We are heading into the seventh and final week of the Omer period, associated with the sephirah (Divine emanation) of Malkut (Sovereignty), which in Jewish mystical tradition is connected with holy speech. The focus of our practice this week is sh’mirat hadibbur, mindful speech. How might we channel all the middot, the sacred traits we have cultivated over the Omer period, so they inform how we interface with the world through speech and action? How can we transform our communications into divrei kodesh, holy words?

As an example of how we might use Jewish mindfulness tools to nurture our innate capacity to communicate wisely and from the sacred traits within us, consider the following situation with which many of us are familiar: speaking up to an authority figure on behalf of others who may not be in a position to do so for themselves. (This example is drawn from the module about Shmirat haDibbur, mindful speech, in the IJS Awareness in Action program.)

Imagine you need to speak to a doctor on behalf of a loved one. You’re feeling concerned about their condition and their care, and have questions about their treatment. The doctor is busy and has been hard to reach. You’ve left a number of messages and the office keeps insisting you’ll hear back soon. Finally, your phone rings: the doctor is calling you back.

You only have a few precious minutes. A lot is riding on how it goes. Your intention is to express all your concerns and raise all your questions. You want to communicate with respect, but also be treated with respect. You want to honor the doctor’s expertise, but not be intimidated by the doctor’s authority. You want to communicate warmly, but not be submissive.

Step one is to cultivate hitlamdut, kind, nonjudgmental attention to what is happening in this moment. Notice what’s happening within you and, as judgments arise, let those pass. Scan your body, and just observe: maybe your chest is constricted, your breath shallow, your heart speeding. Your mind may be racing with fear-based thoughts.

Maybe worry or sadness and pain is feeding critical thoughts about the healthcare system, medical professionals in general, or this doctor in particular. You may have anxiety about your loved one’s condition. Speaking with an authority figure may be deeply uncomfortable. You may notice frustration at not hearing back more quickly from the doctor, annoyance about the doctor calling you back at an inconvenient time.

You might be nervous whether the doctor will be receptive to your concerns, or will be defensive. Recognize your anxiety as it manifests in your body, your breathing, your emotions, and your mind. Accept these anxiety-based thoughts and emotions as they are, without wishing or pushing them away.

Now move to the next step, the bechirah point – the moment in which you grow more aware of your options.

Begin by investigating your habitual reaction in this situation. Maybe your anxiety feeds an instinct to become passive, deferential, or avoid. Maybe it inclines you to get off the phone before fully exploring the issues. This approach would ill-serve your loved one and leave you feeling guilty and more frustrated. Maybe your worry leads you to be overly confrontational. Maybe when you are nervous, you tend to express anger or hostility. That might feel good at the moment, but surely it would be unhelpful and unwise.

Investigate your underlying anxiety, the obstacle drawing you away from your original intention, which risks leading you to express yourself in an unwise and unproductive way. Then practice non-identification by remembering that anxiety is the normal human reaction in this situation, and it is not you. You might silently whisper, “This is anxiety, and it, too, will pass.”

Now, apply the middah of sh’mirat hadibbur, the capacity to use speech for holy purpose. Return to your original intention. What kind of world do you want to create with your speech?

• You might notice that you can speak with chesed as if you had a loving connection with the doctor as a fellow human being.
• You might speak with gevurah, strength, insisting that you be received as your loved one’s advocate.
• You might infuse the conversation with anavah, humility, balanced self, by taking the time you need to raise all of your concerns and questions, and also by leaving time for the doctor’s responses and setting a time for a follow-up conversation.
• You might use your zerizut, your energetic response, to seize this precious opportunity to engage with your loved one’s doctor.
• And you might end the conversation with hodayah, with gratitude, thanking the doctor for the effort and time.

Now you have practiced sh’mirat hadibbur, not allowing your anxiety, anger, or fear to distort your words or to thwart your intention. You’ve spoken clearly, strongly, respectfully, and effectively. You’ve been an effective advocate for your loved one. Your words have emerged from the middot representing your best self.

