Does fear of God connect us to God?

This weeks Torah portion contains an interesting and very Jewish way of connecting to God. The background: the Hebrews are wandering in the desert. Miriam has just died and they have run out of water (there are many good midrashim about that connection). The people come to Moshe and Aaron and are complaining bitterly of their thirst.

Numbers 20:6:

ויבא משא ואהרן מפני הקהל אל פתח אהל מועד ויפלו על פניהם וירא כבוד יקוק אלקים: וידבר יקוק אל משה לאמר

Moshe and Aaron came away from in front of the community to the tent of meeting. They fell on their faces and they feared the presence of hashem their God. And God spoke to Moshe saying...

The key phrase here is "feared the presence of hashem their God". There are several ways of understanding this phrase. Either he feared to have the presence of God enter the room, or his fear was the way he connected to God.

Moshe was going through a tough time. His sister had just died. The people he had saved from slavery with miracles and wonders were complaining bitterly that he was now going to let them die in the desert. He did not know what to do. He came to the Tent of Meeting, where he normally would go to talk to God and fell down on his face instead of just walking in. Moshe was fed up and exhausted. He wasn't sure he wanted to talk to God. He was scared of what God might require him to do.

Or maybe he was just scared. He was in the middle of the desert and midrash states that Miriam always dealt with finding water (in corporeal or mystical ways). He was scared that he really had no solution for the people's need for water. And that fear connected him to God even though he was in a place where he felt no connection to God.

God had mercy רחמים on him. He told Moshe to talk to a rock and it would produce water. It was a simple thing to do. But Moshe was so emotionally worked up that when he went to the rock, he struck it with it his staff instead of speaking to it. For this he was prevented from entering the land of Israel. Perhaps God knew that Moshe needed to turn from a crisis leader to a leader of peace, from one who can send plagues to one who can talk for his solutions, but Moshe couldn't make the transition.

When we are emotionally charged, we are full of fear. It can lock us into ourselves and prevent us seeing the world around us. Or we can engage with our fear and use it's energy to grow closer to God.

Photo courtesy of Bootload

And God arose from upon him

ויעל מעליו אלקים במקום אשר דבר אתו

And God arose from upon him[Yaakov] in the place where he talked with him

Genesis 35:13

This verse occurs at the end of a message Yaacov receives from God, and signifies the end of the message. This is a very interesting way of describing a spiritual experience and union with God. Kabbalah often talk about Ruah Hakodesh (holy wind) that descends upon people and allows them to receive information, but here we only learn about it when it ends. I think that in itself is very common. People often move into an elevated state of consciousness slowly and don't realize how high they've gone until it's over.

The Ramban writes that it was not a prophetic vision or dream alone, but that the Shekinah came to him where he stood, and put him on the path to truth. He cites Genesis 17:22 as another example of this type of experience. We must also ask if the place mentioned is a physical place or a spiritual place or a place within Yaakov?

Yaacov has a great variety of spiritual experiences. He has prophetic dreams, he gets messages directly from God, he wrestles with Angels, and, as seen in this verse, he experiences mystical union with God

The question is where is the place within you where God can connect to you? How can you make the space within yourself to invite God to descend upon you?

Healing is swimming in the Ocean

 Photo courtesy of Morberg

A patient of mine was late earlier this week. She called me to let me know she was on her way, but running about 20 minutes late. As I waited for her, I began the treatment. I sat at the head of the table and placed my hands where they would be if she were lying on the table. I pictured her in front of me and felt our energy connecting. I felt like I could "see" her whole body  I felt a strange pattern in her neck, which I'd never felt in her before. When she came in 10 minutes later, the first thing she said was that she had slept funny the night before and her neck felt stiff.

When I work on people, my main focus is creating the space in which they can heal. I am not very good at "seeing" everything that is going on in their body, but when the connections are made and the space is created, the healing happens. So it was a little surprising to me that I'd seen her neck problem before she came in.
I realized that the distance between us had allowed me to "see" her problem. Like most feelers, I instantly react to the presence of others. I feel their emotions and energies and immediately start to interact with them when I touch or am in the same space with them. I realized that seeing requires distance, which is why it's so hard for me in the treatment room.

