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Setting A Place for God

A Woman's Guide to Creating Sacred Space and Inviting the Divine to Dwell Within It

Introduction

While I don't see myself as a feminist, someone recently told me I was one anyway. “You believe in equal rights for women. You argue for a strong woman's role in Jewish practice. You don't want to be relegated to the women's side of the mechitsa. You're a feminist,” he said. “

I guess you are right,” I had to admit. That said, I don't want to get on the bandwagon of equal rights for Jewish women in this book. My purpose lies instead in asking modern Jewish women to embrace a role their ancestors held for centuries before them, to take advantage of the commanded opportunity placed before them, to take hold of their rightful position and to run with it, to make it their own.

I suppose these words – and writing this book -- also makes me a feminist, although I'm sure some will say I am going against the grain of feminism, telling women to go back home where they belong. Actually, I'm not telling them not to go out and be equal, to be cantors and rabbis and lay service leaders in their Jewish communities. I'm just asking them to remember also their God-given role as creators of sacred space and bringers of the Sabbath and the Shechinah , the feminine aspect of God. I'm asking them to assume the position they were given as priestesses over their home-based Sabbath rituals.

You might be wondering who I am to speak to you about Shabbat observance, women and priestesses. So, let me introduce myself.

I don't come from a particularly religious background nor a very spiritual one. Yet, some part of me has always longed for a connection to “something more,” that illusive “thing” that seemed to be “out there” somewhere and that I felt would make me complete or at least give me a sense of belonging, of connection, of understanding. I wanted God or the Spirit of the Universe or the Universal Energy to help me figure out who I was and how I fit into this complicated world in which I lived. And I wanted to fit in – not into society but into the greater scheme of things.

I was raised as a Reform Jew, but my home was not a particularly Jewish one. The only rituals in which my family participated were the lighting of the Chanukah candles, the Passover Seder and High Holy Day services. My parents didn't speak much of God, and we never discussed spirituality or leading a spiritual life. The only Hebrew I learned was by visiting my relatives in Israel and by electing to take a year of Hebrew in college.

I grew up at the base of the Catskills Mountains in New York. Although this was only about an hour from what affectionately used to be called the “Borscht Belt,” the area of the Catskills where many Jews vacationed at fancy resorts and lakeside communities, few Jews lived in my small town. At least one Chasidic community lay just 30 minutes from my home, but we rarely saw these members of our faith. In fact, we were most aware of their presence on Friday evenings as the men hurriedly drove north from New York City to be home by sundown.

I grew up with little formal Jewish education and only a little more Jewish tradition. My mother, who was born in Czechoslovakia , fled to Israel from her homeland to escape the Nazi regime. With the exception of her immediate family, all her relatives were killed in concentration camps. After her Holocaust experience, my mother became what she calls a “naturalist,” believing more in the forces of nature than in a God who would let such bad things happen to his “chosen” people.

My mother met my father in Haifa , Israel , where he, a Russian Jew, had lived since he was three years old. Raised as an Israeli, my father was not a particularly practicing Jew, but he had a strong desire to instill in his daughters a sense of Jewish tradition.

After moving from New York City to Blooming Grove , NY , my parents joined a synagogue in Newburgh , a small city located about 20 minutes from our home. We could have joined the Monroe synagogue, which was closer and would have afforded me and my sisters a few Jewish friends in neighboring towns and schools, but my father's business was located in Newburgh, and he chose membership near his business associates. My sisters and I were enrolled in religious school, but we attended services only on holidays.

My Jewish studies were cut short not long after the death of my father, which occurred when I was only seven years old. Left alone to raise three daughters, my mother quickly learned to take the path of least resistance. So, when one of my sisters argued long and hard that she no longer wanted to attend religious school, my mother agreed to discontinue all of our Jewish studies. None of us were ever bat mitzvah, and while my mother has said that this might not have been important to my father, she asserts that if he had lived longer, he would have become more involved in the synagogue and we would have had a much stronger Jewish upbringing.

With little formal religious school training, I received most of my Jewish education when I was old enough to choose to do so on my own. I am the only one of my three sisters who learned any Hebrew. I took several trips to Israel to visit relatives and had a strong desire to speak their language. I studied with private tutors while in Israel , and then took a year of Hebrew in college. However, I used this language very little over the years and lost most of my ability to speak it or read it. I later had to relearn Hebrew reading as an adult, however, I still have little comprehension of what I read. When I returned to Israel for the first time in over 20 years during the summer of 2006, I had all but forgotten everything I knew except some essential phrases and words.

While one of my sisters refused to attend services even on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, my other sister, my mother and I did observe the major holidays. Later my eldest, sister gave up most of her Jewish practice, and my mother and I became the only “real” Jews in our immediate family.

