As we enter the darkest season of the year, Jewish tradition teaches of the or haganuz, a hidden light revealed through presence and righteous acts. Legend says 36 hidden righteous ones—the Lamed Vavnikim—sustain the world. This Hanukkah, as we light 36 candles, we’re called to embody their spirit, revealing the light within ourselves and the world.
Our core spiritual practice throughout Elul, the final month of the Jewish year, is attending to the call of the shofar. As we anticipate the upcoming holidays, the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, and the American presidential election, our tradition offers a powerful tool for supporting ourselves and responding wisely to this unsettling time: the shofar, an instrument that helps us realign our inner lives with the underlying rhythm of Being.
We might think of the shofar as a spiritual tuning fork, inviting us to notice its vibrations resonating with the oscillations of our soul, with the kol demamah dakah, the “still small voice” of wisdom implanted within each of us. The Talmud says that one fulfills the mitzvah of attending to the shofar only im kivein libo, only if one direct’s one’s heart, if one listens with kavannah/intention [Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 27b]. In attending to the call of the shofar, our intention is to allow its vibrations blasts penetrate our brains, permeate our bodies, and touch =the deepest level of human knowing, beyond intellect and feeling
In our Shofar Project 5784 this month, we will support each other in the practice of attuning to the call of the shofar, grounding our practice in each successive week of Elul in one of four key themes of the shofar:
We can lay the foundation for our Elul practice right now with a simple practice:
Simply pause and be still for a moment.
Breath and bring attention to sensation in the body.
Ground your feet on the planet.
Notice the inner kol demamah dakah, the still small voice of the soul, ever-present in
Our bodies, emotions, and thoughts manifest our spirit or soul – our own personal spiritual instrument, waiting to be enlivened and tuned up for the New Year. As we move into Elul, join us as we support each other in growing more aware of how the vibrations of the shofar meld with those of our own soul, awakening us, opening us, softening us – and, we pray, transforming us.
Especially in this deeply fraught and challenging year, Pesach – and the seven week period leading to Shavuot – offers all a precious opportunity for a “spiritual reset.”
This part of the Jewish yearly cycle resonates powerfully with our mindfulness practice, which invites us to explore our inner life with curiosity, growing in awareness of our reactive, fear-based habits. Attending with curious, nonjudgmental attention to the truth of each moment (hitlamdut), we witness more clearly the energy of this “shadow” in our mind, emotions, and body.
And approaching this inner Mitzrayim (constriction) or frightened ego with compassion rather than harsh judgment, we experience greater spaciousness—greater freedom to shift that energy in a more wholesome or holy direction. We move with greater ease through the mouth of the Sea, into the midbar, the open wilderness. We are free.
In particular, Pesach invites us to cultivate greater awareness of the truthfulness in our thoughts and speech, to expand our freedom to direct the sacred gift of language to promoting Emet/Truth in the world.
The Hebrew word Pesach can be parsed into two distinct words—peh sach, or “speaking mouth.” According to a Hasidic understanding, Passover represents the liberation of speech. As slaves, the Israelites could only utter a raw, anguished cry (Exodus 2:23); in freedom, they could sing exultantly the “Song of the Sea” (Exodus 15:1-19).
In the swirling, powerful emotions of our times, even those of us who profess outrage at daily distortions of language and disregard for facts may discover ourselves “bending the truth” to suit our own preconceptions and biases. Mindfulness can help us catch ourselves more often when fear generates rationalizing thoughts or tendencies to fudge the truth. We may notice constrictions leading us to avoid “inconvenient” truths that challenge our preferred version of reality. Instead of harshly criticizing such inclinations, we can honor our fear, practice self-compassion, and notice options to promote truthfulness.
As a specific practice leading up to Pesach, consider the teaching of the prophet Zechariah, who urges us to “speak the truth with your neighbor; judge with truth, justice, and peace in your gates” (Zechariah 8:16). Think of the “gates” as the place within us from which thoughts, emotions, and sensations arise to consciousness. Notice reactions arising, and the speech these reactions might generate. Pause and practice sh’tikah, silence. Consider these questions: Do I really need to say these words? Are they true? Are they just? Do they lead to shalom, to wholeness or wholesomeness?