It's the difference between standing on the cliffs and watching the ocean and swimming in the water. While on dry land, you can see the expanse of the water and hear the crash of the waves. But when you are swimming in the ocean, you can feel the cold of the deep and the motion of the waves. The healing happens when you are in the water. The connection between the healer and the patient is what bring the shechina and God into the healing, which allows it all to happen.

Why Shaman? A definition and clarification

 

Photo courtesy of Akiva

People often ask me why I use the word Shaman. The question usually follows the statement that being Jewish and being a shaman are not compatible and that shamanism is part of Avodah Zarah (Idol worship and therefore forbidden). The term shaman originally referred to tribal healers in Eastern Asia, most probably Mongolia, who definitely held beliefs and performed rituals which would have been considered avodah zarah. However, over the past 50 years as the term Shaman has become more widely used in the west, it's meaning has blurred to such an extent that it no longer really refers to those original tribesmen.

In it's vagueness, Shaman has come to denote a type of person, not a set of beliefs. A shaman is one who interacts with the spirit world. Most Shamans, but not all, use that interaction for healing. The only common belief among all shamans is that there is a physical world and there is a spirit world. The shaman is a person who can access the spirit world. There are beings that exist in the spirit world which can interact with the shaman. Lastly, changes made in the spirit realm effect the physical world so any changes done there are reflected in the physical world.

None of these are incompatible with Judaism or could be called Avodah Zarah. Judaism  believes that there is a physical world and three other worlds above that. Judaism believes that some people are able to transcend the pargod (veil) to enter the spirit world and interact with angels, demons, ghosts, and tzaddikim there (among others) or through practices in this world make contact with those beings (look up the practice of lying on graves of Tzaddikim). Jews believe that these spiritual beings can cause all sorts of blessings or problems in the physical world. Jews also believe that people in this world are capable of making changes in the spiritual realm to heal in this world. Jews commonly ask for blessings from rabbis or brides or anyone who is considered to be in a holy state and can more easily bring down blessings from God.

A shaman is a descriptor of a type of person, not a set of beliefs. That's why I see no problem with using the term Jewish Shamanism for what I do. I use Jewish means to effect changes in the spirit world for healing and that makes me a Jewish Shaman.

Removing the Evil from the decree

Again something I wrote a few months ago:

During Yom kippur services, I was struck by Unatana Tokef. The power and the words of the prayer spoke deeply to me.

The second paragraph, which begins "On Rosh Hashanna it is written..", is a fairly standard shamanic incantation. Calling on the ancestors who have died in various ways: "who will live and who will die... who by water, who by fire, who by the sword, who by a wild animal..." When I recite the prayer, I feel the souls of Jewish ancestors fill the room. It is a very powerful prayer and can be used as a calling the souls meditation.

It then outlines the goals of Jewish Shamanic Healing:

ותשובה ותפלה וצדקה מעבירין את רוע הגזרה
And repentance, prayer, and charity removes the evil of the decree

The word "decree" is generally used in kabbalistic texts to refer to judgments of heaven that effect our lives. In the context of this blog, it refers to illness. Repentance, prayer, and charity do not remove the heavenly decree, but remove the evil from it. This manifests in three ways: they heal, they change their attitude to the illness, or the change happens without illness. For some people, the person gets sick, but heals completely. For others, their attitude towards the illness changes and they no longer view it as so damaging to their lives. For others, the change or energy that causes the illness manifests in another way which is not destructive to the person. This allows them to manifest the decree without damage or illness.

People often ask me if they will heal completely from whatever is ailing them. My answer is that they need to change with the illness, and they will feel better, even if their symptoms persist. But, more often than not, their symptoms disappear as well.

