Praying with Our Feet
The other day I got together with a friend who is one of the wise advisors in my life. I told her about a particular issue I was grappling with. She shared a meditation instruction of bringing attention to the sensation of my feet on the floor and really focusing on the way gravity presses the feet down into the support of floor. As I practiced with this instruction, I felt a kind of stability that opened up a clarity that helped me understand what steps to take next.
The very next day I was learning a text from Likkutei Halachot with my study partner. The topic was about how to find eitzot amiti’ot shleimot, wise advice, the kind that can lead you where you really need to go, not just in the short term, but for long term attainment. This book was written by Nachman of Breslov’s beloved disciple, Nathan, and—as is usual for Nachman teachings—there were lots of metaphors for the wise advice that we all seek.
Given my experience the day before, I was astonished to see that one of the metaphors for wise advice was raglayim, the legs and feet! Nathan explains that this is because the legs and feet symbolize the lower levels of a spiritual journey, when we are in the depths and really need that wise advice. That is when we are most receptive to hear the council of true tzadikim and to understand the guidance of the sages who can make the wisdom of Torah alive to us.
These are days when many of us are, in the memorable words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, “praying with our feet.” Sometimes it seems like there isn’t time to do things like meditation or setting aside an hour to learn with my study partner. But this is precisely the time for those practices. They help me pay more attention to the wisdom of my own body and the wisdom of the sages who lived before me. These practices help me see more clearly. They remind me that I am not separate from the rest of the world, and that keeping myself grounded and clear is adding more groundedness and clarity into the world. They help me take better care of other selves that I encounter, in my family, on the subway, as I react to the headlines.
Grounding. Support. Clarity. True advice that brings greater wholeness and opens a door to the next right steps. As we enter into Elul and take true stock of our lives, we hope some of these offerings will help us do just that.
