On a fairly regular basis, I engage in a mundane but profound practice of home-making. In these moments, I find I am highly aware of boundaries—what is inside my home territory and what is not. Aware of that boundary, I am also aware of when I may have stepped over the line, when I bend the line or even dissolve it as an act of generosity. And, as I return to my home from this practice, I find myself feeling both refreshed and in need of a glass of water.

I’m talking about mowing the lawn.

Both the eastern and western boundaries of our house are shared with neighbors. While on the southern half of our house the boundaries are demarcated by a fence, on the northern side (the front yard) it’s just grass. Thus, when I mow the lawn in the front, I find myself trying to discern: “Where exactly is the property line here? What’s my responsibility and what is my neighbor’s?” And, I’ll admit, on the occasions when I decide I may as well just cut the little strip of grass between their side of the property line and the cement walkway that runs to the front of their house, I find myself feeling a little self-congratulatory: “Good job, Josh, you generous soul.”

Michael Brooks, who was the longtime Hillel director at the University of Michigan, was a friend and mentor to me and countless others. He passed away a few weeks ago, which caused me to reflect on some of the lessons he taught me. One of them, also recounted by Rabbi Nadav Caine at Michael’s funeral, was, “Most problems are questions of boundaries.”

What did Michael mean? I think it’s that very often the challenges that animate us the most seem to be about deciding whether and how to label something. A mundane example: Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? A more serious one: Who is a Jew? Who is a citizen? How should we categorize AI?

Or is this strip of grass part of my property—my home, in our conventional way of thinking—or my neighbor’s? Where does the boundary of home begin, how do I know when I’ve left it, and how can I know when I’ve returned?

The very first teaching in Tractate Shabbat is actually about this question. The Mishnah there discusses what constitutes an act of carrying between the private and the public domains. Here’s how it illustrates the case: “A poor person stands outside (in the public domain), and the homeowner stands inside (in the private domain).” Whenever there’s an exchange between these two on Shabbat, one of them is carrying an item across the threshold of home—from private to public or vice versa.

How does the Mishnah choose to begin its discussion of Shabbat? Not by talking about rest or food or how to recite kiddush, but by exploring the boundaries of private and public, home and not-home.

I don’t think this is a minor thing, nor is it merely a technical question. The Mishnah is telling us something much deeper, I believe: The essence of Shabbat is being at home, and living with Shabbat consciousness should help us develop a more refined, hopefully more generous, approach to being at home in our lives and the world.

Rashi famously comments on Genesis 2:2: “And God completed on the seventh day… What was the world lacking? Rest (menuchah) came, and the work was finished.” Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv (1824–1898), one of the giants of the Mussar movement, elaborates, first describing the condition of pizur hanefesh, or uncenteredness of the soul, as the ultimate source of sorrow, grief, and misdirection.

He contrasts this with menuchat henefesh, resting of the soul, which is the root of virtue. “This is the dimension of Shabbat,” he writes, “which is a foretaste of the World to Come, bringing all of Creation to fulfillment. For our Sages found no single word to encompass the ultimate fulfillment of Creation other than menuchah.”

When we are spiritually at rest—in a state of menucha, inhabiting Shabbat mind—we are able not to mind boundaries so much. We can stop the constant categorizing of the six days of the workweek (“and God divided… and God named,” the drumbeat of Genesis 1), and instead we can just be with what is. That could be because we feel safe within our limits, enacting the vision of Jeremiah 31:17: v’shavu vanim ligvulam, “your children shall return to their borders.” Safe within our boundaries, we can feel safely at home.

One could argue that there’s a second path to that kind of at-homeness, which is dissolving the boundary altogether. There is much to support that reading, from the teaching of Thich Nhat Hanh to the Jewish mystical understanding of Isaiah 6:3, m’lo kol haaretz kvodo, “The entire world is filled with the glory of the Divine.” Yet as much as I aspire to that kind of consciousness, I feel a need—particularly in this week of the anniversary of October 7, when the question of the safety of borders and boundaries, the question of home, was so terrifyingly awakened—to be careful with it.

Cain, the first murderer in human history, is, at first, condemned to a life of homelessness: na va-nad tihyeh ba’aretz, “A ceaseless wanderer will you be upon the earth” (Gen. 4:12). In the next verse he cries out to the Holy One: Gadol avoni minso, “My punishment is too great to bear!” The Kotzker Rebbe comments: “Since the decree of being a vagabond and wanderer was passed upon him, the path to repentance (teshuva) was blocked before him. For as long as he remains a wanderer, his heart-mind will not be with him, and he will be forced to flatter people; thus he will not have the opportunity to serve God and return in complete repentance. Consequently, the punishment itself becomes a cause for further sins, shutting the gates of repentance before him.”

What Cain experienced was, perhaps, something beyond exile. It was complete homelessness, with no possibility of return. That, argues the Kotzker, is more than any human being can live with. In order to survive, we need some notion of a home to return to (lashuv)—someplace in the body, heart, mind, and soul, someplace and sometime in which we can dwell (lashevet) and live securely (Shabbat).

By the end of Parashat Bereshit, the notion of home seems to have become thoroughly debased. If home is a place free from violence, then the fact that the earth was filled with violence (Gen. 6:11) meant that it was rotten to the core. Thus the project of re-creation, which begins with Noah. Why Noah? Rabbi Simcha Zissel answers: “‘Noah found grace’ (Gen. 6:8)—because he was a person of inner stillness (ish menuchah), he found grace.”

As human beings we need to be able to be at home—in time, in space, in spirit. In the Creation story, in Shabbat, in Cain and Abel, in Noah, the Torah opens with a continual exploration of what it might mean to be at home. So, I might add to Michael Brooks’s observation: Our deepest questions are not only about boundaries, but about home.

For Reflection & Conversation

• How do you relate to the notion of boundaries? Do you find you want to be safe inside your own boundary/border? Do you aim to live in a life or a world without boundaries altogether? When do you find one or the other supportive or challenging?