As time went on, though, even some of the simple traditions like singing Mao Tzur after we lit the Chanukah candles became half-attempted rituals. We had forgotten the words and would end up singing the first few lines and then humming a few lines and then singing a word or two and humming our way to the end. As my mother's friends moved away or died, she gave up hosting a Passover Seder. Later, she stopped attending Erev Rosh Hashana h and Erev Yom Kippur services, because she couldn't see well enough at night to drive herself to the synagogue. In addition, my father died on Erev Rosh Hashanah, creating an unhappy memory around this holiday. Thus, I became the most practicing Jew in my family.

During grade school, there were only two Jewish families in the local school system. I was close friends with the two brothers in the other family, although they were not in the least religious. After graduation I entered Syracuse University and found myself part of a large Jewish student body.

In this environment my Jewish identity flourished. While I was not a member of the Jewish sorority, I did become a “little sister” at a primarily Jewish fraternity house. I later became the editor of the Hillel newspaper on campus and even attempted to go to Shabbat services with a friend or two on Friday nights. As you might well imagine, this did not last long. The call of Friday night happy hour was much stronger at that time of my life than the call to prayer.

After graduation, I attended High Holy Day services wherever I could, and I took part in seders at local congregation, but that was the extent of my Jewish practice.

During that time I actively sought out Jewish men to date. I didn't have much luck finding Jewish men on my own, although a friend of mine tried her hand at matchmaking albeit unsuccessfully. I was so determined to find a Jewish mate that I began answering personal ads in a New York Magazine . I met a few nice men, but nothing clicked. With great disappointment I admitted to myself that I must be destined to marry a goy and resigned myself to that very real possibility.

I must note that, despite my desire to marry someone Jewish, I was not attracted to Judaism on a deep level at that time. Nothing really drew me to my religion other than the fact that I was born a Jew. I believed it would be easier to marry someone of the same religion and with the same religious heritage, and I wanted to hand this heritage down to my children, although I'm not sure at this time why that was.

When I accepted a job offer in Oklahoma , I definitely limited the possibilities of ever meeting my Jewish bashert , or soul mate, not to mention getting involved in anything Jewish. It is not surprising, then, that I met there the man that would later become my husband – and not only was he not Jewish, he had been raised a Southern Baptist.

Although our religious backgrounds were extremely different, we shared a strong desire to find “something more” in our lives. We wanted a spiritual practice that would help us not only understand the Divine Presence but connect with God on a personal level as well. This desire led us to study metaphysics, mystical traditions and spirituality. We delved into New Age, Human Potential and New Thought workshops and courses. We tried meditating and fire walks and chanting in Hindu. We listened to inspirational sermons, attended retreats at ashrams and tried achieving altered states of consciousness. While many of these practices proved beneficial and we believed much of what we learned about the nature of God, these paths and practices by themselves did not give either of us a pervading sense of being close to God. Something was still missing.

During this time, we began attending Unity Church in Marietta , Georgia , where were then living. While non-sectarian in nature and highly inspirational, we both felt that the services did not quite meet our spiritual needs. I must admit that I also had a bit of a problem with attending “church.” However, we continued on this route until about six months after my first child was born.

As with many people, the arrival of a child brought to the forefront of our thoughts the issue of how we would raise our children. Would they be Jewish or “nothing” or some odd metaphysical church “something” no one had ever heard of? We decided that Unity Church was not the environment into which we wanted to bring them, nor were some of the other religious or spiritual paths we had tried. At the time, these seemed to “out there” and we wanted our children to feel included and welcomed not like outsiders or those ostracized because of their parent's odd beliefs and religious or spiritual practices.

After a discussion about our interests and beliefs, we both decided we felt most comfortable in a synagogue. For me, returning to Judaism was, in a sense, returning home. I felt a bit like a boomerang or a homing pigeon returning to its point of origin after a long flight in the opposite direction. For my husband, it was a new religious start, but he liked Judaism's lack of “fire and brimstone” and its minimal dogma compared to many other religious organizations. He felt that being a good person, a mensh , was the largest message he got from Judaism, and he could live with that.

At this point in our lives, my husband and I knew next to nothing about the mystical Jewish tradition. Our knowledge was limited simply to the fact that a mystical tradition, called Kabbalah , existed in Judaism and that it closely paralleled some of the New Age and metaphysical thought we had come to believe. Suffice it to say that this knowledge alone served as enough reason to make us feel more comfortable with a return to traditional religion. However, we committed ourselves to learning more about Kabbalah.

We did a little temple shopping and soon settled on a small and fairly new congregation in a nearby town. At that time we were living in Alpharetta , GA , a suburb of Atlanta . While Atlanta has a considerable Jewish population, the area in which we lived did not. In fact, it was surprising to find that our small neighborhood had three Jewish families, and we all belonged to the same synagogue.

