Meditation is designed to give you direct access to the spiritual. Whether it s through deep breathing during a busy day, listening to the quiet after turning off the car radio, chanting in prayer, or ten minutes of visualization exercises each morning, meditation takes many forms. But it is always a personal method of centering our spiritual self. Meditation has long been practiced in the Jewish community as a powerful tool to transcend words, personality, and ego and to directly experience the divine. Inspiring yet practical, this introduction to meditation from a Jewish perspective approaches it in a new and illuminating way: As it is personally practiced by today s most experienced Jewish meditators from around the world. A how to guide for both beginning and experienced meditators, Meditation from the Heart of Judaism will help you start meditating or help you enhance your practice. Meditation is a Jewish spiritual resource for today that can benefit people of all faiths and backgrounds and help us add spiritual energy to our lives. Contributors include: Sylvia Boorstein Alan Brill Andrea Cohen-Keiner David Cooper Avram Davis Nan Fink Steve Fisdel Shefa Gold Lynn Gottleib Edward Hoffman Lawrence Kushner Alan Lew Shaul Magid Daniel C. Matt Jonathan Omer-Man Mindy Ribner Susie Schneider Rami M. Shapiro Shohama Wiener Sheila Peltz Weinberg Laibl Wolf David Zeller
Avram Davis is a respected teacher of Jewish meditation and spirituality, and the founder and codirector of an independent renewal center for Jewish learning and meditation, Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, California. He is the author of The Way of the Flame (Jewish Lights), an introduction to the practice of meditation, and coauthor of Judaic Mysticism.
Rabbi Shefa Gold, is director of C-DEEP: The Center for Devotional, Energy and Ecstatic Practice in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Shefa composes and performs spiritual music, has produced several recordings, and her liturgies have been published in many prayer books. She teaches workshops and retreats on the theory and art of chanting, devotional healing, spiritual community building and meditation around the world. She also trains chant leaders in Kol Zimra, a two-year program for rabbis, cantors and lay leaders. Shefa, who is on the faculty of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, combines her grounding in Judaism with a background in Buddhist, Christian, Islamic and Native American spiritual traditions to make her uniquely qualified as a spiritual bridge celebrating the shared path of devotion. She is author of Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land and In the Fever of Love: An Illumination of the Song of Songs. For more information about Rabbi Shefa Gold, please visit her website at www.RabbiShefaGold.com.
Rabbi Shefa Gold is available to speak on the following topics:
- The Magic of Hebrew Chant
- Ecstatic Meditation
- The Path of Love
- Gratefulness as the Foundation of our Spiritual Practice
- The Power of Intention
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Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is one of the most widely read authors by people of all faiths on Jewish spiritual life. He is the best-selling author of such books as
Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary; God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning; Honey from the Rock: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism;
The Book of Letters: A Mystical Hebrew Alphabet;
The Book of Miracles: A Young Person's Guide to Jewish Spiritual Awareness;
The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living Spiritual Talk;
Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader;
I'm God, You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion and other Disguises of the Ego;
Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians;
The River of Light: Jewish Mystical Awareness;
The Way Into Jewish Mystical Tradition; and co-author of
Because Nothing Looks Like God;
How Does God Make Things Happen?;
Where Is God?;
What Does God Look Like?; and
In God's Hands. He is the Emanu-El Scholar at San Francisco's Congregation Emanu-El and an adjunct professor of Jewish mysticism and spirituality at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is available to speak on the following topics: - Jewish Mystical Imagination
- Rymanover's Silent Aleph: What Really Happened on Sinai
- Zohar on Romance and Revelation
- What Makes Kabbalah Kabbalah
- Sacred Stories of the Ordinary: When God Makes a Surprise Appearance in Everyday Life
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Alan Lew is the rabbi of Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco and is at the forefront of the movement to develop new forms of Jewish spiritual expression. His work in the area of using Zen meditation to enhance Jewish spirituality has been highlighted on programs such as ABC News, The MacNeil-Lehrer Report, the PBS news magazine Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered. He also serves as moderator of Mosaic, CBS's weekly religious talk show. Lew explores meditation in Jewish contexts, and has conducted workshops and retreats on Jewish meditation throughout the United States and Canada.
Shaul Magid, PhD, is the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Professor of Modern Judaism and professor of religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author of Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica/Radzin Hasidism and From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala, which won the
American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Textual Studies category.
