Neo-Rabbinical "Kedumah" practitioner Zvi Ish-Shalom interviewed on the Mindful U podcast at Naropa University, 2018
"Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions, Naropa is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement."
- Zvi Ish-Shalom: Kedumah & Jewish Mysticism - Mindful U podcast at Naropa University
| Timestamp | Quote |
|---|---|
| 1m 37s: | Comes from an Orthodox Jewish background. Born in Israel, grew up in NYC Orthodox Judaic community. Comes from a long line of Rabbis, going 'all the way back to King David, actually.' |
| 2m 44s: | 'did train to be a Rabbi in the orthodox path and served in that function for a bit' |
| 3m 20s: | 'Kedumah which is my own personal practice, and the practice and path that I teach.' |
| 3m 55s: | 'traditionally Judaism is practiced by way of rituals.. in a broader sense it includes actual ritualistic practices that involve ritual objects that also includes ritualistic prayer.. prayers based on liturgy in a Hebrew formula...' |
| 4m 33s: | '..my personal practice has shifted from one that is centred around ritual, to one that is more about integrating the direct experience of presence, divinity, reality into everyday life.' |
| 5m 04s: | '..there are more accessible ways for many people in our culture to access an embodied condition of presence in everyday life that does not require them to engage in these you know, often times complicated and inaccessible rituals that are relevant for someone in an orthodox community but not very relevant for you know, 99% of the planet. So Kedumah for me represents a way to transmit the essence, the primordial spirit of Judaism into a paradigm that is accessible for anybody really, of any tradition or of no tradition at all.' |
| 6m 30s: | Been teaching at Naropa University for 10 years. Was a rabbi when he started teaching. Zalmon Schacht Sheromi (sp?). Was teaching courses in Jewish Mysticism and Judaism at the time. Retired and there was a need for a new teacher - Miles Grassen took over those courses for several years. Naropa invited Zvi to be an adjunct teacher for the Jewish Mysticism course for a year or two. Full time faculty position was approved which he applied for and won. He has been part of the permanent faculty ever since. |
| 8m: | "Contemplative model.. really fun and really heart-opening... really small intimate, kinda based one-on-one classroom just engaging with each other. What is it like teaching Jewish mysticism in such a contemplative model classroom setting?" |
| 8m 30s: | "Jewish mystical tradition deeply values and understands the contemplative dimension of the interpersonal dynamic. So many Jewish practices, traditionally speaking, involve a kind of dialectical process between two people or between groups of folks." "The traditional way that Torah is studied as a contemplative practice is in pairs, actually. And also you know, in groups." |
| 9m 36s: | "Aside from Jewish Mystical courses, I teach a course on Kabbalah and Consciousness and also Contemporary Judaism. Yeah, they're really fun.. I also teach a lot of Comparative Mysticism Courses. So there's a course called Religion and Mystical Experience where we look at mystical experience across 7-8 different traditions. As well as a Graduate Seminar called "Non-Dualism" where we look specifically at Non-Dual modes of perception both in theory and in practice. And many different traditions.. and have a chance not just understand how these traditions view a non-dual mystical experience - but also we get to uhh play experientially which is really fun." |
| 10m 51s: | Kadumah Institute established a few years ago, for promotion of the Kadumah teachings (or path) were introduced to students four years ago. Kadumah translates to "Primordial" or "ancient" in Hebrew. It's a word that Zvi found in ancient texts and extracted it so he could name his "path" and "teachings." |
| 12m 20s: | Doesn't see the Kadumah as "his teachings." More a channel for the Kadumah teachings. He is giving it to the world, and relates to it as a teaching that pre-existed in his own individual mind. |
| 12m 55s: | The Primordial Torah is a principle that's found in the ancient Hebrew texts. and it's referred to as the Kahdumah Torah... according to these ancient teachings the World was Created through the vehicle of this primordial Torah. So the Primordial Torah is not a text, not the Hebrew Text, not a historical expression of teaching. It's something more.. primordial. It's pre-existent, It's pre-creation... ...I would say, a cosmic force, a cosmic principle that the text stated that the Holy One gazed through the Primordial Torah to create the world. |
| 14m 05s: | "It is the interface between the infinite and the finite." |
