Rabbi Ḥanina ben T’radion taught:​

שְׁנַיִם שֶׁיּוֹשְׁבִין וְאֵין בֵּינֵיהֶן דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה, הֲרֵי זֶה מוֹשַׁב לֵצִים שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים א) וּבְמוֹשַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָׁב. אֲבָל שְׁנַיִם שֶׁיּוֹשְׁבִין וְיֵשׁ בֵּינֵיהֶם דִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה, שְׁכִינָה שְׁרוּיָה בֵינֵיהֶם

When two sit together and there are no words of Torah between them, this is a gathering of scoffers… But when two sit together and there are words of Torah between them, the Shekhinah dwells among them.   – Pirkei Avot 3:3 

On the surface, this teaching seems almost absurd. If two friends sit down for lunch and don’t discuss Torah, they are automatically a moshav leitzim—a gathering of scoffers? Can’t we simply enjoy one another’s company? Can’t we talk about our gardens, our children, or the new kinds of mushrooms they have at Trader Joe’s?

When I encounter a teaching like this, it brings to my mind the image of a nut in its shell. Today we buy nuts already shelled, but when I was growing up there was always a bowl of walnuts on the coffee table with a heavy metal nutcracker beside it. Recently, while Lisa and I were cleaning out my mother’s house, we found that nutcracker tucked away in a box in the garage. Holding it in my hand brought back those memories, and it reminded me that Torah is often like that; teachings are often presented in a shell that must be cracked before we can taste what is inside.

So what is this mishnah really saying?
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Notice how it defines its own terms. It says that the opposite of divrei Torah—words of Torah—is not ordinary conversation. The opposite is leitzanut: scoffing, mockery, the impulse to diminish what is before us. A leitz is not simply someone with a sense of humor. A leitz is someone who has lost the capacity for reverence, for wonder, someone who reduces everything to the level of personal opinion or amusement, someone who cannot receive another person—or this moment itself—with genuine openness.

If that is true, then this mishnah is actually describing to us what “Words of Torah” actually are: they are not defined only by being quotes from scripture, or even by their subject matter. They are words that arise from a consciousness of appreciation rather than dismissal, from blessing rather than cynicism, from sensitivity rather than indifference. They are words spoken from the recognition that this moment possesses an inherent sacredness. And this is why, when such words are spoken, Sh’khinah is present: the thoughts we cultivate and the words we speak become the lens through which the present moment is revealed. All day long our minds generate a continuous stream of interpretations, judgments, memories, expectations, and inner conversations. We tend not to experience reality directly, but through the filter of the patterns our own minds have created. This is why our words matter so profoundly. They reinforce the forms of thought from which they arise, and those forms of thought become the world we inhabit.

If our words spring from irritation, fear, or contempt, we begin to live inside those qualities. If they arise from reverence, gratitude, and genuine curiosity, they shape an entirely different world. Sh’khinah has not suddenly appeared because we uttered certain religious phrases. Rather, our way of seeing has become transparent enough to recognize the Divine Presence that was already here.
If this is so, if our words and thoughts literally create the qualities of the world we inhabit, why are we so careless with them?

It is not because we choose carelessness; most of the time we are hardly aware that a choice exists. Strong emotions carry us away before we have time to notice them. Old habits of thought repeat themselves with such familiarity that they feel like reality itself. We become identified with the momentum of our conditioning, and from that conditioning our thoughts and words naturally follow.
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This is why it is so important to balance Torah study – the exploration of the sacred through thought, with meditation – the deliberate transcendence of thought. Thought has an unconscious momentum, and over time, becomes more biased, more repetitive, more stuck in its own assumptions. Meditation creates a space within the momentum of thought; it interrupts the automatic flow long enough for us to recognize that we are not required to believe every thought that appears or to speak every impulse that arises.

