Intro
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.
Last week we started a new series on the podcast about mindfully engaging with the news. We talked about the phenomenon of News Avoidance Syndrome—or, what we might call the desire to hide under the covers rather than read, watch, or listen to the news. And I invited you to notice how you feel when you come across the news—on your phone, listening to a podcast, scrolling on social media.
When Jane Eisner and I taught a course on this last fall, we surveyed folks. We asked them, on a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel when you engage with the news? 1 was terrible, 5 was great. Out of 112 participants in this survey, the average score was 1.9—which is to say, pretty crummy. So it seems we’ve got some work to do!
One of the key ideas that can help is one that the Buddhists call the “second arrow,” or that we might call hesech hada’at. The basic idea is this: Imagine you are walking through a field on a nice, calm, lovely day. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, an arrow strikes your leg. You’re bleeding, you’re hurting. And then your mind starts to turn: Where did this arrow come from? Who shot it? Why did they shoot it at me? And what’s going to happen to my leg? What if they need to amputate it? How will I afford the procedure? What if I never walk again, and then I can’t work anymore and I have to go on disability, and tomorrow’s my friend’s birthday and I won’t be able to afford a present for her?!
You get the idea. The essential point is that there is the pain of the first arrow, and then there’s all this additional suffering we cause ourselves as our mind spins out of control. These are the second arrows.
The Hebrew term hesech hada’t could be translated as a lapse in mindfulness. In some contexts, it’s a bad thing: When we’re guarding something, or doing something that really requires our focus, then slipping up and dropping our attention is a bad thing. But in Hasidic thought, it actually gets turned around in some contexts into something to actively practice. It’s a lot like the second arrow: There are always circumstances we can’t control and that may cause us pain. But we do have some control over whether and how we bring our attention and awareness to them.
One of my favorite stories from the Talmud illustrates the idea. It’s about Hillel Hazaken, or Hillel the Elder. This is the dude who gave us the great questions, “If am not for myself, who will be for me? When I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” That alone would be hall of fame worthy, but here’s a story I think is even better. (Note: I’ve edited it a bit here to make it appropriate for a general audience.)
It goes like this. A couple of shmendriks are talking and decide to make a bet. “Hey, you’ve heard how no one can make Hillel angry?” says one. “I’ll give you 200 bucks if you can make him lose his temper.”
“You’re on,” says the other guy.
Now, this fellow is smart. He waits for a moment when he thinks Hillel will be most susceptible to losing his cool, a moment when he might be tense to begin with. I.e. Late on Friday afternoon, when folks are racing to get everything ready for Shabbos.
He comes to Hillel’s house and knocks on the door, shouting, “Is Hillel here? Is Hillel here?” Sure enough, Hillel is in a towel, in the middle of his bath. But he heard a knock on the door, so he came to answer.
“What is it, my son?” Hillel asks.
“Is this the house where Hillel lives?” the guy says.
“Yes, I’m Hillel,” Hillel replies.
“Oh good. I have a question for you. Why is the sky blue?”
“That is a wonderful question,” Hillel says. “I’ll tell you: it’s because the air acts like a giant game of pinball, bouncing the blue parts of sunlight all around the sky until they reach your eyes.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you,” the guy says, and leaves. Hillel goes back to the bath.
Five minutes later, he knocks again. “Is Hillel here? Is Hillel here?”
Again, Hillel gets out of the bath, puts on a towel, answers the door.
And again, the guy asks a silly question. “Why do I have a belly button?”
And again, Hillel says, “That’s an excellent question, my son! Your belly button is left over from the umbilical cord that connected you to your mother when you were in her womb.”
“Oh, okay. Thank you,” he says, and leaves. Again, Hillel goes back to the bath.
And again, five minutes later, the guy bangs on the door, “Is Hillel here? Is Hillel here?”
Again, Hillel gets out of the bath, puts on the towel, and answers the door.
“Yes, my son.”
“Where do the birds go when it rains?”
“You have asked a wonderful question! When it rains, most birds find a cozy spot to seek shelter and stay dry.”
“Ah shoot,” the man says.
“Why are you upset?” Hillel asks.
“Because you kept your cool. I had a bet with my buddy that I could make you upset, but I asked you all these annoying questions late on Friday afternoon, and you didn’t get angry. Now I lost 200 bucks!”
“Better you should lose $200,” Hillel said, “than that I should lose my temper.”
Okay, so I hope you can agree this is a fantastic story. And I’m sharing it because I think it’s such a great illustration of this lesson of the second arrow or hesech hada’at. Hillel is as human as the rest of us—I think that’s emphasized in the fact that he’s in a towel getting out of the bath. He’s just a normal guy.
And like many shomer Shabbos Jews, my guess is he’s a little stressed on Friday afternoon as he prepares for Shabbat. Each time the nudnik knocks on the door, I imagine he feels a little arrow of anxiety: “Really? Again? It’s only ten minutes til Shabbos!”
But then Hillel makes a choice about how to respond: He acknowledges that arrow. Calmly, I imagine, he gets out of the bath, puts on a towel, and answers the door. I don’t imagine that he loses awareness that the hour is growing late, or that this guy is asking silly questions. But at no point does he shoot himself with a second arrow. That’s what makes him a model of wisdom in this story.
Now, not all of us are Hillel. But I think we can all learn from him. So here’s a short meditation practice that can help.
Begin by finding a good posture for yourself. Awake and aware. If you’re sitting, try to sit just a little more upright. If you’re walking, see if you can focus just a little bit more.
Take a few good deep breaths. With each exhalation, see if you can bring a little more relaxation to your body. Allow your mind to settle.
As we continue in this practice, I want to invite you to feel if there’s a spot in your body—perhaps in the belly, maybe somewhere else—where the breath really feels like it begins and ends. And I want to invite you to think of this spot as the ground of hesed, a kind of font or wellspring of compassion and loving connection.
As you breathe in, you might imagine that hesed welling up from the spot in the belly and filling up the chest, the head, and the rest of the body. And as you breathe out, you might imagine yourself sharing that hesed with the world. Breathing in hesed, breathing out hesed. In and out.
Much of the time when we engage with the news, we might feel not only the pain of the first arrow—whatever challenging news we’ve heard—but also the pain of our second arrow: the resistance we have around it. Our desire for it not to be true. Maybe even a third arrow, which is the bad feelings we might have around our resistance.
And so the reason we do this practice is to let go of those arrows with hesed. We don’t need to beat ourselves up. We don’t need to hold onto hard feelings about ourselves or others. We have some control over our response. We are not our feelings.
Grounding in hesed is one helpful practice for doing that. When we feel that second arrow coming on, we can just try to soften it as we reconnect with hesed.
So let’s do that for a few more minutes.
If your eyes have been closed, feel invited to open them.
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.