To Hear the Beating Wings of History in a Time of Fire

A sense of being held within the unfolding of History
מוחזק בתוך ההתרחשות

Sunday • 11 Nissan

A חומת אש / wall of fire is surrounding us.
pounding us from Lebanon, Iran, Yemen…
Not abstract. Surrounding.
Yet we are more alive than ever!

There are moments when history stops being something we read about and becomes something we enter.
As sound.
As beating of the air.

This Shabbat HaGadol was like that in Eretz Yisrael.
Not quiet.
And yet there was an inner השוואה / equanimity.
A steady, grounded inner presence that did not come from the absence of intensity, but from being held within it.

To hear the משק כנפיים
the beating wings
of history
משק כנפי ההיסטוריה

Rabbi Nachman teaches,
“כִּי הָעוֹלָם מָלֵא תְּנוּעוֹת / the world is filled with movement” (Likutei Moharan I:64).

There are times when this teaching is soft, almost imperceptible. And there are times like now,
when the movement is unmistakable.
Audible. The sky carries it.
The body receives it.
And something in us is asked not merely to react, but to en-tune.

The עבודה / inner avodah here is entrainment.
To allow ourselves to be drawn into alignment with a deeper rhythm that is already moving.

Not the surface rhythm of urgency and fear, but the quieter, more פנימי / pnimi inner cadence beneath it.

Like breath settling into a deeper breath.
A fetus in the amniotic fluid
Like the body remembering a pulse it did not create.

And perhaps this is what it means to live in ארץ ישראל consciousness.
Not watching events from a distance,
not consuming them as images on a screen,
but being בתוך / within them, receiving them through the full system.

The sounds, the smells, the textures, the light.
Rav Kook writes, “אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֵינָהּ דָבָר חִיצוֹנִי… כִּי אִם חֵלֶק עַצְמוּתִי קָשׁוּר בְּקֶשֶׁר חַיִּים עִם הָאֻמָּה

Eretz Yisrael is not an external matter… it is an essential bond, tied with a living connection to the nation”

The Land is not a backdrop.
It is alive.
And in moments like this, it is not only being experienced.
It is shaping us.
*
For decades, living in NYC, Shabbat HaGadol was a centerpiece of the year. My kehilla would go to hear the drasha. Our beloved Rav would speak with intensity, with מוסר / ethical clarity, with a fire that came once a year and entered deeply. I loved it! I would come home carrying that energy, trying to bring it into my home, into my family, into something lived and embodied. Maybe something would actually shift… and change?

This year, the דרשה was different.

Before even stepping out, there was already a quiet unraveling of expectation. In the intensity of Pesach cleaning, our דעת / awareness had become so focused, so narrowed toward preparation, that other things had quietly slipped. The refrigerator had not been on shabbat mode. The hot water as well. It only revealed itself slowly. No fresh food. No hot water. And there was something almost tender in the realization. We opened cans… Corn. Peas. Sardines. And stood there, receiving what was. Something needed to be a activated from within;)

it became clear. This was the ביטול / bitul we were learning about that was the prerequisite for pesach.

Not as an idea, but as a lived softening of ישות / self. A releasing of expectation, of control, of how things are supposed to be. A quiet agreement to meet reality as it is, without resistance.

That state carried into all of shabbat.

The streets of Tzfat were empty. Held. Suspended. As if the city itself was בתוך in pnimiut process.

What is גדול / gadol?
Not us.
ה׳ הוא הגדול / Hashem is the Gadol.

Shabbat HaGadol becomes a movement of ביטול / bitul. A loosening of the grip of self, of certainty, of control. Not collapse, but alignment. Making space for something greater than our own framework to lead.

At the Abuhav shul, Rav Shmuel Eliyahu read the haftorah for Parshat Zachor:
“הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי שֹׁלֵחַ לָכֶם אֵת אֵלִיָּה הַנָּבִיא לִפְנֵי בּוֹא יוֹם ה׳ הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא / Behold, I send you Eliyahu the nnavibefore the coming of the great and awesome day of Hashem” (Malachi 3:23–24).

After davening, the kehilla went to the winery overlooking Meron. The view stretched open, expansive, almost deceptively calm. We stood with small cups of wine, the scent already rising, when suddenly the siren cut through.

The body knew what to do.
The reflex to get up, to move, to protect.

And then something else entered.
Daat elyon דעת / a higher awareness.

I looked toward the Rav. He remained seated. Not ignoring. Not reacting. Simply present. And the entire kehilla remained seated with him. I felt myself settle into that as well. Not because there was no danger, but because there was something deeper than the reflex — a kind of entrainment to a steadier rhythm.

After a few moments, he stood. We all stood. And we walked together into the inner space of the winery. Calmly. Without rush. As one body. The scent of wine deepened as we entered, filling the senses, grounding the moment. I was still holding my small plastic cup, waiting for Kiddush, suspended between what I thought would happen and what was unfolding instead.

And then Rav Eliyahu spoke.

He spoke about עפר / dust and אפר / ash, and the movement between them. עפר is the beginning, the ground, the place of potential. אפר is what remains after burning. But ash is not an end state. It returns to עפר. It becomes ground again. It becomes the very place from which something new can emerge.

In these days, this teaching is not theoretical. There are processes unfolding that are difficult, painful, and real. And yet, within Torah, there is a language that allows us to hold even this within a larger movement. That what burns is not necessarily lost. That what becomes ash may be returning to ground, to be reformed, to become the basis of something not yet visible.

All through Shabbat, the sounds continued. Jets crossing the sky. Sonic waves. Booms from Lebanon that did not remain distant, but entered the body as vibration. And within all of it, there was a quiet recognition. A sense of being held within the unfolding itself.

Like Bnei Yisrael before Yetziat Mitzrayim, taking the lamb and tying it to the bedpost. An act that required trust in the middle of uncertainty. A willingness to stand בתוך the moment without fully understanding it.

“וַאֲנִי אֶהְיֶה לָהּ חוֹמַת אֵשׁ סָבִיב / And I will be for her a wall of fire surrounding”
– Zechariah 2:9)

“אֵין שׁוּם יֵאוּשׁ בָּעוֹלָם כְּלָל
there is no despair in the world at all” (Likutei Moharan II:78)

“בכל רגע ורגע ה’ מחדש את העולם
at every moment Hashem renews the world anew.”


אל תהיה זקן
do not be old.”
Do not become fixed.
Do not assume that what is now is final.

To hear the beating wings of history
is to allow ourselves to be drawn into alignment
with something larger than our own chochma and bina
mimala mhadaas, above daas.
To remain in השוואה / equanimity within movement is itself a profound tefilla

B’ezrat Hashem may we be zoche to remain in that השוואה / equanimity as this process continues to unfold, i
n ביטול / bitul before the true גדול / Gadol,
and to witness גאולה שלימה / complete geula, bimhera byameinu.
❤️ Rachel Leah