Yom Kippur is a reminder that life is precious. In truth, Yom Kippur is sometimes referred to as a rehearsal for our death. We dress in the white of burial shrouds, we refrain from eating, and we refrain from drinking; we remember those who died before us, we recite liturgy that will be said on our deathbeds and at our gravesides. These ancient rituals are meant to shake our very souls, to remind us of the fleeting nature of life, to fill us with a sense of urgency and a desire for change.
But some years, Rabbi Sharon Brous points out, “some years, we don’t need the Holy Days for that reminder.” Our community entered this New Year already wound up, already acutely aware of the world’s turmoil, already humbled by the seemingly intractable problems of our times. In these years, Rabbi Brous suggests, the High Holy Days “become more of a spiritual touchstone, a reminder of how to hold one another in light of the ever-present reality of loss.” This year, I would add, that the High Holy Days are a reminder to be fully present in our lives, both for the big, world-shifting events, as well as for the small moments of holiness.
Reb Nachman of Bratslav taught, “Kol ha’olam kulo, gesher tzar m’od. The entire world is but a narrow bridge.” For a moment, in your mind, put yourself on that narrow bridge. Maybe the bridge you picture is sturdy, but so narrow that you cannot place one foot beside the other. Maybe your bridge is made of wooden planks, and a few are cracked or missing. Or maybe your bridge is hung from ropes that cause the bridge to sway from side to side.
And now picture what the bridge spans. Maybe your bridge is positioned above rushing waters that flow through jagged rocks. Maybe your bridge connects two mountain peaks, with lush, green valleys below. Or maybe your bridge is so high in the air that you can’t see anything below – just a vast expanse of emptiness.
When I visualize the emotional state in which so many of us entered these Days of Awe, I imagine us stuck, frozen in the middle of the bridge. And our reactions to our surroundings seem to fall into two extremes. Some of us are laser-focused, trying to understand every detail of the bridge’s construction and the surrounding dangers. We spend every moment and bit of energy reading and watching the latest updates on whichever crisis has captured our focus, pouring over opinion pieces, anxiously anticipating every possible outcome. On the other extreme are those of us who are so overwhelmed by the depths below us that we close our eyes and pretend there is no bridge at all. We stay nestled under blankets, numb ourselves with mindless social media scrolling, and avoid all conversations that might remind us too much of our difficult reality.
The challenge is that both extremes take us away from being ourselves and living our lives. Whether we are hyper-focused on the world’s problems or forcefully shielding ourselves from anything upsetting, we are missing out on the sacredness and joys of life. The greatest challenges in our world today threaten our very humanity and our understanding of how society is supposed to function. And yet, when we allow this reality to either consume us or numb us, we are missing out on the very experiences that define us as human: deep relationships we form with other people, discoveries that help us understand the complexities of the natural world, cultural creations that express our beliefs and values.
Reb Nachman’s teaching doesn’t end with the description of the bridge: “Kol ha’olam kulo, gesher tzar m’od, v’ha-ikar lo l’facheid klal. The entire world is but a narrow bridge; the most important thing is not to be afraid.” Whether you are one who stares at the bridge or one who closes your eyes, we have to ask, can Reb Nachman really have meant it when he said that “the most important thing is not to be afraid?” It seems a little callous to suggest that fear is an inappropriate response to being out in the middle of any one of the bridges we imagined a moment ago. But, if we look at the original Hebrew text, this doesn’t seem to be quite what Reb Nachman meant. The original Hebrew ends with the phrase “shelo yitpacheid klal.” The verb that means fear is, in this version, in a reflexive form, meaning that Reb Nachman actually said that “the most important thing is not to frighten oneself.”
What’s the difference? The teaching no longer chastises us for being naturally fearful. Instead, it cautions us against dwelling on our fears to the exclusion of everything else; It urges us not to compound our fears to the point of paralysis. Rav Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, referred to this type of fear as “excessive fear,” declaring that there is “nothing more cruel and evil in the world” because it “shadows the radiance of all that is good.” The darkness of fear blocks out the light of goodness; it prevents us from finding joy.
President Franklin Roosevelt shared a similar sentiment during the Great Depression in his famous inaugural speech: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Roosevelt believed that excessive fear was immobilizing the country, preventing people from doing what was needed to turn the country around.
Both Kook and Roosevelt point to the same truth: the world is full of endless challenges, and our fear is real and legitimate, but when we allow it to take over, we remain stuck on the bridge. Our fear blocks us from experiencing anything else. It overshadows moments of beauty and wonder, it distracts us from meaningful interactions with others, it prevents us from expressing our creativity. Fear is natural, and fear is protective, but when we allow our fear to grow so large that it blocks out everything else, it ceases to be helpful. Rabbi David Wolpe said, “Fear robs us of freedom. We cannot embrace the beauty of the world if we are always checking the mirror and our own pulse.”