As we approach Pesach, the liberation of speech, may we be freed from inner constrictions distorting our view of reality. May we pause before speaking, texting, writing or posting, and discern whether to remain silent or to express ourselves through words reflecting our highest and truest selves May Emet, the Divine quality of truth, flow freely through us, and fill the cracks of this fractured world.
Originally published on Times of Israel on March 27, 2024
These are fearful times that try our souls. Our nervous systems are overwhelmed by the ongoing trauma of October 7, the devastation of the Israel-Gaza war, surging antisemitism, political turmoil, and more. Threatened on so many fronts, our default inclination as human beings is to speak and act reactively, or remain frozen in silence.
Our fear-based reactivity may feel good in the short term. Anger may temporarily dull our pain, grief, and anxiety, and create a short-term sense of safety. But over time our habitual reactions inevitably are revealed as clumsy and unwise, often destructive of others and ourselves. In such heated times, we often behave as our own worst enemy – even while feeling powerless to stop and change course.
It’s hard to act wisely when we are pummeled by waves of strong emotion. We struggle to hit the pause button – to stop, collect ourselves, notice other options, and choose the wise course. The eye of the hurricane, a place of calm and clarity in the midst of turbulence–a place we all need so much right now–eludes us.
Where can we find that place of calm and clarity? Jewish tradition teaches us that that calm place begins in our own minds and hearts–that it is always available to us, if we can access it.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space,” wrote the Holocaust survivor and psychotherapist Viktor Frankl. “In that space is our power to choose. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Whenever we act or speak immediately in reaction to external stimuli, without that much-needed space, we act from habit, a form of enslavement. There is no freedom, no choice, and no growth.
Jewish tradition and practice provides an antidote to reactivity
Shabbat provides us with an experience of stillness and quiet that is always available to us. Shabbat allows us to be rather than act. The fog of our mind can clear; our emotions can be fully felt, honored, and allowed to move through us. We can see more clearly and discern more wisely.
But Shabbat doesn’t only happen every seven days. We can bring Shabbat consciousness into our lives all the time, in every moment. Regardless of our level of traditional observance, we each can “keep Shabbat” by expanding the space between stimulus and response, pausing to breathe and suspend judgment – even for a moment. Some might describe this very Jewish practice in contemporary terms as mindfulness practice.
Judaism has a spiritual practice ideal for times like these: tikkun middot, a Jewish practice for developing character traits and aligning actions with our values. Tikkun middot practice integrates basic principles of Jewish mindfulness or “Shabbat awareness” with close attention to essential soul/ethical traits like loving connection, setting wise boundaries, humility, courage, and gratitude. Based on Judaism’s core principle that every human being is created in the Divine image, we come “factory-equipped” with these soul/ethical qualities.
Tikkun middot practice helps us insert and expand the space between stimulus and response. From within that space, we can more easily access our sacred traits so that rather than reacting instinctively from fear, we can freely choose a wise, sacred response representing our authentic selves, more aligned with our sacred values.
An ongoing Jewish spiritual practice can help us keep our balance – and tikkun middot is the ideal practice for trying times such as these. It can help us avoid falling prey to our baser instincts. It can help us maintain connection to sacred values and be true to who we are even when we are under duress.
The Omer: A Time for Tikkun Middot
The seven-week period linking Passover and Shavuot is known in Jewish tradition as the Omer, a time devoted to spiritual growth and ethical maturation. On Passover, we leave the enslavements of reactive habits. Over seven weeks, we shed these manifestations of slavery, growing daily in our capacity to make free choices more aligned with our essential self. On Shavuot, we arrive at Mount Sinai prepared to act freely from the moral wisdom with which we are imbued.
