Beth HaDerech; Messianic Jewish Congregation, Toronto, Canada

Empowered Experience: Laying Tefillin

Life with God isn’t purely intellectual. It isn’t purely emotional. And emotional-rationality doesn’t explain it all either. I am not alone, in the vast see of Jews and Christians, who feel we have connected in reality with God through experience. To the naturalist-rationalist-modernist this is nonsense, perhaps explained as some Freudian deficiency. To the emotive-mystic-non-rationalist this could be explained without reference to any scripture or theology at all. I think the best approach is rational-emotional-mystical. Experience guided by reason and sacred scripture, the Torah and the soul seeking union with God, devekut, as some traditions call it. Many Christian worship traditions also combine faith and experience, seeking union with God (note to theologians: I don’t mean losing oneself in God when I say union). For a Christian, an experience seeking closer connection with God might be something like meditation on a scripture, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, centering prayer, [...]