Around 40 years ago the practice of meditation which has been an ancient practice in the east, became popular ion the west. For those who remember the Beatles went top India and started meditating, it was on TV and in the newspapers, and it caught on and since then meditation has become very popular in the west. At the same time books started coming out about Jewish meditation, and people made the mistake of thinking that since this was a new fad, that Judaism had to jump on the bandwagon as well and had to have something to say about Jewish meditation. For those who understand a little about Jewish tradition, meditation has been a part of the Jewish tradition and especially the mystical tradition for thousands of years. There are literally scores of stories and references in the bible of the prophets and judges and patriarchs and sages in the Talmud that talk about different types of meditation. Meditation is therefore is truly an ancient part of Jewish tradition and a very important part. What makes Jewish meditation unique is the varied types. Usually we think of a certain type of person sitting cross legged wearing white for a long period of time and that certainly is one type of meditation as well as a valid type of meditation. But Jewish meditation has rich and varied approaches as to what can be construed as meditation and so therefore Judaism has meditations that can last anywhere from 3 seconds till 24 hours! What do I mean by 24 hours? There is a way of looking at Shabbat as a 24 hour meditation, how so? When we meditate what do we do? Firstly we might unplug the phone, put a sign on our door “do not disturb”, turn off the TV turn off our cell phone, make sure our schedule is clear, and then we would sit and be comfortable and make sure that the scene is set so that we can truly find that space to meditate. If you think about it, that’s exactly what Shabbat is. We stop all of usual activities, we clear our calendar, we turn everything off, and it gives us that space to enter into a meditative consciousness. And so therefore in the truest sense, Shabbat can be seen as a 24 hour meditation, because whatever we’re doing on Shabbat whether we’re praying or walking or spending time with friends family children spouses, learning, enjoying nature, walking, resting, we’re all doing it form a meditative point of view. Now what about a meditation that only takes a few seconds? So we’re told that every time we do a mitzvah, every time we have the opportunity to fulfill a commandment from the torah we should have an intent of what we’re doing, therefore before we do any mitzvah we’re supposed to stop, even for 5 seconds, and put our total concentration into what we’re about to do. And in the Jewish sense that becomes a meditation. Another meditation that many people know, but not many think of it that way, is the Sh’ma! Hear O’ Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One. And when we say this we’re supposed to put our entire being into envisioning, into concentrating on the oneness of God. And to those who have had the practice to say this, they know how powerful something that only take 3 or 4 second can be. And so meditation can span from a few seconds to 24 hours, but more than this so many different activities that we do become meditative, and we have whole traditions and books on how to turn music and song into meditation, how to take dance and make it a meditative exercise, how to take learning and delve into the wisdom of the torah and be so united with what we are learning that we enter into a meditative state. And there are scores of different types of meditation where we get in touch with our inner souls, Godliness, and holiness. There are types of meditation the Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught about going out into the field and meditating in the presence of nature. So therefore we see that Jewish meditation is an open book, and the Jewish tradition has so much to say on how we can use meditation to connect to our inner being and to our purpose in life and to connect and unify with God.