Transcription
[Music]
Shawn, welcome tation to our practical spirituality class here in the old city of Jerusalem overlooking the Temple Mount. Today we're going to be doing a very special meditation. It's a meditation based on the Shema. The Shema is one of the key meditations for all of the Jewish people, and it's a lot deeper than I think any of you realize.
So if you allow yourselves to be taken away into the Shema experience, I think it will be very powerful for all of you. Do you mind downloading a soundtrack for me? Just pull it up on anything—Spotify or YouTube. Oh no, I think it's called "Tranquil Sleep." The song is called either "Pure Bliss" or "Something Bliss." It should be the second track on "Tranquil Sleep" on iTunes. Does anyone have iTunes here? How is it that everyone doesn't have iTunes? Well, try "Tranquil Sleep."
Okay, here we go, so we're gonna do a little meditation together. The first thing you need to know about Shema is that the shin of Shema has the highest frequency of any sound, and that high frequency represents expansion. It represents the four corners of the world, meaning direction expanding into the world. It's also that the shin itself is expansive; it looks like a bonfire. Its actual elemental chart is carbon—it's fire. That's why the Shemesh is a burning ball of hydrogen.
The "mem" of Shema has no frequency to it; it's a monotonous sound—mmm, I suppose shh. If you put it on a graph, meaning if you actually break it down vibrationally, the shin has the highest frequency of any sound your mouth makes, and the mem has the most monotonous lack of vibration of anything else. This is interesting because, if maybe we put fire here, we’ll put water. By the way, you’ll notice that Hebrew is the thing itself; fire literally makes the sound of fire. The shin is carbon, which is what fire produces, and mem is water.
But what's mem made of? What's water made of? It's made of H₂O, by the way, which is oxygen. Water is mem—it's literally two H's and an O. So it's the actual building blocks of everything. Hebrew words are not symbols. The word "water" is a symbol for H₂O; it’s a mental symbol pointing to this substance called H₂O. Hebrew words are the thing itself.
You know, there are certain Kabbalists who won't even speak Hebrew because they’re afraid of messing with creation itself. You are playing with creation when you’re speaking Hebrew. I say the opposite: you should learn Hebrew. Not that you should be messing with creation, but your talk should be powerful. The words you’re using should be the thing itself, not just symbols that relate to it.
Anyway, mem stands for water, and it also represents contraction. What’s really interesting is that water is the ultimate solvent. If you put anything into water, it becomes water. You can mix metal screws that hold buildings together, put it in water, come back a year later, and it’s gone—it’s become the water.
When we go into a mikvah, if you think about it, human beings, when they get scattered by the physical world—we’ve gotten our brains scattered into our desires. The mikvah kind of tightens you back up, brings you back together. When a woman has her cycle, which could have been a life form but was not, it got scattered. She goes to the mikvah after that to be back together with her husband.
Similarly, if a man’s seed is scattered, he also goes to the mikvah to gather himself back. Anytime we’re scattered—people work during the week, that’s six days a week of working, and it’s a very big scattering for most people. Their mental real estate has been lent to the world of commerce.
But Shabbat is where our minds go back to truth, back to God, back to reality. Many men will go to the mikvah on Friday to get ready for Shabbat; it’s part of their ritual of preparation for Shabbat. In fact, some men start every day in the mikvah.
I convert myself back to Judaism every day. I mean, I was born Jewish, but I go through a conversion every morning where I go into the water and pretend I’m a Gentile for a while. There are no mirrors in the water, although I did once tell a Rebbe photographer that he should get a waterproof camera and shoot a series of Rebbe pictures in the mikvah.
But anyway, under that water, I pretend I’m a Gentile. If you stand there long enough, you’re going to die. So I ask myself, "What am I coming up for?" The answer is, "I’m coming up for a life of meaning." I come up for life meaning. "Okay, I’m still a Gentile—so go underneath." I’m going to come up for life in the meaning of a Jew.
Come up, come up for life in meaning. And then what kind of Jew? I go back under and come up for the life of a Jew who’s like white fire dedicated to this service. Then, I go to the hot site and chill out for a while, letting my muscles relax. Then I go to the cold pool and tighten things up. But I stretch for like ten minutes in there; it’s really amazing.