Repairing the Intentionally Broken world

 R' Chayim Moshe Luzzato writes:

כלל ראשון: כוונת הבריאת

מה שנודע לנו מכוונת המאציל ב"ה בזה, הוא, כי ברצותו להטיב רצה להמציא נמצאים שיקבלו טובו. וכדי שיהיה הטוב שלם, צריך שיקבלוהו בזכות ולא בצדקה, שלא יהא הבושת פוגמו, כאוכל את שאינו שלו. וכדי שיוכלו לזכות, המציא מציאות אחד שיהיה צריך אליהם להתקן, מה שאינו צריך הוא, ובתקנם אותו – יזכו. והוא מציאות הספירות, כי הם מציאות אחד כמו מחברת צינורות, שבעמדה על תיקונה כראוי, ממשיכים השפע מן המאציל אל המתקנה. וזהו זכותו – שהקים חפץ המאציל ב"ה, שחפץ שיקבלו נמצאיו את טובו.

כללי פתחי חכמה ודעה
רמח"ל – חיים לוזאטו

What we know of the intention of the creator, blessed be he, is this: in his will to give goodness, he created the world in order for it to receive his goodness. In order for the created to receive the full measure of his goodness, they had to receive it on their own merits and not by means of charity, so shame will not blemish the receiving, like eating food that belongs to someone else. In order to be worthy, the creator created a world that needs repair, but it is not for God that we do the repair. In doing the repair, the created become worthy. The world that needs repair is the world of the sephirot. They are one system like the joints of a pipe, which, when repaired, draw down the shefa from the creator to the repaired (person). And this is what is meant by merit, that he fulfils the will of the creator, blessed be he, that desires that his creations receive his goodness.

- RaMCHaL - Moshe Chayim Luzzato - Principle Elements.

The simple interpretation of this text is that God wants to give us his goodness, but he requires our personal effort to make ourselves worthy. He created the world "broken" in order to give us the necessary challenges for us to earn the merit of his goodness. Essentially life is one big test, and if we pass, we enjoy God's goodness. If we don't do the repair, we presumably are cut off from God's bounty.

I really like that he frames the issue in terms of personal effort. It's not a gift from above or an innate talent, but our personal actions that determine our connection to God. God is always waiting there for us, but it's up to us to make ourselves worthy of the connection. In my mind, this is what Tikkunei Avon (repair of sins) are all about. When we first start to do spiritual work, the first step is to begin working on our own blockages between us and God. It's a continual process, something that we are never done with, and requires constant care and attention. This process is both internal and on our relationships in the world.

This worldview also gives us limitless possibilities. Every difficulty is an opportunity for a repair, and there certainly is no shortage of difficulties in this world. It also shows us how to have mercy on ourselves. If we come up short or miss the mark on today's repair, there will be another chance tomorrow. When the yetzer harah asks us to beat ourselves up for our failures, we just have to wait until the next test when we can try again.

One note on the translation: the word for goodness is הטיב or טוב which is accurately translated as good, but in this context, it could also mean Love. When I first read this passage, I thought that his worldview required an enormous amount of faith to believe that the world was intentionally broken just to give us an opportunity to be fix it. It means that the problems of the world are inherent in it's basic structure and can never be truly solved.

But it also means that God wants us to succeed because someone who loves us doesn't give us a challenge which is beyond our capabilities. I think my first impression was completely backwards: this worldview shows how much faith God has in us. He wants us to do the work on ourselves so that we can bring God's love into the world, which, as far as I'm concerned is the point of it all.

The soul's balloon

Occasionally when I treat people, it feels as if their soul is empty. When I reach out to connect to them spiritually, I can't feel anything. It almost feels like I'm seeing a shadow of the person: they are physically there, but spiritually it feels like there's nothing there.

I used to think that their soul had left their body for some reason. but it was rightly pointed out to me recently that if their soul wasn't present in their body, they'd be dead.

One possible explanation could be based on the Jewish idea of their being five levels to the soul. The lower soul could be present, but the upper could be missing. But my perception is not of a cup half full, but of the cup being completely empty.

In Hevruta today I came to an explanation that feels more accurate. The soul is like a balloon. There are times when it is empty and times when it is full. When it's empty, it may be barely visible and offers no resistance to our touch, but when it's full, it's clearly visible and touchable. So what fills it? The breath of God. When God created Adam, he animated him by breathing life into him.

