Jewish Meditation by Steve G © adapted from Areye Kaplan’s Work

By and large many people think of far eastern religions when the word meditation is brought up. Both Jew and non-Jew alike seem oblivious to the fact that there is a form of Jewish meditation out there. Jews like other people are spiritually hungry and end up looking to these far eastern religions to satisfy their appetite. It takes a lot of work to ferret out the Mediation techniques from Judaism. Jewish Mystics have a history of interacting with Sufi mystics and exchanging ideas. To lose such a connection would be a shame.

What exactly is meditation? Quite simply it means to control your mind. Have you ever tried to stop thinking? Bet you were not quite successful? Better yet try thinking about only one thing. You most likely thought about a whole lot of other things besides the one thing. It is very hard to control your mind.

If you close your eyes you will be bombarded with a barrage of fleeting images. To pay them attention and decipher them would be called “Free Association” This Free Association is one way of reading your subconscious mind. The mind can be divided into two parts. These two parts are the conscious and the subconscious mind. You can control the conscious mind but not your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is what control your thoughts. So to control your thoughts you must control your subconscious mind.

Breathing is controlled by your subconscious mind it is voluntary. Hence many meditation method have you control your breathing as a first step to controlling your subconscious mind. Two more related techniques are discussed on is called “imaging”. Imaging occurs when you imagine let us say the letter “A” in your mind. The second technique is “Etching” this might be when you permanently engrave the letter A into your mind.