This spring, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality will offer a wonderful opportunity for engaging in just this process of spiritual and ethical growth – Awareness in Action: Cultivating Character through Mindfulness and Middot, a synchronous, online program in tikkun middot practice. Participants will join a supportive community of practice which helps them more consistently align their inner values with how they show up in the world.
Awareness in Action participants learn how to “practice Shabbat” in their daily lives by developing the capacity to hit the pause button before speaking or acting reactively and unwisely. Each week, they immerse in supported practice of a middah drawn from the theme of the respective week of the Omer: (1) Chesed, loving connection; (2) Gevurah, setting wise boundaries; (3) Anavah, balancing self and others; (4) Zerizut, acting promptly and persistently; (5) Hodayah, gratitude for life as it is; (6) Tzedek, seeking out and manifest what is fair, just, and right; and (7) Sh’mirat HaDibbur, wise communication. The program includes an additional post-Shavuot week of practice for fostering the middah of Emunah, faithfulness or steadfastness.
All materials are provided on a convenient online platform and supported by weekly live practice sessions I will host, and which will be led by guest faculty Rabbi Tamara Cohen, Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife, and Rabbi Aaron Weininger.
As Jews have throughout our history, we need now to draw upon the wisdom of our tradition and practices to buoy us and help us steer wisely through the storms of our individual and collective lives, to bring us and future generations to a better time and place. The approaching Passover, fraught with emotion, affords us all a precious opportunity to free ourselves from the enslavement of reactivity, to remember and return to who we truly are, and to choose wise pathways aligned with the divinity within us.
“Darkness is your candle,” wrote the great Sufi poet Rumi. “You must have shadow and light source both.”
Jewish tradition understands darkness as an inherent and necessary aspect of life; our spiritual task is to extract sparks of holy light concealed within the shadows of life. In this season of encroaching darkness, this practice takes on special import.
According to tradition, the sacred light of the first day of Creation extended to the end of the universe; the Talmud questions how this could be so, since the heavenly luminaries were not created until day four. Rabbi Elazar answers that the light created on day one
was not that of the sun, but a different kind of light, through which humans could observe from one end of the world to the other. But when the Holy One of Blessing looked upon the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion and saw that their ways were corrupt and that they might misuse this light for evil, God arose and concealed it from them, as it is stated: “And from the wicked their light is withheld”(Job 38:15).
This light is concealed from human beings when we fall from consciousness and act “sinfully” or unwisely. After Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, God granted them only an additional 36 hours of this light (from Friday midday through the first Shabbat), after which fell to them and future human beings to reveal the now concealed light through our own initiative.
We are charged with the task of perceiving and testifying to the continued existence of the or haganuz, the “hidden light,” and revealing it through sacred study and righteous deeds. The or haganuz is said to be revealed only to 36 tzadikim, 36 anonymous righteous people (the lamed-vavnikim) in each generation. This number corresponds as well to the total of 36 lights we kindle on a single hanukiah over the eight nights of Chanukah.
Because we do not know the identities of the 36 individuals by whose righteousness the earth is sustained, each of us must act as if we may be a lamed-vavnik. By bringing mindful intention to each of our words and actions, we can reveal the or haganuz, the light of sacred awareness which, while often concealed from view, is nevertheless present in each and every moment and experience.
[These events are true — or they could be. They took place in the town of Chelm, whose residents famously claimed that they themselves were not fools — it’s just that foolish things always happened to them.]
It was crunch time in Chelm. Or at least, it was supposed to be. Rosh Hashanah was scheduled to arrive early that fall, and the townspeople feared: what if the new crop of apples would not be ready for the holiday? How would they dip apples in honey for a sweet year?
The Chelmites arrived at what they considered a wise solution: to store apples from the previous fall in their root cellars. “We will certainly be blessed with ample apples for the New Year!” they thought.
But when the Chelmites went to their cellars on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, to their dismay they discovered that the stored apples had turned to mush. They had plenty of honey. But there was not an apple fit to be eaten in all of Chelm — only beets and potatoes and, as everyone knows, it would never do to dip those in honey.
