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- Title
The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Call for a Scientific Non-Ḥasidic Meditation.
- Authors
OPHIR, RABBI NATAN
- Abstract
In February 1978, Rabbi Menaħem Mendel Schneerson (the Lubavitcher Rebbe) sent out a confidential memorandum asking for "doctors specializing in neurology and psychiatry" to develop a meditation program that could serve as an alternative for the popular meditative imports from the Far East such as Transcendental Meditation (TM). Dr. Yehuda Landes, a psychologist in Palo Alto, California, responded positively and soon launched a pilot project. Then in July 1979, the Rebbe issued a public announcement asking for more people to help in developing and disseminating a Jewishly acceptable form of meditation. Meanwhile, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, together with a group of Jewish psychiatrists and psychologists, was exploring meditative techniques from kabbalistic and ħasidic sources. However, the Rebbe directed Landes not to utilize Kaplan's meditations but rather to develop a non-ħasidic, scientifically based meditation. In this article we examine the context of the Rebbe's correspondence and analyze his request by comparing it to the scientific meditative techniques being developed in the 1970s. We conclude by noting the implications for modern Jewish meditation.
- Subjects
HABAD; TRANSCENDENTAL Meditation; RABBIS; NEUROLOGY; MEDITATION
- Publication
B'Or Ha'Torah, 2012, Vol 22, p109
- ISSN
0333-6298
- Publication type
Article