Don’t just do something, sit there.
That can’t be right, I thought. That’s not how that saying goes. But there I was, sitting in a musty chapel attic at the New York Presbyterian Hospital for my first day of a summer chaplaincy unit, being told this counterintuitive wisdom from an expert chaplain.
Don’t just do something—sit there. My supervisor for that summer, a 32-year-old secular Jewish naturalist named Joel, repeated this phrase to six inquisitive and wide-eyed seminary students. We had just spent the past 18 months hovering over religious texts on our respective couches. We were itching to be within these hospital walls, ready to serve the sick and vulnerable. We had all filled out so much paperwork and dusted off our professional wardrobes; we were prepared and even eager to spend our summers feeling busy and immersed. So what were we to do with this unusual orientation framing?
The advice that we were given that morning pushes against our societal instincts. We are constantly defining ourselves by what we produce during our waking hours. We pride ourselves on our work—be it our jobs, projects, resumes, or even side hustles. A lot of the time, it’s exciting. It keeps our heart rates up, renews our sense of purpose. Other times, it’s just plain stressful. The constant striving to keep up with the pressures to accomplish things lest we, chas v’shalom (Heaven forbid), waste time.
We actually see this mentality from the rabbis about this week’s Torah portion. The very second verse of Vayetzei describes Yakov’s need to just sleep:
He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.
Rashi describes the phenomenon of “ki va ha’shemesh,” “for the sun had set,” teaching that the sun had not set at its usual time, but in fact earlier so that Yakov would rest at this place. Hashem (God) even needed to coordinate the setting of the sun so that Yakov would just stop doing, praying, and walking, and just be. Rashi is trying to justify that Yakov would have indeed kept going had it not been for this reminder from the elements to stop.
Yakov proceeds to dream his famous dream of the ladder with ascending and descending angels, and the promises from Hashem that his legacy will be long-lasting.
It’s his declaration when he wakes up that unsettles me:
Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is present in this place, and I did not know it!”
What was so important that night that helped Yakov encounter God? Was it really just a good night’s sleep?
The rabbis try to address what happened in between Yakov placing his head on that rock and then waking up to encounter God. Rabbi Yochanan in Bereishit Rabba, a commentary from around 300 CE, argues that “Va’yikatz Yakov mishnato,” ”Yakov woke up from his sleeping,” is actually “mi’mishnato”—Yakov woke up from his studying of mishna, an anachronistic but creative explanation that makes Yakov a learned rabbi and colleague of Rabbi Yochanan. Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, the 18th-century Chassidic master, says that Yakov woke up from a dark fog of depression from carrying the weight of Israel’s suffering. The Degel Machane Ephraim, 18th century grandson of the Chassidic master the Baal Shem Tov, suggests that Yakov’s dreaming was a necessary gateway in order to reveal the light of Torah, as indicated by the phrase in our blessings after meals, “hayinu k’cholmim,” “We were like dreamers,” which we use to describe our desire to see redemption.
The rabbis simply can’t envision a scenario where Yakov would just be still: Yakov could not have actually been sleeping but learning; his sleep wasn’t sleep at all but actively holding suffering; his dreams needed to carry the power of redemption. Our ancient and more recent commentators alike are justifying why Yakov would do the simple thing that each one of us needs to do at times. Stillness and remaining in place for just a moment somehow needs to be justified. It makes this rare moment of Yakov Avinu, Jacob our Forefather, lying beneath the night sky seem like something he needed to earn, and that this prophetic dream of his needed to be as productive as when he was awake.
What’s particularly comforting in these verses, though, is that Yakov himself does not feel bound to these tropes about productivity that we may be stuck in. His experience upon waking up is the reaction that I wish could be more common throughout Tanakh, rabbinic literature, and in our own lives:
Surely God is in this place and I did not realize it.
The word “achen,” “surely,” suggests a contrast. Yakov is surprised to experience God; according to him, God would never typically be found at some unnamed place between Beer Sheva and Charan.
Another translation of God’s name is in fact HaMakom, or The Place. When he awakens from sleep (or mishna learning, or depression, or productivity), Yakov encounters The Place because he awakens from the monotony and burnout of trying to constantly accomplish and do. Yakov Avinu encounters The Place when he, for just one moment, focuses on just being in place.
It’s really easy to miss opportunities to simply sit there. But Yakov reminds each of us that when it comes to discerning Hakadosh Baruch Hu (God), staying in place and being present is literally Godliness. Holding space for one another by simply being there is upholding the ultimate Place, HaMakom.
Perhaps it’s why we say “HaMakom yinachem etchem 
’’(May HaMakom comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem) when we encounter those experiencing grief. We hope God can be that comfort to you, but if not, then let us comfort you by simply just being with you in your place. Let us comfort your despair through God’s quality of HaMakom, by dropping our resumes and that need to do something, and instead just sitting there with you. We learn that we have Divine permission to release ourselves from productivity: Sometimes, simply being is enough for God, and more than enough for the people we love.
Don’t just do something, sit there. It’s a mode of existence that we not only see in our forefathers, but also in God. In the Talmud in Masechet Brachot, Rabbi Meir adds this line at the end of his own prayer, like a supplication:
And I will be with you in every place.
This concluding prayer quotes Hashem simply saying “I will be with you in every place.” I love that. Imagine if we just signed off on our prayers with the reminder that God is here, in place, and in every place.
How can we mirror this in our own lives? Whether we are running toward the blessings that await us in Charan like Yakov was or simply needing a rock on which to rest our heads, how can we embody the stillness of HaMakom? The embodiment of what my interfaith clergy friends and I were advised to do this past summer?
By way of an answer, I want to leave you with one of my favorite theologians, Jan Richardson, from her book The Cure for Sorrow. She is a United Methodist minister, author, and director of “The Wellspring Collective” in Florida. She writes in her poem, The Blessing You Should Not Tell Me:
Give me instead
The blessing
Of breathing with me.
Give me instead
The blessing
Of sitting with me
When you cannot think
Of what to say