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.

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. 

משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה
When Adar arrives we abound in joy

–Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 29

An enormous wave of renewed fear and reawakened trauma has been washing over us since October 7. As we follow the news while the war rages on, our joy may be eclipsed by deep-seeded patterns of self-protection, our nervous systems may be highly aroused, landing us in fight or flight mode as we brace ourselves, tense up, and/or withdraw into ourselves and hide in fear. As we enter the month of Adar I this year, we may be wondering if we’re even permitted to cultivate joy in the face of so much hurt.

Our response at IJS is clear. The war between Israel and Hamas is likely to continue for the long haul, and the ongoing rise in antisemitism will probably intensify as well. And so, it’s incumbent upon us to cultivate more joy so we can meet the challenges ahead with a buoyant, hopeful, and resilient heart, and find some inner spaciousness, self-compassion, and freedom in the midst of our individual and collective suffering.

“Yes, but how?” we may ask. Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Ba’al Shem Tov¹ offers a path:

“The Israelite people shall keep the sabbath” (Ex. 31:16).²

Melancholy and the physical husks³ inhibit the soul’s joy… Therefore, the Torah provides a piece of good counsel: “The land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord” (Lev. 25:2).⁴ Meaning, we must bring the land—that is, our physical body—some relief and cessation (shevitah)⁵ so that it might experience physical joy. Through this, the soul can rejoice in Spirit (Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov, Ki Tissa #5).

Our teacher reinterprets the injunction to keep the Sabbatical year (Shemitah) and allow the land to rest as an instruction point for self-care. A sad heart and a tense body, he suggests, tend to block the innate joy of the soul. Providing the physical body (the earthy part of our being) with rest and restoration can release emotional and physical blockages that keep the soul’s innate joy from shining brightly through our whole being.

At IJS we’ve long taught that we can build an inner Shabbat sanctuary–a refuge from the suffering and tumult of our lives–by dedicating periods of mindful practice to cessation, rest, and restoration. Such practice periods afford us the opportunity to care for our bodies by slowing down, releasing tension, relaxing deeply, and coming into a nourishing quality of embodied presence. The more embodied we become, the more we can process and release embodied emotional knots that keep us contracted, fearful, narrow, and reactive. In time and with repeated practice, the simple but powerful act of observing these inner phenomena with loving, non-judgmental attention allows these knots to unfurl, revealing the innate luminosity, freedom, and joy of the soul and allowing its radiant glow to saturate every part of our being.

True, the fear, tension, and trauma of this time may be propelling us to harden; clench up; withdraw; fall into hopelessness; or move into quick, frantic action. Such patterns may be indicators that it’s time to dedicate time for mindful practice. Here are some instructions to support you.

Practice Instructions: Practicing Self-Care, Cultivating Joy

Silence your phone and put the to-do list on hold, even if only for a few minutes. Give yourself the gift of presence, softness, and restoration.

Find a comfortable posture, sitting on a comfy chair, cushion, or mat, with your feet firmly planted on the ground or some blocks or thick books. Alternatively, you may choose a supine posture, lying on your back on a soft, comfortable surface (e.g. a yoga mat, rug, or blanket), and laying a support under the back of your head if you feel any strain in the neck. If you sense any pain in the small of your back, consider bending your knees while keeping your feet planted on the mat.

Your eyes can be closed or open and downcast with a soft gaze. Rest your hands where they land comfortably, palms up or down.

Take some deep, relaxing breaths, drawing the breath all the way down into your abdomen, and noticing the rise and fall of your belly as you breathe in and out. With each inbreath draw your attention into the present moment. With each outbreath, release any tension, tightness, clenching, or bracing, wherever you may sense it in the body.

Continue to do this and notice if any emotional pain arises or makes itself known of its own accord (don’t go looking for it). See if you can sense where you feel it in the body with an allowing, non-judgmental stance. See if you can welcome it on the inbreath and release it on the outbreath. Don’t try to push it away. Instead just notice if breathing out deeply might open some space around the painful emotion or support it to unfurl of its own accord. If this exercise becomes too intense and you find yourself recoiling or becoming numb, stop attending to the breath and shift your attention to the sensations of your feet on the ground or those of contact between your hands (you can even give yourself a hand massage!) for the duration of your practice period. Or you can ground yourself by opening your eyes if they’ve been closed, looking around the room, and naming items you can see.