This is just one scenario we may find ourselves in during everyday life in which sh’mirat hadibbur, choosing wisely when and how to speak, can help us use the gift of speech. Through this middah, we can learn to raise our voice on behalf of ourselves and others who are vulnerable, in a way that emerges from our best selves and our most noble intentions.

We are moving into the fourth week of the Omer, the seven-week period between Passover and Shavuot, traditionally a time for spiritual reflection and growth as we move from freedom towards revelation.¹

This fourth week of the Omer is associated with the kabbalistic sephirah (Divine emanation) of Netzach (“victory” or “endurance”). A middah (spiritual/ethical trait) associated with Netzach is zerizut, the energetic response necessary for fulfilling an intention. The Ba’al Shem Tov, founder of modern Hasidism, taught that as beings “formed in the image of the blessed Holy One who generates worlds … everything we do should be with energy and dedication (b’zerizut), since in every act we are able to serve God.”²

In his ethical masterwork Mesilat Yesharim (“The Path of the Just”), Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzato describes two forms of zerizut: one prompting us to act, and one sustaining our action. In the first, we respond immediately as opportunities arise.³

For Luzzato, such zerizut means:

not allowing a mitzvah to become chametz (literally, “soured”). Rather, when the time of its performance comes, or when it happens to present itself, or when the thought of performing it enters one’s mind, one should hurry and hasten to seize hold of it and perform it, and not allow time to go by in between. … [E]ach new second that arises can bring with it a new impediment to the good deed.⁴

Once we’ve initiated action, we shift into the second aspect, “follow through zerizut” or persistence:

[Once] one [has taken] hold of a mitzvah, one should hasten to complete it. … [W]hen one is performing a mitzvah with great swiftness, this will move one’s inner being to kindle aflame also, and the desire and want will increasingly intensify within. But if one acts sluggishly in the movement of one’s limbs, so too the movement of one’s spirit will die down and extinguish. This is something experience can testify to.

Lethargy represents a “shadow aspect” of zerizut. Many of us have a habitual inclination to procrastinate when facing a task, particularly if we anticipate it being unpleasant or challenging. Our lassitude may reflect the yetzer hara operating within us, fulfilling its function of protecting us from frustration or disappointment. Our instinct to avoid may reflect underlying patterns of thought and emotion designed to shield us, such as fear of revealing our limitations. Or we may simply feel overwhelmed, driven by fear of inadequacy to the task. 

In mindfulness practice, we witness how our mind generates justifications to rationalize and support our tendencies to delay or avoid. Rather than judge our propensity for procrastination harshly (“I’m so lazy!” “I should do more!”), we apply chesed or compassion to our underlying anxieties, fear, and/or pain. We “befriend” the bases for our sluggishness. We remember that perfection is neither expected nor attainable, and that we are called to do only our small part in addressing even huge tasks. “The day is short and the work is much, the workers are lazy and the reward is great, and the Master of the house is pressing,” Rabbi Tarfon teaches in Pirkei Avot 2:20-21. “It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” 

Softening the grip of our fear and undermining the associated justifications can free our Netzach energy to manifest zerizut by taking immediate steps responding to what had felt daunting. Once we have “engaged our engine,” we cultivate zerizut as persistence in the face of obstacles and the inclination to slow down.  

In these deeply challenging days, many of us may experience a sense of despair and paralysis in the face of so many pressing issues. It is easy to fall prey to a false belief that we cannot make a difference. Some of us are crippled by perfectionism. As we notice inner messages feeding our sense of inadequacy, we meet these with compassion, soothing our fears enough to open our mouths to say what needs to be said, move our feet and go where we are needed, and take small steps towards justice. Moving skillfully through our internal and external hindrances, we practice zerizut by meeting obstacles with compassion and determination. Nevertheless, despite all the internal and external challenges, we persist.

¹ Week Four runs from sundown Thursday, April 23, until sundown on Thursday, April 30.

² Tzava’at HaRIVa”Sh #20 (“The ‘Testament’ of the Baal Shem Tov),” trans. Rabbi Jonathan Slater.

³ In keeping with a rabbinic adage “zerizin makdimin lemitzvah, those who engage in zerizut perform any mitzvah at its earliest possible moment.” Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 4a.

