Devekut

Devekut, “cleaving” or “attachment”, is the Jewish mystical ideal of constant communion with God. The word comes from the Bible’s call to love God and to cleave to God; the rabbis asked how it is possible to cleave to God, who is a consuming fire, and answered that one cleaves to God by imitating God’s ways.

The Kabbalists made devekut the highest goal of the religious life: the continual binding of the mind to God, so that even in conversation with others the heart is with God. Most medieval Kabbalists described it as a communion that never becomes identity, though some, such as Abraham Abulafia, came close to describing union.

Hasidism made devekut available to everyone, not only to the learned few. The Baal Shem Tov taught that one can cleave to God in every act, in prayer and in eating, in work and in joy, and that even stray thoughts can be raised to God. Scholars have debated how far Hasidic devekut approaches mystical union, and how it compares with Sufi fanāʾ.