Fall River rabbi’s new book explores differences between religion, spirituality

In his new book, “The Sacred Now: Cultivating Jewish Spiritual Consciousness” (Wipf & Stock, $18), Rabbi Mark Elber lays out a compelling case for engaging seriously with Jewish text and tradition while challenging the constraints of conventional religious belief and practice. He hopes the book will ignite a spark in readers that will help them feed the flame of their souls within a Jewish framework. 

Elber is the rabbi at Temple Beth El in Fall River, and his wife, Shoshanah Brown, is the cantor. Raised in a Holocaust-survivor family in Queens, New York, in a Polish Orthodox Jewish populace, he assumed this was the only authentic form of Judaism.

At age 16, as he relates in the book, he had a peak experience while walking up 43rd Street toward Queens Boulevard. Suddenly “[e]verything I looked at felt utterly alive, pulsing with Divinity. Everything seemed obviously and palpably part of God, part of the One, including myself ….” For the next several years, he could enter this state of consciousness virtually at will.

Elber concluded that this overwhelming sense of God’s presence was the goal and purpose of Jewish ritual observance, and must be familiar to his Orthodox friends.  However, when he tried to tell them about his experience, they had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Thus began the journey through which Elber discovered a vast difference between religion and spirituality, between strictly prescribed ritual observance and a more alive, personal, evolving relationship with the deity.

In college, Elber encountered Kabbalah and Lubavitch Hasidism, much of which resonated with his own yearnings. He became quite observant, while also engaging actively in the counterculture and progressive politics of 1960s America. 

In the early 1970s, he moved to Jerusalem to pursue an advanced degree in Kabbalah at Hebrew University. While in Israel, he was deeply affected by radical feminism, and returned to the U.S. determined to incorporate these liberating insights into his Judaism.

Elber is a seasoned Jewish educator, as well as a poet, songwriter and rock musician.  While living in Nashville, Tennessee, in the late 1990s, he was invited to teach a class on Kabbalah, and was stunned at the level of interest. He began leading a weekly meditation group, and later became a certified teacher of Jewish meditation through Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, California.  In 2006, he published “The Everything Kabbalah Book.”

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a key figure in the burgeoning Jewish Renewal movement, encouraged Elber to study for rabbinic ordination.  He then sent Elber on a mission to bring a more mystical, accessible, innovative, and egalitarian sensibility to various Jewish communities.

In “The Sacred Now,” Elber seeks “to present and explore a Jewish spiritual lifestyle that celebrates life and this world, in the here and now.” He sets out to propose techniques for experiencing “the Divinity that permeates and transcends all that exists.” But the book is less of a how-to manual than a passionate argument for challenging the status quo of establishment Jewish institutional and religious conformity.

Elber sees the codification of halakhah, Torah, ritual and prayer as having created a “petrification of Jewish practice,” where inherited beliefs, interpretations and observances become ends in themselves, rather than serving as tools for cultivating a direct relationship with God. This, he argues, turns ritual and prayer into a form of idolatry. He also critiques Jewish fundamentalism, where religious authorities insist on blind faith and obedience, providing pat answers rather than encouraging the pursuit of wisdom and truth.  Without this freedom, Judaism cannot thrive, he writes.

Elber returns to both of these concerns – idolatry and fundamentalism – throughout the book, citing classic Jewish texts in expressing his views. While the content is engaging, the structure of the book is a little choppy, with some ideas restated in different chapters and sub-topics in a way that does not always flow smoothly.

According to Elber, Judaism provides powerful insights and techniques for experiencing holiness and sacredness in the everyday and mundane, for treating other human beings in ways that reflect our shared divine source, for making ourselves a living mishkan (sanctuary) for encountering God, and for leading us to a figurative promised land. However, he strongly disputes the notion that there is only one true and correct form of Jewish practice that has existed monolithically over time, and asserts that rigid adherence to prayer and ritual does not automatically result in a moral or meaningful life. 

Elber is interested in spiritual substance over form, in entering wholeheartedly into worship and ritual (nich’nas and kavana) rather than focusing on compliance (yotzei). He wants liberal Jews to be more serious practitioners of Judaism while pushing at its boundaries. He alludes to various techniques for nurturing Jewish spirituality, such as chanting, spending time in nature, davening without reading every word of the siddur, and crafting prayers that resonate more with 21st-century thought and sensibilities. 

He sees Jewish meditation as a particularly effective means of cultivating spiritual consciousness – to transcend the duality of the universe and ego (yesh) and tap into the vast eternal presence or emptiness (ayin). I would have liked more concrete instructions or examples of these practices.

Elber recognizes that spiritual exploration and growth requires both private and communal effort. We are fortunate to have a variety of groups in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, some within mainstream synagogues that are actively engaged in this journey.

JUDY KAYE is a lawyer, diversity consultant and officiant at alternative Jewish rituals. She is a member of Temple Emanu-El, in Providence, where she co-leads Soulful Shabbat and High Holy Day services. She can be reached at judykaye2@gmail.com.