Two years ago Rabbi Geller asked me if I'd like to attend an Institute of Jewish Spirituality Retreat. It was described as a spiritual retreat that would involve prayer, yoga, text study and teaching, plus extended periods of meditation and silence. I was intrigued as was my good friend, Susan. I went thinking that not only would it be nice to be away for 3 days with a good friend in beautiful nature but also that I might enjoy the yoga and text study as an intellectual exercise.
I was raised in a very secular family and have no Hebrew background. A few years ago I started going to the New Emanuel Minyan, our synagogue's regular Shabbat morning service, almost on a whim. Part of my motivation was a sense of community and I happen to be very fond of our clergy. I also enjoy the fact that the Minyan has text study and there are some amazingly bright people who attend. I have also attempted meditation for several years and thought going to the Minyan might provide me a structured, reflective environment that might help. What I wasn't doing was going to pray --- since I didn't think there was anyone listening. Now, I'm not an atheist - far from it. I just don't believe in a personal God who has any interest in listening to our individual prayers.
I also have to admit that the people who sit near me at the Minyan will also tell you I'm no big fan of silence. I'm afraid I'm the one who's always talking to the person on her left or her right during services. All my life words have been my tools. I even earned my living as a salesman. Silence is not something that comes naturally to me. It's as if I think it's a vacuum and I need to fill it with words. So, when I learned that there would be lots of periods of silence during the IJS retreat I was more than a little nervous. But I also saw it as a challenge. Was this something I could do? How would it make me feel? What was it about silence that I found frightening? Besides, I told myself, I was rooming with my good friend. We could always cheat!
I went to the retreat, entered into silence and the most amazing thing happened. I loved it. Not just liked it, loved it, craved it. There's something very unique and different about guided, meditative silence. There were wonderful teachers there to guide us in meditation and help us ease into silence. There was a whole community of people there also in silence, all doing the same spiritual work. We were totally removed from our everyday lives - no phones, no computers, blackberries, TV's, radios, iPods, etc. All the outside noise and clutter of my life just stopped. It was like suddenly for the first time in a very long time I could hear my own thoughts. It was a beginning.
This March I've started a much bigger journey. Because of that first IJS experience, I've now embarked on a two year intensive study program with them - KIVVUN. There are 19 of us - men and women from all over the country - taking this journey together. We each have a study partner with whom we study weekly either by phone or in person. We have various spiritual practices that we have been encouraged to incorporate into our daily lives. And we have the gift of a retreat every 6 months, this time for five whole days instead of three , and about 70% of our time is spent in silence.
This time I went to the retreat with a much more open heart and the reward was so much greater. I was taught to use the silence to really pay attention. There is such beauty to yoga in silence - to use your body as a form of the morning blessings. To eat in silence and fully taste and appreciate the food. I had a wonderful teacher for guided meditation and I could feel my heart and soul open even more to the miracles in the world all around me. I came home from the retreat with an inner calm that is still with me, some tools to help me hold that calm and yes, a new appreciation and respect for silence.
But the biggest gift the silence gave me is the ability to pray. I still don't believe in an individual God - the paternalistic one of childhood. But I found wonderful teachers at IJS who have given me a new language with which to talk about God. It comes from the mystical sources in Judaism and talks about the oneness of everything, the interconnectedness. About being awake to the miracles of life and paying attention to all those miracles everyday. About understanding that God is in everything and that everything is God. It feels true to me that as soon as we try to define that which is indefinable, it's all a metaphor. But the prayers of my tradition, the same prayers that my people have been saying for thousands of years, give me a connection to all that came before and all that will come after. It's just a discipline, a practice. But if it keeps my heart open, my heart full of compassion, my soul at peace - it's good.
I was raised in a very secular family and have no Hebrew background. A few years ago I started going to the New Emanuel Minyan, our synagogue's regular Shabbat morning service, almost on a whim. Part of my motivation was a sense of community and I happen to be very fond of our clergy. I also enjoy the fact that the Minyan has text study and there are some amazingly bright people who attend. I have also attempted meditation for several years and thought going to the Minyan might provide me a structured, reflective environment that might help. What I wasn't doing was going to pray --- since I didn't think there was anyone listening. Now, I'm not an atheist - far from it. I just don't believe in a personal God who has any interest in listening to our individual prayers.
I also have to admit that the people who sit near me at the Minyan will also tell you I'm no big fan of silence. I'm afraid I'm the one who's always talking to the person on her left or her right during services. All my life words have been my tools. I even earned my living as a salesman. Silence is not something that comes naturally to me. It's as if I think it's a vacuum and I need to fill it with words. So, when I learned that there would be lots of periods of silence during the IJS retreat I was more than a little nervous. But I also saw it as a challenge. Was this something I could do? How would it make me feel? What was it about silence that I found frightening? Besides, I told myself, I was rooming with my good friend. We could always cheat!
I went to the retreat, entered into silence and the most amazing thing happened. I loved it. Not just liked it, loved it, craved it. There's something very unique and different about guided, meditative silence. There were wonderful teachers there to guide us in meditation and help us ease into silence. There was a whole community of people there also in silence, all doing the same spiritual work. We were totally removed from our everyday lives - no phones, no computers, blackberries, TV's, radios, iPods, etc. All the outside noise and clutter of my life just stopped. It was like suddenly for the first time in a very long time I could hear my own thoughts. It was a beginning.
This March I've started a much bigger journey. Because of that first IJS experience, I've now embarked on a two year intensive study program with them - KIVVUN. There are 19 of us - men and women from all over the country - taking this journey together. We each have a study partner with whom we study weekly either by phone or in person. We have various spiritual practices that we have been encouraged to incorporate into our daily lives. And we have the gift of a retreat every 6 months, this time for five whole days instead of three , and about 70% of our time is spent in silence.
This time I went to the retreat with a much more open heart and the reward was so much greater. I was taught to use the silence to really pay attention. There is such beauty to yoga in silence - to use your body as a form of the morning blessings. To eat in silence and fully taste and appreciate the food. I had a wonderful teacher for guided meditation and I could feel my heart and soul open even more to the miracles in the world all around me. I came home from the retreat with an inner calm that is still with me, some tools to help me hold that calm and yes, a new appreciation and respect for silence.
But the biggest gift the silence gave me is the ability to pray. I still don't believe in an individual God - the paternalistic one of childhood. But I found wonderful teachers at IJS who have given me a new language with which to talk about God. It comes from the mystical sources in Judaism and talks about the oneness of everything, the interconnectedness. About being awake to the miracles of life and paying attention to all those miracles everyday. About understanding that God is in everything and that everything is God. It feels true to me that as soon as we try to define that which is indefinable, it's all a metaphor. But the prayers of my tradition, the same prayers that my people have been saying for thousands of years, give me a connection to all that came before and all that will come after. It's just a discipline, a practice. But if it keeps my heart open, my heart full of compassion, my soul at peace - it's good.
