I was video chating with my brother, Rabbi Eliyahu Gabriel, (he serves a synagogue in Tel Aviv) and we were (as usual) discussing the whole concept of non-duality. I guess I was speaking to him like he was my student instead of my brother.
He finally interrupted me and says, “We Jews have always believed this very thing. Even the idea that nothing exists except G-d. These concepts that you have been teaching all these years are not new to me at all, and I would have to add that you probably subconsciously absorbed them from Hebrew school.”
I was dumbfounded.
I’ve never been more than culturally Jewish, so I mostly didn’t pay attention a whole lot as I was growing up.
Eliyahu went on, “You’ve undoubtedly heard of Spinoza? He was right. The elders of his shul were wrong – not really wrong, but they gravely misunderstood him. The fact is that several schools of Judaism have taught what you call “the Oneness of the All” since even the days of the Holy Temple. The concept is one of the roots of Kabbalah. It’s even expounded upon in the Zohar, in the Mishnah and the Talmud. In fact, the Shema (I assume you recite it every day, as do I?) expresses it. ‘the Lord is ONE.’ I know we don’t express the concept quite the way you do, or the way your Guru’s taught you, but it’s the same thing. The same idea.”
I had to think about this for awhile. And in thinking I stated to meditate. And in meditating I came to a Groking: My brother was right, it’s the same teaching. There are no real differences, and religion is just a name. A label. The truth is deeper than anything that humans can usually grok. But the thread of the truth, whether you call it “panentheism,” “Advaita Vedanta,” “non dualism,” or, as I like to express it, “the Oneness of the All;” whatever way you need to grok the concept, is simple: I am G-d, you are G-d, all that groks is G-d.