Another Good Saying for the Practice of Discernment

There is a famous Hasidic saying whose words are often sung, “The world is a narrow bridge; the main thing is not to be afraid.”
This is the spiritual counsel of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. Like all his teachings, this one is rich in meaning. Here is one way to understand what he is saying.

I envision this bridge not as the straight and narrow path through sin on all sides or over a chasm of transgression, over which the faithful cross safely to purity, planting each foot on the solid wooden plans leading straight ahead. Instead, I see this bridge as some others do—as a razor-sharp high-wire that one must walk across gently, arms outstretched, eyes fixed on the horizon.

What lies on the two sides of that bridge? We are walking the high-wire, constantly balancing. What is pulling us to one side and what to the other? Name your paradox and it probably fits: mercy and justice; patience and boldness; or the paradox we spoke of last week, of our earth-ness, our humility and our spirit-ness, our dignity. For we human beings are creatures built of paradoxes and our challenge, though we meet it awkwardly, is live gracefully with all these paradoxes, to walk between these forces pulling us to one side and the other.

And here is where discernment comes in. We do not walk this high-wire in fair weather at all times. The weather is constantly changing. So we cannot find our “balance” once and for all and then think we have it made. There are gusts, there are heavy rains, there are tornadoes and hurricanes. We must adjust the way we walk that narrow bridge as the weather changes. When the force pulling us to one side is stronger, and threatens to topple us, we must lean more to the other side, to stay standing upright so we will not fall. Is the pull toward justice too strong? Then we need to lean to the side of mercy. Is a strong wind pushing us to take bold action? We need to lean toward patience in order to stay upright.

Sounds terrifying. It is terrifying. This is the human condition—never to be at rest, always to be facing new dangers, always to be at risk. Everything changes. Everything is changing.

As the Prophet Mohammed says, “Everything perishes but the face of God.” The main thing is to walk through all that is changing with our heart fixed on the One who is constant. And that is what Rabbi Nachman reminds us when he says, “The main thing is not to be afraid.” Fear, that is, lack of trust, makes us lose our balance and our steadying eye of discernment. It is love for the One keeps us walking steadily forward, discerning which side to lean toward to stay upright, which pocket to look in.

Think of the story of Thomas in the Christian gospels, when Jesus told him he could walk on water just as he did, that he needed no special spiritual powers to walk through life on earth in this way, heart fixed on the One, never sinking into fear, drowning in a sea of possibilities. Thomas tried. He sank. Fell in. Because he did not trust.

Trust is the root of discernment.