Part 12 (1/2)

The Dalai Lama wondered if the neophyte kabbalist is tested as a monk is before entering the monastery. Jonathan replied that very often there was a pus.h.i.+ng away. His own teacher told him, ”not now, come back next year.” The Buddhist leader asked about limits on the numbers of students. ”Like we say, you cannot teach more than ten.” Jonathan answered, ”There used to be limits. Now we welcome anybody, there are so few. There are empty seats in the academies” in part because of the Holocaust. Rabbi Greenberg explained that we lost 30 percent of the Jewish people during the war, but more than 80 percent of the scholars, mystics, and teachers who could pa.s.s on ancient traditions.

The Dalai Lama asked about the qualities necessary for the student to be initiated into the teaching. Rabbi Omer-Man answered that ”some very old esoteric schools look at the lines on the forehead...but normally it is at the discretion of the teacher.” Although ”there used to be a law that you had to study the first three levels of Torah first”-that is, pshat, remez pshat, remez and and drash drash-”in fact, some of the greatest kabbalists did not know the first three levels.”

Jonathan Omer-Man mentioned another qualification: the student must be married. ”There is a lot of discussion of s.e.xuality and s.e.xual energy in the meditations,” he explained, ”and we say this is only appropriate for someone whose blood is not boiling.”

The Dalai Lama was curious. ”When you relate this esoteric teaching and focus on the relations.h.i.+p with s.e.xual energy,” he asked, ”do you lay emphasis on the importance of the channels and drops?” He was alluding to concepts from traditional Tibetan physiology that are used in meditation. We would learn more about the channels and drops as the dialogue continued.

Rabbi Omer-Man answered softly, ”I cannot open that door.” But he stated that ”there is most definitely an attempt to connect the inner tree of life with the outer tree of life in order to find a better balance within, and by so doing, align ourselves with the tree of life that is beyond.”

In his answer, Rabbi Omer-Man alluded to an a.n.a.logous kabbalistic physiology, in which the sefirot sefirot are mapped onto body parts. The array of are mapped onto body parts. The array of sefirot sefirot is visualized as a tree. is visualized as a tree.

Moshe Waldoks had already explained the traditional Jewish image of the Torah as a tree of life. This derives from Proverbs 3:18 where the reference is to wisdom. Wisdom ”is a tree of life to them that hold fast to it and its supporters are happy.” In kabbalah, the tree is turned upside down. The cosmic tree grows with its roots in heaven, and spreads out through its sefirot sefirot into trunk, and main branches. The tree is an array of the ten into trunk, and main branches. The tree is an array of the ten sefirot sefirot, each sefirah sefirah being an aspect of the infinite. (The etymology of being an aspect of the infinite. (The etymology of sefirah sefirah is the Hebrew for sapphire and suggests the glow of supernal light.) is the Hebrew for sapphire and suggests the glow of supernal light.) But in addition to this picture, as the scholar Gershom Scholem notes, ”we have the more common image of the sefirot sefirot in the form of a man.” (The tree is turned right side up again!) The kabbalists interpreted the phrase that G.o.d created man in his own image to mean that the human body is a cosmic map of divine energies, much in the spirit of John Donne's poem ”I am a little world made cunningly.” in the form of a man.” (The tree is turned right side up again!) The kabbalists interpreted the phrase that G.o.d created man in his own image to mean that the human body is a cosmic map of divine energies, much in the spirit of John Donne's poem ”I am a little world made cunningly.”

In the interior tree, the ten sefirot sefirot are arranged and mapped out on the body. ”The first are arranged and mapped out on the body. ”The first sefirot sefirot represent the head, and in the represent the head, and in the Zohar Zohar, the three cavities of the brain; the fourth and the fifth, the arms, the sixth, the torso, the seventh and eighth, the legs, the ninth the s.e.xual organ, and the tenth refers either to the all-embracing totality of the image or...to the female as companion to the male, since both together are needed to const.i.tute a perfect man” (Scholem, Kabbalah Kabbalah, pp. 106-7).

The mapping is quite complex, and the whole system as used in Jewish meditation and prayer exceedingly difficult. That alone could account for Rabbi Omer-Man's reluctance to take the discussion of s.e.xual energies much further. There were other reasons he would reveal to me later.