So my experience is that the client's soul is empty, and after the treatment, if it's been a good treatment, then their soul is full of God's breath (רוח הקודש). Illness in this way of thinking is caused by an empty soul, and health by a full one.

I'm curious to hear from my readers: Does this match your experience? Does this explanation help you to heal better?

Joel 2:13 - Tearing one's heart

In Joel 2:13 it reads:

יב וְגַם-עַתָּה, נְאֻם-יְהוָה, שֻׁבוּ עָדַי, בְּכָל-לְבַבְכֶם; וּבְצוֹם וּבִבְכִי, וּבְמִסְפֵּד.	12 Yet even now, saith the LORD, turn ye unto Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with lamentation;
יג וְקִרְעוּ לְבַבְכֶם וְאַל-בִּגְדֵיכֶם, וְשׁוּבוּ אֶל-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם: כִּי-חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם, הוּא--אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם וְרַב-חֶסֶד, וְנִחָם עַל-הָרָעָה.	13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God; for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and repenteth Him of the evil.

In the midst of reading Joel, I was struck by the above passage. Joel begins with an apocalyptic vision of the destruction of Israel followed by a call to repentance, after which there will be an abundance in Israel.

Two things struck me from this passage, the first is that he asks us to rend our hearts and not our clothes. When we are doing true repentance and change, it must come from the inside, not the outside. It's no good changing our external appearance - we can fast, we can weep, we can say the right things, but only when our hearts are torn in two can we really change.

Later, we learn our rewards for change in Joel 3:1:

א וְהָיָה אַחֲרֵי-כֵן, אֶשְׁפּוֹךְ אֶת-רוּחִי עַל-כָּל-בָּשָׂר, וְנִבְּאוּ, בְּנֵיכֶם וּבְנוֹתֵיכֶם; זִקְנֵיכֶם, חֲלֹמוֹת יַחֲלֹמוּן--בַּחוּרֵיכֶם, חֶזְיֹנוֹת יִרְאוּ.	1 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions;

The result of all of this soul-searching and heart rending is prophesy and being filled with רוח הקודש (the wind/spirit of God). One could read this in reverse and learn that if one is searching for direct spiritual connection, one must start with repentance and do תשובה (Tsuvah - returning) from the heart.

In my mind, this is a very simple thought, but I think it's a very important one. It's a nice summary of the Jewish approach to building spirituality. The first step is to make oneself as pure as possible, then one is able to connect to the spirit world.

[The translations are from http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1403.htm]

The Role of Healers in the Healing

In dealing with my Yetzer haRah (see last post), I spent a lot of time thinking about the role of the healer in the healing, and particularly my role in the healing.

I often think of my treatments as creating the space for the healing to happen. My role is connecting to the patient, connecting to God, and then the healing happens. The power for the healing came from God, but I was involved as well. So how do I understand my role? And from that, how do I become a better healer?

I can interpret every treatment as completely God's work in which I am an empty vessel who simply does God's work. In this story, my role is to learn to be empty. There is no particular training needed, no need to work on healing techniques or better needle insertion. There is only one skill - being empty. Whatever path I followed to suppress my ego and become empty is all I need to keep doing to be a better healer. The danger of this path is that one can beat oneself up for having any ego at all, and so get into a rut of self-denial and self-suppression. I think there are people for whom this path works, it's just not who I am.

Another way of describing the treatment is that I can take complete credit for the treatment. I can believe that the whole treatment comes from my power, and there are no greater forces involved. My ego has complete control here. The dangers here are many. The story is all about me, and there is no room for God. This is the story of arrogance, and there is no need for growth - I did such an amazing thing, aren't I wonderful. There is no fears or tears or tensions created that would drive me forward. In this story, I am already perfect.

The challenge is finding a way to tell the story that allows me to have a sense of self, to keep growing, and to acknowledge the role of God. I think it is natural to take joy in our successes. When the harvest comes in, the farmer is joyful, but the farmer knows it is only temporary as it will be soon be time to start planting again.