If you've ever done stretching in water, it’s like your body’s fully suspended and going deep into a stretch when your body is suspended by the water. Yeah, of course, my neighbors are like, "What the hell is going on?" Not really; they’re used to me.
Jakub, you want a system? I’ve heard people talk about it before, but it’s my personal ritual. Okay, so the fire is the expansion; that’s the eighth Sefirah, and the water is the contraction. That’s like getting yourself to be that lean, mean, you know, servant of God machine—tightened up and really in the zone.
And that, again, was just a discussion. How many foot takes us back to the zone? We use it for such. Now, the next letter is the letter "ayin." The ayin is the eye; that’s the actual letter in the word "ayin." What it means is to look deep. You get your scatterbrained, non-meditative brain focused into this meditation and now go deep into the following.
There’s going to be a moment coming up after the word. You start out, so that the ayin represents to look deep. In fact, when people study Talmud in depth, it’s called "hewn," from the word "ayin." "Eu" means to learn in depth, to go into the depths. Depths of learning mean to look deep into something.
Okay, that’s the ayin. So shh, try that. We’re going to do this together. Let’s start with shh.
And, by the way, that ayin is guttural. You have to get Yemeni to do it right; only the Ashkenazim know the real pronunciation. Are there any Yemenites here?
So, okay, let’s try it again. We’re going to do shh. Ready? Very good.
Okay, excellent! Interestingly, men are wearing tallits, you know, the large prayer shawls that we wear with the black stripes. This is the barcode for God to know His brain.
In any case, we wear these big prayer shawls. We actually take all four corners and we wrap them all—we get all four corners of the strings. I’ve got them here, actually; this is called the tallit katan, a small tallit. We get all four corners and we put them on the webbing of our index finger, next to the neck of that finger. We put it on the webbing there and let it come out the top, representing the four corners of creation—meaning expansion, extension.
The scatteredness, which is what we wear these four for, is because when the brain gets scattered out and you start forgetting what you’re doing here, the senses remind you. From the word to peek, it’s like an invitation—the senses peek at you and say, "Oh my gosh, I just totally spaced out and thought I should click on that website, but I should not."
And so I remember to stay true to my connection with God. I gather those four corners, which represent my scatterbrained mentality, I gather them together. Then I take my right hand and cover my eyes.
Now, why do we put it over the webbing of that skin? It’s because your webbing is much more sensitive than your fists. Your actual fist is calloused and strong, whereas the webbing is sensitive.
Now, why do we want it on that sensitive part? We learn this from horseback riding, which is how people used to get around. When you ride a horse, you don’t just grab the reins fully. You need to be sensitive to the lips of the horse while riding.
And the way you do that is by having, just like the lips are the membrane of the horse’s mouth, you have it on the membrane of the webbing of your fingers, your little fingers, so that you’re gentle on your horse.
So, what’s the connection in Judaism? Who wants to put it together? The reason why we put it on the webbing is that if you really get clarity of God, you will shrivel up and die because you’ll start to ignore your animal side so badly.
You will start skipping meals; after a while, you’ll just be like, "Why would you even shower?" All there is is God; this is all a simulation. The rest of the world is about to go into deeper, it says that none of this is real. This is all a digital simulation that we live in.
That’s why we’re gonna cover our eyes totally, because not only will a cup of closed eyes help; we want to cover our eyes to make it really dark to get into the oneness. I mean, even nothingness. The oneness, when you really get that your animal side is in check; when your animal side is in check, who says you're even going to eat again?
I know a Rebbe; he’s my personal teacher. Rabbi Friedman, the Hornish type of Rebbe, when he eats—which he barely does—I mean, what you would call eating is about as much as he does. You would never call it eating. But it’s amazing. He puts a call in his mouth, and while he’s chewing, he looks like he’s gagging. That’s how little animal there is left that he has to force himself to swallow food.
This man has only slept two hours a day for 40 years and doesn’t go Thursday night because he’s gotta prepare for Shabbat. So he doesn’t sleep Thursday night, and Shabbat night he can’t sleep because every time he tries to close his eyes, his eyes flicker open from the intensity of Shabbat. It’s literally like shooting through him like an LSD trip.