It was as members of this first synagogue that I really began to live a Jewish life and to think seriously about connecting with the God of my religion. I had searched for God and for a sense of the spirituality in my life in all sorts of places. I had not found the Divine or that connection anywhere. All I knew was that I had some strong metaphysical and spiritual beliefs, and I wanted to bring my children up not only with those beliefs and ways of looking at the world but also with a strong religious education and a connection with God. The latter I also wanted for myself.

Knowing what I wanted did not, at the time, translate into knowing how to get it. However, you must know what you want first, and then your desire will lead you to the means for achieving it.

I must give my husband some credit for my at that time new religious observance. As a former Baptist, he was used to going to church two or three times a week and attending religious school and bible study classes. My new Jew-by-Choice husband – not converted, mind you – asked me one day, “Now that we are Jewish, what do we do?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “We are Reform Jews. We celebrate the High Holy Days, Passover and Chanukah, but that's about it.”

“That doesn't do it for me,” he said. “There must be something else that we do. I won't feel Jewish if we don't do anything.”

I thought about this for a few moments, and then said, “Well, we could observe Shabbat on a regular basis and go to services.” Thus, we became what I then called “practicing Jews.”

I quickly involved myself in the “doing” of Judaism – celebrating holidays, sending my daughter, who was then three years old, to religious school and observing Shabbat weekly either at home with candle lighting, blessings and dinner or by attending a Friday evening, or Kabbalat Shabbat, service at our small synagogue, which had a included a Torah service in their Friday night services, which were held every other week in a church.

It wasn't long, however, before I realized that the doing wasn't enough for me. I needed “something more,” which in this case meant meaning and a sense that what I was doing was spiritual in some sense – that it might make me feel more connected not only to Jews past and present but to God, in whatever form that Divine Spirit actual took. I wanted a spiritual experience.

I began to study. I began to practice other Jewish observances. I began to experiment. Out of that came seven simple steps that have helped me put meaning and spirit into almost any ritual or prayer I have taken upon myself to “do.” And if I really focus upon these steps and perform them to the best of my ability, I make my Sabbath and holiday rituals and prayers meaning-full and spirit-full. And, the result has been at my least committed a sustained Shabbat practice and at my most committed a daily spiritual practice and observance of major and minor Jewish holidays.

In the last few years, I've realized that these steps accomplish something else as well: They create sacred space. And when I go through these steps, I am serving as a kohenet , or priestess, make my home into a sanctuary and then presiding over the home-based service that welcomes the Sabbath into the home, the Shechinah , the Indwelling Feminine Presence of God.

While I suppose I could be the only Jew who has ever “gone through the motions” of religious observance and felt them devoid of meaning, sacredness, spirituality, or closeness to God, I believe I am not alone. If I were, there wouldn't be so many Jews pursuing a multitude of spiritual paths outside their religions of birth nor would there be so many books available on spirituality. Neither do I believe I am the only Jewish woman to look outside her religion of birth for “something more.” Many women have felt unwelcome, less-than, in this traditionally male-oriented religion. While its orientation has changed a good bit, sometimes the history and the still primarily-seen-as male God of Judaism has turned women off and away.

Yet, while both men and women were commanded to light the Shabbat candles, the honor of doing so became the woman's. And that one action ushers in the Sabbath, unifies the male and female aspects of God, brings the extra souls we are given on this sacred day, invites the Shechina into our homes. This is the woman's job. Knowing this lends a whole different feeling to the action of simply lighting two candles. At least for me, this knowledge has deepened my experience of Shabbat, making my Friday night preparations, rituals and prayers all the more meaningful and spiritual.

In a traditional Jewish household, it is the women who create a space for the sacred to enter in the form of Shabbat. They clean and cook and set the table. They make the home into mishkhan , a sanctuary, and the table into a misbeach, a small altar. And then, when the sun has almost disappeared behind the horizon, they light the candles that symbolize the two commandments to remember and to observe the Sabbath and whose flames rise up to God like fingers trying to pull the Divine down into the home, and they say the blessing that welcomes the arrival of the Sabbath. This also marks the arrival of the Divine herself. The Jewish mystics, or Kabbalists, believed that on Shabbat the Shechinah , the indwelling presence of God or the aspect of female aspect of God that manifests itself her on the earth plane, comes to dwell with us. In fact, some say she becomes embodied in women as they light the Shabbat candles. So, with an influx of feminine energy, Shabbat, the sanctuary in time, begins, and that same energy runs through the whole 25-hour period.

