Mindful Torah Wisdom: Chayyei-Sarah with Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

Mindful Torah Wisdom: Chayyei-Sarah with Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

Nov 4, 2026 | Blog, by Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Senior Core Faculty, Institute for Jewish Spirituality

Chayyei-Sarah: Unifying Heaven and Earth¹

According to the Hasidic masters, it’s to become an embodied bridge between Heaven and Earth.
We find a blueprint for this in Avodat Yisrael, an 18th-century Hasidic commentary on Parashat Chayyei-Sarah:

R. Yisrael Hopstein², Sefer Avodat Yisrael, Chayyei-Sarah, s.v. V’haMelekh David zaken ba bayamim

 

Our teacher Reb Barukh³ explained the verse “Abraham was now old (zaken), advanced in years (ba bayamim)” (Gen. 24:1) in accordance

with the… Zohar’s teaching regarding the verse “Abraham, Abraham” (Gen. 22:11): [one Abraham] above and [one Abraham] below.⁴ᐟ⁵

[Reb Barukh explained]: For every tzaddik (i.e., a person grounded in higher consciousness) below (i.e., on this material plane) has a root and a quarrying-place for their soul within the hidden treasuries on High. In truth, this is the inner place they cleave to, while abiding in this temporal world only as a passing visitor. Through their holy deeds and virtuous ways, they draw holiness from the root of their soul, which transcends this temporal world.

This then is the intent of “Abraham was now old (zaken),” for he was really from the concealed world, which is called ‘ancient (zikna).’ “Advanced in years (ba bayamim),” suggesting that he drew this timeless essence into this temporal world, which is delimited by days and time.

Why does the Torah repeat Abraham’s name? Reb Barukh teaches that we inhabit two identities: a temporal one and a spiritual one.

Our temporal identity is bound to time and change—our body, feelings, personality, beliefs, roles, and ego. It allows us to function and act in this world with a sense of agency and efficacy.

Our spiritual identity transcends time and space. It is our primordial essence, eternally bound to its Divine root and untouched by worldly shifts and sorrows. This is the source of our deepest wisdom and spiritual awareness—the root of true “eldering” (ziknah).

When we ground ourselves in this higher awareness, we realize our true identity is the soul, and we move through the temporal world without being enslaved by ego, attachment to outcomes, or personal honor.

Yet the ultimate goal isn’t to remain cloistered away in high spiritual states. It is “ba bayamim”—to draw that timeless essence down into our daily, time-bound existence.

How do we do this? Not by fleeing ordinary life, but by infusing it with presence. Every time we take a mindful breath, listen deeply to another person, bring loving awareness to a simple daily task, or bear witness to our busy minds, we perform “ba bayamim.” We inhabit time from a grounding in timeless presence—becoming the bridge where Heaven meets earth, right here and right now.

¹ This piece was composed in dialogue with an AI assistant. The ideas are all original. In a couple of small instances, some of the language for articulating them was developed by AI and then edited by Sam Feinsmith. 

² Rabbi Yisrael Hopstein (1737–1814), known as the Kozhnitzer Maggid and by the title of his classic work, the Avodat Yisrael, was one of the primary founders of Hasidism in Poland alongside the Seer of Lublin. A master Kabbalist and renowned advocate for the Jewish people, his commentary blends deep mystical insight with a profound emphasis on fervent prayer and finding divine light within every soul.

³ Referring to Reb Barukh of Medzhybizh (1753-1811, Ukraine), grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov. Reb Barukh established a courtly estate in his grandfather’s hometown and claimed thousands of followers at the time of his death.

⁴ Based on Zohar Noach 58a, which reads as follows (translation adapted from sefaria.org): 

“Why ‘Noah, Noah’ (Gen. 6:9), written twice? [Because] each and every righteous person in the world has two spirits, one in this world and the other in the heavenly realm. And so we find that the Holy and Blessed One named all the righteous twice: ‘Moses, Moses’ (Ex. 3:4), ‘Jacob, Jacob’ (Gen. 46:2), ‘Abraham, Abraham’ (Gen. 22:11), ‘Samuel, Samuel’ (I Sam. 3:10).” 

It’s noteworthy that in response to being called by God twice by name, with the exception of Noah, all of these figures respond Hineni (“I am present”).  

⁵ Though our teacher uses hierarchical language of “above” and “below”, the Zohar itself speaks of a soul that operates in the temporal plane and another soul that abides in the World to Come.  

Torah from the Mountain, Torah from the Well: Attuning to the Kol Demamah Dakah (The Subtle, Silent Murmur)

Torah from the Mountain, Torah from the Well: Attuning to the Kol Demamah Dakah (The Subtle, Silent Murmur)

May 12, 2026 | Blog, by Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Senior Core Faculty, Institute for Jewish Spirituality

In this video teaching, we begin by contrasting the earth-shaking revelation at Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20 with the subtle, silent murmur of I Kings 19. This distinction serves as a map for our meditation, guiding us past the noise of the ego toward a sanctuary of inner quietude. Here, we connect with the source of divine wisdom to receive a fresh transmission of inner Torah—revealing that the voice of the Divine is still speaking to us, here and now.

