Did you know that the ancient practice of Shabbat (or Sabbath) observance is a brilliant practice for developing resilience? (I’m not prescribing how exactly you observe it, and even if it has to be a Friday night/Saturday, it could be a Sunday church attendance if you are a Christian. I’m also not a rabbi, so forgive me if I miss key parts of rabbinic teaching about Shabbat).
We are all facing challenges of all kinds in our lives. For those of us who care deeply about the antisemitism in Australia and the war against Israel (both on the ground in the Middle East and online globally), it is a particularly difficult time.
So how do we keep going? Or, to put it another way, how can we develop the resilience required to not just survive, but thrive in these times?
Here are ways to think about hardship and setbacks that can help enormously. And they all start with P to help remember them:
Personal:
Whatever setback you are facing, it isn’t personal. I have to remind myself that even antisemitism, which is deeply distressing, is not actually about me as a person. It is about Jews as a group and ultimately about attacking God. It is not a result of some personal weakness or failure on your part for which you are being punished. It is an ancient evil that isn’t personal. I get a lot of hate (mostly online), but I know that none of it is actually about the core of me. My value, my worth, my identity, my core sense of self is not under threat from the haters!
At the heart of Shabbat is centering my life around God, reminding myself I am not the creator, I am not the one who has to control everything, solve everything. And ultimately it is God who will protect me.
Pervasive:
The setbacks, the hardships and hatreds we face are not pervasive. That is, they do not fill every part of our reality with evil and suffering. They can loom large, but we have to look away and realise that there is still beauty, and joy, and love to be found all around us and within us. Family, work, worship, exercise, hobbies all bring joy (and dopamine) even when life feels unbearably difficult.
Shabbat, with its rituals of communal worship, of prayer, of stillness, of eating and drinking and celebrating, reminds me that this world is suffused with goodness and glory, because it is suffused with God. And that joy can be found in eating, drinking, worshipping, loving together.
Permanent:
This too will pass. Nothing in life goes on forever. The war in Gaza will end. The hatred in Australia will subside.
Shabbat reminds me that in the end God will be God and He is the one whose job it is to defeat evil once and for all and to renew all things. I don’t have to fight all the time. I don’t have to overcome evil single-handedly. I can rest in the rest of the One who never sleeps nor slumbers.
And if you are not religious, here’s the good news - a secular Shabbat can still be immensely helpful!
Yours in making antisemitism unthinkable,
Mark Leach
Never Again is Now