Rest, Renewal, and Listening to Our Deepest Yearnings

This past Shabbat marked seven years since my rabbinic ordination, a milestone of great significance. That’s not only because of the role the number seven plays in the Jewish tradition, but also because these past seven years have been more than I ever could have bargained for. I know I’m far from alone in the feeling that I could never have imagined how the past seven years have unfolded.

I’m reminded of the laws of the Shmita (sabbatical) and Yovel (Jubilee) years. After a farmer cultivates their land for six years, the land must lie fallow during the Shmita year, not to be cultivated in any way. The land enters a period of deep rest and renewal, just as do all who dwell upon it. We are but passing strangers, the Torah teaches. The land is the Divine’s. We are part of that great interconnected web of all being but ultimately spend a limited amount of time in this vastness of time and space.

I find myself moved deeply by the Torah’s reminder to all of us that rest is not a luxury but a necessity. Indeed, this knowing is built into our weekly cycle when Shabbat arrives. Regardless of how we mark these sacred hours, Shabbat is here to remind us that there’s an alternative to grind culture. We don’t live to produce. We live to make deep meaning out of our wild and precious lives.

One cannot drink from an empty well. Yet, I found I was doing just that. Out of my deep-seated internal drive to live and work from a place of profound integrity, I pushed past my own needs and body’s limits, leading to deep spiritual, emotional and physical depletion. Like so many others in helping professions—and especially like many other marginalized rabbis—I operated from a place of deep scarcity, often feeling like a punching bag for all of the ways in which institutions are so profoundly failing our people, including ourselves. I took so much in, sought to solve and remedy so much damage, pushing past my heartbreak and waves upon waves of grief.

In conversations with friends in this work, the issue of our profound burnout comes up again and again. There can be so much shame in voicing the deepest questions and doubts, never mind our deepest longings.

For as long as I can recall, I have had a contemplative longing at my core. I recall as a teenager wondering if living a life rooted in the quiet of contemplative practice could be my path, though I didn’t have the exact language for it then. As I deepen into this foundational truth that this longing is present and has only grown stronger these past years, I am grounded in the knowing that  the Jewish tradition has always had contemplative practices and we are now living in a time when they are beginning to become more widely known.

I am drawn to the most salient questions about why we are here and how to live lives of meaning, impact and service. This was ultimately what led me to rabbinical school. And this yearning to serve and to be a change agent lead to my depletion.

In thinking about the significance of numbers, I am reminded we are still in the counting of the Omer. Amongst the many and varied ways of relating to this sacred count is the Kabbalistic assignment of a combination of sefirot—divine attributes—to each of the forty-nine days. One of the seven sefirot used in this way is gevurah which can mean strength or boundaries. Many people have used the term gevurah to refer to the holy act of creating containers. I am reminded repeatedly that containers are crucial for doing this work. Without loving boundaries, we cannot show up well in the world in general and for our most cherished relationships in particular. Without gevurah, without honoring my own need for renewal and without discerning what is mine to do and what is not, I will continue overextending myself, unable to hear my own soul’s longing. When the Torah speaks about slowing down and savoring the seventh year, it presents me with a deep challenge. I want to slow down, ask the deepest questions that are keeping me up at night, figure out what path I want to be on and how to show up well on that path. Perhaps I can draw from the practices that are helping me through and orient my life around them, just as I have had a longing to do.

No sooner does this idea begin to find its footing than the voice of fear and scarcity loudly interjects, giving me 24 arguments why slowing down, davka now, is both impossible and irresponsible. My inner chevruta challenges all of those, giving me 24 retorts. And on and on.

The land itself requires rest and renewal every seven years. We rest every seven days, just as the Divine rested from creation. When the world is convulsing with so much horror and heartbreak, resting honestly feels obscene to me most days. Yet, as my spiritual director reminds me, resting, following the deepest yearning of my heart will make me a better human being and a better teacher. I want to invite us all to find some way to slow down. Perhaps it’s taking one thing off our never-ending to-do list. Perhaps it’s taking some deep retreat time, whatever that means to you. Whatever and however you rest, may you find the space to do that which brings you life and joy in these truly awful times. We rest not to bypass or turn away but instead so we can re-enter our task-oriented lives with deeper reserves of skill that can be used to, as our tradition teaches, bring the sacred into the mundane. We will make it through together. Rest can help us. May it be so for us and for all we hold and tend. May we continue our sacred tending, knowing that our souls, too, deserve this tending.