A Rosh Hashanah Torah Meditation Learning Guide
Dive into the work of Rav Yosef Chayyim, head of the Baghdadi Jewish community in the 19th century
PREPARED BY SASS BROWN, AMMUD RABBINIC INTERN
Welcome!
We offer this learning guide to you made with love by Ammud’s Rabbinic Intern, Sass Brown, who blesses Ammud with their love of studying Torah gems and Jewish texts central to their Baghdadi, Mizrahi heritage.
Ammud’s mission is creating and cultivating a community that is for us by us where Jews of Color are able to build resilience and bring their fullest selves to Jewish learning and Torah. Ammud affirms, educates, and builds leadership among Jews of Color, supporting them to be empowered members and leaders of Jewish community and peoplehood.
Ammud’s vision is for Jewish communities and Jewish life to be made whole through inclusive wisdom and practice that is representative of our full racial and ethnic diversity as a people.
This guide is rooted in Ammud’s learning methodology that:
1. Centers the complex, innovative and rich ways Jews of Color take our multiple identities/heritages/cultures and how it interacts with our Judaism.
2. Grounds in how our culturally rich identities and experiences that make us who we are are valued, honored, and explored when we connect it back to Torah learning.
3. Understands when JOCs are able to study the depths of Torah and feel comfortable in bringing all parts of our heritages to the table we create new Jewish wisdom that everyone can benefit from.
Check out our Jewish learning programs at Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy at Ammud.org and please consider supporting our work by making a donation.
The aim of this learning sheet is for you to:
• Become familiar with the Jewish meditation technique gerushin
• Try out the Ben Ish Chai’s Rosh Hashanah meditation.
• Consider adding meditation to your Elul preparation, or to your practice during the 10 Days of Teshuvah.
Who is the Ben Ish Chai?
Rav Yosef Chayyim (1835 –1909), also known as the Ben Ish Chai after the title of one of his important books on Jewish practice, was head of the Baghdadi Jewish community in the 19th century. As is common with Jewish writers of the Middle East and North Africa, Rav Yosef Chayyim’s books on daily law also include mystical teaching and instruction. In his summary of the traditional preparation for Rosh Hashanah, he adds this gerushin meditation - a mystical practice of reciting verses from Torah and prayer over and over.
What is Gerushin Meditation?
Most simply, gerushin is the recitation of Torah verses or other texts to enter a heightened spiritual state. This kabbalistic meditation technique dates back at least to 16th-century Tzfat.
Practitioners may recite the verse for a while, then let their mind go where it wants. Alternatively, they may write the verse down and contemplate it, both the meaning and the physical form of the letters.
Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, the Ramak, wrote his Sefer Gerushin based on Torah interpretations achieved through this meditation technique.
The Ben Ish Chai’s Meditation
While Rav Yosef Chayyim doesn’t call his practice a meditation, it falls into the category of Gerushin. He invites you, as you prepare to enter the new year and the 10 Days of Teshuvah, to pause, put yourself in an intentional physical space, and repeat a series of verses from Torah, along with a traditional mystical text, and a line from a High Holiday piyyut (liturgical poem).
Here’s the original text from the Ben Ish Chai:
Book of Laws, Year 1, Parashat Nitzavim, Laws of Rosh Hashanah 7
1. Before kiddush, one should sit in their home on a made bed or couch and say “Petichat Eliyahu,” may he be remembered for the good, up until “Kum Rabbi Shimon v’yitchadshun …”
2. Next, say the verse “But Noah found grace in G-d’s eyes” 12 times.
3. Then “Yitzhak sowed in that land” 12 times.
4. Then “With you is the source of life, by your light we see light” 10 times.
5. Then “Light is sown for the righteous, and for the upright of heart, joy” 17 times.
6. Then say as follows: “To life! Peace to you and to your household …” 10 times.
7. Then say “Begin a year and its blessings” and stand for kiddush.
About the Texts
Let’s break this down:
1. Before kiddush, one should sit in their home on a made bed or couch and say “Petichat Eliyahu,” may he be remembered for the good, up until “Kum Rabbi Shimon v’yitchadshun …”
2. Next, say the verse “But Noah found grace in G-d’s eyes” 12 times.
Petichat Eliyahu is a mystical text attributed to the prophet Elijah, which appears in the beginning of Tikkunei Zohar, a foundational mystical text written down in the 14th-century. The speaker describes the metaphysical way G-d creates and permeates the universe. They name the ten Sefirot, spiritual attributes of G-d’s presence, and the reflection of realms above and below. Though the text is describing one way of understanding G-d’s presence, it opens with a clear statement of the challenges of understanding G-d: “no thought can grasp you at all.”
Genesis 6:8, the concluding verse of Parashat Bereshit, the first portion of the Torah, says “Noah found grace in G-d’s eyes.” The generation of the flood is said to have been entirely wicked, except for Noah, who at least by the standards of the day, was chosen by G-d to survive.
3. Then “Yitzhak sowed in that land” 12 times.
4. Then “With you is the source of life, by your light we see light” 10 times.
Genesis 26:12, from Parashat Toldot, describes the wealth that Isaac is blessed with: “Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year. G-d blessed him.”
Psalms 36:10 describes G-d as the source of life and light, adding the synesthetic image of God’s light revealing earthly light to our eyes: “With you is the fountain of life; by your light do we see light.” Synesthesia is when a sense, such as hearing, triggers another sense, like smell, at the same time. For example, a person with synesthesia may hear a particular sound that then stimulates a particular odor.