| 14m 46s: | "the point that I think is the most important for our listeners to understand is that the Primordial Torah represents a state of being that is prior to our concepts. It's a mode of being present that is free from the thinking mind." "It is our primordial, original nature that is undisturbed and unconfined by conventional, historically conditioned modes of experience. So when we return to the Primordial Torah in this teaching, in the Kadumah path, in a sense we are returning to that original pristine state of consciousness. And that's really the most important teaching of the Primordial Torah." |
| 16m 10s: | Offer through the institute online courses, in person retreats and training programs. All of which are designed to guide a person through a journey from what we call 'a state of contraction.' Which is more the usual state of mind.. kind of way of being imprisoned by our historically conditioned identity and range of experience. That's what we mean by contraction.. ... most of the times for most of us, we are operating in a confined range of experience." |
| 17m 02s: | "Our parameters have been closing in on us." |
| 17m 07s: | "...and some traditions you know, refer to that state of being as a state of suffering.. you know.. kinda this basic condition of human suffering." "We do the state of human contraction as the source of human suffering so in the Kadumah teachings we have a very clearly outlined path of how to move from the state of contraction, where we usually find ourselves, into a state of expansion." "Where we're able to become more free, from those confining limiting elements of our mind. Ultimately to what we call a "Journey of Wholeness," which represents a more complete integration of our personal history with our realization of our central freedom and expansion." |
| 18m 03s: | All the way to deeper states of mystical "knowing." We call it "The Journey of Vastness," and ultimately "The Journey of Freedom." So we have these five journeys that we use as a model and these are based on Kabbalistic teachings.. |
| 18m 16s: | in Kadumah all offered courses, retreats and training programs are designed to walk a person, gently but clearly, from their state towards a state of freedom. |
| 19m 30s: | have introductory gateway for newbies, introductory online course or weekend course teachings. "..Life is our temple. It is our Ashram, it is our practice." |
| 20m 04s: | "it is a lifelong journey in the sense that opportunities for realisation and for discovery are endless, are infinite. And they're as endless as life is endless." "So we don't orient to a particular end-state as a goal but we do orient to freedom as our birthright that is accessible to us. And freedom means the freedom to be fully accepting of an intimacy with our experience regardless of the content of our experience." "Which means that while it's not a particular end state, it is freedom from the need for enlightenment or any particular end state. We see freedom as a higher value than we do enlightenment." |
| 21m 21s: | Recently released a book. The Kadumah Experience: The Primordial Torah. |
| 21m 55s: | "...based on the first set of teachings that Zvi gave in 2014 just down the road on Grove st (few blocks away from Naropa University)." Teachings were incubating in his head for a long time and he knew he had to get it out. Let some folks know he would be giving a series of talks on "The Primordial Torah," and at the time wasn't aware of what that meant. 11 presentations of about 30ish folks who showed up, many from Naropa University both students and faculty. The book is an edited transcripted of those first introductory talks and teachings. The talks provide a pretty comprehensive overview of the metaphysics and practices of Kadumah. |
| 24m 01s: | at the end of the intro talks, there were attendees who wanted to continue with the teachings so he compromised with having weekly meetings and teachings. This was all before there was any Kedumah Institute or any cirriculum. |
| 25m 12s: | "..in the Kedumah teachings, there's a lot of spiritual interdisciplinary. There's like this vast range of knowledge and availability to see things in multiple ways... Be open and see what happens... seems like you give people tools to filter how they experience their lives. So how do you teach these ranges of that? " |
| 25m 50s: | "..two-pronged approach to that. One prong is to cultivate directly the experience of presence of connection to being to reality, in a way that's not filtered through the conceptual mind. " And there are time-tested practices, there are many traditions that are utilized that are effective in helping someone connect to a more direct mode of experience with reality. So we do employ a handful of those techniques." "The other prong is to work with our psyche, with our personal history, and with our suffering - directly - in a way that allows the rigidity of our consciousness to over time begin to unwind and open, more and more to the light of being. To that which is most true, most real, most precious to us actually that often times has been lost to our experience of life. And so, we want to both cultivate direct experience and on the other hand we also want to work with ourselves in a way that permits that essential light to shine more clearly through this lens of our soul, of our consciousness." "And so you know, we employ both techniques and also a lot of process work that is really important in terms of integrating our realisations into our day-to-day life. We do a lot of group work, a lot of interpersonal exercises. Umm a lot of meditation and of course, the teachings themselves are also transmissions, they are also practices." |
