Sanctifying the Mundane (Dvar Torah, 2017)
“My mind would go still. It’d be absent of the clacking sound to which I was accustomed, with its endless running commentary about who I had seen and who I would see and what I had eaten that day and what I had to do and what had just happened in class and… suddenly the only thing in the world was this stop sign. And somehow, that was enough. In a life primarily defined by a sense of deprivation and anxiety, it was striking, for a moment or two, to feel as though things were exactly as they ought to be.” -Danya Ruttenberg, Surprised by God
Last Friday night, I walked barefoot into a dingy little garage in Harlem with wires bursting from the ceiling and paint cracking off the walls. My feet were immediately caked with dirt. I tried to cover my shock with a smile — this was where we were having our Kabbalat Shabbat services? It was nothing like the beautiful, echoing synagogues I was used to. It was even a far cry from my school’s pristine, modern-looking Hillel. It seemed silly to say the Amidah surrounded by broken exercise machines. I felt embarrassed to call God’s presence into such an unholy looking place. So as the six of us started to sing Yedid Nefesh, I closed my eyes. More people trickled into the room, and our voices began to understand each other. I felt an undeniable connection to the total strangers surrounding me. The first syllables of Shabbat elicit a similar sensation every week — as Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg describes, “I began to feel some clenched part of me start to open like a flower to the sun”.
Halfway through the service, the rabbi of this brand new congregation stood up to speak. He explained to us the that although transitions are often filled with hardships and discomfort of the unknown, we can find transcendence in this empty space. We can use the spiritual to transform the physical, Rabbi Mike explained. Once we repent out of love, the past sinful actions are transformed into merits. A dedication to the temple can be made holy, and then converted back to be mundane. I understand his words to mean: we cannot limit ourselves to just the physical components of life set before us, because there is fluidity in the human experience. We can alter the meaning of what we see.
I had taken my shoes off upon entering the room, because they gave me blisters. After the sermon, I could not shake the image of Moses removing his sandals by God’s command at the burning bush. The bush was just an average piece of the environment, but God’s presence made it holy beyond words. Similarly, fifteen young Jews had filled an average, dusty room with our fears and prayers and hopes. I glanced at the siddurim stacked by a window, and the cloth mechitza beside me. Just like the rules surrounding the creation of Beit HaMikdash, we, too, had used physical items in an attempt to elevate the purpose of a place. Those physical items were important, but far more important was our intention. Although I’m sure others shared my initial skepticism, we all entered the room with a certain openness. We were willing to do the difficult work of digging ourselves into prayer, simultaneously singing the same words while each thinking and feeling something unique. After the service, we all gathered around sharing life stories and laughter. The rigid greetings and awkward moments from before were completely erased; we were no longer strangers. It took all of us to sanctify that space. The garage was now so much more than just a garage. Every Shabbat this year I felt that transition, as I learned again and again that bringing people together with intention can change everything.
But my life wasn’t always like this. For four years of high school, I realized it would be much too difficult to observe the Sabbath. I wanted to make new friends, go to football games, basketball and crew practice. There was just not enough time in the week to set aside an hour, let alone a day, for God. About a quarter of the way through ninth grade, it occurred to me that time was moving differently than it had before. Days were zipping by without a trace, and everyone around me was either obsessed with talking about past events or dying to get to a point in the future. “I just need to get through this test/ this day/ this semester/ high school, and then I’ll be happy,” I heard phrases like these all the time, and began to start adopting similar versions myself. Especially with technology’s pervasiveness, it is hard to even be where we are at all. At the same time, the phrase “live in the moment” has become trendy and hip. With yoga classes, meditation, and even new apps, our society has started a popular movement to counteract our near-constant mindlessness. I, too, recognized this and tried to fight it by writing in a daily journal and meditating. I thought the goal was to “be present”, but that hardly scratches the surface of what I would soon learn. Somehow, all of my attempts to grab onto moments and hold them tightly were not enough.
The popular methods of “being in the moment” will have us believe it is simple, fun, and super easy! But through my experience, I’ve come to believe there are no shortcuts to living a present, spiritual life. We have to be honest with ourselves- it is hard, even painful at times, especially while living in our rapid consumer-based culture. These apps and articles are interesting, but they failed to satisfy a deeper desire — not just to be aware of the current moment, but to fill the current moment with something worth being aware of. To fill the present moment with not only meaning, but with holiness. Over this past year and a half, I’ve learned that Judaism has been providing us the tools to do just that… for centuries.
My entry point was through Shabbat. Last summer, as an experiment out of curiosity, I began to follow more and more rules of Shabbat each week. No social media led to no phone, and no phone led to no technology… soon enough, most of the extraneous variables of daily life were stripped away, and twenty four hours were laid completely bare before me. Friday night parties were replaced with soulful Kabbalat Shabbat harmonies, and Saturday afternoon Facetimes alone in my room changed into real face time, board games and laughter, with friends and family. Saturday is no longer just a day of the week. In my mental calendar, it glows. Judaism has filled a completely average, arbitrary period of time with expressing our deepest prayers to God, teaching ancient texts that alter how we see the world, and strengthening connections with those around us.
But of course, even though some traditions say we have an extra soul on Shabbat, and time passes at a different pace, Saturday cannot last forever. I found myself tearing up during Havdalah every week, genuinely afraid to return to the fast-paced passivity of my modern life. This brought an even more pressing question to mind. Judaism deems Shabbat holy. But what about all the other days — how do we address the moments that are nothing more than mundane? Shabbat is special, but it can only be elevated if we have ordinary days as well. I’ve been grappling with the question of how to bring spirituality to the other six days of the week; how to make as many moments as possible worth being present in.
Not surprisingly, our tradition has given us methods to tackle this question too. While exploring the siddur, I noticed that our prayer service takes us through nearly every part of life. It addresses gratitude, illness, death, war, holiness, kindness, and more. Instead of waking up and rolling over to grab my phone, I began reaching for prayers to find awe in the fact that I’ve been given another day on this earth. I’ve decided to say a bracha over every meal. My family and friends were frustrated at first, because when you’re hungry the last thing you want is to sit thoughtfully with your nose over a steaming plate of food. But soon, they began to do it too. The thought of every farmer, factory, and path that has led our food to our plate allows us to ground ourselves in gratitude.
Naturally, our bodies and minds are constantly habituating us to the conditions of life. Something that is special the first time, becomes bland when done again and again. The first lick of ice cream is spectacular, but we never remember the thirtieth. This applies to everything: eating meals, waking up, having a good conversation, living in a certain location. We get used to things, and so we move on to the next attraction. But I believe we can bring holiness to the ordinary. It takes sacrifice… for me that means giving up screen time, blessing the moment (even when it is inconvenient), and using prayer to look inside, outside, and (especially) up. But there is so much more than that. We don’t need to wait for the divine to find us, we can create sanctified spaces and holy moments out of what already exists before our eyes. I hope we can all find ways to be where we are, I hope together we can learn to make the present moment enough.
