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.
Believe it or not, we’re coming up on the third anniversary of this podcast. I’m kind of blown away by that. Over the last three years our team here at Unpacked and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality has managed to write, record, edit, and distribute 144 episodes which, according to AI, totals up to 1,440 minutes—or 24 hours of content. Holy cannoli that’s a lot.
There were a lot of things we didn’t know when we started in the spring of 2023. For one thing, we didn’t know if there would really be an audience—so thank you for listening and sharing and writing in! For another, we didn’t know how much the Jewish world, and the world in general, would be rocked by war, violence, Jew hatred, and so much else in these three years.
As a weekly podcast, we try to be attuned to where you are when my voice reaches your ear. And we know that, like before, now is one of those times when a lot of folks are, understandably, feeling a higher degree of fear and anxiety. Israelis are fighting in battle again and running to bomb shelters on the home front. Synagogues outside of Israel have been attacked. And even if we’re not exposed to those immediate threats, there’s an enormous amount of uncertainty, and a lot of folks feel afraid.
One of the essential aims of mindfulness is to be present with what’s here right now, with what’s true. So for this week I want to take a break from our miniseries on money, and just give us some space to acknowledge what’s happening for each of us.
You have your own experience, which is different than mine. But I’ll share a bit of what’s up for me. I have close family in Israel. For the last 2 and a half years I’ve heard from them about repeatedly racing to the bomb shelter in their building day after day, hour after hour. About the challenges of trying to raise children when air raid sirens are going off all night. I have nieces and nephews who are, as we speak, in uniform, serving in the army. We all worry about them constantly—not only the fear of what might happen to them, but of what they might also be compelled to do, and what effects that can have down the road. I have friends whose marriages have broken up because husbands and fathers were away for so many deployments on reserve duty. I feel for them and worry about them.
Here in the U.S., I’m raising my own Jewish kids, and their experience is so different than mine. During my sophomore year in college, I decided to start wearing a yarmulke all the time. You know why? Because I got tired of having to figure out how far away from the Hillel building I needed to be in order to take it off. I just figured, I’ll keep it on all the time. It was easier that way. Which means that my choice to wear a kippah full time was fundamentally about what the other Jewish students I knew would think about me—not about whether I was afraid. I just assumed the rest of the world would be fine with it. That’s just now how a lot of Jewish kids—or Jewish adults—experience the world today. There’s a lot more fear, and for totally legit reasons.
Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav, one of the great figures of the Hasidic movement in the late 1700s and early 1800s, had a wonderful phrase: Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar meod, the whole world is a narrow bridge. V’ha’ikar lo li’fached klal, and the essential thing is not to be afraid. If those words sound familiar, it’s probably because Rabbi Baruch Chait wrote a song with them that became really popular at Jewish summer camps in the 1970s and 80s and is still sung today.
But Rebbe Nachman’s original teaching is sometimes recorded with a very slight adjustment to those words: v’haikar lo l’hitpached klal. There’s an extra syllable in there—l’fached becomes l’hitpached. And in modern Hebrew, that changes the meaning slightly but significantly: The main thing is not not to have fear (which, let’s be honest, is a pretty tall order); no, the main thing is not to make ourselves more afraid, not to add to our fear. As my kids might say, psshhh. That’s a move. Not to make ourselves more afraid.
So here’s a way to practice that “move” right now. Wherever you are—unless you’re driving—I invite you to just settle in for a moment. Turn your gaze inward. Let your mind settle, let your body relax just a little bit.
Take a breath. Not a “fixing” breath, just a noticing breath.
Rebbe Nachman says the world is a gesher tzar me’od—a very narrow bridge. He’s acknowledging the reality: the heights are dizzying, the wind is blowing, and the wooden slats beneath our feet feel thin. That fear you may be carrying? It’s real. The anxiety for family in harm’s way, the concern for loved ones’ safety—that is the “natural” fear of the bridge.
But then there is the l’hitpached. The “making ourselves afraid.” That’s the story we tell ourselves about the wind. It’s the way we tighten our shoulders, or the way we doomscroll through the news, adding weight to our pack until we can barely move.
Right now, I invite you to see if you can distinguish between the two.
If you’re experiencing some fear, try to locate the fear in your body. Is it a tightness in your chest? A fluttering in your stomach? Just acknowledge it. And then you can even welcome it. Maybe say to it, internally: “I see you. You belong here on this bridge.”
Now, see if you can let go of the extra fear. The “what ifs.” The “shoulds.”
Imagine you’re standing on that bridge. The wind is still blowing—we aren’t pretending it’s a calm day. But instead of gripping the handrails until your knuckles are white, see if you can just… soften. Soften your jaw. Drop your shoulders.
Can you feel the wood beneath your feet? Even if the bridge is narrow, it is holding you. It’s an amazingly strong bridge. It has held our people for thousands of years.
As you breathe, imagine each exhale is a way of saying lo l’hitpached. I don’t have to add to the weight. I don’t have to make myself more afraid than the moment requires. I am here. I am breathing. I am on the bridge, and I am not alone.
When you’re ready, gently bring your awareness back to the room. Wiggle your fingers, your toes. Bring your gaze back outward.
The bridge is still there, and the wind hasn’t stopped. But maybe, just for this moment, the walk feels a little bit lighter.
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.