Good luck falling asleep, tripping on LSD; you’re not gonna be sleeping for a long time. That’s what it’s like every Shabbat night. His first sleep he gets is after the chill, which is highly understood.
No, you got our music. Where’s my music? Oh, you got "Tranquil Sleep." It’s such a great soundtrack; I’ve been using it for everything.
Here, I can do ringtone—no, no, it’s uh, oh yeah, that’s it! I would keep it on all the time, except I started noticing I haven’t moved in an hour. Could we borrow your phone a little bit? Mind if I could put it on "Do Not Disturb" for a few minutes? It’s no problem, man.
The reason we put it on the webbing is so you can be sensitive to the horse. Okay, your soul is the rider of the horse; your soul is the horse’s rider, and the body and all your body’s desires—that’s the actual animal, that’s the horse.
You gotta make sure you eat; you gotta take care of something. You’ve gotta be married, and you’ve gotta be sexually active with someone you can build a home with—someone you can trust your heart and their hands for the rest of your life. So we put the tzitzit to represent recognizing that all there is is God.
Then everything you see—lo ta'aseh, don’t look after—don’t stray after this world. But don’t go so far that you don’t get married; don’t go so far that you don’t eat. You gotta take care of yourself because your soul is dwelling inside of you.
Everyone should start breathing now, like deep, slow breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. You want to be sensitive to your vehicle, but don’t see your body as anything more than a vehicle.
Hunger is an emotion. I don’t know, when was the last time your body was actually hungry? In this generation? Yom Kippur? Maybe. Hunger’s an emotion.
I only eat what my body needs when it’s hungry. [Music]
So take a deep breath, and we’re gonna come from scatter to focused and then go deep with you. Ready? Inhale. Let’s do it again, this time with our eyes closed. Inhale. [Music]
Now, the next word of the Shema starts with "L" and if you think about the word, "Yisrael," it’s kind of ethnocentric. Here, "O Israel," only Israel. Thank you. Did you notice there are another 7 billion people in the world? We probably need to know there’s a God, right?
A little weird, then it’s like, "Only Israel." "Shamai," no one else? And you want to hear something amazing? Leave it to our sages to be that sensitive.
You know what Rashi says there? When you click on the word "Yisrael," it takes you to Rashi. Rashi says, "Gee, that’s ethnocentric. What about the rest of the world?"
He asks Rashi; you know, D says, "For the Gentiles at this point in history, to find out that everything is just a digital simulation would be too much to bear. It’d be too freaky!"
The Jewish people were at Sinai; they can say this three times a day—morning, evening, and before they go to sleep. They can say that this world is really just one big creation with God. It’s just a fight for H, it’s all a matter of frequencies—how fast the molecules move.
But to tell the Gentiles that all there is is God, that this is all just one big digital simulation, that’s too much. But Rashi goes on to say that in the end of days, there will be movies like The Matrix, Groundhog Day, Avatar—what was that other one? Inception?
Rashi didn’t mention those movies, but he said there will come a time where the whole world will realize. Very interestingly, the whole world realized this after, without me going into the psychedelic details. But the whole world in Hollywood—writers and everyone—realized this after the 1960s.
So, there was some big connection between the 1960s and this Rashi, and in an era that was ushered in. We’re all part of today, and we were dipped in it because we were all raised after that era. We’re all dipped in this place where the world being a digital simulation doesn’t sound too far-fetched.
It means once you realize that, you start to care a little more about the planet and about each other. You start to realize the oneness between us and the people around us; you start to care.
Nevertheless, we’re the children of Israel, and for us being the children of Israel, this is a special prayer for us because in the end, we’re gonna say, "El okay, no, our God."
What does it mean that it’s our God? What it means that it’s our God is we are the ones who had a prophetic experience at Sinai, and we’re the ones who are all reincarnations of that prophetic moment. You see that there’s a God; everyone has that.
It’s our God, meaning not from a possessive place. He’s everyone’s God, and God is everyone’s God. But the fact that we as a tribe witnessed the nakedness of God—it's a marriage. It's our God.
Just like my wife is my wife and I am her husband because we’ve exposed ourselves to each other fully. When you’re exposed to someone, that’s called intimacy. There’s a certain level where you’re one another’s now, and you can create that level of intimacy with everyone because it’s on a volume knob.
