Communicating with the divine

Many of us (perhaps most) are raised with a belief system that includes a divine presence. Likewise, there are ways for us to communicate with this divine presence. The most common method is through prayer.

Every tradition includes some form of prayer, albeit with different names. It can be in the form of speaking, listening, reflecting, petitioning, praising, lamenting, supplication, offering… even simply “being” before the sacred.

Aside from the formal prayers and invocations, there are also much more intimate, private methods of experiencing the divine. These methods go beyond the obvious, “Hey G-d, are you listening?” and reach into our very awareness.

One such method is what Judaism calls Hitbodedut (התבודדות, hit-bo-deh-DOOT). It’s actually very simple and combines the more common practice of prayer with a conversation.

Hitbodedut literally means “self-seclusion” or “being alone.” It is a form of solitary, personal communion with G-d — spoken aloud, intimate, and free-form — apart from the formal liturgical services.

The term itself may be relatively recent, but the practice is essentially ancient. We can find references in scripture….

• Isaac:

“And Isaac went out lasuach (לשוח) in the field toward evening…”

(Genesis 24:63)

Many commentators (Ibn Ezra, Radak) interpret lasuach as a form of meditative prayer, wandering alone to commune with G-d.

• Hannah:

Pouring out her soul “before the LORD,” silently, personally, without formula.

(1 Samuel 1:10–15)

• David:

Retreating into wilderness, caves, and solitude to pray, lament, and speak directly to G-d

(e.g., Psalms 3, 4, 13, 42, 51, 142).

• Moses:

Repeated solitary encounters with G-d, especially outside the camp

(Exodus 33:7).

Seeking solitude before divine encounter; speaking openly, without liturgical structure; having a talk while on a walk “alone”… all of these are what is later called hitbodedut.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was a champion of this practice, referring to it as the soul’s most direct path to the Divine. He described it as speaking to G-d with complete honesty, in one’s own language, exactly as one would confide in a trusted friend. Maimonides approached the same instinct from a rational, contemplative angle, emphasizing the inner life of prayer — the quieting of distractions, focusing of the mind, and the cultivation of pure intention. His view reflects a kind of contemplative solitude. The Ba’al Shem Tov added early Hasidism to the scene, teaching that personal prayer — spoken from the heart in simple words — could rise higher than polished liturgy. It was this sincere cry of an ordinary person, offered in private moments away from synagogue, that held a beauty cherished by the Divine. Rabbi Zalman went even further, emphasizing not just a physical seclusion but the discipline of settling the mind, drawing thoughts inward, and contemplating the Divine presence.

This may all sound a bit daunting, but the practice itself is not complicated. There is no script or ritual here. You must first find a way to quiet yourself and that which is around you. Solitude — seclusion — is most often the simplest way to do so. This done, begin to speak — freely and openly — without fear of sounding foolish. Speak your heart — be it gratitude, confusion, frustration, longing, hope, suffering. Speak these things aloud and know that G-d is listening. In the stillness, the noise of the mind begins to thin. You will hear your soul, sense the cosmic within and without. If you allow it, you will receive a response, even if that response is nothing more than the very stillness itself.

Though hitbodedut may be firmly rooted in Jewish tradition, it shares a family resemblance to many Eastern disciplines. Like Buddhist meditation, it begins with quieting the mind, turning inward, and becoming aware of the deeper currents beneath one’s own conscious thoughts. Hindu mantra practice is used to achieve much the same internal quietude, and Taoist or Zen contemplation values solitude not as escape, but as a doorway into honest encounter with reality. The intent differs, of course — hitbodedut is relational, directed toward a Presence — but the inward posture is similar.

Seeking enlightenment through contemplation and a communion with the Divine is, in many ways, a higher form of spiritual practice. It is much more personal and intimate, bringing forth a much deeper honesty. We are all familiar with the monk who seeks the solitude of the monastery, the quiet pilgrimage to deepen one’s faith such as traveling the Camino de Santiago, the Hajj to Mecca. There are similar paths to contemplation in Hinduism (Kumbh Mela), Sikhism (The Golden Temple), Shinto (Kumano Kodo), and more. I myself often express my wish to find the shade of a tree, high atop a mountain cliff, overlooking a valley and river where I can sit quietly on a pillow and breathe in the depths of creation.

All of these share the same end-goal — contemplation and communion with the Divine.

One of my Rabbis recommended I practice hitbodedut and I’ve found it to be particularly soothing during more tumultuous times. I suppose it is a bit cathartic — call it a quiet form of spiritual catharsis. More oft than not, I’m expressing a need to understand the how and why of this life.

However, there are more profound modes of communion with the Divine — forms that arise not from speaking or striving, but from simply being. One must release all that is around and within, surrender to the unknowable. It is difficult to describe beyond this; it resists explanation because it belongs to something beyond language. Perhaps the closest explanation would be existence without existing — a dissolution of the self into something far more vast, not annihilation but expansion.

It is in these moments that one becomes aware of “something more.” It is energy, yet more than energy; awareness, yet beyond awareness. It is a unity that underlies every life, even as we spend our time insistent upon individuality. There is a much deeper reality to be experienced — known — that is unimaginably vast, profoundly subtle, and woven through everything that has been, is, or will be.

What I speak of is not unique to me; countless others have struggled to give voice to this “something more.” Mystics, poets, prophets, and monks — each reached for words only to find them too small for what they’d touched. It is the Pure, the One, the Source, and seeking communion is less an act of words and intention, more the dissolution of self.

When the self falls silent, what remains is the One who has always been there — the Presence beneath our presence, the Life beneath our life.  If we listen long enough, the silence becomes a voice, the stillness a presence, and the boundary between self and Source vanishes.  In that moment, we awaken into unity.