Join Rabbi Yaakov Cohen for a monthly course on Jewish Meditation.
Jewish meditation can refer to several traditional practices, ranging from visualization and intuitive methods, forms of emotional insight in communitive prayer, esoteric combinations of Divine names, to intellectual analysis of philosophical, ethical or mystical concepts. It often accompanies unstructured, personal Jewish prayer that can allow isolated contemplation, and underlies the instituted Jewish services. Its elevated psychological insights can give birth to dveikus (cleaving to God), particularly in Jewish mysticism. The accurate traditional Hebrew term for meditation is Hitbodedut/Hisbodedus (literally self "seclusion"), while the more limited term Hitbonenut/Hisbonenus ("contemplation") describes the conceptually directed intellectual method of meditation.
Through the centuries, some of the common forms include the practices in philosophy and ethics of Abraham ben Maimonides; in Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia, Isaac the Blind, Azriel of Gerona, Moses Cordovero, Yosef Karo and Isaac Luria; in Hasidism of the Baal Shem Tov, Schneur Zalman of Liadi and Nachman of Breslov; and in the Musar movement of Israel Salanter and Simcha Zissel Ziv.
In its esoteric forms, "Meditative Kabbalah" is one of the three branches of Kabbalah, alongside "Theosophical" Kabbalah and the separate Practical Kabbalah. It is a common misconception to include Meditative Kabbalah in Practical Kabbalah, which seeks to alter physicality, while Meditative Kabbalah seeks insight into spirituality, together with the intellectual theosophy comprising Kabbalah Iyunit (Contemplative Kabbalah).