As you conduct this practice, simply notice if your awareness becomes brighter, more spacious. Notice if any contentment, happiness, or well-being shine forth from within your innermost being–naturally, spontaneously. There’s no need to try to make anything special happen. Simply rest in awareness, notice what you notice, and feel what you feel.

Conclude your practice by stretching in any manner that feels comfortable, revitalizing, and grounding. Offer yourself some words or a gesture of gratitude for practicing, and make a note of anything you may have learned.

1. The Ba’al Shem Tov (d. 1760) was the charismatic founder of Hasidism. His teachings continue to serve as a source of inspiration and guidance on the spiritual path for countless Jews, and have been fundamental to the Neo-Hasidic theology of IJS since its inception.
2. Referring to the seventh day of the week, Shabbat.
3. Though the word “kelipah” (husk) carries a variety of associations in the kabbalistic tradition, in this context it seems to connote something like a stiffening of the tissues in the body.
4. Referring to the seventh year, Shemitah.
5. The Hebrew “שביתה” (shevitah) shares the same root as שבת, Shabbat.

How might we kindle an inner light during this dark, traumatic time for our people?

Many of us will gather this Hanukkah to light the menorah as the days grow shorter and darkness prevails. On the surface, this act continues to affirm, as it did during the time of the Hasmoneans more than two thousand years ago, that even as our people are enveloped in the darkness of persecution at the hand of those who would annihilate us we can hold fast to the light of our faith. Certainly, kindling the lights for all to see will take on a heightened level of immediacy and power this year as we affirm that we stand strong in our Jewish values and refuse to cower in the shadows of our fear in the face of rising antisemitism.

But the Hanukkah lights point to something subtler too. According to the kabbalistic tradition there’s a link between the story of Jacob – who wrestled with an adversary throughout the night and emerged victorious, earning the name Israel – and the Hanukkah story, a link that suggests how we might kindle an inner light.

According to the biblical narrative of Genesis 32, after making preparations for battle against his brother Esau and sending his whole encampment ahead beyond the Western side of the Jabbok river, Jacob remained alone on the Eastern banks. Paraphrasing a teaching offered in the Talmud (Hullin 91a), the 11th century French commentator Rashi explains why Jacob remained alone: “He had forgotten some small jars and he returned for them” (on Genesis 32:25).

The Galician hasidic teacher Naftali of Ropshitz (1760-1827) cites the kabbalistic tradition that teaches that the jar of oil that the Hasmoneans would use hundreds of years later to rekindle the Menorah after defeating the Syrian Greeks was among the small jars Jacob had forgotten:

It is written in the mystical books regarding the verse “Jacob remained alone” that the very jug of oil from the Hanukkah story was among the small jars [that Jacob had forgotten]…He specifically went back for those small jars in order to draw down blessing (Zera Kodesh, Homilies for the Festivals, Hanukkah).

Why did the Kabbalists see fit to link Jacob’s small jars with the cruz of oil used by the Hasmoneans to rekindle the lights in the Temple? Perhaps they were trying to convey that during times of great struggle and darkness when our people are under attack, we tend to forget the power of the smallest and simplest of vessels as sources of immense blessing and strength. In the frenzy of trying to manage our fear, anxiety, grief, trauma, and hypervigilance, we may completely forget the subtle sources of light that lie within waiting to be magnified and enhanced so they might shine brighter than we may have ever imagined possible.

Our practice reminds us that it doesn’t take much to kindle an inner light to fortify ourselves for the dark night ahead. Becoming aware of the sensations of our feet firmly planted on solid ground; taking a few deep, mindful breaths; placing a hand on our heart and lovingly affirming, “Sweetheart, in this moment you’re safe”; bringing those who are suffering to mind and wishing them ease and well-being; recognizing the fragility and preciousness of this human life and being more present and grateful with those we love; reaching out to our family and friends in Israel and letting them know that we care – all of these are small vessels that, when opened regularly, contain the fuel with which to kindle a great light within, one that can nurture our courage, wisdom, compassion, resilience, and responsiveness during this painful, dark time and beyond.