Research has shown that there are five avenues to achieving inner peace:
Knowing that you are loved by family, friends and God, as you understand Him. This releases you from the inner turmoil of uncertainty. Feeling that the world is on your side by taking an inventory of what is going right in your life and creating and reading a gratitude list once a week.
Connecting to deeper parts of yourself such as your inner intuition which transcends racing thoughts. Slow down your actions and movements and breathe.Live in the radical present by focusing on the "here and now," forgetting the past and ignoring the future. This is a meditative state of wokeness, by being conscious of the beauty of this moment as your living reality. Leave your life "as is" by accepting the "now" and being conscious of being alive at the moment.
Listen to the silence of your inner self and allow the sunset, nature and your appreciation of 'being alive" to arise from within your inner self. Be present and still within and let your inner peace surface. Today, he experienced inner peace. He spent Shabbat in Jerusalem and discovered all five elements of inner serenity.
Loved. He spent three Shabbat meals with family and friends. There were no smartphones to distract anyone. No texts, no work, no WhatsApp pings, nowhere to run, nowhere anyone had to be, but right there in the moment. We talked about our respective weeks, our experiences, Ukraine, and hope. We sang songs, laughed and told stories with the children and guests. He felt valued and loved.
Inventory. On his way to synagogue on Friday night and Shabbat morning, there were absolutely no cars, buses, honking, motorcycles, construction cranes or noise. The streets were still, quiet. He could actually be alone with his thoughts.
Sitting at the Shabbat meals and reflecting on his life in the synagogue for two hours of quiet introspection, he took an inventory of all the things that are going right in his life. His family, his ability to think and function, a roof over his head and food to eat. A day of appreciation led him to a feeling of gratitude and positivity. He felt humbled and appreciated being alive.
Intuition. When he prayed and sang the moving songs of Lecha Dodi, to welcome the Shabbat Shalom--the inner peace of Shabat, the Shabbat songs of El-Adon, and the songs at the Shabbat table, something stirred within; an inner awareness that the world is 'bigger' than him and yet he felt privileged to be living as part of God's World. He gained an intuitive feeling of aliveness and wholesomeness.
Radical Present. He realized that all the 'radical' laws of refraining from using electricity and holding back from cooking, cleaning and producing, allowed him to be radically present with no work to do, emails to send, deals to negotiate, or money to be pursued. He was forced, or perhaps "invited" by God to be wholly present with his own thoughts and inner character.
He had an opportunity to get to know himself again and see what he liked about himself and what he disliked. He decided to work on speaking less and listening more during the coming week. Shabbat invites you to live in the radical present by focusing on the "here and now," forgetting the past and ignoring the future.
5. Inner Silence. He walked the streets of Har Nof, overlooking the hills of Jerusalem, and watched the low-lying clouds hover over the Judean foothills. He contemplated King David's words in Psalms 125:2, "As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people....he felt surrounded and embraced by God's hills and love, appreciating His gift of life; not tomorrow, not yesterday...but in the here and now. He stopped and looked at the mountains and he experienced an aliveness within.
Shabbat is the ancient innovation and gift of God to humanity. It has transformed the world of productivity and balanced it with reflection on the purpose of all such productivity. God is asking us, "Productivity, why? For more productivity? For what ends?" Six days you shall work and the seventh day you shall rest, means, in the words of his Rebbe, Rav Moshe Shapiro ztz'l, "Six days you shall work ON YOURSELF, and on Shabbat reflect on the person you have become." Am he merely six days older and six days more tired than he was last week, or he has grown in character and self-development, for that is the purpose of life?
Running, pressured all week for another deal, another client, another delicacy, another car, another diamond....? Perhaps God has been telling us through the ancient simplicity of the Torah, that Shabbat is the medium of inner peace...it is what we have been seeking all along. Another toy? Another trinket?A bigger house? A fancier vacation? Is that going to bring you happiness or inner serenity? Has that search done it for you, until now? More is less.
Experiencing an Orthodox, yes, Orthodox Shabbat, is the Torah's way to discover inner peace. Are there other ways? Sure. But for a Jewish person, this is our way, it is your way. When you experience a real Shabbat, by observing all its so-called restrictions, you find inner freedom and liberation. You no longer have to travel, search, produce, build, or compete...because on Shabbat you have arrived at your destination. And that destination, or perhaps destiny, is discovering the "self" and your inner Godliness. You have arrived at you.