(I’ve written this as a piece about the role of meditation in Jewish life. But it’s no less applicable to Christian, Muslim or other “life” traditions.)

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The Rambam (Maimonides) wrote:

“The foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know [lei’da/לידע] that there is a Primary Being who brought into being all that exists. All the beings of the heavens, the earth, and what is between them came [i.e. come; are coming] into existence only from the truth of His being.” 1 

I

On this, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik — known as “The Rav”; the leader of Modern Orthodoxy for much of the 20th century — taught:

“…(lei’da/לידע) means that our conviction of the existence of G-d should become a constant and continuous awareness of the reality of G-d, a level of consciousness never marred by inattention…” 2

“…in the term (lei’da/לידע) the reference is to a state of continuous awareness…G-d should become a living reality that one cannot forget even for a minute. This keen awareness of the existence of G-d should constitute the foundation of our thoughts, ideas and emotions in every kind of situation and under all conditions.” 3

“Man is under the obligation of fulfilling the positive commandment of ‘knowing’ that there exists a Primary Being responsible not only for Nature but for all of history as well.” 4

“It is a positive commandment to see G-d’s Presence in everything. Thus, in one’s own existence, too [and for all the details of one’s own life].” 5

“If one wishes to know what the significance of lei’da/לידע [is] …, then study the words of the folk song – ‘A Dudele’ – which is attributed to Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. ‘R’boyne shel Oyl’m/L-rd of the Universe’ sang Rabbi Levi Yitzhak, ‘Let me sing a song of ‘du’/you. Du – are east. Du – are west. Du – are north. Du – are south.’ The sun rises – and one sees the Almighty in the illumination of sunrise. The sun sets in an afterglow of haze – and there too one discerns His Presence…It is a feeling – and it must be [personally, directly] experienced.” 6

The Rav echoes the Rambam’s emphasis on knowing that God — Primary Being — is the continuous source of the existence — i.e. the life and presence — of everything animate and inanimate.

Elsewhere, The Rav wrote:

“Maimonides’ term to know/lei’da/לידע transcends the bounds of the abstract logos and passes over into the realm of the boundless intimate and impassioned experience where postulate and deduction, discursive knowledge and intuitive thinking, conception and perception, subject and object, are one…” 7

And yet, The Rav says elsewhere that although he could talk about it, he was unable to teach his students to experience this.

II

Rabbi Clifton Harby Levy, one of the three “Jewish Science” rabbis/authors (along with Rabbi Alfred Geiger Moses and Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein) who drew on “New Thought” teachings to renew Jewish inspiration and devotion, didn’t feel the same hesitation as The Rav in teaching of God’s Presence in the world. He declares with a confidence that can be based only on personal experience:

“When we have found God in the world, we glory in life and find a greater interest in living. Nature itself takes on a new liveliness, because we see God everywhere.” 8

“New Thought” shares with Hasidut an emphasis that “God is all; all is God” (as shown below in the illustration of a quotation from Rabbi Shneur Zalman, founder of HaBaD Hasidut). To “find” God in the world — in both “New Thought and Hasidut” — is to meditate on “God’s all-ness” until it becomes internalized and alters our actual consciousness and perception. Along the way, we will cease to discriminate between “God” and “the world.” The Rambam calls this “the foundation of foundations” and “the pillar of wisdom.” The Rav tells us that it is an actual mitzvah — a positive commandment or requirement — to see God in everything.

III

Ernest Holmes, founder of “Religious Science” and also inspired by “New Thought,” wrote with similar confidence:

“This is the very foundation of our philosophy: God is all there is. When we use the word ‘God,’ we mean the Cause, the invisible Intelligence, the Divinity, that omnipresent Knowingness; Spirit, Life, Truth, Reality — that is what we mean by ‘God.’ And when we say that God is everywhere, we mean that God is in us, in each other, in this flower, in the interspaces of the universe. 
There is nothing but God.” 9

In teaching “God is all there is” and “There is nothing but God,” Holmes echoes the Hasidic teachers — The Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady in particular — who wrote and taught the same thing. 10 The Rav was acquainted with these same Hasidic sources.

How could Ernest Holmes and Rabbi Levy be so confident in what they were teaching, while The Rav, despite his passionate expressions, feel so unable to convey this experience to his talmidim (students)?

The difference, I think, is partly this: The Rav asks his students to look at nature and see God. Ernest Holmes and Rabbi Levy instead ask their students to see only God, even when looking at “nature” — i.e. the material world/creation. In this way, Holmes’ and Rabbi Levy’s ideas closely resemble the Hasidic teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe (Rabbi Shneur Zalman) which, over time, have become obscured and misunderstood, but which can be “rediscovered.”

Further — The Rav, having no tradition or practice of meditation as a reference, could offer only rational consideration of ideas — which he himself saw was insufficient. Holmes and Rabbi Levy ask their students to ‘see only God,’ but didn’t intend for this to be only a sensory or intellectual practice. While it might begin with ideas, it is only fulfilled and accomplished in meditation.

