Why There’s No Word in the Hebrew Bible for “Spirituality”

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Richard Samuelson writes:

In the past couple of decades, the word “spiritual” and the concept of “spirituality” seem to have become increasingly common. This seems to be a reflection of New Age culture, and I suspect that its idea of the spirit and the spiritual might not be congruent with Jewish tradition.

If memory serves, there was once a line of argument, or perhaps merely a cultural bias, that downplayed the “spiritual” side of Judaism. Of course, in the Hebrew Bible one reads about “the spirit of God,” and there are verses like “Not by My might, nor by power, but by My spirit.” Yet there is nothing like the Christian Bible’s declaration that “God is spirit,” and I gather that the turn against spirituality in Judaism, if there was one, was in part an effort to differentiate Judaism from Christianity.

What, though, about the Talmud? How is the word “spirit” used there? And would the kabbalistic side of Judaism be more in line with today’s “spirituality”? What is the Jewish concept of the spiritual?