Rewiring the Jewish brain - The Jewish Standard

Neuroscientists often talk about “rewiring your brain.” The idea is that if we spend time noticing certain things, our brain will automatically notice them. So noticing the good things in our lives, even small ones, like the smell of a flower or a bird’s tweet, will train our brain to find the positive things and will greatly reduce our anxiety.

In light of that, I think it’s time to rewire the Jewish brain.

It’s no secret that anxiety has recently spiked among Jews. Sadly, news about antisemitic incidents is very frequent, and our brain has almost gotten used to looking for those stories, making us even more scared.

How do we rewire our Jewish brain? For that, I will turn to an old Jewish joke from Poland, where Moishe finds his best friend Yankel reading an antisemitic newspaper. “What is wrong with you?” Moishe is revolted, and Yankel casually explains, “Well, reading the Jewish newspaper makes me depressed. More and more reports about bad things that happened to the Jews. But when I read the antisemitic newspaper, I read how powerful the Jews are; we control the banks, we secretly run the world, and we can even influence the weather! Now that is a newspaper I want to read!”

Picking up an antisemitic newspaper is a bad idea, but Yankel wasn’t wrong to realize how often we scare ourselves far more than we should.

This joke came to mind recently while I was browsing my social media feed. A few posts popped up, from a neighbor, a cousin, and a friend. When I finished reading them, I noticed an unusual feeling.

The first one was by Rabbi Chanoch Kaplan, our neighbor at Chabad of Franklin Lakes. He posted pictures of the inauguration of their brand-new campus.

The second was from my cousin, Rabbi Eliezer Zalmenov, who posted a picture of a young Chabad family with the caption, “Welcoming the 10th family of Chabad shluchim to Indiana!”

The third was from a friend of mine, Rabbi Oshy Deren from Cape Town, South Africa, posting an update about a beautiful mikvah being built there as we speak.

I loved reading the posts, and that is when I noticed that, for the first time in a while, I felt … happier.

Usually, my social media feed looks very much like Yankel’s Jewish newspaper. Post after post about everything wrong: Look who said this! Look who did that! Each scroll leaves me feeling gloomier than before.

This time, however, I was reading about Jewish pride, about Judaism thriving in every corner of the world. And that felt good!

This weekend, a lot of those good-news posters are going to get together. This is the annual conference of all Chabad rabbis—the Rebbe’s shluchim (the Chabad rebbetzins have their own conference in January).

What do all these shluchim and shluchot have in common? Honestly, as a Chabad rabbi, I can tell you that we can’t take any credit. It’s the Rebbe, who constantly, relentlessly taught us that even when it’s dark outside, we have to keep focusing on the light. When Jews in Morocco in the 1960s were terrified because of anti-Israel sentiment, when Jews in South Africa in the 1980s were sure it was time to pack, when the community in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s expected the worst to happen, the Rebbe had one message: keep at it. Keep on doing your job: spread light, be proud, and you will succeed.

If your social media feed, like mine, is plagued with darkness, I suggest adding a few Chabad rabbis and rebbetzins to it. But most importantly, let’s all take the Rebbe’s perspective.

It’s time to rewire our brains, or—as the Rebbe would say—to go back to what we were meant to be all along: proud and committed Jews who learn Torah, fulfill mitzvot, and celebrate our Jewishness openly.

Because yes, antisemitism is real, but Am Yisrael Chai is much more real.

Rabbi Mendy Kaminker is the rabbi of Chabad of Hackensack and an editorial rabbi@chabadhackensack.commember of Chabad.org. He looks forward to your comments at .

Opinion