Continuing our search for a covenant of peace
During the summer, many families look forward to fireworks, gathering together to watch the night sky light up. But for one member of our shul, it was different this year.
He served in the IDF and was deeply impacted by what he witnessed after October 7. He told me he hadn’t even realized the extent of his stress until he found himself tense and on edge during the fireworks. The loud, sudden bursts brought him back to moments no one should have to live through.
We can’t begin to grasp the weight carried by the soldiers of the IDF. They put their lives on the line to protect others, to save lives, and to restore safety to our people. And I thought to myself: this man should be blessed with the bris shalom, the covenant of peace, just like Pinchas in this week’s parsha. Pinchas steps into a moment of violence, takes courageous action to stop a national tragedy, and in response, G-d gives him something rare and precious, a blessing of peace.
The Sforno offers a deep explanation of what this peace really meant. He writes that Pinchas lived for hundreds of years. How? Because his body no longer experienced internal conflict.
The Sforno says that all physical deterioration comes from “confrontations between opposites.” What does that mean? When our bodies are in tension, when there is conflict, that stress wears down the body.
In the book, “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” Dr. Robert Sapolsky explains that chronic stress damages the body over time. It suppresses the immune system, raises blood pressure, harms the heart, and even kills neurons in the brain.
He writes in simple terms, “Stress can make us sick.” If you experience every day as an emergency, you will pay the price. The mind-body connection is real and powerful. And the Sforno saw it centuries ago: if someone has inner peace, the body will live longer.
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So how do we move toward that kind of peace in our own lives? I want to share three Torah-based strategies for handling stress and building what the Torah calls a bris shalom.
The first is taking care of our bodies as a mitzvah. The Torah tells us, “u’shmartem me’od es nafshoseichem (you must protect your life).” The Rambam, writing hundreds of years before modern health trends, emphasized diet, sleep, exercise, and balance. These are not luxuries. They are mitzvos. Our bodies, which house a soul, must be treated as sacred.
Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik, while recovering from a stroke, was once seen doing physical therapy while softly reciting achas, achas ve’achas, the words of the Yom Kippur service. For him, healing was part of his service to G-d. We must treat our health with the same reverence.
The second is building emunah. So much of stress is the feeling that we are alone in a world that is too much for us. But prayer reminds us otherwise.
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When we take three steps forward in Shemoneh Esrei, we enter a different space, a place where we are not carrying everything by ourselves.
The Kuzari says that prayer is like a daily Shabbos. A pause. A reset. Speaking to G-d is one of the most powerful ways to relieve the pressure we carry. It is not just asking for things; it is handing over what is too heavy. We are not in this alone.
The third is learning not to be consumed by what might happen. So much of our stress comes from imagining the worst. The Midrash says that Sarah Imeinu died when she saw a vision of Avraham with the knife over Yitzchak.
She thought the worst had happened. But it hadn’t. It was not a tragedy; it was a moment of spiritual triumph. And yet the fear alone was enough to take her life. We do this too. We stress over things that might happen. How often do I worry that a class won’t go well while I’m preparing a lecture? And maybe it is not the best class, but life moves on.
We lose sleep, peace of mind, and clarity over scenarios that often never come to pass. And if they do, were they really so life altering? Why suffer now over what might not be? If it happens, we will deal with it then.
That soldier told me he went back outside with his family and watched the fireworks again, trying to reassociate the sounds with something more pleasant than the trauma of his past. He had a moment of peace. He deserves that peace.
May we all be blessed with that kind of peace. A true bris shalom.
Rabbi Benny Berlin is spiritual leader of BACH Jewish Center in Long Beach.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