Meditation is not confined to the few minutes we spend on the meditation cushion. Again and again throughout the day we can pause, release our identification with the stream of thinking, and return to simple Presence. Over time, the hard shell of conditioning is cracked open, revealing the nourishment within – the radiant field of awareness from which thought emerges.

Without that inner spaciousness awakened through Presence, even Torah study can become another expression of habit, as we read every verse through the same familiar mental patterns. But as the mind grows more open, so does scripture, and Torah can reveal something bew.
There is a hint in the parashah: 

   …רְאֵ֣ה לִמַּ֣דְתִּי אֶתְכֶ֗ם חֻקִּים֙ וּמִשְׁפָּטִ֔ים 

See, I have taught you decrees and judgments…   D’varim (Deuteronomy) 4:5
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The Sages distinguished between ḥukim and mishpatim, “decrees” and “judgments.” Mishpatim are the teachings we can understand through reflection and discernment. Ḥukim are those that cannot be grasped by reason alone. They invite us beyond the limits of conceptual thought. Both are necessary. Without discernment, we cannot live wisely. But without the willingness to enter the space of awareness beyond the thinking mind, discernment itself becomes confined within the assumptions it has inherited.
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Kabbalah expresses this through the language of ḥokhmah and binah. Binah is the movement of contemplation, the mind probing deeply into experience, discerning, distinguishing, understanding. Ḥokhmah is something different; it is the spacious awareness from which understanding itself arises—the openness that precedes thought.

וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם֮ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם֒ כִּ֣י הִ֤וא חׇכְמַתְכֶם֙ וּבִ֣ינַתְכֶ֔ם לְעֵינֵ֖י הָעַמִּ֑ים אֲשֶׁ֣ר יִשְׁמְע֗וּן אֵ֚ת כׇּל־הַחֻקִּ֣ים הָאֵ֔לֶּה וְאָמְר֗וּ רַ֚ק עַם־חָכָ֣ם וְנָב֔וֹן הַגּ֥וֹי הַגָּד֖וֹל הַזֶּֽה׃

Guard them and do them, for She is your Wisdom (Hokhmatkhem) and Understanding (Binatkhem) in the eyes of the peoples that will hear all of these practices and say, “Surely this great nation is a people of Wisdom (Hokham) and Understanding (N’Vonam).”
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This is how the Torah defines Herself: as ḥokhmah and binah – spacious awareness and thoughtful understanding. The rhythmic oscillation between them is itself the practice. We become present; thought comes to rest. From this space, contemplation arises from creative clarity rather than from automatic conditioning. Again we become present, again thought emerges, back and forth – this is the inner breathing of the spirit.

“Surely this great nation…” The nations are not meant to admire Israel because of intellectual achievement alone. Every culture possesses ways of thinking. What Torah offers is the possibility that thinking itself can emerge from a deeper ground of Presence. Words have their limit. They can point, they can invite, they can prepare the heart. But they cannot contain the Reality toward which they gesture. It is the nature of the thinking mind to always try to complete itself by reaching into the next moment. But Presence reveals that, beneath all that movement, nothing essential is missing–we have arrived, now, into This. 
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When two sit together… When we meet one another not through the momentum of our conditioning but in the spirit of Presence, then our words are no longer merely expressions of habit. They become divrei Torah—not because they quote sacred texts, but because they arise from That which we call the sacred – the ever-present  miracle of Being that patiently waits to be recognized. 

The spiritual drama of the Torah unfolds as a plea from the Creator to the Children of Israel not simply to submit and commit, but to remember. This instruction to be attentive and guard against distraction is the key to the Divine–human relationship:

...רַ֡ק הִשָּׁ֣מֶר לְךָ֩ וּשְׁמֹ֨ר נַפְשְׁךָ֜ מְאֹ֗ד פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֨ח
Only guard yourself and be very attentive to your soul, lest you forget… 
- Devarim (Deuteronomy) 4:9

On the surface, the admonition is to safeguard the laws of Torah. But on a deeper level, this mitzvah of remembrance is not merely to preserve a system of behaviors, but to recognize the root and reason for the behaviors – the ever-present Beingness that we call the Divine. We need to remember the Divine because It is never absent; it is our awareness of It that slips away.

