In the early 1920's, R. Kalman Kalonymus Shapira wrote a small book entitled Bnai Mashshavah Tovah, Experiencing the Divine. (R. Kalman Kalonymus Shapira is also known as the Piaseszner rebbe and, after his collection of sermons written in the Warsaw ghetto, the Aish Kodesh.)
In this book, he presents a theory and a practice of attaining meditative closeness to God, using the emotions as a vehicle to deveikut, or God-consciousness.
Equally, he describes in detail the rules governing what might be called a spiritual therapy group that he advises spiritual seekers to organize in order to intensify their practice.
This little book, discovered in the wreckage of post-Holocaust Warsaw (where R. Shapira was murdered by the Nazis in 1942), has become recognized as a jewel of Jewish spiritual literature.
This website presents a translation of the entirety of this work.
1. Experiencing the Divine
The Composition of This Group
One: Overcoming Our Forgetfulness
Two: Working Upon the Mind
Three: The Need to Strengthen Mindfulness
Four: Exercising Mindfulness
Five: The Importance of Thought and Imagination
Seven: From Image to No-Image
Eight: Thought and Feeling
Ten: See God in Everything
Eleven: Strenthening Holy Feeling
Twelve: The Spiritual Nature of Reality
Thirteen: Becoming a Person Who Sees God
Fourteen: Bringing Ourselves to Perceive Godliness
Fifteen: Truth and Sincerity
Sixteen: Overcoming Idleness
Seventeen: Beyond the Intellect of This World
Eighteen: Music - Revelation of the Soul
Nineteen: Proper Self-Evaluation
Twenty: A Child of the King
Experiencing the Divine:
A Practical Jewish Guide
by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira
(the Piaseszner Rebbe)
translated by Yaacov Dovid Shulman
1. Experiencing the Divine
A number of young men of my acquaintance wish to form a society dedicated to the spiritual goal of uniting God and the Community of Israel. With God=s help, I am writing the following text for them. And it is appropriate that it be called Experiencing the Divine (literally, The Society for Positive Mindfulness).
AOne thing have I asked of Hashem, I will request it . . . to view the pleasantness of Hashem and to contemplate within His palace@ (Tehillim 27:4).
Translator's note: In keeping with the usage of the original, the generic pronoun "he" has been employed and not replaced with such formulations as "he or she." This does not, of course, detract from the relevance of this work for women.