This video originally appeared as part of a week-long IJS Daily Sit series in 2021, titled: Standing (or Sitting!) at Sinai, Here and Now: A Week-Long Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Intensive. Click here to access the entire series.

A Note on Language and Inclusion
I created the content before I began my personal journey of growing in awareness about my own disability and my unconscious use of ableist language. I apologize for using metaphors that assume specific physical or sensory abilities. As you engage with this teaching and practice, I invite you to adapt my language to your own experience—perhaps replacing words like “see” or “hear” with “notice,” “observe,” “perceive,” or “tune in.”

May this teaching support all of us to tune into the Torah we need right now – for our own benefit and the benefit of all beings,

Sam.

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‘Ayin Tovah (Focusing on the Good): Gateway to Gratitude and Resilience

‘Ayin Tovah (Focusing on the Good): Gateway to Gratitude and Resilience

Nov 13, 2025 | Blog, by Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Senior Core Faculty, Institute for Jewish Spirituality

Note: The Jewish spiritual tradition uses the term ‘ayin tovah (lit. “a good or favorable eye”) to describe a specific way of focusing our attention on the good. This language may feel inaccessible to readers who are blind or visually impaired. If you are such an individual, we invite you to adapt this teaching to your own experience in a manner that feels more accessible.

It’s easy these days to focus and even fixate on things that seem to be going wrong: rising antisemitism, uncertainty about the future of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, widespread political corruption and corporate greed, threats to democracy and civil rights, and rampant gun violence—to name a few of the big ones. The more we tap into our newsfeeds, the more anxious, powerless, embittered, and hopeless we may feel, as our negativity bias is confirmed repeatedly.

What Is Negativity Bias?

Craig and Devon Hase, contemporary meditation teachers, define it as follows:

“[It’s] the simple but powerful idea that we, as humans, are more likely to [focus on] what’s bad than what’s good. Why? Most likely it’s evolution. Evolution doesn’t care whether you’re happy. Evolution just cares whether you pass genes along. And so, if you’re living in a jungle with a bunch of attack cats and poisonous snakes, better to be on high alert all the time, and a little stressed out, than relaxed and happy and dead at sixteen.

Maybe all that made sense ten thousand years ago. But these days, with the advent of the information age, our negativity bias is continually enforced…which means your negativity bias is being confirmed and confirmed and confirmed, until all you see when you look out at the world is people doing bad stuff and the planet going up in flames.”

—Craig and Devon Hase, How Not to Be a Hot Mess: A Survival Guide for Modern Life, pp. 58–60

The issue is not that many problems aren’t real or don’t deserve our attention and concern. It’s that there are also many wonderful things happening in our lives and world that we tend not to notice when caught in negativity bias.

Perhaps this is why Rabbi Meir, one of the greatest sages from the time of the Mishnah, stated:

“We are obligated to recite one hundred blessings each day” (B. Talmud Menachot 43b).

He recognized that we need to proactively commit to focusing on the good—to cultivate the middah (soul-trait) known as ‘ayin tovah (lit. “a good or favorable eye”).

Training Our Attention Toward the Good

“Yes,” you might say, “but how?”

Craig and Devon Hase offer some concrete guidance:

“[Focus on] the good. How many of us train our [inner] eye to [focus on] the good?…And how often, in our daily rush of bad news, bad politics, and bad hair days, does the mind incline itself toward what’s already good?

[H]ere’s the thing…most people, most of the time, actually treat each other pretty okay. And though we are in the midst of an ecological crisis that needs to be addressed yesterday…, we can still train the mind to [focus], right now, in this present moment, on everything that is going right. Not because we are trying to fool ourselves, but because we have already been fooled, and we need to reset the focus and [attend] with [a] fresh [perspective] to what is already true so that we can build the resilience we’ll need to address all the things that have to get done today, tomorrow, and for all the days after that” (ibid.).

The invitation is not to ignore problematic things by retreating from the world or burying our heads in the sand. Rather, it’s to focus on the manifold blessings in our lives so that we can cultivate enough gratitude, appreciation, and resilience to turn toward difficulty with a buoyant, open heart—without becoming flooded or overwhelmed.

Practice: A Hundred Blessings

To support you in this work, I invite you to keep a gratitude journal each day, working your way up to listing one hundred blessings per day by the time our next newsletter goes out in December.

Begin small—for a few days, list five things for which you’re grateful. Then move up to ten, adding five new things when you’re ready, and so on. Don’t worry if you never make it to one hundred. The point is to intentionally direct your attention toward the good, to notice what doing so feels like in body, heart, and mind, and to offer spontaneous words of blessing. 

If you find it hard to begin, here’s a list of one hundred things for which you might cultivate gratitude, composed by my teacher, friend, and colleague at IJS, Kohenet Keshira haLev Fife and IJS Kivvun Cohort 6.