| 28m 01s: | "So, even as I'm speaking now into this podcast, the listener can relate through the conceptual mind listening to these ideas and concepts and approach it as interesting information or maybe not interesting information... Or they can feel into the presence that is being generated through our words. And that has a different effect on the consciousness when a person orients that way. So it Kadumah we teach people how to orient to every single moment of our life from that more awakened state of presence |
| 28m 45s: | "Yeah, Wow... That's pretty beautiful. Wow" ""..tools and techniques that are applicable to every day life, every day situations, every day moments... not this thing where you're learning a technique then have to go sit in a room and sit at the altar and pray..." "..The practice is the world and you get to show up in every moment and how you're saying is like we're sitting here talking: we're practicing how to say the words, how rolls off the mind and into the audio spectrum for people to hear and they can relate on the level that their using their conceptual minds from." But I'm really enjoying how this is a practice that you can just go out into the world. and you're not saying "you're this or that," you're just a practicing person of mindfulness and presence.." |
| 29m 41s: | "Exactly... yes.... Every moment of life is the practice. The world is our temple... and life is our practice... heh heh heh.." |
| 29m 52s: | "Life is a practice and the more you practice, the more fun it is. The more fun it gets, the more easier it is to practice an dit just it's like 'less practice, more fun,' you could say." |
| 30m 10s: | "...tend to be quite guarded... in terms of our vulnerability to presence and day to day life. So we tend to relate to others and to the world, from a very head-centred, thinking orientated mode. You know, it's like our heads are leading the way. Nothing wrong with that, no judgment about it in Kadumah, if that's the range of our experience, then its limited. Not the totality of who we are, going to experience some degree of inner frustration, dis-ease, suffering." Because we're not living what we fully are. In order to include to what we fully are our heart and body are required to be opened and permeable to presence |
| 31m 10s: | "...and that is a process of learning how to do that, how to trust that that's ok. How to work with all of our wounds that we have are now being opened and permeable to the world, to other, to spirit.. ...so it makes life so much more rich... Engaging with each other in these more open ways in a safe context... world hasn't been kind to us when we have been opened... rewire our nervous system to learn how it's safe and it's ok to be rooted in our own being and to be open with others in that way." |
| 32m 37s: | "...you're developing a way to live through the heart and your body and essentially your mind. "You're like kind of bringing them all together - intediscliplinarily playing with each other to live in the present moment. And to decide in that moment where you're gonna answer those questions, how you're gonna live your life, how you're gonna move through this space. Interact with your community or whatever." |
| 33m 07s: | "..what Kadumah is offering... many spiritual teachings recognise that it's all in the now. Truth is available to us most deeply in the present moment. And yet, for many people, it's not available. It's not accessible. We don't know how to do that. How do we actually live in the present moment? Kadumah is simply offering one way, one method, one path of how to live in the present moment.." |
Life At Naropa
https://www.naropa.edu/life-at-naropa/
“At Naropa, we are not just imparting information. We are teaching how to cultivate wisdom. And true wisdom is discovered in the ‘not-knowing,’ in the paradoxes, in the mysterious depths of our Being. When this kind of openness to the mystery is integrated with the body, the mind, and the heart, then our wisdom can be expressed more authentically in the world. This is the whole point of a Naropa education.”
—Zvi Ish-Shalom, Associate Professor
Closing Thoughts
Here is your "resilient" philosophical and spiritual doctrine in preparation for a future of utmost dystopianism. Do with it what you will and in the meantime, try to understand how to avoid it.
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