There are a number of ways in which God communicates with people: by a voice from heaven; by means of the Urim and the Tumim that functioned during the earliest period of Jewish history; by the holy spirit, where a person would say words that God caused him to say without being aware of their origin; and by prophecy, in which a person’s senses would be numbed and he would see visions from above.

A voice from heaven:

There are four levels of divine communication: a voice from heaven, the Urim and the Tumim, the holy spirit, and prophecy. These are increasingly higher levels of revelation… I will now explain these four levels to you: The first, the voice from heaven…was always heard by the Sages of the Talmud and pious people of the generations during the Second Temple era. They would make use of the voice from heaven when prophecy had ceased and the Urim and the Tumim no longer operated.

The Urim and the Tumim:

The second level was the Urim and the Tumim, which, through its holy names, conveyed an indirect divine revelation.

The holy spirit:

The third level was the holy spirit…in which a person would find that he experienced expanded consciousness, and wonderous words would come out of his mouth, speaking about future events. His feelings would not be affected at all; he would say words placed in his mouth through the spirit of holiness and he would not know the source of those words.

Prophecy:

The fourth level was prophecy; in prophecy a person would speak of future events when all of his feelings were numbed. He would remain separated from physicality and anything connected with it, totally and exclusively uniting with his pure mind. Then he would see clear light with visions, perceiving things through a dream or while awake. (Rabbeinu Baĥya ibn Ĥalawa, Commentary on the Torah, Deuteronomy 33:8)