Taking a Walk

“I want you to go for a walk with someone you wish could be at your side.”  That was the instruction. It was Day 3, maybe 4, of my week at Kripalu with Jack Kornfield in January 2014. I’d been struggling with this notion of "Walking Meditation."  Each day had been a blend of teaching mixed with various forms and durations of meditation. As instructed, at various points each day, I walked the hallways of the main building at Kripalu. The ground outside was frozen, covered in snow and ice.  Most of us chose to do our Walking Meditation in the hallways. Each time we were sent forth to walk, I set out anew, trying hard to lower my gaze, focus on my breath and to keep my balance all at the same time. Each dose of Walking Meditation was a struggle.  The sitting practice was fine.  As the week went along, I was, more often than not, “in the zone.”  But the Walking was challenging. Now you want me to share the walk with another!?!  “It can be someone you knew, someone you would like to be with.  It can be an historical figure you wish you had met. Go, take a walk.”

I returned to the hallway and set out. With whom would I share this walk? Step, breath, where’s the wall? Am I too close to the person walking in front of me?  It seemed just like the same challenging walk of the days before. Suddenly, I felt a presence.  Something in me had summoned Rabbi Hillel.  I’m not sure why. I'd been hearing stories about this larger-than-life first century Rabbi since childhood.  And I’ve been telling some of those same stories during over the years I’ve served as a rabbi. Okay, I’m walking. I’m breathing. And it seems I am not alone. I figured as long as we were walking together, I should ask some questions.  Frankly I don’t really remember what they were. I only know that having Rabbi Hillel by my side seemed to make the walking easier.  Was that it?  Did I need an “imaginary friend,” a companion to divert my attention from the mechanics to help it make sense?  I still don’t know.  Yet, along we walked, down and back, down and back.  One aspect of that week of meditation was that it helped me be less conscious of time. I found I was more focused on my breath and letting my thoughts “pass like clouds in the sky.”  Maybe the old salt is true, “practice makes . . .”  No, not perfect, but better.

After decades of studying Jewish tradition, I felt privileged, as if I had actually been granted an audience with a major figure of this tradition which is so precious to me. Then it happened. Something shifted. I could not understand how, or why.  I only remember that suddenly Rabbi Hillel was no longer by my side. I wasn’t sure whether he had fallen a few steps behind, or whether he gone off to grab some coffee downstairs.  Yet, I was still not alone.  Another Rabbi, another cherished teacher had taken Hillel’s place.  It took a few moments. Then I realized I was now walking alongside my cherished teacher, Rabbi David Hartman z”l.  I knew in my gut that Reb Dovid, as we called him, could not really be at my side. He’d died 11 months earlier. Was it really any more fantastic to imagine Hillel at my side who’d died two millennia ago, than someone who I actually knew and had only been dead not quite a year? Step, breath, balance . . . step, breath, balance. Having found some level of comfort I was determined to keep going as long as I could. Or at least until the bell rang for us to return to the main hall.

Walking with Reb Dovid was different from walking with Rabbi Hillel. With Rabbi Hillel I asked the questions. Reb Dovid was a different story.  I guess I knew that would be the case once I noticed him. I'd first heard Rabbi David Hartman speak sometime in the Spring of 1977. I remember little of what he said, but I can conjure that moment and the impression he'd made on me. Fast-forward to Summer 2004.  I'd come to Israel to spend two weeks at the Shalom Hartman Institute as part of their annual Rabbinic Torah Seminar. Who should turn out to be the elder statesman of the Institute? Rabbi David Hartman. I’d heard his name over the years.  I'd read some of his books.  But here he was. We both looked 30 years older.  But his passion and dynamism took me right back to the stadium at K’far Maccabee.

A few years later I was invited to participate in the Institute’s more intensive 3-year Rabbinic Leadership Initiative. At K’far Maccabee I sat amongst thousands. At the Summer Rabbinic  Seminars I have sat amongst 150-200 rabbinic colleagues. Now I was suddenly one of 27 rabbis sitting at Reb Dovid’s feet, where we relished sitting over the three years of our RLI experience.  To be sure, those years brought me face-to-face with some of the most influential and impactful teachers with whom I have ever studied. Though he was increasingly in failing health, Reb Dovid was, nonetheless, still the elder statesman of this Institute he'd founded in his father’s memory in the late 1970s. Sadly, Reb Dovid died just days after our group left Jerusalem following our third and final Winter session at the Institute.  The following summer would mark our graduation from the program. He would not be there as we marked our transition to a different place in the life of the Institute which would now and forever be different for the absence of its founder and elder statesman, Rabbi David Hartman z”l.

And there I was in  January 2014, walking the halls of Kripalu, with my teacher, Reb Dovid by my side. I don’t know if he pushed Hillel aside, or if Hillel invited him to take a turn. I do know, the dynamic of my walking meditation experience changed. I was no longer asking the questions.  It was Reb Dovid’s turn, and he really only had one question for me. “Eric,” he began. I was never quite sure he even knew my name. But walking down that hall he certainly knew who I was. “Eric, what’s your Torah?”  “Excuse me, Reb Dovid?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I had heard him correctly. I was so conscious, not only of his presence, but also of my breathing, my gaze and my steps.  I certainly did not want to stumble and fall against my elderly teacher, whose own walking was not all that stable.  “Eric,” he repeated.  “What’s your Torah?”  “What’s my Torah?” I echoed.  I opened my mouth and began to answer.  At least I think I did. Then suddenly someone gently struck the meditation bell signaling that it was time to return to the Great Hall, to our cushions, and to our learning with Jack Kornfield.

“What’s my Torah Reb Dovid?”  If I’m honest with myself, I have spent over 34 years as a rabbi wrestling with that question. But that day at Kripalu, I really felt my teacher asking me. I don’t know if we will ever have the chance to walk together again. But whenever and wherever I walk, whenever and wherever I teach, you are with me. You are with me, along with all the the incredible, dynamic teachers you allowed me to meet and learn with, including your son Donniel.  Indeed I'd practically forgotten about that day until just a week ago, at this summer's Rabbinic Seminar, Donniel asked us all, "What's your Torah?" That walk came right back to me. You are all a part of the Torah I am forming into words as my Torah. I only pray that as my journey takes a new pivot the Holy One grants me the time to make sense of it, that I might share it with others with one percent of the passion, intellect and soul with which you, my teachers, have shared your Torah with us!