Rabbi Wolpe also says about Nachman’s teaching, that the whole world is one continuous narrow bridge, punctuated by losses and challenges. We are not crossing from one point of solid ground to the next. Rather, we move from one section of the bridge to another. So if we cannot get off the bridge, what do we do? We keep navigating, we keep moving, we find others with whom we can take the journey.
The first step is to admit that our fear belongs on the bridge with us; life involves fear. The question is, whether we let the fear control us and leave us frozen, or whether we keep moving forward. Stick with the metaphor for a minute – if you stop in the middle of a bridge to focus on how narrow it is, it does not lessen your fear. Not only does stopping not make the bridge any wider, the longer you dwell on its width, the narrower it appears. The fear starts to take control.
Hanan Harchol, a Jewish educator and artist, poses the following scenario in one of his animated shorts: In a conversation about fear, a mother asks her son, “if I asked you to walk across a walkway that is two feet wide, could you do it?” The son laughs and says, “Two feet wide? Of course!” The mother then asks, “If before I ask you to walk across, I tell you that there is a sheer drop on either side of the walkway and there are man-eating alligators at the bottom, does it change anything?” “Of course it does,” says the son. “Man-eating alligators?” “Aha!” the mother says. The dimensions of the walkway, she points out, have not changed, only his perspective. So much depends not on the bridge itself, but on what we choose to focus on while crossing it.
If we are standing on the bridge, and we have acknowledged our fears but are choosing not to let them be our focus, what should we be doing instead? According to Reb Nachman, we should be looking for evidence of joy and goodness. And each piece that we find, we can use to encourage ourselves forward. Reb Nachman’s motto was, “Do not despair.” In order to find meaning in life, we have to trust that meaning can be found. In order to find joy amidst the turmoil, we must have faith that joy exists.
In truth, our days are filled with so many small moments of joy, goodness, and kindness. Too often, we don’t pause our bodies or our minds long enough to notice. Just take this morning as an example: what positive interactions did you have with another person this morning that you didn’t stop to notice? Your answer doesn’t need to be a deep conversation with a soulmate – maybe someone in your household did something to make your morning easier; maybe a driver slowed down to let you come into their lane, maybe you got a hug from a friend when you walked into temple; maybe one of the greeters handed you a book with a smile. At a time when we are concerned about the increasing levels of division and hatred between people in our country and around the world, let’s appreciate every moment. Now think about your physical body: what made you feel good today? I recognize this exercise might be harder on Yom Kippur, but not impossible. Maybe you woke up feeling rested; maybe you use a device or medication that eases pain; maybe you are wearing something that makes you feel confident. Noticing these small blessings is not a denial of the bridge’s dangers. It is how we keep walking across with strength and hope.
Sometimes it feels impossible, or wrong, to separate ourselves from the state of our world today. Maybe we feel guilty for enjoying ourselves when others are suffering. Or maybe we judge our own pain against the pain of others’ tragedies and find our pain unworthy. The constant pressure to feel bad, on top of the pain we already feel, is exhausting.
But being present in our daily lives does not mean that we don’t care about the world around us. When we are actively engaged in our lives, when we are forming meaningful relationships, when we feel gratitude for what we have, we are becoming better humans, more capable of healing the world.
Author and researcher Brene Brown once responded to criticism for not speaking more publicly about an ongoing war by sharing that she had been grieving the loss of a close relative. “If we can’t grieve a single death,” she asked, “how can we feel love, grief, and empathy for any loss?” Living our lives with intention, integrity, and honesty is how we develop the capacity to face our struggles and then be able to help others face theirs. Carrying both joy and grief, happiness and fear, is part of how we stay human on the bridge.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught that the ability to find joy in difficult times is the Jewish way, the secret to our people’s survival. “A people,” he said, “that can know insecurity and still feel joy is one that can never be defeated, for its spirit can never be broken nor its hope destroyed.” He pointed to the upcoming festival of Sukkot as evidence: “On Sukkot we leave the security and comfort of our houses and live in a shack exposed to the wind, the cold, and the rain. Yet we call it zeman simchatenu, our season of joy.” Even when the bridge shakes, our tradition teaches us that joy can steady our steps.
The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but if we acknowledge our fears, and keep traveling along the bridge, imagine what we might witness along the journey, imagine how we might feel, imagine who we might meet, imagine what we might learn.
The bridge is narrow, but the journey has endless possibilities.
G’mar Chatimah Tovah.
