Pressing the pause button on our lives

Do you find yourself rushing from task to task, event to event, meeting to meeting? Who today is not super-charged, stressed-out, worn-out or burnt-out? Stress seems to be the mantra of our manic lives. Apparently 52% of people say stress keeps them up at night. And since October 7, I would guess 95 percent of Jews are on stress steroids.

Not only is ongoing stress bad for our health, but it also affects our relationships, our capacity to be effective and of course our wellbeing. Even when we are aware that we are running too fast or simply running on empty we find it hard to stop. We tell ourselves that we just don’t have time to get it all done or to take a break?

Well, God had time to take a break when He looked at the product of six days of exertion. Let’s rest, He said, and let’s call it Shabbat. He taught Moses and the Jewish people the same lesson at Mt. Sinai in the desert wilderness; a place of deep silence where time itself holds its breath.

On the festival of Shavuot we celebrate that life lesson. The Bible records that immediately before God uttered the Ten Commandments at Sinai there was thunder and lightning and a very loud shofar. However, the rabbis steeped in tradition of silent prayer and reflection couldn’t imagine that these weighty ten principles would be delivered in a storm of sound and fury.

So, they suggest that at the moment the Torah was given the world entered the heart of stillness itself: “The birds didn’t chirp, the angels stopped their song, the waves of the sea ceased their restless tides, and no one spoke.” If you want to encounter God or access the spiritual you need to discover the sounds of silence, uncover the textures of quietude.