Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath.
And another.
This may be the kind of instruction that immediately puts you at ease or makes you want to scream. Or both?
There are multiple wise and accessible methods to help us ground and literally catch our breath as tensions big and small prevail upon us. Screaming is an option, as it includes exhaling. Quiet meditation may have additional benefits.
The oldest Jewish method for meditation shows up in today’s PSLAM, and It’s also one of the world’s oldest recorded recipes for this type of contemplative action: A visualization technique, guiding us to be open to the presence of the infinite, to be in better equilibrium and equanimity, whatever comes our way.
The Hebrew word for this meditative method has also become an intricate form of Jewish art, called SHIVITI. The word Shiviti is linked to the word ‘Shaveh’ - as in ‘equal’.
For those of you who’ve been part of the Lab/Shul community for a few years now - this is hopefully familiar territory. Three years ago we dedicated our High Holy Days to this theme, and Lab/Shul's SHIVITI continues, with explorations of what this Shiviti meditative mantra, contemplative method, and artistic mode may mean to our wellbeing.
This focus became deeply helpful during Covid lockdown, and it continues to offer spiritual first aid with every continued day of sorrow as this war continues.
Discovering these words in today’s chapter was like finding an old friend in a crowd -- a relief of the familiar.
That sensation -- familiar support even in the midst of difficult times and sleepless nights is exactly what the poet talks about when presenting this option for relief:
שִׁוִּ֬יתִי יְהֹוָ֣ה לְנֶגְדִּ֣י תָמִ֑יד כִּ֥י מִֽ֝ימִינִ֗י בַּל־אֶמּֽוֹט׃
I am ever mindful of GOD’s presence—
who is at my right hand; I shall never be shaken.
Ps. 16:8
Translation, as always, is delicate here. This JPS translation renders ‘Shiviti’ as ‘ever mindful’, while Norman Fisher’s Zen choice is “Your presence is Always Before Me.” Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi flips the order -- “I place myself constantly in Your Presence”, and Stephen Mitchell suggests:
“I have come to the center of the universe; I rest in your perfect love.”
The Velveteen Rabbi's Shiviti chant is:
"It is perfect / You are loved / All is clear, and / I am holy."
My personal practice is to begin each day by sitting quietly, watching my breathing, and practicing meditation techniques I learned as a young man, with my eyes closed. At some point I open my eyes and look straight ahead - whatever is right in front of me is looking right back at me - and that’s the Shiviti moment of the day. It’s often the same spot, but sometimes a new location. It’s all divine, all the time, I to I in the totality of being.
There are multiple methods of activating the Shiviti in our private and public lives. Jewish mystics refer to the instruction quite literally by imagining the DIvine Name in their mind, writing each letter in their head, in order, again and again. Many synagogues feature unique pieces of art, often placed in front of the ark, that include these verses in the shape of a menorah, as a visual aid for contemplation.
The 16th Century Rabbi Moses Isserles chose to begin his Jewish guide for living with this verse and instruction:
"I have set God before me constantly"; this is a major principle in the Torah and amongst the virtues of the righteous who walk before God. For a person's way of sitting, one's movements and dealings while one is alone in one’s house are not like one’s way of sitting, one’s movements and dealings when one is before a great sovereign; nor are one’s speech and free expression as much as one wants when one is with one’s household members and one’s relatives like one’s speech when in a royal audience.”
Whether verb, noun, method or ideal -- Shiviti is a concept that enables us to remember that we are all interconnected, in the presence of the infinite, asked to see and be seen at our most human sacred. On this day, as we begin to wrap up Passover, reminded to lift up liberation for all - this SHIVITI comes as an extra gift for the journey.
Look up. What/who do you see looking back at you, right now?
Shiviti.
Breathy by breath. All the time.
Shiviti Design: Ezra Baderman (Lab/Shul 2022)
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