I know that God played an integral part in the treatment and all the power is his, but I was there too. Is that arrogant to say? Is there a way to tell the story such that I acknowledge the work I did to enable the treatment to be successful?

The farmer knows that just scattering seeds on the soil and waiting won't bring crops to harvest. One needs to do a lot of planning, and hard work to make those plants grow. Ultimately, it's God who makes the plants grow, the rains fall, and who decides if the harvest will be successful. But that doesn't free the farmer from working very hard to create the right conditions in which the crops can succeed.

I think it works this way with healing. I have to work very hard to create the right space, to relax the patient, to place the needles in the right points, to place my hands on the right places - all that so that the healing can happen. My tension for growth is to always get better at my part of the healing. And then when I succeed and the patient gets better, then I feel joy. But like a farmer, I know the joy lasts only until my next treatment when I must begin all over again.

My teacher John once said to me that the Zen concept of not attaching to things is very important. I see it in this case: if I attach to the joy, then it prevents me from growing. If I deny the joy, I am not being honest with myself. If I feel the joy and then let it go and move on, then I can continue to plant and grow.

The story should perhaps be told in this way: A patient came in, I worked hard to create the space for the healing, and then felt joy when God connected to us and helped the client to heal. And then I moved on to the next patient.

A final note:
I wrote this post yesterday. Last night, I was reading The Wings of The Sun by Avraham Greenbaum. In the section on the rabbinic tradition (chapter 4, p. 33), he solves my dilemna by stating that God heals, but he grants the doctors power to heal as God's agents. He continues the point thus:

This latter viewpoint is vividly expressed in a midrash telling of a sick man who approached Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva as they were walking in Jerusalem one day. The sick man asked the two rabbis what he should do to be cured. They gave him a number of recommendations, upon hearing which a farmer who had been listening said to them, "You're interfering in something that's none of your business! God afflicted him with illness and you want to heal him?" "But don't you as a farmer do the same?" they replied. "God created the earth, but you have to plow, till, fertilize and weed if you want the land to yield produce. `As for man, his days are as grass' (Psalms 103:15). The human body is the tree, the medicine is the fertilizer and the physician is the tiller of the earth" (Midrash Shmuel 52a #4).

What amazed me was that my analogy of a farmer was actually a classical one. It's amaizing when things come together like that!

If you follow the link to Wings of the Sun, the entire book is available on-line. It's worth the read: http://www.azamra.org/.

Knowing when to Heal

I heard a wonderful story last night told in the name of R. Shlomo Carlibach.

A barren couple went to a famous rabbi in a neighboring village who was known as a great tzaddik. They asked the rabbi for a blessing to enable them to have children. After they had received the blessing, the rabbi's gabbai (assistant), with great confidence, told the couple that in a year they would be back to visit with a new baby.

Sure enough, a year later, word came to the rabbi that the couple had just given birth to a baby boy and requesting that the rabbi please come for the great honor of being the Sandak during the bris (the person who holds the baby while it is being circumcized).

On the day of the Bris, the rabbi and his gabbai set out for the bris. As they were traveling through a field, a storm came upon them suddenly. The rain came down in buckets and the wind was blowing fiercely, so much so that they needed to stop and take shelter. The Gabbai grew worried that they would not be able to reach the bris in time and the rabbi would not be able to fulfill this honor. So he began to pray that the rain would stop and the wind would cease.

Sure enough, soon after the gabbai started to pray, the storm stopped just as suddenly as it had come, and they were able to continue to the Bris. The Gabbai was amazed and impressed that his prayers had been answered so quickly, but the rabbi did not even acknowledge them. For the whole celebration, and on the way home, the rabbi remained stern and did not acknowledge or thank the Gabbai for what he had done.

As they arrived back in their own village, the Gabbai could bear it no longer and spoke to the rabbi, "Didn't you see what I did? Why don't you thank me for stopping the rain and wind so that we could make it to the bris?"

The rabbi looked at the Gabbai sadly and said, "Do you know why it was raining? So that the village would have enough water to grow their crops and quench their thirst. It's been a very dry year. Do you know why the wind blew so hard? There is a swarm of locusts heading this way, but the wind would have prevented them from coming and eating all the crops. Now that you stopped the rain and the wind, you have caused immeasurable harm to the village."