This is one of the great paradoxes of spiritual practice. We cannot become any closer to Hashem than we already are. The awareness reading these words right now is not separate from the One we seek. Presence is not something to manufacture; it is what remains when we stop chasing fulfillment in some imagined future, when we let go of our preoccupation with the past, and awaken to the miracle of simply being.

And yet, if it’s this simple, why can it seem to be so difficult?

Rabbi Pinḥas of Koretz explained that when people gather on Shabbat to pray and hear words of Torah, they become filled with awe and fervor. But, as soon as Shabbat is over, they return to exactly as they were before. The inspiration vanishes as though it had never happened. He compares it to someone recovering from madness who cannot remember anything that occurred during the period of confusion.

His words are not a criticism but a diagnosis: the obstacle is not that awakening is inaccessible; the obstacle is that we forget. Spiritual amnesia arises when the ordinary habits of mind convince us that fulfillment or wholeness or peace lie somewhere else, sometime later, in some other circumstance. But this is only because we have become used to this moment; in truth, we need not reach God; we need only remember That which has never ceased to be present: the Living Presence behind all things.

This choice is ever before us; at every moment this potential to realize the Divine asks of us to be realized. The Baal Shem Tov explains:

מֵהַבַּעַל שֵׁם טוֹב פֵּירֵשׁ עַל פִּי ״ נָשָׁיו֙ הִטּ֣וּ אֶת־לְבָב֔וֹ״ (מְלָכִים א׳ י״א:ד׳): שֶׁאֵין לְךָ שׁוּם תֵּיבָה בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁאֵינָהּ סוֹבֶלֶת שְׁתֵּי מַשְׁמָעוּיוֹת, שֶׁהוּא בְּחִינַת דְּכַר וְנוּקְבָא וכו׳. אִם כֵּן, אֵין לְךָ שׁוּם דָּבָר נִבְרָא בָּעוֹלָם שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיֶה כָּלוּל מֵהַכֹּל. וְהַבְּחִירָה נְתוּנָה לוֹ לְהַטּוֹת לְאֵיזוֹ בְּחִינָה שֶׁיִּרְצֶה. לְכָךְ: ״ נָשָׁיו֙ הִטּ֣וּ אֶת־לְבָב֔וֹ.״

From the Baal Shem Tov: An interpretation of the verse, “His wives inclined his heart…” (I Kings 11:4). There is no word in the Torah that cannot bear two meanings, corresponding to the aspects of masculine and feminine, and so on. Therefore, there is also no created thing in the world that does not contain all things. And a person is given the freedom to incline toward whichever aspect (or potential) they choose. Therefore, “his wives inclined his heart.”  - Keter Shem Tov 1:4

...נָשָׁיו הִטּוּ אֶת־לְבָבוֹ – His wives inclined his heart... – I Kings 11:4

In the world view of the hasid, Torah is the blueprint for all creation. In reflecting on the fact that words can hold multiple meanings, the Baal Shem concludes that everything – every moment, every relationship, every situation, every encounter – also holds within it many potential ways of being. Our freedom lies in our ability to choose which beḥinah – that is, which aspect or quality or potential, to cultivate. Do we focus on fear or trust? Resentment or gratitude? Judgement or love? The circumstances in which we find ourselves are not the decisive factor; the decisive factor is the decision of how to “incline the heart.” The choice is yours. 

...פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֨ח – lest you forget…
​If we forget who we are beneath the drama, if we forget the Divine Presence shining through every moment, then our hearts are easily carried wherever habit, fear, or desire happen to lead them. But when we remember, we discover something extraordinary: we have the freedom to move the universe in the direction of Oneness, which is to say, the direction the Oneness “wants” to move through us. 