About the Texts
5. Then “Light is sown for the righteous, and for the upright of heart, joy” 17 times.
6. Then say as follows: “To life! Peace to you and to your household …” 10 times.
7. Then say “Begin a year and its blessings” and stand for kiddush.
Psalms 97:11 uses a metaphysical image of light as a crop, planted for the righteous people of the world: “Light is sown for the righteous, and for the upright of heart, joy.”
1 Samuel 25:6 is an episode from the life of David before he became king. He sends greetings to Naval, a rival: “Say as follows: ‘To life! Peace to you and to your household and to all that is yours!”
“Begin a year and its blessings” comes from the High Holiday piyyut (liturgical poem) “Achot Ketanah,” commonly recited at the beginning of Rosh Hashanah in Sefardi and Mizrachi services. The refrain through the poem “end a year and its curses” is replaced in the final verse with “begin a year and its blessings,” describing the hope we may have for the year to come.
Gerushin Tips
It is ok if you are not a meditator! Just try it. Here are some broad tips:
• Feel free to read the texts in their original (Aramaic or Hebrew), or in the English translations.
• Do not worry too much about understanding the words. This type of meditation is more about the action of repetition, rather than studying the texts.
• If you find a line that you like a lot, mark it for yourself.
• Welcome whatever reactions your mind and heart have to these words on repeat.
Here are some ways to imagine doing this meditation:
1. If you recite each word, deliberately, at 1 word per second, it will take you around 15 minutes.
2. Read for comprehension in the original or in translation, and spend time contemplating what the texts mean to you, right now.
3. Readthrough one time, fairly quickly, and then go back to focus on a verse or phrase you feel drawn to.
4. Skip to Petichat Eliyahu, or focus on Sass’s two favorite lines, which are bolded in Aramaic and English.
Move quickly through the verses, and then focus on the reflective questions on the text.
The Rosh Hashanah Meditation from the Ben Ish Chai
The Rosh Hashanah Meditation from the Ben Ish Chai
Elijah began to say: Greatest in the Worlds, You are one, but not in counting. You are the highest and most hidden of all, there is no mind that can conceive of You. You pour forth ten rectifications that we call sefirot, with which you guide all the worlds - both those hidden and those revealed. In them You hide from humanity. You tie them and unite them. Since you are within them, one who sunders one sefirah from another is considered to have sundered You. These ten sefirot proceed in order (long, short, and medium). You guide them, no one guides You, not from any direction. You made guises for them, from which blossom forth the souls of humanity. You fashioned many bodies for them - ‘bodies’ as opposed to ‘guises.’ They are called: Love (right arm), Power (left arm), Beauty (torso), Eternity and Splendor (thighs), Foundation (genitals), and Kingdom (mouth). Wisdom is the mind, Understanding the heart, and Crown is the highest, of which it is said, ‘The beginning tells of the end.’ It is the scalp upon which the tefillin sit. In it is the name yod hey vav hey, the path of emanation, the footing place of the Tree and its boughs and branches - like water drenching the Tree, causing it to increase through the root’s sap.
Greatest in the worlds, You are the origin and cause of all, who water the Tree - and this water, like the soul to a body, is life. There is no image or form of You at all. You create Heaven and Earth, bringing forth the Sun, Moon, and stars. And of Earth: grassess and trees - a Garden of Eden - flora, fauna, beasts, birds, fish, and humans. All this so that we know what is above, and how above and below function. Those above can be known through those below, but there is no knowledge of You whatsoever. Outside of You there is no one, above or below. Thus you are Liege of all. Each sefirah has a name, by which angels are called - but You have no name, for You fill and complete all names. When you leave from them, all names remain like bodies without a soul. You are wise, but not with wisdom. You understand, but not with understanding. You have no place, but your power is known to humanity, in how you conduct the world through law and mercy, for there is goodness and justice in accordance with our deeds. Law is Gevurah, justice is the middle column, and goodness the holy Malkhut, scales propped by two supports and the holy covenant. All this shows how the world is conducted, but its attributes too are not like those we know.
Translation from Siddur Masorti
Meditation Continued
With Reflective Questions
Genesis 6:8 - 12 times
But Noah found grace in the eyes of G-d
Genesis 26:12 - 12 times
Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year. G-d blessed him
Psalm 36:10 - 10 times
With you is the fountain of life; by your light do we see light.
Psalm 97:11 - 17 times
Light is sown for the righteous, and for the upright of heart, joy.
Samuel 25:6 - 10 times
Say as follows: ‘To life! Peace to you and to your household and to all that is yours!
Begin a year and its blessings
Noah
• In whose eyes do you hope to find grace?
• When do you look at others with the most grace?
Isaac
• What patterns seem to repeat in your life, or even your families’ lives?
Psalm 36
• What do you use to measure your life? What “light” do you see by?
Psalm 97
• What is something you do expecting no reward other than the light and joy it brings you?
Samuel
• What brings peace to you, your household, and to your general space?
Piyyut
• What is a blessing you hope for this coming year?
Petichat Eliyahu
• What is something you think about a lot that is still difficult to grasp?
• What is something that nourishes you, even as you give and share?
Reflection of Gerushin Practice
You did it! You tried a centuries-old Jewish meditation technique, gerushin, written by the Ben Ish Chai, head rabbi of Baghdad in the 1800s. Yasher koach!
Let’s think about it:
• What was the moment when you felt most connected to this practice?
• Was there a word, phrase, or verse that interested you?
• What did it feel like to repeat the same words 10, 12, or 17 times?
If you like this practice, or want to give it another try:
• You could use this guide again right before Rosh Hashanah kiddush and dinner, or another time during the coming holidays.
• You could use gerushin on your own favorite verses of Torah, or a contemporary poem or song.
• You could invite someone else you know to try it, and then discuss the experience with them, in chevrutah (partnered learning).