Shabbat HaGadol 5785
Just about two weeks ago, I was in the front seat of a shuttle in Guatemala, weaving through the misty cloud-topped mountains. While I missed all of you here, I was grateful to be able to have a much needed adventure. We were driving from Antigua to Lago Atitlan, the lake that I was making a pilgrimage to after seeing one simple photo online. “There,” my heart said, “I need to go there.” As we twisted and turned through the narrow mountain roads, the lush green trees and abundant gardens and farms cascading down hillsides filled my senses. About two hours into our drive, as we turned the bend and started our descent, I caught a glimpse of the lake.
Rebbe Nachman teaches, ויֵׁש ְׁשנֵי ִמינֵי ָׁשלֹום
There are two kinds of peace: peace in one’s bones and universal peace. Peace in one’s bones must come first, because sometimes a person cannot find peace in their bones/in themselves.
ְו ַעל־יְֵדי ַהּיִ ְרָאה זֹו ֶכה ְל ָׁשלֹום ַּבֲע ָצ ָמיו
And through yirah, a person can merit peace in their bones.
It is through Yirah–through awe or amazement, or the fear that comes from realizing just how small you actually are–that one can experience peace in their bones–the type of embodied peace that some of us are lucky enough to receive on Shabbat, or when we sway in a hammock, or when we are held by a loved one. Peace in one’s bones, this deep knowing that we are okay, Rebbe Nachman teaches, is attainable through awe.
As I learned recently from our rebbe Carie Carter, the word Yirah is connected to the word lirot, to see or to be seen. Perhaps this indicates that Yirah is something we experience through our sight, something that we need to look out rather than in to find.
As we turned the bend and I caught a glimpse of the lake, a wave of something coursed through my body, call it awe, call it fear, call it amazement, call it realizing my smallness, or even call it grief. Tears streamed down my face as I just said, “thank you.” It may be a testament to how much I needed this vacation, but every flower (some were neon blue), bird (some were also neon blue), made me weep with this Yirah. And through looking out at this big-ness (sometimes encapsulated in small things like a single petal), we can find shalom b’atzmenu.
The next sentence in Rebbe Nachman’s teaching is that when we do attain peace in our bones through awe, then we are able to access prayer. The rabbis say that we are not supposed to pray when we are in a troubled headspace. In fact, the Shulchan Aruch (not Shulchan Orech, which we will do late tonight) says straight out that “one should not pray while worried or sad.” In our times, taking this ruling seriously may mean scarcely praying at all, especially if the person is at all in touch with the news. I wonder if, instead of being prohibited from prayer during times of sadness or despair, Rebbe Nachman’s teaching adds that we can truly be present to the practice of prayer when we approach it from a peaceful place, from a knowing that we are held and ok. Rebbe Nachman has many teachings about hitbodedut, about turning to God in whatever state we are in—crying to the divine, screaming, jumping, dancing, so what I think he is pointing to is not that the Divine cannot handle our messiness—but that we truly understand prayer when we access it from this place of deeply rooted embodied peace.
Today is Shabbat haGadol, the big time Shabbat, where the Rabbi is supposed to give a drash about the intricate laws of Pesach. Instead, I want to encourage us to find the big-ness of Hashem in the intricacies of life. We may not always be blessed to stare at Lake Atitlan and the surrounding mountains and volcanoes, or bright red
passionflowers and their swirling tendrils. But, we do have access to daffodils, to children, to song, to music, to food, to our senses. When we stop for a moment and realize just how much divinity we can access through these modes, we may experience Yirah. And through this, may we be blessed to experience true shalom b’atzmenu, true peace in every bone and every cell.