The story was told to me with the moral that if one doesn't understand why things are happening, then it's best not to interfere with them. This is a common theme among Jewish folktales, that something that appears bad is actually for the good, and it's just our lack of perspective that makes it appear bad. The story was told to me in the context of a discussion on healing, and knowing when to heal and when not to.

I see the gabbai's mistake as threefold: he wanted the rain to stop for the benefit of the rabbi, not the benefit of God, he did it partly to stoke his own ego (and demonstrated by his disappointment that his deed went unnoticed), and he failed to see the benefit of the rain. So what does this teach us about healing?

Always check one's motivation. What is the involvement of the healer's ego in the healing? Sometimes I find that I have a patient, who, for whatever reason, I want to impress. It could be that I hold the person in respect. It could be that I view that patient as a potential source of referrals and I know that a good treatment will benefit my business. It could be that I'm having a bad day and want to show myself what a great healer I am by making this person feel immensely better.

In those times, I try to force the situation and the flow of energy, and invariably, it's a terrible treatment. Not only am I assured of making the person feel worse, but I am assured of not getting the referrals, respect or self-flattery I was looking for. If I had been aware that I was making the treatment about my own ego and not about the patient, I would have been able to look inside myself and see that my fears had caused me to attach so strongly to the results of the treatment.

I have fears: that I'm a bad healer, that my business won't succeed, or that I will lose the respect of the patient. When I am able to change my relationship to those fears, then I am able to let go of the results and provide a good treatment.

I can't emphasize how much fear damages the connection to God. When people talk about annulment of ego, my feeling is that if one works on one's fears, then the ego loses power and slowly disappears on it's own. Trying to suppress the ego on it's own has always been a fruitless exercise for me, but after I changed my relationship to fear, the ego issues quieted on their own.

Another lesson is is to remember God's place in the healing. I am not a seer, so by the rabbi in the story's words, I should stop healing. I often have no idea why a person is sick or how that sickness fits into the world. But I know that if a client has ended up in my office, then it's my responsibility to do everything I can for them. My assumption is that if God caused our two paths to intersect, then I am supposed to work on them, but I know that I can't force things. I connect to the client and I connect to God and I see what happens. Sometimes that means interacting with, and forcing energy to change, sometimes it means creating a healing space for the client to do their work in which I have no role other than to sit there and watch. Sometimes it means that nothing happens (though that is rare at this point). But if I am connected to God then I can feel what is the best way for healing. If I'm not connected, then I risk harm.

My ultimate barometer of the treatment is how the client feels at the end. I know that there are times when he/she won't feel better or even feel a difference, but I can feel changes in them: their pulse is stronger, there energy is more present, or they are more connected to themselves. And when they come back the next week, I'll hear about the results of the treatment because the client's often take a few days to fully process the treatment.

In acupuncture school we were taught to look at barriers to healing, meaning reasons why the patient themselves does not want to heal. One of the big ones was that the patient was receiving some kind of benefit from the sickness: sympathy, lack of certain responsibilities, someone to care for them, or something similar. This has its own feel when I encounter it in the office. The patient actively resists my energy and the connection that I create between the two of us. Or they try to take control of the treatment and don't let themselves be nourished by the treatment. At this point, my response is to back off my energy as far as possible. And then just wait. When they see that I am not trying to interfere, but just to connect, their energy will reach out to me and we can connect. Or we don't.

I once had a patient with whom I tried to force a connection and force the healing while she was actively resisting it. She felt wonderful immediately after the treatment and I felt like I had really accomplished something. She left the treatment room, tripped on the stairs on her way out of the building, and called me three days later to cancel her next appointment because her ankle was really badly sprained. I didn't hear from her again.

