We need more of this Kabbalah practice.
When we rush to conclusions about the "ceasefire," we become participants in narratives that may not reflect reality. We amplify certainty where there is none.
Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
There has been no shortage of reactions to the “ceasefire” between the United States, Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran announced earlier this week.
Some are celebrating it as a diplomatic breakthrough. Others are condemning it as weakness. Still others are trying to decode it as if it were a puzzle waiting to be solved.
But beneath the noise, there is a simpler and far less comfortable truth: We don’t actually know what is happening.
We don’t know the terms that were agreed to behind closed doors. We don’t know what was promised, what was threatened, or what was quietly conceded. We don’t know whether this is a genuine de-escalation, a temporary pause, or merely the opening move in a longer, more complex phase of conflict.
Anything presented in the media — any so-called “leak” or “insider” — is rarely a true leak. It is narrative control. The Americans do it. The Israelis do it. The Iranians do it. Everyone does it, because shaping perception is not adjacent to war; it is part of it. To read, watch, or listen to a news report and walk away with a rock-solid opinion about what’s happening is to mistake fragments for the full picture and speed for understanding. The true elements are being discussed behind closed doors and may never be exposed, or at least not in full.
And yet, the instinct to react, to rush to judgment, to declare victory or defeat, to fit events into preferred narratives, is overwhelming. These are just a few reactions I have seen in recent days:
“Trump is being erratic!” — usually from those who see everything U.S. President Donald Trump does through that lens, including when he merely breathes
“Netanyahu doesn’t have an endgame!” — often from those predisposed to doubt Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regardless of the circumstances
“Iran won!” — a blind conclusion about a country where the regime entirely censors information, making real visibility into on-the-ground reality almost impossible
I am not suggesting that the opposite of any of these three reactions, or any others, is necessarily true. Rather, the point is that each of these reactions reveals less about what is actually happening, and more about the narratives people were already carrying before this war even began. In psychology, this is often referred to as “confirmation bias,” the tendency to interpret new information in a way that reinforces what we already believe, even in the face of evidence that might point elsewhere.
Kabbalistic tradition has a prescription for this sort of thing. It’s known as “the pause.”
In the teachings of Kabbalah Centre, “the pause” is not passive. It is not indifference, and it is not ignorance. It is a disciplined, proactive act of restraint. It is the decision to interrupt the automatic reaction, to create space, to choose consciousness over impulse.
There is a phrase often used in this practice: “Pause, what a pleasure.”
At first glance, it feels counterintuitive, almost unnatural. Why would uncertainty, discomfort, or tension be a pleasure?
Because “the pause” reframes the moment. Instead of seeing ambiguity as something to eliminate, it becomes something to work through. Instead of reacting to incomplete information, we recognize the limits of what we know — and resist the urge to fill in the gaps with assumptions.
Right now, there is far more we don’t know than what we do. We’re operating with limited information and perspective, and no real access to the rooms where conversations are actually being had and decisions are actually being made.
And no journalist, no reporter, no talking head or commentator — and even most politicians — truly know what’s going on, at least not in full. What they have are fragments, access points, partial briefings, spins, and information with deliberate omissions, which means that repeating something we saw in the news (or, worse, on social media) is less analysis and more regurgitation.
What we do know is this: The United States is under significant internal pressure to avoid prolonged conflict — rising energy costs, political fatigue from foreign entanglements, and a broader skepticism about intervention abroad. The Republican Party is split on this war; more traditional Republicans like President Trump tend to support it, shaped by a longer memory of how far back the Iranian regime’s hostility extends, while a newer faction of Republicans like Vice President JD Vance is leaning more isolationist, wary of extensive involvement abroad.
Externally, there are constraints as well. Countries (Qatar and China come to mind) are likely signaling quietly that escalation beyond a certain threshold will carry consequences.
At the same time, Israel — and parts of the Arab world, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and perhaps even Saudi Arabia — see this moment differently. For them, the question is not how to contain the conflict, but whether this is a rare strategic window to fundamentally reshape the balance of power with the Iranian regime.
Layer onto this the reality of domestic politics: Both the United States and Israel are heading into election seasons this fall. Wars are not only fought on battlefields. They are leveraged in campaigns, framed in messaging, and absorbed into narratives of strength, diplomacy, leadership, and survival. This means that wars are not purely about right and wrong, or the “good guys” versus the “bad guys.” They are also about timing, perception, and political survival.
Which brings us back to “the pause.”
When we rush to conclusions, we become participants in narratives that may not reflect reality. We amplify certainty where there is none. We trade clarity for emotional satisfaction.
“The pause” is not about disengaging from the world or ignoring issues that are important to us. It is about engaging with it more honestly. It is the recognition that sometimes the most responsible response is restraint, that sometimes clarity comes not from speaking more, but from waiting longer, and that sometimes, the most powerful position is not to declare what this “ceasefire” means, but to acknowledge that its meaning has not yet fully revealed itself.
In a world addicted to instant analysis and immediate reaction, choosing not to react is not weakness; it is discipline. And in this moment, discipline may be the only thing standing between us and getting it completely wrong.
There’s some very real wisdom here. Thank you! Over the past five years—and in a more concentrated way the past four months—I’ve been practicing with Rabbi Dr. Zvi Ish-Shalom, who has brought ancient kabbalistic wisdom into our present time in ways that continue to astound me, and to carry me into deep quiet where I experience what he recently termed as cosmic co-regulation. This does not render me ignorant of what’s happening in the world, but it does indeed quell my reactivity to it. Sitting inside this utterly spacious perspective, giving my attention to the Love that created us and sustains us, urges me toward trust. And my own neurology thanks me!
When I was learning to ride a motorcycle, I learned something valuable to all of life: Where our attention goes is where we will go. If a truck stops dead in front of me, and I’m focused on his bumper, I’m likely to hit that bumper. But if I’m focused on the spaces around me, my focus can avoid a crash. Training my attention has been the smartest thing I’ve done in this lifetime.
Joshua, I’ve learned one rule when it comes to Trump: never judge the play before the final act. Time and again he stretches negotiations, creates uncertainty, lets everyone speculate — and then acts when people least expect it. Until the curtain falls, it’s usually too early to declare victory or defeat.