Welcome to Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day with me, Josh Feigelson.
I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you benefit from our time together.
If you don’t recognize that voice, that was Walter Cronkite, the longtime anchor of the CBS Evening News in the 1960s and 70s.
For two decades, Walter Cronkite was synonymous with the news. His voice and his presence conveyed a sense of trust for many people. And since there weren’t that many sources of news to choose from, the feeling was that if Walter Cronkite said it, then it was true. He, and the news in general, were generally a source of stability in people’s lives.
Today, of course, we live in a very different news world. There are no Walter Cronkites anymore. We don’t just have three television networks reporting the news. Instead, we have uncountable websites, news bloggers, substackers, podcasters, Twitter reporters, news aggregators, bots, and God knows what else throwing stuff at us under the heading of the news.
As a result, today just 28 percent of Americans report trusting mass media, which Gallup says is a record low (if you trust that). And, significantly, 46 percent of people who follow the news closely say it makes them frequently feel angry or stressed.
Add that all up, and I think we find a picture of a society in trouble. And as we conclude our series on mindfully engaging with the news, I think this is an important place to start.
When we began in this series, our producer Rivky kind of challenged me to explain why this topic matters. You may be wondering the same thing. So here’s why I think it’s important.
Jewish mindfulness practice is a beautiful thing. Obviously I believe that, or I wouldn’t host this podcast week after week. It can help us to be better people: to live with purpose and clarity, to be deeply connected to our roots, to be more compassionate and loving. And it can definitely help with managing all the stress and anxiety that can arise living in the world today.
But one of the big dangers of any mindfulness practice is what we in the business sometimes call “spiritual bypass.” What’s spiritual bypass? It’s what happens when we do the meditation or other practices in order to relieve our anxiety—but then not do anything about the actual problems in the world. It’s like we say to ourselves, “The news is stressing me out, so I’ll listen to Soulful Jewish Living and feel better, and then… I’ll go back to watching my TikTok videos. I don’t have to take responsibility for what’s happening in society. I meditated and I feel totally fine and at peace.”
Today, listening to Walter Cronkite say, “And that’s the way it is” sounds almost comical. Who can say that with a straight face? I think that’s one of the enormous challenges of being alive in this moment: we feel like we’re living in the multiverse, where anything and everything is possible, including any and every interpretation of reality. There are a billion truths, and so there is no Truth. That increases our anxiety, and that can lead us into the spiritual bypass doom loop. It’s all overwhelming, I can’t know what’s true, so I’ll just lie under the covers—and maybe I’ll do a little meditation with Josh.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important to feel peaceful. It’s important to lower our reactivity level and increase our capacity for compassion. But if the meditation doesn’t actually lead you to get off your tuchus, then I’d invite you to ask yourself if that’s really enough for you. As Rabbi Tarfon memorably puts it in Pirkei Avot, lo alecha hamelacha ligmor, you don’t have to finish the work, v’lo atah ben chorin l’batel mimenah, but you’re also not free to ignore it. We’ve each got to do our part. Otherwise we’re just giving up—and I, for one, am not ready to do that. Knowing what’s going on in our communities, in our country, in the world—that’s part of not ignoring it. It’s part of caring. And I guess what I really want to say to you is: I care about this world, and I hope you do too.
While it does seem farcical to say “That’s the way it is,” the truth is that that’s exactly what we’re trying to do in mindfulness practice. We’re trying to see clearly the emet, the truth of our experience from moment to moment. And in the Jewish tradition, emet or truth is referred to as the seal of God. It’s not an easy thing to achieve. It can be elusive. One famous rabbi said that he struggled his entire life just to try to understand truth. But it is what we’re seeking.
That’s actually what we’re practicing when we engage in mindfulness. Not necessarily truth on a global scale—that’s obviously even more elusive—but truth in our moment to moment experience. If we can ground in that, then we can build up in our pursuit of emet.
So here’s a final, simple meditation exercise to illustrate it.
As usual, find a posture that’s good for you: dignified, upright, conveying to yourself that you’re here to pay attention and experience truth.
Feel the support of the chair or the floor under you, the support of the earth.
Allow your attention to come to rest on your breath. Try to stay close to the sensations of breathing: in through the nose, out through the mouth. Feel the rise and fall of the belly, the way your rib cage expands on the inhale and contracts on the exhale.
As gently as you can, without too much effort, see if you can just be present of the breath—aware as you inhale that you’re breathing in, aware as you exhale that you’re breathing out.
That’s what’s true in this moment. That’s emet. You’re breathing.
If a thought or sensation arises, allow yourself to notice it but not chase it. Notice, “Thinking is arising,” or “An itch is arising.” And then let it pass. Again, this is what’s true in this moment. It’s emet.
This practice is the ground for experiencing truth. It’s a foundation we can build upon. As you go through your day, as you engage with the news, see if you can slow yourself down, take a few deep breaths, and try to get clear on what’s true in this moment. Be honest about what you don’t know—but also don’t avoid what you do.
Our families, our countries, our world today needs us to be able to see clearly. We need to be able to touch emet. We need to have things we can trust, including sources of news and information. We need to learn how to trust one another again. That’s one of the reasons I practice mindfulness, and it’s one of the reasons I try to share it with you. I hope it helps.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.
ENDING
Thank you for joining us for Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day, a production of Unpacked, a brand of OpenDor Media, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. If you like this show, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Check out our website, unpacked.media for everything Unpacked-related, and subscribe to our other podcasts, and check out the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Most importantly, be in touch–about what you heard today, what you’d like to hear more about, or to dedicate an episode. Write to me at josh@unpacked.media.
This episode was hosted by me, Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Audio was edited by Rob Pera and we’re produced by Rivky Stern. Thanks for joining us.