Spirituality: Just Do It : Part 8

Working on God
by Winifred Gallagher

(Page 8 of 11)

If some spiritually inclined Jews react against fundamentalism and its putative ownership of the faith's mysticism, others have been turned off by twentieth-century hyperrational Reform Judaism. When I ask Rabbi Omer-Man about the new trendiness of kabbalah-a spirituality du jour in the entertainment and fashion worlds-he rolls his eyes. This emotional form of Jewish mysticism began in eleventh-century France and flourished in medieval Europe, until it was gradually buried, outside of Hasidism, by Judaism's stress on rationalism and the law. The basic premise of kabbalah is that the words, letters, and numbers of the Scriptures hold mysteries that can be decoded with the help of esoteric texts. Once they gain knowledge of the ten "emanations," or forms of divine presence in the world, the initiated can sanctify every aspect of life and "repair the world." As throughout history, says Rabbi Omer-Man, "people want the cream without the milk." Some are drawn to kabbalah by its mysticism, while others hope for a kind of Jewish astrology, he says, "a head game of doing the different intellectual combinations of the emanations and levels of reality. The problem isn't that people are studying kabbalah, but that they're studying mostly bad kabbalah. It's meant to be a Jewish mystical tradition that leads you on the long, long path to enlightenment. Not the once-a-week seminar, but the long path."

When trying to distinguish between good and bad religion, Rabbi Omer-Man uses a simple gauge: "If it makes you work," he says, "there's a chance it might be a good one. If not, it's just another commodity for consumers. People want gimmicks. In the seventies, the Reverend Moon had some powerful tricks that gave people an instant spiritual experience. He'd get them exhausted, then march them up a mountain for sunrise, and they'd say, 'Without dope, I saw God!' That's a gimmick, not a practice. Spirituality is not a simple technique."

After sesshin, this muddy-boots approach to mysticism doesn't surprise me. "My number-one lesson in Jewish meditation is boredom," says Rabbi Omer-Man. "I don't know if this will attract millions, but it's like marriage. You have to woo people with some sort of experience; then things get less exciting. Some congregations have a problem in that they're afraid of boring people, so they entertain them instead. That's one good thing about the fundamentalists-they don't entertain."

When I ask just how one does Jewish meditation, Rabbi Omer-Man says obliquely, "There are four or five ways. Sometimes using an image or a concept. More frequently a sound. There's watching the mind . . ." Remembering my hard cushion at sesshin, I complain about how grueling it is just to sit down and shut up. "Those were the first words my first teacher said to me," he says, beaming. "I had been asking him all these questions-and we weren't in California, but in Jerusalem, where people are much ruder!" When I despair of keeping an empty mind, he sympathetically says that no one can: "The mind is like a vacuum. All you can do is control what comes in." Simply limiting the sheer number of thoughts seems to help, I allow. "Exactly," he says, harking back to Elijah. "Silence is a practice. It isn't just going out into the desert or turning off the phone. It's maintaining a practice, learned over years, of creating little islands of silence within life."

When I ask Rabbi Omer-Man how much of a person's spiritual life is up to God, his trace of irritation reminds me that I should know better. Jews consider it unseemly for the likes of us to speculate about the divine nature or what God should or shouldn't be up to. "I'm just one person doing my job," he says, "and I don't know. Clearly, that's very important." Fools rush in, so I say that it seems unfair to me that, as with artistic or intellectual ability, some people seem to have a great capacity for spirituality and others little. "I don't think we can apply the word 'fair' to grace, which by definition is random," says the rabbi. "For years I've noticed that some of the most undeserving young people can have the most incredible spiritual experiences, often with chemical intervention, while older ones who work and work get little glimmers every three years. That's okay."

As I leave, Rabbi Omer-Man offers some advice. "Find a teacher or group," he says. "Be discriminating. Find a teacher who had a teacher. It's like buying a used car. Who drove it before you?" His last words on spiritual matters, however, are "Lighten up."

Of things that are hard for me to lighten up about, Christianity and its founder are near the top of the list. Nevertheless, since the 1970s, from the new evangelical megachurches to the Internet, they are prospering. At the millennium, one of three people on the planet and nine out of ten Americans identify themselves as Christians. The world's fastest-growing religious movement is a supremely experiential form of evangelical-"born-again," fervent, Gospel-based-Christianity known as Pentecostalism. (Its name derives from Pentecost, or the day when the Spirit's fire descended on the first frightened Christians, inspiring them to spread the Good News.) Although few readers of this book would be inclined to embrace it, in important respects, Pentecostalism is a bellwether of millennial religion.

Rather than creedal dogma, Pentecostalism emphasizes experience, particularly the here-and-now-on-Earth activity of the Holy Spirit, manifested during its liturgy in high emotionality and special "gifts and signs" such as speaking in tongues. Particularly popular in the Latin American, Asian, and American megacities, Pentecostalism claims one in four Christians, or 450 million people. In Fire from Heaven, his study of the movement, Harvey Cox argues that in failing to supply people with answers and meaning as anticipated, secular culture paradoxically triggered a global religious renaissance. To him, Pentecostalism is the most dramatic expression of "God's revenge on 'God is dead.' " In its "primal spirituality," he also sees a "mystical-experiential protest against an existing religious language that has turned stagnant or been corrupted."

When I first moved to New York City, my goal of securing the biggest apartment for the least money led me to a lively, run-down neighborhood that might have been airlifted from San Juan. The first night in my new home explained its attractive rent. By seven in the evening the walls were vibrating to the electric guitars, keyboard, and booming "alleluias" from a barely noticeable storefront church next door. Many years later, I remember two things about my Pentecostal neighbors. They literally lived the Gospel mandates of charity and inclusiveness. Their church doubled as a crisis center, which harbored addicts trying to kick their habits, wives of violent spouses, and others down on their luck. Just as I had never seen essential, give-all-you-have-to-the-poor Christian charity of this sort before, I had never seen such spiritual fervor.

Copyright © 2000 by Winifred Gallagher.

About the Author

Winifred Gallagher's previous books are Just the Way You Are: How Heredity and Experience Create the Individual, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions. She has written for many magazines, from The Atlantic Monthly to Rolling Stone. She lives in Manhattan and Long Eddy, New York.