⁴ Rabbi Moshe Hayyim ‎Luzzatto (1707–1746), Mesilat Yesharim (The Path of the Just), Amsterdam, chap. 7 (trans. Sefaria).

Mi-shenichnas Adar, marbim b’simchah. When the month of Adar begins, one increases in joy.
Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 29a

Mitzvah g’dolah l’hiyot b’simchah tamid. It is a great mitzvah to be joyful, always.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlov, Likutei Moharan II: 24

How do we nurture simchah through spiritual practice – especially in such challenging times, when joy seems hard, maybe even unjust, to access?

Nachman describes simchah as emerging from our capacity to develop greater awareness of the deeper truth of our lives, to “reveal” that which previously had been “concealed” from us:

At every stage in a person’s spiritual growth, there is an aspect of Torah and mitzvot which is ‘revealed’ to him – a level he can understand and practice – and then there is a higher level that is as yet ‘concealed.’ Through prayer, the level that was previously ‘concealed’ becomes ‘revealed,’ leaving an even higher ‘concealed’ level to aspire to. Simchah is when one constantly advances from level to level, turning the ‘concealed’ into the ‘revealed’.¹

For Rabbi Nachman, simchah/joy is not a sentiment synonymous with happiness, but rather a level of spiritual awareness, waking up to the underlying interconnectedness of all. This may help us understand the teaching of Ben Zoma in Pirkei Avot “eyzehu ashir? Ha-sameach b’chelko; “Who is rich? One who rejoices in one’s portion.”²

We can understand chelek/”portion” here to mean our unique perception of what is true in this moment, and understanding it as fundamentally connected to all other perceptions. When we surrender judgment and comparison, and simply attend to and “rejoice” in this breath, this thought, this feeling, this sensation, this moment, we are ashir/rich; we experience a sense of fullness and wholeness. We have everything we need in this moment.

Rabbi Nachman illustrates this kind of simchah in a tale about a shoemaker described as tam (“simple,” unperturbed by complexity and separation) who always rejoiced in every experience even though he was inexpert at his craft, made inferior products, and earned less money than his competitors. When his wife pointed out to him how much better the other shoemakers were doing, he replied, “What do I care about that? That is their work, and this is my work! Why must we think about others? … As long as I make a clear profit, what do I care?’ He was thus always filled with joy and happiness.”³

This kind of simchah/joy born of deep connection to self and others can transform the energy of challenging thoughts and emotions such as pain, anger, shame and guilt. The Ba’al Shem Tov is said to have taught a parable in which the anger of a king is dispelled when his beloved child comes into his presence:

For even if the king is in a state of anger, the very sight of his precious child brings him joy and delight. The anger dissipates of its own, and obviously never returns, all the time his son stands before him, as is human nature. The child, therefore, has no worries, and enters at any time he so wishes and exudes praise without end, for he knows that this brings the king, his father, joy and delight.

Why is it this way? Why do anger and fury disappear when joy and love enter? Where do they go? Yes, this is human nature, but nevertheless, we must try to understand how and why. But this is the power of love and joy: When they prevail, they cause anger and fury to ascend upward toward their root. This is part of the secret knowledge, that these forces of anger and strict judgment are mollified only when they reach their origin, since at its origin, all is pure goodness. It comes out that anger and fury are healed and mollified through love and joy.⁴

Mindfulness does not mean eschewing sadness or anxiety to practice simchah. To the contrary, it involves embracing challenging emotions, thought patterns and narratives with compassion, thereby transforming the energy within them to yield the spiritual state of simchah. Experiencing and cultivating a sense of deep relation to others and to ourselves helps relieve our constrictions and allow the chiyut/life force within them to shift and flow in its proper, more wholesome and holy direction.

We can assist in this process not by trying to compel ourselves to be “happy,” but by understanding our grief, sadness, and pain as portals to profound connection — what Rabbi Jay Michelson aptly describes as “unhappy happiness,”⁵ the simchah/joy born of a sense of spiritual connection.⁶ We don’t have to feel “happy” to experience “joy.”

