In the Jewish tradition, God surrounds and fills the universe.

If God truly fills the universe, then everything is God and this moment is God.

And if the reality of this place is The Place (HaMakom, a name for God), then the physical reality you are experiencing right now is Divine. But how do we experience it? How do we see clearly, live life fully, and respond to the sacred in a deep way?

Judaism is a religion of the body.  From our Biblical roots — in which our ancestors saw the material world as the holy creation of God — to the new paradigm of Neo-Hasidism, in which contemporary seekers see it as God Itself, Judaism has long had within it a strong environmental and body consciousness.  Contrary to some traditions and beliefs, these forms of Judaism hold that the soul is not distinct from the body. The body is not a place of sin; it is a site for holiness.

Traditional Judaism sanctifies the body in hundreds of ways. Blessings on going to the bathroom, dietary laws, the mikveh or ritual bath, eating bitter herbs or apples and honey, exhortations to enjoy sex as a holy act, movements during prayer -- all of these are embodied experiences. Because how can't be present with What Is if you're denying its physicality. "In my flesh, I see God," said Job.

Moreover, the human body, as well as the soul, is understood in our mystical tradition to exist b'tzelem elohim, in the image of God.  The Kabbalah teaches that we exist in constant dynamism between the poles of hesed (extension) and gevurah (contraction), always coming back to our spine, the "central pillar" on the tree of the divine emanations (sometimes called the 'tree of life').  We can experience this oscillation in our bodies, paying close attention to our breath, feeling expansion and contraction (ratzo v'shuv) as a primary modality of the created universe.  The Kabbalah does not stop there, however; it goes into great detail, with the firmness of netzach and supple yielding of hod, mapping psychological and spiritual realities onto our physical bodies.  Jewish prayer life includes movement practices designed to reorient our consciousness, blessings that thank God for the functioning of our physical selves, and countless opportunities to be present, now, in the Jewish-Integral model of the four worlds: body, heart, mind and spirit.

Jewish tradition also emphasizes the importance of the material world beyond our bodies.  For example, using the Kabbalistic doctrine of the four worlds — asiyah, yetzirah, briyah, and atzilut — "nature" has significance in each of these four realms: in asiyah, Jewish law sets up numerous statutes regarding environmental preservation; in yetzirah, nature's many songs and abundant diversity is the site of creativity ("Trees and plants have a language of their own" said the Baal Shem Tov); in briyah, it is a portal to consciousness of the Divine (in gematria, Elohim = HaTeva [nature]); and in atzilut, it is seen as nothing more than a garment worn by the Infinite light of ein sof.  Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav teaches of the importance of retreat in nature, and the beauty of the song of the grass.  Abraham Joshua Heschel writes of the centrality of nature in cultivating radical amazement.  And halacha, from its Talmudic roots to Renewal teachings of eco-kashrut, is insistent that we not waste or destroy any of God's precious creation.

These are just a handful of Jewish and Kabbalistic teachings about the body and nature. And these are just the map -- not the territory. To experience an authentic embodied Judaism; to see the interrelationship of body, spirit and nature; to feel the presence of God in natural world; and to know directly the environmental and physical context of core Jewish spiritual teachings -- you have to live them with your body.  Cultivate movement, and stillness; sound, and silence. Cultivate a sense of amazement that is wholly grounded in the present.

Ari Weller....