Meaning my wife gets a ten, but a cab driver gets a three. That intimacy, that oneness, that all of us are, I'm invested in people. I do crazy stuff for random people because there’s part of me in that person.
But when you’re fully exposed, that becomes my wife or that becomes my husband. Your children who grow up in your house—yeah, they’re God’s kids, but you would say, "Those are my children; that’s my major responsibility."
I’ve got to save the world, but I’ve gotta take care of those kids first, and God’s gonna ask us about that. I’ll tell you, I’m scared to death, personally. Like, did I spend a lot of my children’s upbringing with people like you, which meant automatically less with them? That scares me a bit.
My little nine-year-old last night asked if he could sleep with me. It’s hard to say no, but he snuggles up next to me for the night we sleep together.
So let’s take a deep breath and say Shema this time with our eyes closed. Inhale, inhale. Yes, and "Yisrael" also means to soar, means to struggle.
The "El" at the end is struggling with God, and losing means winning. To struggle with God and losing the struggle means winning.
The next word is "Adonai," which we don’t say. We say the actual letters; we’re not allowed to, although the Jehovah’s Witnesses use the word. Thank God they use the letter "J" instead of Yud.
But we actually say the name "Adonai," which means master. What we mean when we say the name Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh is beyond space and time.
In other words, the Torah that surrounds space and time—God, beyond space and time. When we say "El okay no," is too late for your tickets right now; that’s why many will miss the rest of the meditation.
Whose name? What do you mean? God doesn’t have any. There’s God. God is known; all those names are verbs.
Every name in Hebrew—none is a source. Every name in Hebrew, every single name in Hebrew, is a verb. All the names of God that we use are verbs to describe how God interacts with creation.
This verb, you might say, "Well, what kind of verb is surrounding space and time?" And the answer is it’s the verb of expansion because it’s from beyond space and time that God expanded the world into existence.
So that name Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh is the name of expansion. The name on the doorpost, which is Shin-Dalet, is the name of contraction.
"Shin" and then "Mitz" means shed, and then "Dalet" means a door. That’s enough; it causes order because our world not only expands, it also contracts into order.
Otherwise, the world would just spin off into chaos. If God took that verb Yud-Dalet out of creation, this whole room would turn into a blender. But not only that, our earth would fall out of orbit with all the others, and just go like, and the whole thing would just expand into oblivion.
That name Yud-Dalet, the reason it’s on your doorpost, is because outside the doorway of your home is an expansion, and it doesn’t care about values. So when you walk out of your home, you touch that Yud-Dalet, that contraction of a home with values.
It’s the tightening that represents the connection of your home, your home as a place of godliness. You touch that mezuzah, you fill it up, and you kiss your hand, which really you’re kissing the mezuzah. Then you walk out into the world and keep the values of your home.
When you’re out there, your home values are not for sale just because you left your house. So there’s Shema, the Yud and Heh, surrounding creation. Then that El okay no is filling creation.
What is the name Elohim? No, it’s a construct state of the word Elohim. Now, some of you may be asking, "How can the Jewish people, the hardcore monotheists of our planet, have a plural name of God?"
And the answer is that remember this is just a digital simulation. So how does God show up inside the vibrational energy of this world—in wood, in wool, in cotton, in flesh?
How God fills this world is called Elohim. The state of God inside creation is called Elohim, and that’s a Hebrew word (in English, Divine). How the world is filled with God's divinity is called Elohim.
So now we have, yes, we described Hashem—surrounding space and time—and Elohim filling space and time.
Hashem—that God that’s beyond all this, the Creator of it all—God is one. Not that there’s one of them, like the soft-core monotheists, but that He is one and there is nothing else.
"Ve'hachas ve'shuh Ahd," God is one; there is nothing like. So here we go, we’re gonna say it together.
We’re gonna do the whole Shema together. Everyone, close your eyes, please. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
You know for sure mine help. [Music]
Yes! [Music] Open your eyes again. This time we forgot to cover our eyes. You’re gonna close your eyes with net open. Everyone, close your eyes. Breathing!
And now, cover your eyes with your hands tight and see how much darker it is. And you see the oneness of nothingness.
Now inhale. [Music]
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Shalom, everybody.