by Rabbi Lewis Eron

The notion of “spirituality” lies at the center of much of our contemporary discourse about ourselves in light of the diverse teachings of our religious traditions, offering guidance on the twists and turns of life’s journey, and in response to the trials we endure and the triumphs we celebrate. We commonly use this widely accepted but difficult-to-define concept in various ways and situations.  Chaplains in hospitals and nursing homes provide “spiritual care”.  Priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams are often called “spiritual leaders”.  People, trying to describe themselves as being more than materialists and unwilling to submit to the discipline of religion, call themselves “spiritual”.  We proclaim our worship services as spiritually moving.  Spiritually charged moments fill us with energy.  When we are sad, we are dispirited. When we are creative, we are inspired. 

Etymologically, the word “spirituality” originates from the Latin word “spiritus,” meaning “breath or wind.”  Like the Greek pneuma and Hebrew ruach, which also refer to wind, spiritus refers to the energy that seems to move us through life – the non-material aspect of our self-conscious being to which we, following the Latin, call “spirit.”  Thus, spirituality deals with the nature of the spirit.  

Our awareness of our spirits is similar to our understanding of our bodies, the material aspect of our existence. We know our bodies in part by knowing what is not our bodies.  We recognize differences within the physical world by sensing where one body ends and another begins, as well as the space between them.  We are also able to describe the physical forces that connect them to each other and to all those objects around them.  We understand the interplay between energy and matter, and through this understanding, gain a deeper insight into the physical world in which we live and into our own bodies.  

Analogously, we recognize our spirit in contrast to the world around us.  I see myself as “me” only when I recognize you as “you”.  The wondrous discovery of the other as other, not merely as another physical being but as another thinking, feeling, moving being, is transforming.  The act of differentiation that occurs in early childhood creates the network of interrelationships in which we can grow and thrive.  Spirit is our self-understanding as individuals – recognizable centers of understanding and feeling.  Spirituality is the relationship we nurture with the other around us.  

Spirituality’s roots lie in our fundamental need to be connected to others and to our world.  Although spirituality is often expressed in very personal terms, it rests in our desire to go beyond our isolated sense of selfhood and cultivate relationships with others to create a family and community that extends beyond those required by our basic physical needs.  It is a rejection of the notion that we see ourselves and others as merely things.  It is a protest against experiencing ourselves as only physical presences, economic units, and statistical data points.  It grows out of our fundamental ego-awareness – our sense of ourselves as conscious, self-aware, vulnerable, and lonely beings, often in desperate need to connect with others like us, to be confirmed in ourselves by their presence, to love ourselves by being loved by others, and to love others by loving ourselves. The closer we come to others, the stronger the relationships we build, the healthier we feel.  

In this way, our spirit is our self-conscious, self-reflective, self-critical understanding of ourselves.  Yet its very existence hangs by an ironic tension.  We recognize ourselves only by recognizing others as distinct from ourselves.  That which is most intimate to us can only be experienced by our integration into a world already mapped by our cultural context.  The tools for our self-understanding come not from within us but are gifts from our social environment.  We may be biologically designed as social animals with an unusual talent for linguistic expression, but the language we speak is not self-generated. We learn it from those among whom we live.

Our spirit, our intimate, personal experience of ourselves as self-aware, depends on our relationships with others for its very existence.  Yet, these relationships have a tenuous existence.  The others to whom we are bound are like us, limited by time and space, always moving, changing, coming and going, and ultimately dying.

Within all those dynamic relationships, we sense a common constant theme: a deep shared feeling that sustains the relationship and nurtures us.  We describe this sensation as “love”, “compassion”, or “grace”.  We know that when we experience this sensation, a relationship appears firmer, and when the feeling decreases, the relationship tends to fade.  While our relationships flourish and then wilt over time and distance in our ever-changing world, our awareness of the power that sustained them remains so that often, when all has passed, all that we retain is “love”.

By projecting our consciousness onto the world around us – including living things as well as inanimate objects – we create relationships with nature.  With ease and comfort, we anthropomorphize the animals, plants, and objects that populate our immediate environments and the seemingly boundless universe in which we dwell.  This simple talent enables us to establish a relationship that is understandable to us with things that are far different from us than other people.  It is not difficult for us to describe our bond with our pets as grounded in love, nor is it hard for us to use the same language to picture our connections with flowers, plants, and trees – indeed, all of creation – in ways that transcend the purely utilitarian. 