After Jonathan's demurral, Rabbi Zalman Schachter offered a few more specifics, based on Hasidic prayer. He showed how the body parts corresponded to various sefirot sefirot, as well as to vowel sounds that the pract.i.tioner would take a breath through. For instance, ”the right hand represents generosity and the sound of 'ehh' is connected to that.” Similarly, the heart is represented by a long o o, and the sefirah sefirah of of tiferet tiferet, or beauty, resides there. This whole meditation, combining breathing and visualization, ”was suggested by the Zohar Zohar and worked into the prayer book by Rabbi Yitzhak Luria. It is not p.r.o.nounced with the mouth; it is heard on the inside and the body goes with it.” and worked into the prayer book by Rabbi Yitzhak Luria. It is not p.r.o.nounced with the mouth; it is heard on the inside and the body goes with it.”

He explained a second system, which he believed close to tantra, in which each month and letter of the alphabet is a.s.sociated with eyes, ears, and inner organs ”so that in the twelve months of the year each of the organs is purified.”

All the energies of the body are enlisted in the service of this meditation, including s.e.xual. But like Jonathan, Zalman appeared cautious about opening this door. However, the Buddhist master apparently had heard enough to come to a conclusion, for after intently following the details of Zalman's explanation, he leaned back and shook his head with amazement, smiling. He spoke rapidly in Tibetan to Laktor, who reported back his comment, ”It's interesting to find that there are very striking similarities.”

These similarities soon became even more apparent. While tea was served, Michael Sautman introduced Charles Halpern from the Nathan c.u.mmings Foundation. Halpern asked the Dalai Lama to ”share with us the Buddhist approach to esoteric practices.”

Over a hot cup of tea, the Buddhist master explained that through tantric meditation one learned ”how to actualize concentration.”

”One important method is to bring the twin practice of method and wisdom together, or the integration of the practice of method and wisdom. For that it is important to block the ordinary appearances as we are.

”First you visualize that everything is dissolving into the nature of emptiness and from that emptiness you visualize a purified state of existence, like a purified deity. And then you focus on that purity and see that deity as having a level of inherent existence. In other words, through that visualization you bring the practice of method and wisdom together.”

In Jewish thought, wisdom is equated with Torah. In Buddha tantra, wisdom is defined as a consciousness that realizes emptiness, or the lack of inherent existence of every phenomena. Uniting method and wisdom means generating a mind that, as scholar Daniel Cozort explains, ”realizes emptiness at the same time it compa.s.sionately appears as a deity.” To one unfamiliar with tantra, it sounds like doing a handstand with no hands. The Buddhists, however, use even more daring imagery-s.e.xual union.

That was the significance of the yabyum statuette I'd glimpsed in the Drepung Temple during our visit to the oracle. In tantric meditation, wisdom is the female figure and method the male. We did not go into specifics, but Professor Robert Thurman-a scholar and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts who sat in on this session as an auxiliary translator and observer-told us, ”You employ the energies of the body when the mind is in meditation. You empower the meditations of the mind to mobilize the energies of the body.” The Dalai Lama added-probably enigmatically for most of his Jewish listeners-”With respect to that we do meditation on the channels, winds, and drops.”

As scholar Daniel Cozort has written, these winds or vital energies ”cause all movement by and within the body. The winds move in a system of 72,000 subtle 'channels.' The white and red drops are the pure essence of the essential fluids of the male and female, having evolved from the original white drop of the father and red drop of the mother that combined to become the original physical basis for the human body at the time of conception.” The white and red drops are found everywhere in human bodies, ”where they coat the inside of the channels 'like frost.'” Tantric meditation melts these drops, thereby releasing the energies of winds dissolved in them. It then controls and directs the movement of winds into various channels of the body. Coa.r.s.e and subtle winds correspond to different levels of consciousness.

The Dalai Lama told us, ”We divide consciousness, or inner energy, into three levels. Grosser level, more subtle level, innermost subtle level, or subtle state. Now to utilize the innermost subtle consciousness or subtle energy, the first two levels of consciousness energy should be reduced, should cease.” Because in ordinary life, too much energy comes from sense organs and mental consciousness, ”the subtle consciousness remains inactive and very weak.” For ordinary people, subtle consciousness is only apprehended at the moment of death. But in tantric meditation, the activities or energy of the grosser levels are reduced, ”then,” the Dalai Lama explained, ”subtle consciousness becomes more active. For this to occur, we first should control the sense faculty. So the power of the external sense faculties can be brought down or reduced through visualizing or meditating on the seven important physical points, like channels and drops.” Robert Thurman added, ”especially on the red and white elements inside the body. By bringing them up, that brings the sense down.”

Moshe Waldoks thought this practice sounded ”like sublimation.” Zalman Schachter quoted a relevant pa.s.sage in the Talmud. ”It says the mother gives the red, the father gives the white, but G.o.d gives the sight to the eyes, the hearing to the ears.”

I suppose before coming to Dharamsala, I might have dismissed the whole business of drops, channels, and winds as nonsense, mishegos mishegos. But I was beginning to see that this was highly useful mishegos mishegos. There was no doubt in my mind that the Dalai Lama and many of the other pract.i.tioners had a very clear understanding of the subtle levels of consciousness. I now saw this elaborate physiology as a way of guiding thought-a steering mechanism. It allowed the meditator to get past the b.u.mps in the road, the distractions to concentrated thought. And one of the biggest b.u.mps was l.u.s.t.

Tibetan Buddhist tantra was largely derived from Hindu tantric texts and practices. (”Tantra” is the name for both the philosophy and its texts; at root the word means web.) Though some deny it, Hindu tantra was a frankly s.e.xual yoga, according to the Buddhist scholar David Snellgrove, with its texts written in ”outspoken and deliberately scandalous language and in the unorthodox terminology which one might well expect of wandering tantric yogins, who claim to have no allegiance anywhere except to their own revered teacher.” It was a different matter when they came over into Buddhism. According to Snellgrove, it was possible for the tantric texts to be ”accepted into the mainstream of the Indian Buddhist tradition by interpreting them [tantras] in accordance with the theory of enigmatic meanings. This is what the commentators set out to do.” He gives as an example the Guhyasamaja Tantra Guhyasamaja Tantra. Its literal interpretation was still a cause of anxiety some two centuries after its introduction to Tibet, as shown by the ordinance of eleventh-century King Yeshesod of western Tibet: As retribution for indulging your l.u.s.t in your so-called ritual embrace Alas! You will surely be born as a uterine worm You wors.h.i.+p the Three Jewels with flesh, blood and urine. In ignorance of enigmatic terminology you perform the rite literally Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Dalai Lama's gelukpa gelukpa sect, wrote that only those on lower stages of the tantric path would require an actual consort, known as a ”knowledge woman” to practice deity yoga, whereas those further along could achieve the same ends, a union of bliss and emptiness, purely through the power of meditation. sect, wrote that only those on lower stages of the tantric path would require an actual consort, known as a ”knowledge woman” to practice deity yoga, whereas those further along could achieve the same ends, a union of bliss and emptiness, purely through the power of meditation.

Certainly, as the Buddhist leader explained his practices to the Jewish group, tantric yoga is sublimely psychological. A visualization of the s.e.xual union of deities generates subtle states of consciousness. In the gelukpa gelukpa sect, the practice, as the sect, the practice, as the geshe geshes had explained to some of us Sat.u.r.day night, was reserved for those who were extremely well schooled in Buddhist philosophy and dialectics, and only after many years of training. (This may be why Zalman Schachter's suggestion to the geshe geshes to speed up the training might not be well received.) On the other hand, the meditation was not simply a fantasy, because at the highest level, one simultaneously believed in the deities invoked and recognized them as empty. Snellgrove writes, ”It would be useless to invoke any form of divinity, higher or lower, without believing in such a being. The pract.i.tioner is certainly taught that the divine forms are also emanations of his own mind, but they are not arbitrary imaginings and they are far more real than his own transitory personality, which is a mere flow of nonsubstantial elements. In learning to produce mentally such higher forms of emanation and eventually identifying himself with them, the pract.i.tioner gradually transforms his evanescent personality into that higher state of being.”

As the Dalai Lama told us, the goal is clarity. The noise coming out of the sense organs has to be quieted, including the powerful s.e.xual impulses. In the puritanical religions, this is done through suppression, denial, hatred of the body. As D. H. Lawrence defined it memorably, religion is bad s.e.x. The daring of Buddhist tantra is to work with the energy, rather than suppressing, denying, or opposing it.

Constraints of time did not allow the discussions to go much further or into greater detail, but enough similarities between tantra and kabbalah had been noted to make it seem worthwhile to continue the comparisons, perhaps in smaller and more intimate working groups.

The whole issue of what to do with s.e.xual energy, or how to accommodate it in religious contexts, goes to the core of life today. The highly moralistic and rigid approaches of some religious denominations to s.e.xuality has led to schizophrenia and denial. In his discussions with the geshe geshes, Zalman Schachter had touched on the Hasidic approach of the Baal Shem Tov and his doctrine of ”strange thoughts”-namely, that even thoughts of l.u.s.t come to the mind begging to be raised up. This is probably something Jimmy Swaggart has never thought of. And reflecting on the Dalai Lama's explanation that the whole purpose of tantric meditation was to ”actualize concentration,” I thought again of how distracting our culture's obsession with s.e.xuality is, and how dealing effectively with such energy is crucial in having a spiritual life. (This was also true in the time of the Baal Shem Tov, when in order to continue their studies, the best students had to put off marriage.) So I delighted to discover that in both kabbalah and tantra there are attempts to recognize the whole human being and all of our impulses, lovely and unlovely, body and soul.

Within Tibetan Buddhism there are various att.i.tudes toward tantric practice. The gelukpa gelukpa sect is the most highly philosophical and scholarly of the Tibetan Buddhist lineages and gives tantric teachings a strong intellectual framework. In this sense, the sect is the most highly philosophical and scholarly of the Tibetan Buddhist lineages and gives tantric teachings a strong intellectual framework. In this sense, the gelukpa gelukpas resembled the rabbis who also carefully embedded mysticism within a rational framework. Thus the conversation about strictures with Jonathan had a certain resonance. Likewise, the Chabad Lubavitch were the gelukpa gelukpas of the Hasidim, the most philosophical and intellectual of the Hasidic sects.

We did not discuss in Dharamsala what might be called Jewish tantra. But, in an utterly different context-the marriage bed-Jewish mysticism also teaches certain techniques for raising s.e.xual energy to celestial realms. The very first written description of Jewish meditation is found in a marriage manual, The Holy Letter The Holy Letter, attributed to the kabbalist Joseph Gikatilla.

As described in Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's Jewish Meditation Jewish Meditation, the partners meditate throughout the s.e.xual act, becoming ”aware of the spark of the Divine in the pleasure itself and elevat[ing] it to its source.” According to a contemporary Hasidic description by Yitzhak Buxbaum in Jewish Spiritual Practices Jewish Spiritual Practices, ”The Zohar Zohar teaches that when man and woman in s.e.x are both directed to the Divine presence ( teaches that when man and woman in s.e.x are both directed to the Divine presence (Shekhinah), the Divine Presence rests on their bed.... [It is taught that] a man should make his house a Temple and his bedroom a Holy of Holies.”

In Jewish mystical thought, then, there is a sacralization of the erotic and an eroticization of the sacred. But this mixture of the erotic and the holy, though very salient in kabbalah, is highly suppressed in mainstream Judaism. It emerges, rather, in hidden forms, such as the Shabbat hymn ”Lekha Dodi”-”Welcome to the Bride.” Samuel Alkabez wrote it in sixteenth-century Safed, under the influence of the great kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria. At one time in Safed, the men would dress in white and await the Shabbat bride as night fell, greeting her with ”Lekha Dodi.” For Isaac Luria and his followers, this amounted to a ”visualization” of the Shekhinah Shekhinah arriving like a mother with a troupe of Shabbat souls. arriving like a mother with a troupe of Shabbat souls.

In fact, as expounded in kabbalistic texts such as Sod Ha-Shabbat Sod Ha-Shabbat (Secret of the Sabbath), the entire mystical Shabbat was organized in antic.i.p.ation of the s.e.xual union between husband and wife, timed to coincide with a celestial coupling, the ”union of the Bride with Her Beloved.” The physical union would produce a new body and the celestial union a new soul. ”During the six days of the week (Secret of the Sabbath), the entire mystical Shabbat was organized in antic.i.p.ation of the s.e.xual union between husband and wife, timed to coincide with a celestial coupling, the ”union of the Bride with Her Beloved.” The physical union would produce a new body and the celestial union a new soul. ”During the six days of the week Shekhinah Shekhinah is a folded rose, but on Shabbat and holy days, She opens to receive fragrance and spices [from Her husband] and to give souls and joy to Her children....” is a folded rose, but on Shabbat and holy days, She opens to receive fragrance and spices [from Her husband] and to give souls and joy to Her children....”

