Jewish Hermit

[dauer]

Hey all.

I was on the radical torah website, and then I followed a link to the comic torah, and there was a link there to a jewish contemplative website. So it turns out that there's this guy who used to be a carmelite monk. At some point in his life he converted to Judaism, but he ended up going back to a very contemplative lifestyle as a hermit in the hills of Spain where he still resides.

In Judaism it's really not common practice to live such a solitary lifestyle. It's very community focused in general. But I found he offered a unique and important voice to be heard within the Jewish community. I'm probably going to try the meditation practice he suggests. What do you think of the site and his ideas?

http://jewishcontemplatives.blogspot.com/

Dauer

[Prober]

Cool! I'm going to have to get into this...

Did he say he wrote "Cave of the Heart"? I tried to read that at one point in my life and never finished.

[dauer]

It looks like he wrote a Cave of the Heart. When I looked it up on google I got quite a few distinct hits. His is the booklet hosted on his blog, which is fairly short. The technique he presents is pretty cool, a little like breslover hitbodedut but more passive, quieter. It does seem like in preparation it can include something more along the lines of breslover hitbodedut. Also some fascinating biographical info and general musings about contemplative life and God.

There's one link on his site that goes to a wikipedia page about the Theraputae who are discussed by Philo. I guess they were a Jewish community that lived in solitude 6 days a week and came together on Shabbat. I didn't know anything about them so that was really nice to learn about.

Dauer