Author's Khalwa Cell in Safed 2019
We frequently refer to a special type
of prayerful study called Hegyon
HaLev. (Thoughts of the Heart).
We recommend it most highly to all members of Tariqa Eliyahu as an adjunct to each member's contemplative and ritual practices, specifically because its aim is also one of our Tariqa's general aims, namely: the development of intuition as a preparation for receptive inspiration.
This
short essay was written for the private website of the online "Community of Dedicated Jewish
Contemplatives" in 2010… but it is reprinted here unchanged as it has equal
relevance to all the members of our
Jewish-Sufi Order.
Here
then is that Guide to Hegyon Ha Lev:
HEGYON HALEV:
Prayer that is Study—Study that is Prayer
"All
Jews are commanded to listen to G-d’s Voice.
Each individual according to their own ability
and each in their own way.
A
Dedicated Jewish Contemplative might attempt to fulfil this commandment
specifically by listening to G-d in silent receptive contemplative prayer and
through private meditative Torah study.
We
call such prayerful study/studious prayer “Hegyon ha-Lev”.
So
how do we do it?
Here are THREE simple ways that we might recommend:
ONE
Take a psalm a day as part of your quiet time/mental prayer.
1.
Make a short prayer of intention to listen/be attentive to its meanings and
significance.
2. Read it silently and slowly.
3.
Leaving a pause (perhaps after each sentence or pair of sentences),close your
eyes and let the words sink in.
4.
There is no need to be slavish about this—just read on if you wish, pausing
only when you feel like it.
5.
If a particular phrase jumps out at you—stay in reflection on that phrase with
your eyes closed for as long as you like. Maybe you might choose to do this
with several Psalms per day. Three seems a good number to me. That was something
I did one year as the basis for a regular mental prayer session of around an
hour, and the rhythm seemed right.
It
goes without saying that the aim is to put you in a position where item 5 may
happen and there will be times when a single verse will be enough. We should
not expect G-d to speak to us like the telephone, (though He can) but I
guarantee that you will be amazed at the directness and appropriateness of
those phrases which jump out during such meditation sessions to enable you to
hear His Voice personally.
TWO
Once
a week take the Torah or Haftarah portion and read a section meditatively
1.
Make a prayer of intention to listen attentively
2. Read the portion (or part of it) very
slowly.
3. Do not be distracted by the commentaries of
others— simply read the words themselves slowly.
4.
Whenever you feel something has jumped out for your attention, close your eyes
and dwell on it in prayer.
5.
Resist the temptation to analyse too much—just let the words sink in. My guess
is that, some weeks, you will suddenly see something which you had not realised
or understood or even noticed before. Later you can check the verse which was
revealed to you with commentaries and nine times out of ten you will be amazed
to see that someone has had exactly that same ‘new insight’ you thought you
alone had been given.
But
don’t you see? That’s precisely the point.
Because
it came to you directly and not through study of another person’s thoughts—to
find that your idea was the one Maimonides or Nachmanides had also heard is not
a disappointment. It is the ‘voice of approval’ I wrote of (on page 38) in KuntresMaarat Ha Lev, the voice which confirms that you are on the right ‘prophetic’
track.
THREE
The
above two suggested methods are the most suitable for use during prayer because
they are prayer.
There
is another way of performing Hegyon ha-Lev where the activity is
more study than contemplative prayer, and this is the method I use(d) each week
to produce the set of texts for our private community Hegyon ha Lev
articles.
1.
Take the two readings for the week and a book of the Psalms.
2.
Make an intention to listen to the readings with an open heart and ear.
3.
Read through the Torah and Haftarah portions slowly without using commentaries.
4.
On a piece of paper or in a special book,each time a phrase or verse ‘jumps
out’ as being significant to you personally in ANY way (especially if you don’t
really know why!) write it down.
5.
When you have done that open the book of Psalms at random.
6.
Perhaps say the prayer “If there is anything you would like to tell me, please
do.”
7. See which verse has arisen and write it
down.
8.
