Transcendental Judaism: Hidden, In Plain Sight

Photo by Eliezer Muller

by Rabbi Alan Green

This is a brief exploration of how the practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM) opens a lens through which one can experience the Transcendent in Jewish thought and practice.

While I’ve been practicing Transcendental Judaism most of my adult life, the term didn’t originate with me. Rather, my friend, David Lieberman, coined the term some time ago. Before he passed away, he was able to publish a book by the same name, which I heartily recommend: Transcendental Judaism, available on Amazon.

What is Transcendental Judaism? Well—it’s a lot like regular old Judaism. But there’s one crucial difference. Transcendental Judaism proposes that going beyond the usual boundaries of perception results in a much deeper experience of Jewish life and spiritual life in general.

Over the last fifty years, TM has given me many wonderful gifts. What is the greatest gift of all? It’s given me what I like to call an experiential referent for the reality of God. It didn’t happen all at once. But gradually, I came to realize that my deepest, most expanded, inner Self is Divine.

Not that I or most anyone else is identical with God. Not that I had anything to do with the creation of the Universe. Rather, through repeated experience of unbounded awareness, I realized that my deepest I—my Cosmic I, if you will—is what the book of Genesis calls the “image of God.”

Plus, there’s a further, very important point proclaimed by the great Jewish masters down through the ages. It might be best to allow them to speak for themselves:

From the 16th-century Kabbalist, Moshe Cordovero:

God is found in all things,
and all things are found in God.

There’s nothing devoid of Divinity,
Heaven forbid!

Everything is in God,
and God is in everything.

And beyond everything,
there’s nothing besides God.¹

From the 18th-century founder of the Chabad school of Hasidism: Shneur Zalman of Liadi:

Everything is God,
blessed be He,
Who makes everything be.

And, in truth,
the world of seemingly
separate entities
is entirely annulled.²

And finally, from the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, who passed away in the early 1990s:

The absolute reality of God…
fills the entire expanse of existence,
as we know it.

There’s no space possible
for any other existences…

The objects in our physical universe,
the metaphysical truths we contemplate,
our very selves…
do not exist in their own reality.

They exist only as
extensions of Divine energy…³

This kind of teaching—the teaching within Judaism that God, or consciousness, is all that there is—proved to be a great revelation to me. Certainly, we never covered this topic in Hebrew school! And it isn’t even something open for discussion in most rabbinical training.

However, it went so well with my meditation practice and Maharishi’s teaching that it made it possible for me to become a practicing Jew and spend some 31 years in the rabbinate.

We don’t have time to go into the many ways in which Transcendental Judaism is hidden in plain sight. But hopefully, a few short examples will be enough to tell the tale.

 We could begin with something I consider to be the “low-hanging fruit” of Transcendental Judaism: the reality of the Sabbath, or in Hebrew, Shabbat.

Shabbat observance is absolutely fundamental to Judaism. It’s one of the Ten Commandments, where it says, “Remember the Sabbath Day, to make it holy.” But how does one remember the Sabbath Day? And how does one make it holy?

Beyond being a day of complete rest, the Bible says very little about the specifics of Shabbat observance. But on reflection, the myriad rules and regulations of Shabbat observance are all designed to create a state of Shabbat consciousness.

One can see from its description in the prayer book that the Sabbath is much more than an ordinary day of rest. Rather, it is a day meant to induce transcending in activity—the very definition of higher states of consciousness—and the whole meaning of “Remember the Sabbath Day, to make it holy.”

The prayer book tells us: “Singular splendor—a crown of salvation—a day of rest, and sanctity, have You given Your people…—a rest reflecting Your lavish love, and true faithfulness—in peace and tranquility, of contentment and quietude—a perfect rest, in which You delight…”

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov has this to say about Shabbat:

Grant me the privilege
of the liberating joy of Shabbat…

Help me to expand
the dimensions of all Shabbat delights.

Help me to extend
the joy of Shabbat
to the other days of the week—
until I attain the goal of deep joy,
always.⁴

 Along with the rabbis, Rebbe Nachman understood the Messianic Era—as Yom She-kulo Shabbat—a time in which everything would be Shabbat, in which all of human experience would be saturated by a sacred restfulness, even in the midst of activity. And of course, that activity would be in accordance with the total potential of Natural Law—the will of God. This is the ultimate value and purpose of observing Shabbat.

One final bit about Shabbat. The Bible tells us, “And, on the seventh day, God ceased from creating and rested” (Exodus 31:17). But the Hebrew word for “rested” carries a special meaning. It’s derived from the Hebrew word Nefesh, which means “soul.” And thus, one can translate the Hebrew, Va-yi-nafash, not as God “rested,” but rather, that God “withdrew into His own essence.”

In other words, in creating Shabbat, God transcended His creative activity and resumed His Divine, restful Self—the same Self that prevailed before Creation and which continues to prevail today as the eternal Shabbat. The very strong implication is that each time we transcend, we enter into that Divine Sabbath rest—the Divine Self that creates and maintains all life everywhere, throughout all time and space.

