National Havurah Institute, Round II, 2019
This summer, near the end of July 2019 (7/29/19 – 8/4/19), I taught an expanded version of the course I more concisely offered there 3 years earlier. That earlier course was written up, and is presented on this website, under the tab: Keva and Kavannah as 2 Wings of a Bird.
The title for the course is in bold, like this sentence, further below.
And, more information about the course, offered in West Hartford, CT, is found here:
https://havurah.org/institute-2019-2/institute-2019-course-listing-2/
A glance at that earlier constructed web page, suggests the feel of the upcoming course will be different. I think the sense will be to help provide a path oriented vision to engage robustly in an approach to Jewish practice, and the Jewish liturgy altogether, inspired by a view of what could be seen as the 4 kayas.
The first Kaya, nirmanakaya, associated with the body, will review the context altogether for practice (from any point of view), and introduce (most likely, re-introduce) participants to basic sitting meditation, also generally…shamata/vipassana
The second kaya, sambogakaya, connected with communication, and energy, will present a mayahaya view, and particularly, the practice of tonglen, because….we’re moving to introduce an approach to working with the liturgy, and the strategy of engaging visualization in working with the liturgy. This was taught to us in what is now Shambhala, in the practice of tonglen, and in addition to expressing the approach of the Mahayana, it also presents as a practical doorway into Vajrayana.
The 3rd kaya, dharmakaya, maps onto mind, and with this focus, we would like to encourage participants to consider what is in their mind when they engage in prayer. While this question could be considered basic, it’s not obvious to me that the question is much taken up in normative Jewish practice. And, we’ll generally, quickly, move to encouraging the strategy suggested by 2 different streams that I see both agree as a recommended strategy.
In stream number one, you have mainline Tibetan Buddhism articulating an approach that is represented well by Jamgon Kongtrul, in his Creation and Completion, where, for the aspect of creation, he lays out the 3 fold strategy for thinking about and visualizing the elements of the included text.
And, in stream number two, coincidentally, you have the text created by a conservative Jew, and historian….Jewish Liturgy as a Spiritual System – by Arnold Rosenberg….wherein he came to understand that the intended approach for the pray-er to relate to the Jewish liturgy, was by way of visualizing the elements of the text.
Each of these 3 kayas will be taken up, in turn, in each of the first 3 days of this 4 day course. And then, in the same way that, I understand normatively the fourth kaya, svabhavikakaya, weaves together the previous 3 kays, in the 4th day of the course, having used the 3rd day to walk through the strategies and elements of the liturgy….in the 4th day, we’ll take the liturgy from the top, and practice it…normatively as though (and in fact) doing the weekday service, using the strategies that really all 3 days, but particularly the 3rd day has lead us up to.
The current title for this course is: Jewish Liturgy as Visualization Text: Re-encountering prayer using Tibetan Buddhist pedagogy and practices.
But, it originally was a different title. As originally offered and presented to the staff at the National Havurah Committee, it was called: “Bridging Understanding between Judaism & Tibetan Buddhism: Holy Envy applied to 2 practicing traditions.” I have been working on the material associated with this course for some time, and more recently, when I became aware of the idea of “holy envy,” which is actually developed in the Christian tradition, I thought (and still appreciate) that idea might add a fresh insight and approach. But, the title now associated with the course, I think, was accurately created, based on the fresh perspective brought by the earnest curators of the courses for the upcoming institute, and I was happy to adopt the title they attributed to my course…which I think really is all the more descriptive, so I thank them for their shaping and contribution.