Spirituality
LURE
Two local rabbis find enha
spirituality through exa
THE
EAST
HOWARD LOVY
Special to the Jewish News
N
of a voice can be heard inside
the Birmingham Yoga Center
as Rabbi Hal Greenwald sits
cross-legged on the floor, cov-
ers his eyes and &wens, slowly swaying.
Then, softly, he begins to chant a nig-
gun — defined by some as "a wordless
melody in search of itself" A woman in
the corner takes out a drum and taps a
soft rhythm, as 25 students in last
March's SAJE (Seminars for Adult
Jewish Enrichment) Jewish meditation
class crescendo
with Rabbi
Greenwald and
the drum —
snapping and
clapping as the
niggun grows
louder and
more animated.
Rabbi Arnie
Sleutelberg
sways near the
center of the
room, grinning
Rabbi Greenwald to
broadly, living
lead trip to the East.
in the moment.
The silence,
the chanting, the focus on the present
rather than thoughts of the past or
future — all are integral components of
Eastern religious thought.
No, Rabbis Greenwald and
Sleutelberg are not Ju-Bu's — a term
commonly used to refer to Jewish adher-
ents of Buddhist philosophy. These
Detroit-area rabbis are about as Jewish as
they come. What
they are doing, how-
ever, is recognizing
the pull Buddhism
has on many
American Jews.
Rather than rejecting
it as a threat, they are
embracing Buddhist
philosophy and
incorporating it into
their teachings.
What they also
are discovering is that
somewhere along the
way, Judaism was
perceived to have lost
the spiritual compo-
nent many Jews have
found in Buddhism.
But, these rabbis
say, it was in Judaism
all along.
Rabbi Greenwald, director of educa-
tion at the Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit, began
Transcendental Meditation and Eastern
chants about 15 years ago, only later
realizing the Chasids had been doing it
since 1720.
The goal of Buddhist meditation for
Jews, Rabbi Greenwald told the SAJE
class, is to "find your inner Chasid."
Rabbi Greenwald and the JCC are
offering metro Detroit residents a
chance to search during a "Great Cities
of Asia" tour from Nov. 25 to Dec. 11.
The trip is meant as the last part of
Rabbi Greenwald's "Judaism Faces East"
spring lecture series, where he pointed
out the similarities and differences
between Judaism and Buddhism.
Rabbi Sleutelberg in Kathmandu,
Nepal, in February. He visited Nepal
and Thailand "to learn about
Hinduism and Buddhism and how
they find expression in daily life."
Common Ground
Rabbi Sleutelberg, spiritual leader at
Congregation Shir Tikvah in Troy,
knows that studying Buddhism's rela-
tionship to Judaism in a lecture hall is
not the same as experiencing it first-
hand. He recently returned from a sab-
batical in Thailand and Nepal, where his
goal was to learn all he could about
Buddhist philosophy, then bring back to
his congregation lessons on how to
infuse spirituality into everyday living.
"Delving into Buddhism helped me
to think about aspects of Judaism that I
had never considered," Rabbi
Sleutelberg says.
That is not to say that Judaism and
Buddhism are interchangeable.
Buddhism, after all, is not a monotheis-
tic religion. But Buddhist thought can,
and does, help Jews reconnect with prac-
tices that have fallen out of favor with
Jews over the generations.
"Certainly, in the world of medita-
tion, we had many of the practices that
Buddhism has kept alive, but we lost,"
he says.
Among the practices Rabbi
Sleutelberg incorporated into his SAJE
class was a Buddhist-style guided medi-
tation through the ancient Jews' Second
Temple.
"I'm finding a tremendous thirst for a
rekindling of the Jewish spirit in terms
of meditation and mysticism," he says.
"I think that we're discovering as Jewish
Americans that there's a lot more to life
and living than what we've experienced
thus far."
He found a deep connection between
Buddhism and Judaism through the
Buddhist meditative practice of standing
for a prolonged period of time.
"For my whole life, I've been stand-
ing for the Amidah (silent prayer) — or
saying, as a rabbi, 'Please rise for the
Amidah.' I'm not embarrassed to tell
you that I never gave a moment of
thought as to why.
"Why do we stand? What's the point
of standing? What are we supposed to
feel through the act of changing position
from sitting to standing?"
By having his congregation think
about these issues while they stand for
the Amidah, he says, they can get more
out of a routine part of the synagogue
service.
These techniques are one possible
JN
answer to the perception by some Jews 7/20
2001
57