Shabbat observance actually enhances this inner state of rest. Even simple acts, like candle lighting and Kiddush, handwashing, and Challah on Friday night, can trigger transcending. For Jewish Transcendental Mediators, the Shabbat ritual is a doorway to higher states of consciousness.

Let’s now move on to a prayer that observant Jews recite three times a day, every day. The prayer is Aleinu. What does the Aleinu tell us? Among other things, there is this potent phrase—Hu Eloheinu, Ein Od—usually translated, “He’s our God, and there’s no other.” But, typical of the ambiguities of which the Hebrew language is full, it can also be translated: “He’s our God; and, Ein Od—there’s nothing else!”

This is the plain meaning of the text. Yet, it never gets translated this way. And why? That God, or consciousness, is all there is, for most people, makes no sense whatsoever. But for those familiar with transcending—that there’s nothing besides God—that “consciousness is all that there is”—it’s far from being nonsense.

The prayer goes on to say, Emet Malkeinu, Efes Zulato. Again, usually translated, “In truth, He alone is our King.” But from a more enlightened perspective, it can also mean, “In truth, He is our King; and there’s nothing besides Him.”

And then, quoting from the book of Deuteronomy (4:39), and usually translated, “Know this day, and take it to heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above, and on earth below; there’s no other.”

But, once again, those two little Hebrew words, Ein Od, can be understood to mean, “There’s nothing else!” And, notice how this changes the whole tenor of the quote from Deuteronomy. It now reads: “Know this day, and take it to heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below; there’s nothing else.

Then finally, the climactic conclusion of the prayer: Ba-Yom Ha-hu, Yi-h’yeh Adonai Echad, U-Sh’mo Echad. What does this mean? There are many interpretations. But, considering what we’ve been saying here about Transcendental Judaism, it could well mean, “God will be one, and His name one,” when human perception is flooded with the Oneness of God; when, in the words of the Lubavitch Rebbes, everything—you, me, and the rest of creation—will be seen “only as extensions of Divine energy”…when “the world of seemingly separate entities is entirely annulled;” when we will perceive directly that consciousness is all that there is.

I want to share one more hidden instance of the Transcendent in Judaism: the story of Jacob’s ladder, in the book of Genesis. Recall that Jacob has fled the wrath of his brother, Esau. And why is Esau so upset? Because the blessing of their father, Isaac—intended for Esau—was obtained by Jacob through trickery.

On the road, Jacob has a dream. (Genesis 28:12): “A ladder was set on the ground, and its top reached the sky. And angels were going up and down it. Standing beside him was the Lord, who said: I am Adonai, the God of your father Abraham and Isaac. The ground on which you lie, I assign to you and your descendants.”

Because the Divine One is hidden within everything, including ourselves, it’s possible to transcend and experience unbounded awareness wherever we happen to be. This realization hits Jacob like a ton of bricks. He awakens from his dream and says, “Surely, God is in this place, and I didn’t know it. Shaken, he says, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gateway of Heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17).

However, in the original Hebrew, when Jacob says, “Surely, God is in this place, and I didn’t know it”, there are two words for “I.” He says, “V’anochi, Lo Yadati”—literally, “and I, I didn’t know.” So the question is, what didn’t Jacob know?

The answer is Jacob’s small “I”, as expressed in the words, Lo Yadati, initially was unaware of the presence of God because he “didn’t know” his true, unbounded Self—his Anochi—the Infinite, Cosmic “I” of God.

How do we know that Anochi is the Cosmic “I” of God? The answer is: when God reveals the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel, He begins by saying, Anochi Adonai Eloheicha—"I"—Cosmic I—am the Lord Your God.

And so, Truth dawns. When Jacob says, “my Cosmic I, I didn’t know,” he’s saying, in so many words, “In reality, God and I both are Anochi. We are both Cosmic “I.” This is my true, unbounded, inner nature. So, both God and I call ourselves by the same name!—that is, Anochi. And what’s more, Anochi is the real name of every self in this universe. In other words: “We’re all made of the same, holy reality. It just has this mysterious ability to look different, sound different, and be different.

But ultimately—you, me, God, and indeed, this whole, huge, cosmic creation—it’s all the same I.” And that same “I”—consciousness—is all that there really is.

Jacob concludes, “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gateway of Heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17). Once again, the Transcendent in Judaism, hiding in plain sight.

The 18th-century Hasidic Master, Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl, once said,

What is the world?

The world is God,

wrapped in the robes of God

so as to appear to be material.

And who are we?

We too are God,

wrapped in the robes of God.

And our task is to discover

that we, and all the world, are God.⁵

Waves of the Ocean

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This post includes a presentation by
Rabbi Alan Green
on Yom Kippur, 5785
October 2, 2025
Congregation Beth Shalom, Fairfield, Iowa

© Copyright 2025 Alan Green   All rights reserved.

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