Then look deeply at the page you have written and see if there are any links
between texts. Sometimes the psalm text will unite a Torah text with a Haftarah
text with stunning results.
There
will be times when you will be shown connections as though you were “as one who
is awakened from sleep” (Zech 4:1).
There
will be times when you will see that the separate texts are actually speaking
of the same topic, as though they were “a stone with seven facets” (Zech 3:9),
and in more times than you will be able to count you will be shown things that
may help illuminate your path like the menorah which sheds its light on us not
just on the Sanctuary (Numbers 8:2).
In
the end it will be part of the process which I believe we are incarnating—that
contemplative prayer is action and that we are declaring the message “Not by
Might or Power but by God’s Spirit” (Zech 4:6)
Here
is an example of this THIRD kind
of Hegyon HaLev exercise which was published on the private Community website during one of the weeks in 2010:
When we are engaged in Torah Study we
are standing at the door of the tent of meeting,
When we pray there in hegyon ha-lev:
We are in the place of God’s Glory.
A place which is “made separate” from
all other Worlds “by God’s Presence” and not by us.
If we bring our reflections after such
study-prayer and share them here with the
Community:
We are like the keruvim...
For some say that the ark requires two
such messengers
For the Presence to descend...
(and the keruv-decorated Mishkan hangings indicate that there is room
for many more.)
When we pray the Amidah alone but
united in spirit with our community:
Like Aharon we each bear the Urim and
Thummim
They are the Lights of “Beauty and
Splendour”
They are the Perfections of “Truth and
Righteous Humility”
Spoken of in the psalm.
They are “on our heart” waiting for us
to “remember” them.
When we Stand in silent contemplation:
Like Moses we are permitted to stand
in that place.
All Israel as a Nation of Priests and
all Jewish Contemplatives as the Family of Elijah:
We are neither Priests like Aharon nor
Prophets like Moses
Yet we too are
permitted to stand there and meet with God.
We are standing there at the
threshold not so much to speak...
As to meet Him and to listen.
Our sacrifices of thought and feeling
and of petition and liturgy
Are not “as dear to Him as is our
attention to His Voice”.
Only He can lay the Urim and the
Thurim on our hearts
For they are not ours to make but His
to give.
Nothing we might do can place them
there.
They are His gifts to a listening
people.
To souls who never pray without also
bearing
The burdens of the community with them
into that place.
Only if we leave our own individual
burdens, and our own pre-occupations,
Our own jewels of self-importance, and
our own spiritual decorations,
At the door-
Only then
Are we permitted to enter there.
Those things are not what He wants.
He wants us.
Our attention is all to Him
(February
18 2010)
oooOooo
Question:
Why should we practice Hegyon ha-Lev?
Answer:
Because we want to train ourselves to listen to the Torah of the Heart and we
want to make that a service of prayer and heed the words of the Berditchever
when he reminded us that such spiritual action creates “a new sustenance”that
“flows into all the universes, a sustenance that did not exist previously.”
The
practice of Hegyon ha-Lev is a training discipline which
complements our mental prayer and enriches our formal Torah studies.
A prophet is one who hears and speaks the Word
of God—
We
are “neither Prophets nor Sons of the Prophets” but we seek to develop a
climate of inspired awareness and attentiveness in our prayer lives.
All of us need to enter an interior ‘School of
the Prophets’ (as it were), for it is there, in Hegyon ha-Lev
that we may learn to think and speak with our intuitive minds—our hearts— as
well as with our rational brains. The Sfas Emes tells us:
There
are two blessings for the Torah, one before and one after reading it. The first
is to connect the Torah to its roots in heaven, and the second is to connect it
to our inner heart of hearts.
The
Supernal and Eternal Torah whose nature we are unable ever to grasp, the Torah
which was the Heavenly blueprint of Creation, and the Torah which was given at
Sinai and which puts forth branches and flowers anew every day are all present
in the heart of every individual Jew. We just need to spend time with it and to
open our ears to its voice."
Nachman Davies
Published for the Dedicated Jewish Contemplative Community.....Granada 2010
First Published generally........Safed