I think that the Gabbai should have just prayed to God. His fear wanted the rain to stop, so that's what he prayed for. But a better way would have been to connect to God and then pray that they get to the bris. He gave his fear of missing the bris power, and as such, missed out on the connection to God. When his fear's prayer was answered, his ego took hold and gave him pride in what he had done. If he had felt the fear, not given it power, and then prayed for what he really wanted, he would have clearly realized that he didn't stop the rain, God did. Or he would have known that it wasn't God's will to stop the rain, and hopefully have found another way to the Bris. Or maybe he wasn't supposed to get to the Bris at all.

If one knows him or herself, and doesn't give one's fears power, then one can maintain a connection to God. Then one can know when one is truly healing.

Dealing with Prejudice

I received an disturbing email today from a list-serve of which I am a part. The list-serve is for alternative practitioners here in Israel. The email began with a blatant fallacy: The word shaman comes from the word שמן (Shemen) which means "oil" in Hebrew and refers to the practice of anointing animals with oil. My eyes just about bugged out of my head as I read through the list of basic misconceptions about shamanism and it's interaction with Judaism. The writer's conclusion was that it's too dangerous for Jews as it can lead us astray and keep us from the "real" truth.

Aside from the mystical chauvinism, which states that Jewish mysticism is better and more powerful than any other kind, and all her other misconceptions, I was most concerned with how to approach people with her attitude. My initial reaction was to correct her facts and leave it at that, but the focus of my studies is the interaction between shamanism and Judaism so I felt compelled to answer her a bit more directly. I feel that for some religious Jews, the notion of shamanism is a bit too far out, and their fundamental beliefs won't allow room for it. But for others, they are open to it, though may have issues with the word "shamanism".

Below is my response. If there is anyone out there who has more experience dealing with people like this and has pointers on how to respond to them, what presses their buttons (and how to avoid doing that), and how to get them to acknowledge that what I am searching for is a part of Jewish tradition, I would love to hear your feedback.

The etymology of the word Shaman is somewhat in dispute. It originally referred to the traditional healers of Turkic-Mongol areas such as Northern Asia (Siberia) and Mongolia; šamán being the Turkic-Tungus word for such a practitioner and meaning "he or she who knows." (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism - you can see the academic citations in the footnotes). In the course of the 60's & 70's, and particularly by Mircea Eliade's book Shamanism, it became popularized in the west.

More recently Shamanism has come to refer to many different methods of healing that make use of, and are in contact with, the spirit world (usually connected to Briyah, the second world where the angel's reside). There are some forms of shamanism which pay varying importance to animal totems or spirit guides, but they are only several among a vast array, and are usually a less important part of the practice. Practical Kabbalah would be included in this definition of shamanism.

At the root of all shamanic traditions is that the shaman connect themselves to God, by whatever name they use, and heal by means of that connection and according to God's will. This connection is the heart of all shamanic healing. Every culture has created it's own set of rituals to create and strengthen that connection. Some of which may be connected to avodah zarah. But many of which just open the veil, and then try to describe what is seen/experienced there.

Within our own tradition there are many, many example of people entering a shamanic trance and communicating with tzaddikim and angels. Lurianic kabbalism is full of techniques for entering the spiritual world and making changes there. On a recent trip to tzafat, I saw people lying down on the graves of tzaddikim to absorb their energy. I believe it was Yoseph Karo who read mishniot until he entered into a trance state at which point his maggid would descend upon him and speak through his mouth. More recent kabbalists speak of ascending into the heavenly court to annul heavenly decrees. It is in these paths, and many more, that one may explore the shamanic in Judaism.

One thing I didn't add was that I feel that cultural background influences how one experiences the spiritual world. A Catholic is going to interpret souls as saints and a Jew as Tzaddikim, but my sense is that they are dealing with the same thing. The prohibition against avodah zarah, idol worship, is very important in Judaism, so my thinking is that a Jew should probably search out the shamanic through Jewish means. That's one of the big reasons I'm searching for Jewish ways to open up and connect to the spirit world. But I also think that experiences that people have had elsewhere can help to enlighten their Jewish experiences. It's also always bothered me that people go searching elsewhere for things that exist in Judaism because they are viewed as inaccessible or non-existent. The Shamanic has always been present in Judaism, though not always completely visible.