A local educator asked me the other day what to tell her students after the election of Abdul El-Sayed, after the Vice President blamed the Jews, I mean, Israel, for of all of America’s problems, and after Trump announced he was cutting all aid to Israel. Her students were petrified; what does the future have in store? Where is this country heading?
She was asking for her students, but she was likely also asking for herself; she was scared. Understandably so.
“The world is like a narrow bridge,” Rav Nachman of Breslov famously wrote, “and the main thing is not to be afraid.”
I was thinking about the famous tune, composed by Rabbi Boruch Chait, that we use to sing this song. It starts off slow, kol ha’olam kulo… – that first part depicts our fear and anxiety – the problem. And then the song goes into overdrive for the chorus, v’ha’ikar, v’haikar… the solution – do not be afraid.
But the question is how?
How do we overcome our anxieties? Not just reading the news and wondering if this is the beginning of the end. How do we face our personal anxieties; what will be with my children? Will I ever find a spouse? How will I pay my bills? How will I ever feel fulfilled?
Telling me not to be afraid is not a solution.
I believe Rav Nachman does provide an answer, it’s just that we have been singing his message backward. We think the narrow bridge is the problem and not being afraid is the solution. But perhaps the narrow bridge itself is the solution.
You see, Rav Nachman is suggesting a paradigm shift on how we think of life itself. Life is not a box of chocolates, with wonderful surprises at every turn. No. That’s Hollywood.
Life is a long, continuous bridge of endless non-resolutions – we are suspended between an exciting beginning and a grand finale. The sooner we accept this reality, the more fulfillment we experience in the smallest of accomplishments.
And it’s narrow – meaning, all you have control over is the small space around you. That is not meant to scare you. On the contrary, it’s an exceptionally healthy perspective on life.
When you read the rest of the piece (Likutei Moharan Tinyana, Torah 48) this becomes abundantly clear. A few lines earlier, Rav Nachman writes that all the small and tiny accomplishments add up. He writes how every small step forward is infinitely valuable to G-d. And he teaches us that the only mistake we can make in life is when we retreat; when we see the seemingly endless bridge before us and think that we haven’t made any progress.
Though we believe that world history has a happy, Messianic ending, in our individual lives, the objective is to take one small step after another on our own very narrow bridge. Those steps, as small as they may be, as objectiveless as they may seem, that is life, that is kol ha’olam kulo.
I spoke this past week at a conference for Executive Directors. I was asked to lead a session on difficult congregants. We don’t have any, so I asked a colleague to catch me up to speed.
The main message I shared with them was that they so often think their job is to make sure the event in shul is awesome, that Rosh Hashana-Yom Kippur goes without a hitch. But so much of that is out of their hands.
You know what the congregants will remember? How you spoke to them on the phone when they booked their kiddush, how you compassionately listened when someone complained about a seating issue.
Sometimes we get distracted by the big things and forget to focus on the narrow bridge – the areas we can control – that stand before us.
I was speaking to a couple going through challenging times the other day and all they were focusing on were the big fights, the irreconcilable points of contention. When we spoke of solutions all they could come up with were marriage retreats or intensive therapy.
Even the happiest couples have disagreements that never fully disappear. The secret to their happiness is not that they have resolved every difference. It is that they have learned to build a loving marriage through thousands of small interactions, gestures, and choices. They focus on their narrow bridge and make small adjustments.
Rav Nachman is pushing us to ask ourselves, what is our narrow bridge?
That is where we need to place our efforts. That’s where the magic happens. That is what is truly important in life.
How will my child end up in life? I have no idea and extremely limited control. But I can choose how I interact with him or her in this moment.
Will I ever get married? I’m not sure. But I will date this next person like they are the only person in the world.
How will I overcome my financial woes? Not clear, but I can take one concrete step toward getting my finances under control.
When we recognize that the only thing we control is the small and narrow here and now, life becomes a lot less scary. When we recognize that the here and now is not a means to an end, but an end unto itself, life is not only not scary, it’s exciting.
The greatest exemplar of this lifestyle? Yitzchak. His father was the revolutionary, his son the man who overcame the darkest of times, but Yitzchak? He barely did anything. But that’s exactly the point; in doing so, he acted as a bridge between the past and the future.
There are periods of history that are Avraham-like; the establishment of a state, the beginning of a community.
There are periods of history that are Yaakov-like; a Holocaust, exile.
Then there are periods like this one – these are not great times, but they are not terrible times either. What will happen in five years from now? I don’t know. But I can tell you what we can do tomorrow morning.
We can take another step. We can make another phone call to a politician. We can show another person that we care. We can teach another child, strengthen another relationship, learn a little more Torah.
Our job, in this era, is to not lose steam, our job is to appreciate the incredible value of perseverance and the superhuman strength it takes to do so, our job is to walk in the footsteps of Yitzchak on this very narrow bridge.
We do not need to see the other side to know that our steps matter. Because when we know that we are acting as that bridge, when we focus only on that narrow space before us that we can change, then, teaches us Rav Nachman, there is nothing to fear, nothing to fear at all.