This freedom is not about control, but the letting go of control. The winds and currents of experience continue to move as they will: joy and sorrow, success and disappointment, certainty and confusion all continue to come and go. Our freedom lies in returning, again and again, to being awake to the miracle of Being now revealing Itself. 
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Like steering a ship across a dark sea – the waves continually push the vessel off course, and there is nothing we can do to stop the movement of the ocean. But in the distance stands a lighthouse whose radiance never moves. The work of the sailor is not to calm the sea, but simply to keep turning the wheel back toward the light. So too with our spiritual lives: we will forget, we will drift. We will become distracted by the thousand concerns of ordinary life. But none of that is failure; it is simply the ocean doing what oceans do. Our part is the simple act of remembering, and in remembering, gently inclining the heart once again toward the One.

רַ֡ק הִשָּׁ֣מֶר לְךָ֩... פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֨ח – Only guard yourself … lest you forget…
Be attentive – not because the Divine disappears when we forget, but because remembering is the doorway through which we discover the freedom that has always been ours: the freedom to awaken, to return, and to become, moment by moment, a conscious expression of the One Presence that is Ever-Present. 

The power of decision is to gather together the different strands of who we are – the opinions, feelings, memories, impulses, drives and goals that make up the sometimes conflicting dimensions of “me” – and forge them into a unity through the affirmation of commitment:

אִישׁ֩ כִּֽי־יִדֹּ֨ר נֶ֜דֶר לַֽי–ה–וָ֗–ה אֽוֹ־הִשָּׁ֤בַע שְׁבֻעָה֙ לֶאְסֹ֤ר אִסָּר֙ עַל־נַפְשׁ֔וֹ לֹ֥א יַחֵ֖ל דְּבָר֑וֹ בכְּכָל־הַיֹּצֵ֥א מִפִּ֖יו יַעֲשֶֽׂה׃
If a person vows a vow to the Divine or swears an oath to forbid something to one’s soul, they shall not empty their word; everything that comes from their mouth, so shall they do.
- Bamidbar (Numbers) 30:3

On the surface, this is the mitzvah of having integrity; if you say you are going to do something, do it. Who you are today and who you were yesterday should not be two different things; be your word. This is a basic ethical principle, but it is not merely ethical; it is an embodiment of the spiritual core of Judaism – the affirmation that Hashem Ekhad—God is One. 

Hashem Ekhad can be understood in the ordinary sense of being a creed or belief, affirming the existence of one God rather than many gods. But when we understand that the Divine Name is simply a permutation of the verb “to be” – היה hei-yud-hei – a deeper implication becomes visible: Being Itself is One; there is only One Reality, appearing in countless forms. We cannot “see” this Unity, and our experience over time may seem to defy any sense of unity, and yet: there is only One Reality. This simple fact becomes spiritually significant when the Oneness of Reality becomes our “God” – meaning, we hold up the Unity as our ideal, and hold ourselves accountable to reveal the Unity in our lives. This brings us back to integrity: by being our word, we worship the Oneness; we deify Reality.  

But this is not easy. Anyone who has spent a little time observing the mind knows that we contain many different voices. One part of us makes a commitment while another part immediately begins negotiating with it. One part longs to awaken while another simply wants to remain comfortable. And yet, when we become present, we discover that beneath all of these changing movements there is a radically simple truth: awareness itself is already one. Thoughts come and go, emotions come and go, intentions come and go, but awareness remains the space within which it all lives. We need not strive for this oneness; it is literally what we are. The challenge is forging our lives into an expression of the oneness that is already here.
And yet, there is a dimension of our decision-making that is not within our power. How do we embody Oneness when integrity becomes impossible? 

