“Seek Me and Live” Hasidism and the Spiritual Journey
These three sessions explore the endless search for God as a key theme in medieval and early-modern Judaism, with a particular emphasis on Hasidism and Jewish mysticism. The sources with which we engage portray religious life as an unceasing quest toward the Divine, an endless journey in which exegesis, self-discovery and sacred community are braided and richly intertwined. They present a thrilling religious sensibility in which the intellectual, spiritual and existential journey toward God is far more than a means to an end.
Hasidic sources put stock in the quest itself as both personally transformative and cosmically significant. Rather than religious uprush being born only in the successful devekut, or communion with the Divine, for the Hasidic masters God may be revealed with potency and majesty along the path itself.
Session 1 “Sacred Beginnings” explores the idea of the spiritual quest in the Zohar and the writings of Maimonides, finishing up with a brief but powerful teachings preserved in the name of the Baal Shem Tov. We will consider how each of these works describe the journey to know God as infinite and unattainable, and yet, worth undertaking because the spiritual richness is found in the process rather than in some imagined goal.
Session 2 “The Journey Continues” explores a glowing Hasidic interpretation of the Selihot liturgy as a petition that God to be revealed in the process of prayer, and a reinterpretation of Psalm 27, the Psalm of Elul, that addresses the ever-higher vistas of religious seeking. We’ll then read a sermon about the infinite journey to grasp new interpretations of Torah, and, finally, we’ll close by thinking together about the importance of accepting the natural ups and downs — or ebb and flow — of spiritual energy while still continuing along the path. Come join the journey!
Session 3 “Fellow Travelers and Individual Journeys” explores the spiritual quest as a journey undertaken as both individuals and in community, recognizing that each person has a unique path in this world but that in this quest we are supported, shaped and transformed by our friends and fellow-travelers.
