[Avodah] Challenge: Finding Spirituality w/o Qabbalah

[Micha Berger]

I think the problem is that we don't agree on either "finding" or
"spirituality".

I was saying there are many sefarim that define and discuss
spirituality, but few that tell you how to find it -- and not that many
aren't based on qabbalah.

Whether Chovos haLvavos has enough how-to orientation to qualify is a
second discussion, and more one of personal taste in shiurim -- so not a
very interesting discussion.

Further down I have some formal definitions of "spirituality", but to
men here's what it means in a Jewish context:
    An orientation where one is focused on man's higher calling, the one
    Hashem made us for.

As I see it, this is the point of contemplating yom hamisah. Remembering
what's really important and focusing on it. In today's mileau, where
people can't handle the stick, only the carrot, here's a usable variant,
suggested by Stephen Covey:

    Picture your own funeral. Who attends? Who is sitting where? Who
    cares enough to help out? What do members of the family say to
    each other? Your friends?

    Picture four hespeidim. Who is giving them? What are they saying?
    What do you want them to be saying? My own addition: What do you
    think HQBH wants them to be saying?

Take time to really visualize this. Take notes for later reference.
Really picture out the entire scene so that it becomes emotionally
etched into your heart.

That's your ultimate goal; to the best of your understanding, what
Hashem yisbarach wants out of your life. Know it. Keep it in mind.
It may be easy to subdivide into short-term goals, it may be difficult.
Particularly, when making a decision, keep those goals and the steps to
get to them in mind. Even if it's just deciding whether to have a salad
or "comfort food" for lunch, see how the pros and cons tie back to that
ultimate question.

(Like in business management theory, where everything is supposed to be
able to be tied back to the mission statement.)

That, to me, is spirituality. Particularly since it's the neshamah which
is aware of our higher calling, which provides the counterbalance to our
taavos when making a decision.

I think that RSShkop would call it "qedushah". To quote my translation
of his haqdamah to Shaarei Yosher:
    So too His Will is that we walk in His ways. As it says "and you shall
    walk in His Ways" -- that we, the select of what He made -- should
    constantly hold as our purpose to sanctify our physical and spiritual
    powers for the good of the many, according to our abilities.'
    ...
    And so, it appears to my limited thought that this mitzvah includes
    the entire foundation and root of the purpose of our lives. All
    of our work and effort should constantly be sanctified to doing
    good for the community. We should not use any act, movement, or
    get benefit or enjoyment that doesn't have in it some element of
    helping another. And as understood, all holiness is being set apart
    for an honorable purpose -- which is that a person straightens his
    path and strives constantly to make his lifestyle dedicated to the
    community. Then, anything he does even for himself, for the health of
    his body and soul he also associates to the mitzvah of being holy,
    for through this he can also do good for the masses. Through the
    good he does for himself he can do good for the many who rely on
    him. But if he derives benefit from some kind of permissible thing
    that isn't needed for the health of his body and soul, that benefit
    is in opposition to holiness. For in this he is benefiting himself
    (for that moment as it seems to him), but no one else.

    In this way, the concept of separation is an aspect of the underlying
    basis of the mitzvah of holiness, which is recognizable in practice
    in the ways a person acts. But with insight and the calling of
    spirituality this mitzvah broadens to include everything a person
    causes or does even between him and the Omnipresent. In relation to
    this, this holiness is comparable to the Holiness of the Creator
    in whatever little similarity. Just as the Act of the Holy One in
    all of creation, and in each and every moment that He continues to
    cause the universe to exist, all His actions are sanctified to the
    good of others, so too it is His Will that our actions be constantly
    sanctified to the good of the community, and not personal benefit.

So, li nir'eh spirituality is qedushah, to stay separated for the purpose
of the spiritual goal, the soul's calling, the Image of G-d, what HQBH
made us to be.

Anything that could teach me how to do that would be a means of "finding
spirituality". Notice there is nothing mystical in that. It could be
mussar, it could be Horeb. The Seifer haYetzirah, not so much -- even
if I had any hope of understanding what it's getting at, it would tell
me more about what the ideal is, but not how to find it.



 -- Now for the dictionary entries:

Wikipdeia on "spirituality":
    Spirituality is matters of the spirit, a concept often but not
    necessarily tied to to a spirit world, a multidimensional reality and
    one or more deities. Spiritual matters regard humankind's ultimate
    nature and purpose, not as material biological organisms, but as
    spirits or energy with an eternal relationship beyond the bodily
    senses, time and the material world.

American Heritage:
    adj.
   1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit;
      not tangible or material. See synonyms at immaterial.
   2. Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul.
   3. Of, from, or relating to God; deific.
   4. Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred.
   5. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.

    n.
   1. [music reference deleted]
   2. Religious, spiritual, or ecclesiastical matters. Often used in
      the plural.

Merriam Webster:
     1: something that in ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or
        to a cleric as such
     2: clergy
     3: sensitivity or attachment to religious values
     4: the quality or state of being spiritual

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
micha at aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht