Paul Steinberg - Spiritual Growth: A Contemporary Jewish Approach

Praise for Spiritual Growth

There is no better guide for a revitalized spiritual life than Rabbi Paul Steinberg. For Jews seeking a path of compassion and openness within their own tradition, for anyone willing to add Jewish wisdom to their toolkit, if it is spiritual growth you seek, Spiritual Growth is your passport to a spirituality that is wide, open, and wondrous.

Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson, Roslyn and Abner Goldstine Deans Chair, Professor of Philosophy, American Jewish University

Inspired by his own journey as a seeker and Jewish scholar, Paul Steinberg reveals how ancient Jewish teachings and spiritual practices can provide a powerful force for personal healing and integration.

Estelle Frankel, author of Sacred Therapy and The Wisdom of Not Knowing

Rabbi Steinberg helps us remember to not only look up but also inwardand that the spiritual pursuit is a journey that takes effort and time. He is a voice of our ancestors, and, like our tradition, his writing transcends the moment. He speaks to the timelessness of human longing for a connection with the Divine.

Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO, Jewish Family Service, Seattle

With vulnerability, humility, and intellectual rigor, Steinberg shows us that Judaism offers us a powerful response to this complicated life, and that we can go on with faith, hope, and God.

Rabbi Sherre Hirsch, Senior Rabbinic Scholar, Hillel International, Author of We Plan, God Laughs and Thresholds

Lots of books tell us we can achieve great illumination through meditation and other spiritual practices. This book tells us how. With gentle guidance and understanding, Paul Steinberg draws on Jewish teachings and religious practices to guide us toward an enriched inner life and ways to achieve deeper connections to friends and community. This is a book that inspires and illuminates!

Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College

Rabbi Steinberg articulates a vision for spiritual growth that is grounded and accessible. By envisioning spirituality as a process of personal integration and transformation, he provides a step-by-step guide that is attainable for people who are beginners in exploring inner work as well as more-experienced seekers who are looking for an authentic pathway within Judaism.

Rabbi Kvod Wieder, Temple Beth El of South Orange County, Aliso Viejo, CA

Spiritual Growth

Spiritual Growth

A Contemporary
Jewish Approach

Rabbi Paul Steinberg

Library of Congress Control Number 2018963003

Distributed by SCB Distributors, (800) 729-6423

Spiritual Growth. Copyright 2019 by Rabbi Paul Steinberg

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews. Send inquiries to Terra Nova Books, 33 Alondra Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508.

Published by Terra Nova Books, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

www.TerraNovaBooks.com

ISBN 978-1-948749-25-1

For Rina, Nili and Liora

May you always grow...

May your minds grow broader,

your hearts grow bigger,

And your spirits grow brighter.

A Note of Gratitude

B ooks are curious things to produce. When I published my first book in 2003, my mentor and teacher, Elliot Dorff, said to me that publishing a book is the closest a male can come to giving birth. He might be right.

Although male physiology clearly offers no equivalent experience, what I think he was getting at is the fact that a book is not merely ink on pages conveying information and thoughts. A book is the embodied result of an individuals reaching deep within himself or herself and drawing forth from the core conscious and visible elements in the form of ideas and words. Indeed, the Jewish mystics believed that words are the vehicle with which God birthed the world. Whatever the metaphor, this book certainly is born from my heart.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to several people who made this work come to fruition. First, I want to thank all the communities I have served in the past, including Levine Academy in Dallas; Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California; and Beit TShuvah in Los Angeles. I have learned so much from each of these communities, and have certainly incorporated the voices of my mentors into this work, particularly Fred Nathan, Dr. Susie Wolbe, Wende Weinberg zl, Rabbi Harold Schulweis zl, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Harriet Rossetto, and Rabbi Mark Borovitz. I also want to thank the current community that I serve, Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon, California, and Rabbi Susan Leider, who gives me continuous inspiration to be wholehearted in whatever I do.

I am also incredibly grateful to Marianne Williamson for contributing the Foreword to this book. Marianne is a national treasure and a true inspiration to multitudes. Everything she writes and says is worth our attention and consideration, and I know her voice will deepen the genuine intentions of this work.

Thank you to Terra Nova Books and the work of my editor, Marty Gerber. Marty is a mensch. He patiently worked with me, learned with me, and tirelessly induced from me the most lucid and worthwhile representation of both the ideas and language that meet the aims of this work.

On a more personal level, I am grateful for the support of my parentsIrwin and Patwho are models of living big, immersive lives. My siblings Ellen, Donny zl, Rick, and Carolann are especially imbued in my heart, as they have always given me the strength and confidence to pursue a life of big ideas. I also want to thank my friend Cantor Rebekah Mirsky for being a reader of my initial manuscript, giving me the confidence and encouragement to pursue this project.

Finally, thank you to my partner, Chloe Grey, who has continuously and compassionately encouraged me to express myself. Simply put, this work would not have been accomplished without her support, love, and encouragement.

To anyone reading, I am grateful to you. As the psalmist writes: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you (Psalms 19:14). I pray that there is something within these pages that you find meaningful and useful in your life.

Just as the hand held before the eyes hides the highest mountain, so our petty day-to-day life hinders us from seeing the fantastic lights and secrets that fill the world.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment, to laugh and cry with the same eyes, with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them, to make love in war and war in love.

And to hate and forgive and remember and forget, to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest what history takes years and years to do.

Yehudah Amichai

Contents

Foreword

T hree times after I began my career speaking on A Course in Miracles, I talked with rabbis who were in the audience.

They had been curious, I suppose, to hear this Jewish woman discuss metaphysical themes using the language of A Course in Miracles. And each time, the scene unfolded in pretty much the same way: After hearing me speak, the rabbi would ask politely, So perhaps we could talk? after which I immediately reverted to my childhood brain. All they had said was, So perhaps we could talk? and in my head, I had heard, Meet me in my office. NOW.