”This discovery of a feminine element in G.o.d,” Gershom Scholem notes, ”is of course one of the most significant steps they took. Often regarded with the utmost misgiving by strictly Rabbinical, non-Kabbalistic Jews, this mythical conception of the feminine principle of the Shekhinah Shekhinah as a providential guide of Creation achieved enormous popularity among the ma.s.ses of the Jewish people, so showing that here the Kabbalists had uncovered one of the primordial religious impulses still latent in Judaism.” as a providential guide of Creation achieved enormous popularity among the ma.s.ses of the Jewish people, so showing that here the Kabbalists had uncovered one of the primordial religious impulses still latent in Judaism.”

In Hasidic prayer, attention is constantly directed toward the union of the heart sefirah sefirah ( (Tiferet) with the Shekhinah Shekhinah ( (Malkhut), also visualized as the union of Yod He Yod He and and Vov He Vov He in the name of G.o.d. According to Gershom Scholem, ”The Kabbalists held that every religious act should be accompanied by the formula: this is done 'for the sake of the reunion of G.o.d and His in the name of G.o.d. According to Gershom Scholem, ”The Kabbalists held that every religious act should be accompanied by the formula: this is done 'for the sake of the reunion of G.o.d and His Shekhinah Shekhinah.' And indeed, under Kabbalistic influence, this formula was employed in all subsequent liturgical texts and books of later Judaism, down to the nineteenth century, when rationalistic Jews, horrified at a conception they no longer understood, deleted it from the prayer books destined for the use of Westernized minds.”

In general, Scholem explains, the kabbalists aimed at ”the transformation of essentially profane acts into ritual,” especially eating and s.e.xual activity. ”These acts are closely bound up with the sacral sphere.” At one point in the discussion, Jonathan Omer-Man described a group of kabbalists in Jerusalem who spent six hours a day just on morning prayers and hours reciting blessings over every activity. He used this example to suggest that to the Jewish mystic, every act, no matter how mundane, was part of an ongoing meditation.

In the same vein, Scholem cites the story of the patriarch Enoch, ”who according to an old tradition was taken from the earth by G.o.d and transformed into the angel Metatron” and ”was said to have been a cobbler. At every st.i.tch of his awl he not only joined the upper leather with the sole, but all upper things with all lower things.... He accompanied his work at every step with meditations which drew the stream of emanation down from the upper to the lower (so transforming profane action into ritual action) until he himself was transfigured from the earthly Enoch into the transcendent Metatron who had been the object of his meditations.” Scholem points out ”that a very similar legend is to be found in a Tibetan tantric text, the 'Tales of the Eighty-Four Magicians' (translated by A. Grunwedel in Ba.s.sler-Archiv, V, [1916]) Here...the guru guru Camara (which means shoemaker) receives instruction from a yogi concerning the leather, the awl, the thread, and the shoe.... For twelve years he meditates day and night over this Camara (which means shoemaker) receives instruction from a yogi concerning the leather, the awl, the thread, and the shoe.... For twelve years he meditates day and night over this shoemaking, until he attains perfect enlightenment and is borne aloft” (Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism).

Clearly, then, even down to legends, there are ”striking similarities” between kabbalah and tantra, as the Dalai Lama exclaimed.

Strikingly similar too is the meditation on complex body maps that align physical and spiritual energies. Both systems work past the famous contradiction in the West between the mind and the body. Ever since Descartes Westerners have been stuck with a soul in a machine, a disembodied body seen as a purely spiritless mechanical construction.

Yet our everyday language teaches us differently. The mechanical body of science, with its circulatory systems for blood lymph, its nervous systems, skeleton, and organs, is rarely the body we ”have in mind.” Rather, we construct our own mental map, our own imaginal body: emotions in the heart, hunger in the stomach, l.u.s.t in the genitals, thought in the brain. To that picture we add our own overlay-a private map of our feelings and fantasies. Perhaps that is why a look in the mirror always brings a slight shock.

The subtle physiology of tantra can be seen as a highly elaborate and systematic development of the imaginal body. The tantric pract.i.tioner visualizes a very complex and elaborate physiology of seventy-two thousand channels, as well as winds and drops. What's fascinating is how this ”subtle physiology” creates a workable interface between the mind and the body that allows for an extraordinary control of autonomic systems.

