Dvarim [Deuteronomy] 10:20
Adhere to God?
Jewish meditative practice is often called דבקוּת because it requires attachment and perseverance. The traditions often call this “clinging.”
Clinging to G!d implies meditation rather than worship. One does not simply walk into a synagogue in the morning and start to pray — we put on tefilin, we put on a talit gadol, and some of us use a gartl also.
It was once very common also to wear a suit jacket or similar to bisect the body diagonally from the shoulder to the hip.
This choreography requires time and intention. In my own practice I expose my arm from wrist to elbow, bisect with my jacket if I’m wearing one, and place my tefila with the intent that I connect myself to G!d, position myself towards G!d, attach myself to G!d, descend from emotion to action, descend from intellect to emotion, and centre myself on G!d. This takes a good deal more time than the 30 seconds or so actually needed.
Jewish liturgical poetry (piyutim) use all these words — but liturgical poetry triggers the imagination, and the imagination is intangible. Worship, in our context, is the opposite of imagination. The few acts of veneration we have, such as touching the Torah’s cover, or touching or talit to the Torah when saying the barchot, are socially acceptable and entirely optional.