IV

Joel Goldsmith, confirmed by Rabbi Stephen Wise in Reform Judaism, later became a Christian Science Practitioner; after leaving Christian Science, he became an independent teacher of what he called “The Infinite Way.” Christian Science, “Religious Science,” “Jewish Science” and “The Infinite Way” all share a body of ideas with “New Thought” on God’s “All-ness” that closely parallel Hasidic teaching. Based on his personal experience, Joel Goldsmith can give us invaluable insights into meditation:

“Meditation is the art of divine appreciation, through which we learn rightly to appraise man, his achievements, and the universe. Our appreciation of the outer forms [i.e. matter; nature] is increased because meditation gives us an understanding of the divine Love which produced [and is producing] the form. When we understand the mind and the soul that has produced any form of good, we can better appreciate the good itself…If we could only know God, if we could only taste or touch one drop of God, creation would appear in all its wonder and glory. Meditation develops the insight [i.e. experience] which carries us from the object to its creative principle [i.e. Divine Source], and then, with this new insight, the world is revealed as it really is.” 11

As with Rabbi Clifton Harby Levy’s teaching, isn’t this precisely what The Rambam and The Rav are urging upon us?

Where The Rav asks us to look at “nature,” as it were, and see God, Joel Goldsmith and other New Thought writers urge us to go beyond this:

“Meditation on God’s handiwork [i.e. nature; creation] is one way of bringing the Soul-faculties into active expression and of understanding the higher wisdom. We must learn to look not only at sunsets, gardens or any beautiful appearance, but to look beyond them and catch a glimpse of that which brought them into expression. Then we shall always have permanent forms of beauty and permanent forms of harmony, because we shall have that perfect divine Essence which is ever forming Itself anew. If we try to see perfection in the form, we lose it. Material sense sees the form and enjoys it; spiritual sense see the underlying substance and reality of the form.” 12

Joel Goldsmith implicitly speaks to The Rav and to all of us: “If we try to see perfection in the form, we lose it [i.e. the vision of perfection].” If, instead, we give our time and attention to seeing “God’s All-ness,” we’re rewarded with both spiritual vision and a greater enjoyment of the material world, as Rabbi Levy said above: “Nature itself takes on a new liveliness, because we see God everywhere.”

The “time and attention” we give is “meditation” or “contemplation.”

V

Martin Buber teaches that the re-unification of all creation with its Divine Source is the ultimate redemption that prophets foresee. Before that, it’s possible for an individual person to experience that in the meditative levels of prayer or worship. In those moments, “…blessing pours down out of Infinity”:

”God has fallen into duality through the created world and its deed: into the Being of God…which is withdrawn from Its creatures and the Presence of God, the Shechinah, which dwells in things wandering, straying, scattered. Only redemption will unite the two in eternity. But it is given to the human spirit, through its service [עבודה; can also mean “prayer” or “worship”] to be able to bring the Shechinah near to its source, to help it to enter it. And in this moment of homecoming…the whirlpool which rushes through the life of the stars becomes silent, the torches of the great devastation are extinguished, the whip in the hand of fate drops down, the world-pain pauses and listens: the grace of graces has appeared, blessing pours down out of Infinity…” 13

That outpouring of blessing from Infinity is precisely what The Rav is describing.

VI

The midrash says:

“From what is written — ‘Behold, there is a place [makom] with Me’ (Exodus 33:21) –- [we know that] the Blessed Holy One is the place of the world; His world is not His place.” 14

Based on this, the rabbis gave God the Name “Ha-Makom/המקום” — “The Place” [of the world/creation]. God isn’t contained in the world/creation [although present in it]; creation is contained within God.

Thus, to meditate on “God’s All-ness” is to personally experience the meaning of the Divine Name “Ha-Makom”:

“What is the metaphor of HaMakom (“The Place”)?…When used in reference to God, what it means is that everything is contained within God (conceptually), while He is not contained in anything. As our Sages say: ‘He [G-d] doesn’t have a place, rather He is The Place of the Universe’.” 15

On which another Jewish educational source comments:

“…being in covenant with God means cultivating the capacity to see The Place [המקום] in the place [i.e. where we are], seeing that which is mundane as a window into holiness.” 16

Or, by meditation, to see only Holiness, and then know the “mundane” in It.

As William Blake famously wrote:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour… 17

Meditation, or contemplation, is the “tool” by which we acquire “the foundation and pillar of wisdom” and fulfil the mitzvah of seeing God everywhere.

We can have no full Jewish life without it.

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1 Maimonides: Mishnah Torah/Book of Knowledge 1:1; see also Yesodei ha-Torah 1:1
2 Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph B., Pinchas Peli, trans. and ed.; Soloveitchik on Repentance; p. 130
3 ibid., p. 131
4 ibid., p. 132
5 ibid., p. 132
6 ibid., p. 134 
7 Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph B.; The Lonely Man of Faith; p. 32, (note)
see also:
https://rabbielimallon.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/2-10-16-believing-in-god/
8 Levy, Rabbi Clifton Harby; The Jewish Life; The Jewish Science Advance Publishing Company; © 1925, p. 36
9 Holmes, Ernest; Ideas of Power; p. 111
10 see:
https://rabbielimallon.wordpress.com/2022/03/01/3-1-22-a-shviti-for-hitbonenut-contemplation/
11 Goldsmith, Joel; The Art of Meditation; © 1956 by Joel Goldsmith; HarperCollins, publishers; p. 127-8
12 ibid., p. 128
13 Buber, Martin; The Legend of the Baal Shem; Schocken, © 1955; p. 26-7 (original © 1907)
14 Bereishith/Genesis Rabbah 68:9 and elsewhere.
15 from the Ohr Sameach website https://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/37/Q1/
16 https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-place-with-no-name/
17 Blake, William; Auguries of Innocense