Fighting the Pre-Shabbat Madness

First published on chabad.org

I wipe down the counter, waiting for the pre-Shabbat madness fight. Somewhere, in the crunch time before candle-lighting, there’s usually a burnt dish, a hurt feeling or an expression of pure exhaustion taken the wrong way.

In the early hours of the morning, I floated in the Kinneret. Looking up at the clear blue, I reminded myself that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil on Friday afternoon. That’s when all ego, tension and miscommunication entered the world. The eve of Shabbat is a perfect time for a couple to slip into a fight.

I prepare myself. Whatever pressing issue, whichever perfect reason to argue—just know it’s a lie. I need to see beyond the consciousness of division. To stay present in reality.

The house is filled with the aroma of chicken soup and the table is set for 17. Where is the fight?

Waves of anxiety crawl up my spine. Why isn’t something wrong? I almost want to start a petty last minute fight to feel more normal. But Ariel left early for shul. There is no one to fight with but myself.

How can I just feel good? It feels too good to be true; something must be wrong! Isn’t it a mitzvah to suffer? Is life allowed to just be good in the moment? Am I even allowed to not fight with my husband at the most stressful moment of the week, the moment right before we welcome in Shabbat? Am I even allowed to be happy?

This is the question of my generation.

We live in the moment before the ultimate Shabbat—Moshiach. A time of absolute menuchah, tranquility. As we welcome Moshiach, are we allowed to be at peace? Don’t we need to drive ourselves crazy with all the madness around us until the shofar blast banishes insanity from the world forever?

In Rabbi Adam Stein’s course Stress Less, I learned that the Rebbe teaches us to bring in geulah, “redemption,” from a place of inner geulah. To strive to welcome Shabbat from a place of Shabbat.

This means that the steps of preparing for each mitzvah have the innate holiness of the mitzvah itself. The way I knead my challah dough on Friday morning or how I put the platter of chocolate-chip cookies in the oven must be with the spiritual energy of Shabbat.

It follows then, that the belief that these last moments of galut are supposed to be stressful is blocking the truth. Just as we can tap into the energy of Shabbat on Friday, the energy of Moshiach, too, is already available to us.

It’s not easy. It’s hard work to let my ego die. To open myself up to the fact that how I think my life should be is not necessarily how it is meant to be. To become aware that reality is kinder than how I make it out to be.

I was living as a victim, dreaming of holding my own baby and blaming G‑d when that didn’t materialize. I held tight to the belief that I need a baby and I need it now. But living this life of stress is my choice. My martyrdom and my tight grip of control on how reality should look was ego worship. Maybe I need a baby and maybe I don’t. How can I possibly know what an all-powerful, all-loving G‑d has planned for me? I don’t know. If G‑d wants me to have a baby, He will guide me to that moment. I just need to trust it will be a symphony of beauty either way.

Since I was 18 and overcame cancer, my nervous system has learned to live on fight or flight. I am slowly rewiring it. I am parenting it, teaching it about an ever-present G‑d who has its back, about living geulah. I am working on being open to G‑d flowing through me. He is working His miracles and wonders, sometimes within nature and sometimes above.

To be honest, after all the fertility treatments that I have undergone, I still walk into a brit milah celebration and feel all the old misery, the belief that this isn’t fair, the self-pity, anger and jealousy twisting in my stomach.

But now I know to feel the sensations and then offer my animal soul a new path, the tranquility of menuchah—feeling this new awareness that G‑d is holding Me.

The Rebbe says that we need to be ready to receive Moshiach. I am preparing my nervous system to live in an aura of goodness, peace and harmony. Feeling good is new. My animal soul is used to the toxic pleasure of suffering. Thankfully, it’s slowly getting used to this acquired taste of joy.

G‑d is not asking me to stress myself out; He is asking me to step into an aura of peace and harmony to welcome the ultimate era of goodness. To learn to get comfortable with being comfortable. To learn that it’s OK to be OK.

I pour the oil for my Shabbat candles and take a breath in, letting my body fill with new life. G‑d is breathing me into existence.