And guess what? If you pray from the siddur three times daily and recite the traditional blessings over food, going to the bathroom, and ritual activities, you’re already reciting one hundred blessings a day. Over this next month, you might try to recite more of them with kavvanah (intention, feeling, mindfulness), really pausing to notice the blessings they’re pointing to.

For example, when you praise God for “clothing the naked” (malbish ‘arumim) during the morning blessings, pay close attention to the sensations of your clothing on your skin and notice if gratitude might arise spontaneously as you do.

Especially when taking in the news, make a practice of pausing for a few moments to remind yourself of some of the blessings you’ve recorded in your gratitude journal. Notice how doing so impacts your negativity bias and your capacity to lean into difficulty without becoming flooded.

Perhaps in this way you might begin to develop a new habit of moving about the world with an ‘ayin tovah, focusing on the good as a gateway to gratitude and resilience.

Torah from the Well: Standing at Sinai Here and Now

Torah from the Well: Standing at Sinai Here and Now

May 12, 2025 | Blog, by Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Senior Core Faculty, Institute for Jewish Spirituality

Hi friends. I hope this message finds you well.

This month, we’re focusing on preparing spiritually for Shavuot—the festival that commemorates our collective receiving of the Torah at Sinai.

Many of us were taught to relate to that experience as a one-time event in the distant past. And while this historical moment continues to reverberate through Jewish life, Sinai can sometimes feel far away—almost like a relic.

But there’s another way to see it—one that views revelation not as something that ended, but as something still unfolding. This isn’t as radical as it might sound. After all, Jews who pray daily recite a blessing over Torah study, which reads:

Barukh atah Adonai, noten haTorah.
“Blessed are You, Timeless Presence, for giving us Torah.”

The Hebrew word noten, ‘giving,’ is in the present tense—suggesting that revelation is happening right now.

The Hasidic tradition takes this proposition seriously, teaching that we can receive chidushim—fresh Torah insights—from within, here and now. But this requires quieting the noise of the mind and listening deeply for the sacred wisdom bubbling up deep inside.

I call this paradigm ‘Torah from the well,’ because it doesn’t require us to climb to the mountaintop to experience revelation. Instead this paradigm invites us to dig down—to peel away layers of conditioning, fear, and confusion until we reach the clear, refreshing waters of our inner Torah.

What might we discover if we truly believed that new Torah is available to us here and now? How might we cultivate the habits of heart and mind that allow us to receive it? How could this inner Torah guide us toward greater wholeness, wisdom, and connection—and breathe new life into our relationship with our inherited tradition?

To explore these questions together, I invite you to join me for a 5-part meditation series that I offered through the IJS Daily Sit in May 2021: Standing (or Sitting) at Sinai, Here and Now. It’s available on demand, free of charge, on our YouTube channel. You can find the five sessions by clicking on the link in this blog post.

I hope this offering helps you tap into the Torah that’s already alive within you. I’m wishing you a meaningful journey toward Shavuot.

Take good care.

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Four Elements Meditation

Four Elements Meditation

Feb 13, 2025 | Blog, by Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Senior Core Faculty, Institute for Jewish Spirituality

As Tu BiShvat approaches, take a moment to reconnect with the earth—not just as a place we inhabit, but as the very essence of our being. In this guided meditation, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith invites us to explore the four elements within and around us, awakening a deeper sense of rootedness, flow, breath, and warmth. May this practice help us live in greater harmony with the world that is not separate from us, but a part of who we are.

Four Elements Meditation

by Rabbi Sam Feinmsith

Listening for Torah in the “Still, Small Voice Within, Here and Now”

Listening for Torah in the “Still, Small Voice Within, Here and Now”

Jun 11, 2024 | Blog, by Rabbi Sam Feinsmith, Senior Core Faculty, Institute for Jewish Spirituality

According to the Torah (Exodus 19), the Jewish people perceive the Divine Voice amidst a loud cacophony of thunder, lighting, and quaking ground. But I Kings (chapter 19) offers a different model of receiving revelation: the prophet Elijah experiences the Voice not in the tumult of wind, fire, or earthquake, but rather in a kol demamah dakah, the “still, small voice” – a practice each of us can emulate as we move towards the holiday of Shavuot, the holiday commemorating the revelation of the Ten Commandments at Sinai

Join IJS Senior Core Faculty member Rabbi Sam Feinsmith for a short meditation on listening for the kol demamah dakah, the “still, small voice” of the Divine, which we can perceive when we are able to cultivate a state of external and internal stillness.

Click Here to Practice with Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

This short meditation is excerpted from a longer teaching Rabbi Feinsmith offered in the days leading up to Shavuot in 2021 – one of a series of five consecutive sessions he led on “Standing (or Sitting!) at Sinai, Here and Now” on the IJS Daily Sit. Click here for the source sheet Rabbi Feinsmith created for the session.

For the complete teaching and practice, click here; for the full YouTube playlist for this five session series, click here.