Menuchas haNefesh

Picture being in a box. A large box, plenty of room to walk around, but very much with a "boxy" feel. There is a pervasive smell of tar; the box itself is wood sealed with tar. There's a constant background smell of animals and food as well. Your rocking, floating on the water. The lighting is poor, barely present, and what's there tends to be slivers of color -- light coming through a small crystal. And you're constantly busy, caring for all those animals. Running from one to the next. Now picture living that for a year. Finally, you're free!

The description in the Torah for the end of the mabul (flood) heavily uses conjugations of the word "menuchah". The protagonist's name -- Noach. The ark comes to rest on the mountain -- "vatanch hateivah". The dove seeks "mano'ach" -- a resting place. The language calls our attention to the event as an archetype of menuchah.

However, that's the calm after the storm. (Quite literally.) How does one achieve menuchah during the storm?

Also, the trope mark "munach" is used in the beginning of a phrase, it's a preparatory note. Implied in that choice of name is that they found the word "menuchah" implying not only an end, but a preparation of the thing to come.

The berakhah on tefillin is "... Who commanded us lehani'ach tefillin -- to rest tefillin". Tefillin can only be worn while we are in the proper frame of mind. (Which is why today, when shorter attention spans on the norm, we wear it for the minimum time necessary.) Menuchah connotes a reflective pause.

This is also implied by what it is "menuchas hanefesh" asks us to put to rest. The "nefesh". There are many words in Judaism for soul (just as there are many words in Innuit Eskimo languages for snow, allegedly). Neshamah implies lofty spirituality. Ru'ach connotes one's will. Nefesh, though, is something we share with animals. One can't consume blood for "the blood is of the nefesh". Nefesh is our more primitive, mammalian, selves.

And one can't really explore the meaning of menuchah in Judaism without looking as Shabbos. The most common text used for Qiddush on Shabbos morning is composed of two paragraphs. One ends "... and on the seventh day He rested -- vayinafash". From the word nefesh. The second, "... for on six days Hashem made the heaven and the earth, the sea and everything within them, vayanach -- and He rested -- on the seventh day." Menuchas hanefesh, stepping back from the storms of life to get an opportunity to reflect, defines Shabbos. The nefesh might be a raft tossed about by the waves, but I, I can be steady.

I therefore suggested that menuchas hanefesh does not mean not feeling anger, stress, or the other things that break our calm. If nothing else, such a definition would make the problem too large to tackle. Rather, it's to be able to find the point of quiet and watch the emotion. The anger is there, the stress is there, but not overwhelming our ability to think.

That is Shabbos. That is lehani'ach tefillin.

So how do we achieve it?

1- A hispa'alus, taken from Hallel:
"Shuvi nafshi limnuchaychi -- Return my soul to my rest
Ki Hashem gamal alaychi -- for G-d provides support upon me."

Also, looking at the quote, one can glean tactics for achieving menuchas hanefesh. The practices already introduced -- visualization (see opening) and quote-based hispa'alus -- are themselves tactics.

Note some of the implications:
Shuvi - return: I have been there before.

Which brings us to tactic #2:

2- If one pays attention to moments of calm, one can capture the feeling and more readily reproduce it. I'm not talking about intellectualizing the process. Just that through awareness, one can recall the feeling on a gut
level.

Nafshi -- my nefesh. Who is the "I" who has a nefesh? I need not be the storms of my soul.

This is actually quite difficult. At the moment of being overwhelmed, how does one decide not to be overwhelmed? There's a Catch-22 (or bootstrapping problem)in requiring a balanced mind in order to work on balancing one's mind.

3- Limnuchaychi -- to my rest. I own it.

Shabbos observance (or breaking for minchah, mid-day; the name isn't quite derived from "menuchah" but if one dismisses the notion of coincidence...) gives one experiences of calm to return to.

4- Ki Hashem gamal alaychi -- For Hashem provides support upon me.

Bitachon, trust that Hashem has a purpose, will allow me not to needlessly fight that which shouldn't be fought. Yes, things that need resisting are challenges I must face. But too often we're stressed about things we can't control -- solely because we don't realize these scenarios serve their purpose as well.

5- Realize that every storm does have an end. And that menuchah after the storm is when we can prepare for the next one (and there will be a "next one") -- thereby preventing that overwhelming feeling when it hits.