In any moment of any day, we can choose to engage in “awareness practice,” stepping up, as it were, to the balcony of the mind and simply witnessing there, without judgment, the thoughts and feelings swirling below. From this “God’s eye perspective,” the narratives forming in the mind lose their power, and we intuitively “remember” the infinitely larger context in which we live and of which we are a precious, inseparable part.

As we move into Adar in these deeply unsettling and challenging times, may we find and nurture simchah in the essential, foundational truth that we are profoundly, inextricably connected in an unfathomable web of life energy through time and space.

¹ Likutei Moharan I, 22:9.

² Mishnah Avot 4:1.

³ “The Sophisticate and the Simpleton,” in Rabbi Nachman’s Stories, trans. Aryeh Kaplan (Breslov Research Institute: 1983), p. 168-173.

⁴ Tzava’at Harivash 132.

⁵ Jay Michelson, “What Rabbi Nachman and Pharrell Have in Common,” The Forward, August 16, 2014.

⁶ See David Brooks, “The Difference Between Happiness and Joy,” New York Times, May 7, 2019: “Happiness usually involves a victory for the self. Joy tends to involve the transcendence of self. Happiness comes from accomplishments. Joy comes when your heart is in another. Joy comes after years of changing diapers, driving to practice, worrying at night, dancing in the kitchen, playing in the yard and just sitting quietly together watching TV. Joy is the present that life gives you as you give away your gifts.”

“Knowing our roots” means cultivating conscious contact with a deeper source of nurture and support. This core Jewish spiritual practice is embodied by Joseph, the protagonist in the Torah reading cycle which coincides with and follows Hanukkah, and which concludes the Book of Genesis. 

Throughout the story of Joseph and his brothers, he manifests the middah (spiritual/ethical quality) of bitachon, awareness of being implanted in and connected to a source in which he trusts. When Joseph interprets the dreams of the butler and baker in prison and, when he is freed, the dreams of Pharaoh, he insists that God, not he, is the source of their interpretations. According to Rashi, Joseph in effect tells Pharaoh that “the wisdom is not mine, but God will answer and put an answer into my mouth that will bring peace to Pharaoh.” Through his quality of bitachon or trust, Joseph understands himself simply as a conduit, a vessel through which the Divine source will flow. 

Despite the manifold challenges and injustices Joseph experiences throughout the narrative (being sold into slavery, imprisoned unjustly, and forgotten by those on whom he depended) he maintains this awareness of a greater or deeper power operating within him. His consciousness of and trust in this process does not waver, even when its energy leads him into extreme challenges and painful experiences.

Strikingly, throughout the Joseph narrative in Genesis this deeper, greater power is never described as operating overtly. God functions down below the surface, in the roots, never “speaking” explicitly to Joseph or anyone else. The hidden reality of the Divine is clearly present but, as depicted in this the narrative, human beings must acknowledge and draw it out. The character of Joseph illuminates and symbolizes this process of drawing up sacred energy through the roots.  

Joseph is associated in Jewish mystical tradition with Tzadik, one who does that which is right, acting in alignment with the deeper flow of the Divine. The Friday evening liturgy of Kabbalat Shabbat features Psalm 92 (click here for a healing chant by MIRAJ, a trio consisting of Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael, Juliet Spitzer, and Rabbi Margot Stein), which concludes: 

tzadik katamar yifrach, 
the righteous bloom like a date palm, thrive like a cedar in Lebanon, 
sh’tulim b’veit Adonai, b’chatzrot eloheinu yafrichu, 
planted in the house of the Holy One, they flourish in the courts of our God.
Od y’nuvun b’seivah d’sheinim v’ra’ananim yehiyu
In old age they still produce fruit; they are full of sap and freshness,
Lehagid ki yashar Adonai, tzuri v’lo avlata bo
attesting that the Holy One is upright, my rock, in whom there is no flaw.

Our roots, planted in the Divine, represent the nexus between ourselves and the deeper Source from which we emerge and which is constantly causing us to flourish. When we grow in awareness of this constant process—when we “know our roots”—then we, like Joseph, can experience a sense of bitachon, trusting in that flow and our ability to draw it up through ourselves into the world. Through this practice, moment by moment each of us has the potential to act as a tzadik, one who does what is right, manifesting the Divine flow, healing and repairing ourselves and our world.