Because, I think it's very important. Everyone, most people, belong to one religion or another, and I think it's time that people started to realize the underlying universality and sameness, and not dwell so much on the superficial differences of religions, but instead, focus their attention on the underlying, pure harmony that lies beneath them.
I have to say that my favorite activity in my rabbinate was interfaith work. Because, I felt so much in common with other spiritual leaders. Even from, just about any other tradition. I felt a bond with them, like we were really playing on the same team.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Wonderful.
Well, it has been a great pleasure for me. You are a wonderful interviewer and commentator.
Thank you so much. The pleasure has been all mine. I can say, sincerely, this was a delightful conversation; I was looking forward to it for weeks, and it has lived up to expectations, and beyond. So, I thank you so much for your time today, Rabbi Green.
And I thank you for yours, and I hope that you can make a really good program out of our talk today.
Thank you so much.
And any parting thoughts or words that you would like to share with our viewers and listeners?
I only want to say this, that people should not lose hope.
Beautiful.
One of the great Hasidic masters, I mentioned before, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. One of his main teachings was, lo tit’ya-esh; do not despair. Do not despair. Because it's not too late for this world to heal. And we may even see in this lifetime, peace among all nations and all peoples, everywhere in the world.
Perfect. Alan Green, thank you very, very much.
And thank you. Be well.