This deep sense of connection draws power from our emotional center.  Yet, it is more than an emotional response.  It is not a feeling so much as an intuition into what seems to be the cornerstone of our being and its integration into the core of all that surrounds us.  It roots us.  It anchors us.  It is our rock.  If we sense any internal motion, it is that of return to our foundation, our essence, our true self.

We may describe our first awareness of this connection with another as “discovery”, as “enlightenment”, or as “revelation”.  That moment halts our journey, but it is not its goal.  At that instant, we do not feel changed as much as we feel genuine, authentic, and honest.  Once we sense the power of that moment, it is ours forever, engraved in our hearts and sealed in our minds.  The sensation is not ephemeral.  It is not passing.  Although any one relationship may end, the awareness of the “love” that enabled it never does. It grows deeper as we strengthen and expand our network of relationships.  

This spiritual search for connection to others inevitably leads us to the search for connection to the One who is absolutely Other.  As our experience of “love” increases, as our web of connections to others – other people, our communities, other living beings, other creatures – grows, so does our desire for that experience.  As our sense of wholeness with all within the world grows, we understand ever more clearly that the wholeness we so deeply desire is ultimately unavailable to us in this world, which is by its nature incomplete.  We seek connection to that which is beyond change, beyond creation’s boundaries – an unending, inexhaustible fountain of the “love” that is filling more and more of our very being.  We seek connection with that which we call God – the Endless One, unbounded by time and space. 

We reach out with the tool that has served us so well.  By casting God in our own image, we attempt to connect with God.  God’s utter otherness stymies us.  God is our king, but not a real king.  God is our father, but not a real father.  God is our betrothed, but not a real spouse.  There is always something missing.  The One whose presence we can feel but not describe is so real and so elusive, so completely other but so utterly familiar.  God is the One who cannot be seen – hidden under the dark, uncountable layers of dogma, metaphor, and theology, or so brilliant that when relieved of that cloak, God’s presence blinds us.  God is both the one distant one who demands our loving service and the neighbor most close to our hearts whom we need to love as we love ourselves.

So we look for moments of connection, those brief, marvelous moments when all layers are stripped away and God’s brilliance is revealed, just long enough to warm our souls.  Most of us enjoy the fleeting glimpses of God’s light in the small miracles of life – the unexpected surprises of daily living, the cycles of nature, and the passing of the seasons of our lives.  The patterns of religion we have created provide us with a framework to recognize these moments and share them with others in a commonly understood metaphoric system. 

While many find spiritual meaning and purpose through connection within the patterns and rituals of daily life and religious observance, others seek a more direct attachment to God, the One whose very nature eludes human comprehension.  While moments of awareness may fill our lives, these souls long for more than fleeting glimpses of God’s ever-present presence.  Adherence to God rather than experiencing God through connection to God’s world becomes the primary goal.  Through practices and wisdom honed over the ages, they seek to transcend the boundaries of time and space, as well as the walls of the heart and mind, and break through to a deeper, higher, more enduring encounter with the Boundless One.  Willing to risk disappointment, delusion, deception, and defeat, they pursue their goal with a deep trust in its ultimate value.  

Yet, like the rest of us, they live in our world.  They, too, are subject to the physical laws that rule all creation.  They, too, are embedded in a cultural world which provides them with the vocabulary to understand themselves and their quest.  Their traditions, their tools, and their very being are bound to the world which they seek to transcend.  Their venture, although ultimately futile, is of great value.  As researchers of the spirit, they remind us that it is possible to expand our understanding of the love, compassion, and grace that bind all, and how to cherish, honor, and love it as itself.  Yet, as they pursue this “love”, “compassion,” and “grace” beyond the worldly network of interrelated connections in which it thrives, they risk losing it or the world or both.  

So we connect to God through our limits.  Our boundaries are God’s.  We met at the edge of time and space.  We explore what we share – being unique, being alone, being other, being loved and being loving, and, perhaps, being whole.  Living in the spirit – our human spirituality – is living in connection, living in relationship with all beings alongside us and, at moments, with that One who is beyond.