Many in the West are familiar with biofeedback, which has been used successfully to gain control of blood pressure and heart rate. Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School, a leading researcher on using meditation to lower stress for heart attack patients, came to Dharamsala in February 1981 to study tantric pract.i.tioners, longtime solitary monks who practice ”inner heat,” or Tum-mo Tum-mo, meditation. It is said that the monks are able to sit all night meditating in the snow without ill effect. Dr. Benson was able to doc.u.ment, using electronic measures, that the monks were capable of raising the temperature of their extremities up to 8.3 degrees centigrade, an extraordinary feat.

In Dharamsala, the rabbis could not provide a detailed explanation of the use of the interior tree in kabbalistic meditation that would permit a fuller comparison to tantra. But the leading scholar of kabbalah today, Moshe Idel, speculates that precisely here kabbalah, by way of Sufism, was ”infiltrated” by Hindu concepts. He sees a marked resemblance between Hindu mandalas and the kabbalistic inner tree, or body maps. Since Buddhist tantra is also derived from Hindu texts and teachings, there may even be a point of common origin for both esoteric systems.

Supposing that is true, still the same concepts would have encountered very different environments and therefore manifested in very different ways. Tantrayana is practiced in both householder and celibate contexts within Tibetan Buddhism. Marpa, a great eleventhcentury teacher and guru of the kagyu kagyu lineage, was married, and his student, the poet and saint Milarepa, had many consorts. Up through 1959, many of the great Tibetan tantric pract.i.tioners or yogins were householders, and some were women. lineage, was married, and his student, the poet and saint Milarepa, had many consorts. Up through 1959, many of the great Tibetan tantric pract.i.tioners or yogins were householders, and some were women.

However, in the dominant gelukpa gelukpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, tantra was set into a celibate, monastic system. The mysteries of higher tantric meditation are reserved for those who have spent years refining themselves through study, debate, and meditation practice-it is very unlikely that such a trainee would fall into a merely vulgar interpretation. sect of Tibetan Buddhism, tantra was set into a celibate, monastic system. The mysteries of higher tantric meditation are reserved for those who have spent years refining themselves through study, debate, and meditation practice-it is very unlikely that such a trainee would fall into a merely vulgar interpretation.

Judaism is definitively a householder religion. Historically, its experiments with monasticism were brief, the Essenes being the best-known group. (It's not clear that all Essene groups were celibate.) Even the holy man, the tzaddik tzaddik or prophet, must be part of ”this world” as Jonathan had stressed. Therefore, in the Jewish context, the practice of s.e.xual yoga-if one can borrow the term from tantra-is exclusively between husband and wife. or prophet, must be part of ”this world” as Jonathan had stressed. Therefore, in the Jewish context, the practice of s.e.xual yoga-if one can borrow the term from tantra-is exclusively between husband and wife.

Another major difference today is that the Tibetans have a wellpreserved, complete, and highly developed path of meditation, which they are willing to teach to qualified Westerners. For many historical reasons, the doors to the Jewish esoteric remain shut to most Jews.

After the session, I asked Jonathan why, when asked about s.e.xual energies, he had replied, ”I cannot open that door.” He said, ”There are some things that have to be held back, taught one-on-one. I don't know how else to do it. The moment it becomes public, it becomes so open to misunderstanding and the wrong kind of visualization-seeing it as an exciting image and not part of a discipline for very advanced people.”

Moreover, Jonathan felt that the use of s.e.xual energy had been abused in both the Jewish world and the tantric. Among some Hasidim, for instance, ”it became an object of obsession, of doing it the right way-a negative abuse.” He referred to kabbalistic texts and folklore, which concentrate on how to avoid getting s.e.m.e.n on the sheets, whether due to masturbation or marital s.e.x. There was a medieval belief that Lilith, the first wife of Adam, would make use of the spilled s.e.m.e.n to create demonic creatures, the shovavim shovavim, or ”ill-bred” creatures of man's desire. In Jonathan's view, this sort of superst.i.tion ”is an extremely negative development of it when it became popularized.” Therefore, these Jewish teachings should only be given to major adepts, people who are deeply involved. ”That's one level-it's dangerous or it can be abused. The other level is, when one aligns oneself with the ultimate reality-the divine world-then it's more appropriate. But when one sees oneself as the ultimate reality, when one is looking for reinforcement of oneself, of one's momentary ego, one's s.e.xuality, then it becomes dangerous-a perversion, a distortion.”

That did not mean he would refuse to speak about s.e.xual energies in Jewish meditation. ”When I speak about it publicly or avoid it, it's also an invitation for people to come one-on-one to discuss it.” The teaching is available, ”but it's information you don't get for free.”