וְאִם־הֵנִ֨יא אָבִ֣יהָ אֹתָהּ֮ בְּי֣וֹם שׇׁמְעוֹ֒ כׇּל־נְדָרֶ֗יהָ וֶֽאֱסָרֶ֛יהָ אֲשֶׁר־אָסְרָ֥ה עַל־נַפְשָׁ֖הּ לֹ֣א יָק֑וּם וַֽי–הֹ–וָ–ה֙ יִֽסְלַח־לָ֔הּ כִּי־הֵנִ֥יא אָבִ֖יהָ אֹתָֽהּ׃
But if her father restrains her on the day he hears, none of her vows or self-imposed obligations shall stand; Hashem will forgive her, since her father restrained her.
- Bamidbar (Numbers) 30:10

Who actually is this “daughter?” The daughter is us! We are the ones who make sincere commitments, who speak from the deepest truth we know in a given moment, only to discover that circumstances have changed or that life has unfolded differently from how we imagined. The Torah is holding up integrity as a Divine obligation, and yet it is also acknowledging that we are not ultimately in control of Reality.
Who, then, is the “father?”

There is a phrase in the Aleinu prayer: Emet Malkeinu. This is usually translated, “Our King is true.” But a more literal and also infinitely more spiritually useful reading would be: Truth Itself is our King. That is, the truth of this moment, the truth of what actually is, always has the final word. We can make commitments, and we should. We can strive to keep our word, and we should. But the unfolding of Reality belongs to Something infinitely greater than our plans. And this is precisely why the Torah can say, in reference to the daughter who breaks her vow, “Hashem will forgive her.” It is not to negate the importance of integrity as service of the Divine, but because the truth of whatever unfolds is itself not separate from the Divine.  

And this is the paradox: While we are called to take our commitments seriously, we are also called to recognize that we are not in control. We tend to waste energy judging ourselves for not living up to our intentions, imagining that if we were truly awake we would never fail. But forgiving ourselves for not being enlightened is itself a form of enlightenment. The moment we stop arguing with Reality, we can begin to excavate a deeper surrender and humility that aligns with what is actually happening, rather than with the story of how we think things should have happened. This is not a mere self-justification or “letting ourselves off the hook.”  It is simply a letting go. How do we do it?

  לֹֽא־תִקֹּ֤ם וְלֹֽא־תִטֹּר֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י עַמֶּ֔ךָ וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ אֲנִ֖י יְ-הֹ-וָֽ-ה׃
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the children of your people. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am Hashem.
- Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:18

Before this most famous mitzvah to love our neighbor, the Torah first tells us not to take vengeance and not to hold onto resentment, hinting: the same ego that judges others is the ego that judges ourselves. As long as we insist that another person should have been different from who they were, we will continue insisting that we should have been different from who we were. But when we begin to let others be as they are, without carrying the burden of resentment, something within begins to shift. The forgiveness that we extend outwardly is after all, the forgiveness that we are. When we stop struggling against What Happens and instead allow ourselves to meet the moment fully, we discover that forgiveness, love and Presence are not separate practices at all; they are simply different expressions of Being the Oneness. 

Parshat Pinhas begins in the aftermath of the dramatic events at the end of Parshat Balak: as the Israelites stand on the threshold of entering the Promised Land, the Moabite and Midianite women seduce the Israelite men, enticing them to worship the idol, Baal Peor. As a result, a devastating plague breaks out among the Children of Israel. Zimri, an Israelite chieftain, publicly brings Cozbi, a Midianite princess, into his tent. In response, Pinhas kills them both, bringing the plague to an end. 
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At the beginning of our parshah, Hashem responds to Pinhas’ violent act with a seemingly ironic instruction to Moses:
פִּֽינְחָ֨ס בֶּן־אֶלְעָזָ֜ר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹ֣ן הַכֹּהֵ֗ן הֵשִׁ֤יב אֶת־חֲמָתִי֙ מֵעַ֣ל בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל... לָכֵ֖ן אֱמֹ֑ר הִנְנִ֨י נֹתֵ֥ן ל֛וֹ אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֖י שָׁלֽוֹם׃
“Pinhas, son of Elazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Children of Israel... Therefore, say: ‘Behold, I grant him My Covenant of Peace.’” — Bamidbar 25:11–12