While my commitment to observing and remembering – the two commandments in the Torah that relate to this weekly holiday – the Sabbath has never wavered since I began celebrating it 14 years ago, my ability to follow through on this commitment at different times has – as has my ability to celebrate it in what I call a “meaning-full” and “spirit-full” way.

The fact of the matter is this: I, like most people, live in an overly busy, constantly doing secular world that doesn't make time for the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday. I don't say this with any anger, judgment or accusation. I am simply stating a fact. That said, sometimes Sundays are as busy as Saturdays and leave little time for any kind of “time out for God.” Especially if you have children who are of an age when they are involved in activities, weekends – in particular Saturdays – can be extremely busy with soccer games, dance classes and such.

Yet, it is exactly because we are so busy that we must create for ourselves what Abraham Joshua Heshel, author of The Sabbath , called “a sanctuary in time.” Not only do we need the rest and relaxation of a day off from our constant doing, be that work, driving children, running errands, or whatever, we need a chance to get centered, realigned, grounded. In our constant rush and busyness, we more often than not lose sight of anything other than the job at hand – meeting a deadline, getting somewhere on time. Thus, we lose sight of the greater meaning in our lives and of our connection to God and how this Divine Energy works in the world. Sanctuaries in time – time outs from life, if you will – give us a chance to connect with ourselves, to connect with God, and to remember what “sacred” feels, tastes, looks, sounds, smells like.

The Jewish tradition has a wonderful conclusion to the Sabbath. At the end of Shabbat, a Havdallah , or “separation,” ceremony is conducted for the purpose of bidding the Sabbath farewell and of remembering the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the profane and the sacred. And that is what Shabbat about – remembering what sacred is, remember God, remember our soul and it's connection to something larger than us, remembering that there is more to this existence than simply doing and doing in a hurry.

For women, Shabbat represents a phenomenally deep spiritual practice. When we become Kohenet on Friday night and usher in the Sabbath in a sacred space we created and perform our mitzvot , our commandment, in a meaning-full and spirit-full way, we allow ourselves and those who share in this ritual with us to feel God's presence tangibly in the room with us. We create a space within which the Divine can dwell, invite the Divine Presence into our experience and then enjoy living in God's company for a time. And when we do this each week, we can begin to bring the Divine energy into our homes more often, thus making our homes be sanctuaries not only on Friday nights but at any time we don our kohenet “robes” – an imaginary coat of many colors – and preside over that space.

I am writing this book with the hope that by sharing my journey and what I found on my search for “something more” in my religious and spiritual practice – the steps I discovered, that you, the reader, will find greater meaning and spiritual fulfillment in your own religious practice. Although my experience and most of the examples I use are based on Jewish rituals, the rituals of any other religion or spiritual practice can be made more spiritual through use of the steps presented in this book.

Don't be misled by the seeming simplicity of these techniques. As you begin using them you will find accomplishing them requires more effort than you might have first thought.

However, I admit the principles are simple. So simple, in fact, they have been overlooked. Throughout my search for meaning and spirituality, in all the books I've read and classes I've taken on these subjects, the techniques described in this book were never discussed. Maybe the authors and teachers assumed the readers and participants would know to take these steps. Maybe they were inferred in dissertations or in exercises. But they were never taught – at least not to me.

You might still be asking who am I to advise you on how to make your Sabbath observance, or your life for that matter, meaningful and spiritual? Who am I to tell you how to create sacred space?

Who am I to encourage you to become a priestess in your home? I am not a rabbi or a priest, nor am I a college professor or a religious scholar. However, like you, I am a seeker on the spiritual path, a spark wanting to reunite with the flame, a soul wanting to reconnect with the Divine, a simple person wanting to feel God's presence in my observance of traditional religious rituals and in my daily life. I am a woman wanting to light the Sabbath candles and recite the blessing with the kavanah , the intention, he ability to invite the Divine Presence into my home and into my life. Through my own studies, through my own searching, I found a method that moved me closer to the Divine connection I sought, even if only once a week during my Sabbath observance. By assuming my traditional role as a Jewish woman, by focusing my spiritual practice on Sabbath observance, by allowing myself to be a kohenet, I have found a way to be a spiritual leader in creative personal and communal ways. Who am I to offer you words of so-called wisdom? I am the soul sitting next to you in church or synagogue. I am the body beside you at the inspirational lecture, the meditation workshop, the spiritual retreat, the Torah or bible study class. I am one woman standing before the Shabbat candles, hands over my eyes chanting an age-old prayer. And I am the person who wants to share how I have successfully invited the Divine presence into my life.

May each of you find some bit of truth or some practice in this book that helps you welcome the Divine Presence into your life each week and that helps you connect your spark of Divinity to its Source.

B'Shalom v'brochot (With peace and blessings), Nina Amir

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Read Chapter 1