Posted by Bennett Ruda on February 27, 19100 at 01:21:01:
We speak of “spiritual needs” but I am not sure if we know, let alone agree, what we mean by that. I stumbled across a book, The Tao of Pooh, whose author claims to find the embodiment of that philosophy in Winnie the Pooh (don’t laugh). I then found a copy on someone’s bookshelf of a book of Tao Philosophy.
While one of characteristics of a spiritual person may be considered having peace of mind, the view of what that is differs between Judaism and the Taoist approach. The latter seems to consider cogitation to be the ‘white noise’ that blocks one from tuning in to your real self and the resources one has. Too much thinking makes one judgmental and clouds the mind. In Judaism, we consider sechel as an indispensable tool for arriving at truth. Based on that, spirituality in general and peace of mind in particular are viewed differently between those two approaches, never mind the other approaches that exist out there.
The question is, do we see Jewish forms of spirituality, let alone spirituality in general as a goal for ourselves? For our children? A chevrusa asked me a few weeks ago why people don’t go to their Rabbis for guidance in spiritual matters as they do for halachik ones. I suppose part of it has to do with the apparent lack of training in such matters in the standard rabbinic curriculum. Perhaps we do not see our Rabbis as true “spiritual” leaders. One rabbi I spoke to about this said that people in general are not “gorais”, just don’t recognize the existence of spiritual problems. Perhaps that is part of the reason that davening on a Shabbos morning seems to be for many more of a social event than an opportunity for spiritual growth. Do we even know how to take full advantage of what davening provides?
The spiritual dimension, however we will define it, is no small issue. It is part of the learning process. Without it, “lerning” is nothing more than an intellectual exercise. Learning Gemarah is not a way to pick up the intellectual tools you will need in law school, or anywhere else for that matter. But only with the necessary ruchnius aspect will learning lead to emes, truth, and then allow one to absorb that truth into one’s life--and I don’t know how to incorporate that into a curriculum. The answer I suppose is that we cannot curriculum-ize everything—some of it must come from the home. The question then is how to get it into the home to begin with, and if that is true, then how did it get out of the home in the first place?
I don’t know.
Bennett