What is the meaning of this – that an act of violence is rewarded with a b’rit shalom – a “Covenant of Peace?” Rashi explains it simply an expression of gratitude. Just as a person shows warmth and friendship toward someone who has done them kindness, so God expresses peaceful feelings toward Pinhas. Ibn Ezra approaches the verse differently: it means that Pinhas need not fear retaliation from Zimri's family; the covenant is merely a promise of protection. But there is a deeper level…

Have you ever been moving steadily toward some intention, only to find yourself suddenly pulled off course? Perhaps it was a distraction—something enticing that tempted you away from your goal. Or perhaps it was something darker: self-doubt, discouragement, anxiety, or the feeling that you just aren’t capable or deserving of completing what you began.

This is the spiritual DNA beneath the surface of the story. The Israelites are standing on the bank of the Jordan River, moments away from entering the Land toward which they have journeyed for forty years. Yet just before crossing the threshold, they become completely seduced away from their purpose; the obstacle appears at precisely the moment they are closest to fulfillment.

How do we respond when this happens in our own lives? Do we battle our inner obstacles with force as did Pinhas did, or is there another way? The Talmud offers a powerful image:
In the future, the Holy Blessed One will bring the yetzer hara (evil inclination) and slaughter it before the righteous and before the wicked. To the righteous it will appear like a lofty mountain, but to the wicked it will appear like a hair’s breadth. Both these and these will weep...— Sukkah 52a

The passage begins with an image of violence—the evil inclination is “slaughtered,” echoing the story of Pinhas. But then the imagery shifts; the obstacle is no longer an enemy to decimate; it is either a high mountain to climb, or a tiny thin hair that possesses no real power.

These two images offer a deeper view into our life challenges. The mountain represents the necessity for will. We need the determination to remain faithful to our deepest intention, refusing to be seduced by whatever would pull us away from it. The hair, on the other hand, represents the necessity for consciousness. Seen clearly, the obstacle has no insurmountable power over us; it is only compelling when we become unconscious of our own potential and hypnotized by the drama.

These two together reveal a path: Willpower is necessary, but alone it is not enough. Our will must be directed not merely toward “powering through,” but toward remaining present. In Presence, we dis-identify from the distracting or seductive impulse, because we become the awareness that beholds the distraction, fear, depression, self-doubt, or whatever. And in this state of Presence, we discover (again and again) that this awareness we are is infinitely more vast and powerful than whatever experience arises within it. The obstacle may still be there, but it no longer compels us. This cultivating and strengthening of consciousness cannot happen without some resistance to work against, and so points to a profound spiritual truth: the obstacle is not something standing between us and the sacred task. The obstacle is the sacred task.

Once we have tasted genuine spiritual freedom—that experiential knowing of ourselves as spaciousness—it is natural to think that whenever we lose that state, we have somehow fallen away from the path. We long to get back to that peace we’ve tasted. But the very experience of exile is the place where the deepest practice begins: witness the pain. Rather than trying to escape the obstacle, turn toward it. The darkness is, it turns out, the path for discovering the Light that beholds the darkness. In this sense, every obstacle becomes a kind of Mount Sinai—a mountain we ascend not by escaping the world, but by bringing wholehearted awareness to it; the mountain is climbed by coming fully to This. And in this act of Presence, we can realize: not only is the obstacle the path, it is also a Divine gift—the gift that allows us to reach the Divine.

Seen this way, Rashi’s understanding of the Brit Shalom as gratitude gains a new dimension: if we wish to “slaughter” that which distracts and seduces us into unconsciousness, we must do it through peace—meaning, simply be present with it. Staying awake to the obstacles, you will begin to see that they are actually all just “thin hairs” in the face of the Vastness that is your deepest nature.