Stop

Stop. The ability to stop is perhaps the greatest proof of our liberty as human beings. Stop requires cognizance, choice, and action – all aspects of free will. “Go” is all around us. We do absolutely nothing and the world is busily humming about with trees and plants sprouting, families multiplying, the world circling the sun. Stop, however, requires the insertion of the Thinking Acting Self. Much is said that our vast creativity is that which was “made in God’s image”, but remember: God’s last act of creation was to STOP creating.

This evening begins the stop for Yom Kippur, the ultimate stop in the Jewish calendar. We will neither eat, drink, or bathe; we wear white clothing and nothing from leather or other animal products. In other words, a little death, leaving behind the physical, animal parts of ourselves that never want to stop (ask your dog to skip a meal and you will understand this), and turning our attention to the spiritual within. Yom Kippur is a day of Atonement, solemn, yet … joyful. On this day of atoning for our sins – those actions which occur when we fail to say stop – we are gifted with the reminder that we know how to, and can, stop. Saying stop to our material needs on this day brings us closer to the spiritual self. We rise up and regain our dignity; joyful in remembering we are not slaves to any action, ‘go’, consumption, or material efforts, but that we are more than that – we are liberated beings created in the image of the Divine.

Stop is exercising our divine potential.

There is the Jewish legend of the Golem of Rabbi Loew of Prague, a creature magically created from clay to do its master’s bidding to protect the Jews in the 1500s. The Golem did a great job of it, and continued to grow stronger and stronger in his doing until he became destructive, tearing things down in his efforts. How did it end? The Rabbi said Stop, taking out the sacred words that rested in its mouth.

We humans are a lot like the Golem – made from the four elements, we delight in how great we do with the job of our doing. Look what we make! Industry, technology, cities, and cars! And with each action we grow stronger in our doing, making ever more complicated and greater things, exchanging horses for cars and rockets. Growing all the more strong in the pattern of continuing… until it becomes destructive. Until all those words in our mouth, those sacred creators that say “two cars are better than one”, “I’ll take five of those, please”, “a big bomb would be a good idea” are taken out of our mouths and replaced with silence. Stop. The difference between us humans and the Golem is that we, ourselves, are capable of saying Stop. We stand above the lump of clay due to this Divine potential.

Recently, at a dinner party, a father told me he would never not give his child (age 10) a cell phone because his kid would become “food for the sharks, the weakest link, picked off by everyone else”. He quickly added “I don’t agree with it! I hate it! I think it’s terrible! But what to do?”

How often do we follow along in the path of doing without exercising our freedom to Stop?

Stop is never convenient. In these hours preceding the stop of Yom Kippur the world of the Northern Hemisphere has jumped into top speed from summer’s sloth. School is starting, activities beginning, deadlines cramming inboxes as fourth quarter suddenly comes into view; as I write this tractors are hauling in loads of grapes, harvesting since three this morning. Stop is a counter movement. It is precisely in this most busy time when we stop of the Jewish High HolyDays. Usually, when we humans think of stopping we think of what will be missed – deadlines, a good harvest, a get together with friends, a meal. It is only until we do it, have the experience of stopping, that we discover what is to be gained by it. We discover that, not only does the world keep turning when we stop doing, it returns to a place of greater potential.

I write a lot about pause. Pausing to take a breath, regain perspective, see what other options are available. Stop is stop. End of a pattern. Seeing those options and decidedly taking a new road. Turning “have-to” into choice. Making face to face family connection times instead of texting with your kids; ending a war instead of renaming it.

Remember: God’s last act of creation was to stop creating. In the little death of Yom Kippur a new self of greater potential is resurrected. In Stop lies beginning. It contains the true seeds of creation. Anything else is simply repetition: dull, stale, and lifeless. To create, we have to stop creating.

Wishing all of you a meaningful stop.