The whole town was in a panic. “Yucky, mushy apples!” the children cried. “This will be a terrible, horrible, no good year!” Everyone ran to consult with the town’s foolish but brilliant rabbi, Reb Ashira Chaya, who sat drinking tea calmly in her study.
“Rebbe,” cried the whole town, “we have no apples for the New Year! Rosh Hashanah is so early, we knew the new apples on the trees would not be ready! But the apples we saved are mushy – and if we don’t have apples and honey, this will surely be a terrible year in Chelm!”
“My friends, don’t worry!” replied Reb Ashira. “Do you really think the Holy One of Blessing would let us begin the year without appropriate apples? Heaven forbid! Come with me – tonight, let us begin the New Year praying outside, in the apple orchard itself!”
With that, the rebbe led everyone out to the apple orchard of Chelm. The sunset was magnificent. The first sliver of the New Moon of Tishrei was rising. The stars were emerging. The air was clean and fresh and cool.
“Now,” said the rebbe. “Let’s slow down and just breathe together. Take a minute right now. Stop speaking; start listening. Place your hand over your heart. Remember how much God loves you. Breath that in. Embrace yourself.”
Everyone did so. They stopped. They breathed. They fell silent. Each Chelmite placed a hand over their heart and offered themselves the love they imagined coming towards them from the Holy One. Not a sound could be heard; just a breeze moving through the orchard. In the silence, in the stillness, they felt loved. They felt renewed.
“And now,” instructed the rebbe, “honestly ask yourself: how did I do as a human being this past year? How many mitzvot did I do for others? How many times could I have been more generous? Could have said the right thing? Could have stood up for others, tried to make peace, set things right?”
Each person took a moment to think of how they had missed the mark this past year, how they might have done better. Everyone felt a deep, palpable sadness and regret – and a desire to do things differently.
“Now,” she said, “take one more minute. Whisper to yourself: ‘I wish I had done better this year. I am sorry for anything I did that hurt another person. This year, may I be the best me as I can possibly be. May I be guided to do the right thing. May I do teshuvah, may the Holy One help me change my ways.’”
And everyone did as the rebbe said. Each and every Chelmite went over to someone they had hurt and said they were sorry and they would try to do better this year.
“Now,” said Reb Ashira Chaya, “take a look around.”
And to everyone’s shock, all the apples on the trees of the orchard — the very same apples which until that moment had looked too green and too small to eat — had turned beautiful. They were shiny, full, perfect for picking and eating. Everyone was amazed at what was, indeed, a Rosh Hashanah miracle.
“My friends,” said Reb Ashira Chaya, “everyone knows it’s impossible to keep apples crisp all year. They just keep getting mushier until we can’t even call them apples anymore. But even apples can turn. And when Rosh Hashanah comes, it’s crunch time! Tonight, we remember that we all have a chance to start over again, to have a fresh start. And suddenly the apples are hard and crisp, and when you take a bite, there’s a crunch.”
“These apples are a lot like we are tonight: crispy and crunchy. When we start a new year, on Rosh Hashanah, we try hard to be the best person we can be. But when the holidays are over, it’s tough to keep that going. We slip back into bad habits. Our best intentions, our clear ideas about who and how we want to be, begin to get a little bit softer. We start making mistakes. Just like the apples, we begin to get mushier.
“But the Holy One knows that we’re just human beings,” she said. “None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. We already know that we’ll probably do some things this year that we’ll be apologizing for when Rosh Hashanah comes around a year from now. But tonight, let’s try to keep our promises to God as long as possible – let’s be as crisp and crunchy as we can, for as long as we can.
“Now, everyone, pick an apple, and take some honey. Let’s lift up our fresh apples, and our fresh promises, and let’s pray together that we can take the crispness, the firmness of our resolve and carry it into the New Year as best as we possibly can. May we in our humble village, may our people everywhere, may the whole world be blessed with a year of sweetness, of healing, of justice, of shalom!”