Running and Returning

“And the living creatures ran and returned (ratzo va’shov) like the appearance of a flash of lightning.” (Ezekiel 1:14)

One of the most potent and least-known phrases in Jewish tradition is this line from the prophet Ezekiel, ratzo va’shov, “running and returning”. He was describing a vision of mysterious fiery angels in a scene that would become one of the core texts of later Jewish mysticism. Mysterious fiery angels - or, you know, most toddlers. Running and returning, flitting and flickering with divine spark energy. 

But what is the meaning of this running and returning? Ezekiel’s imagery leaves the action inscrutable. I want to offer three models of how you might understand and use the phrase ratzo va’shov, drawing on different layers of the Jewish tradition.

Model 1: Meditative Practice

“And if your heart is running, return to the place (haMakom).” (Sefer Yetzirah 1:8)

Playing on Ezekiel’s language, the mystical Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation) offers a meditative practice. Rabbi Jill Hammer, whose translation and commentary on Sefer Yetzirah is called Return to the Place, describes it this way: “Anyone who meditates can relate to the way that the mind runs away from the meditative focus (whether the breath, an image, a chant, etc.) and pursues its own mundane line of thinking. The work of meditation is to interrupt this obsessive inner monologue, pull the mind back and attend to the meditative focus… The phrase ‘return to the place’ is particularly poignant, since the word ‘Place’ in rabbinic Hebrew can also refer to God. To return to the place is to return to the Divine, who is the ultimate focus of attention. And, to return to the place is to return to where we left off—to come back to what we had intended to do. Finally, to return to the place is to become at home in the universe: to be situated in space, time, and body.”

Where is your Place? What does it feel like? How do you return there when your heart has started running with anxiety or distraction or simple busy-ness?

Model 2: Spiritual Yearning and Spiritual Purpose

Our next model comes from a much later text, the Tanya (or Likutei Amarim), written in the late 1700s by the founder of Chabad Chassidism, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady. The passage uses the phrase as found in Sefer Yetzirah to explore a spiritual dynamic of running and returning in a totally new way. 

“‘If your heart is running’ refers to the craving of the soul… when it  predominates and bursts into flame and glows in such rapture that the soul is consumed with a desire to pour itself out into the embrace of its Source, Who gives one life, and to leave its confinement in the corporeal and physical body to attach itself to Source. Then one must take to heart (literally: return to the heart) the teaching of our Sages, of blessed memory: “Despite yourself, you must live.” (Tanya Chapter 50)

In this passage, Shneur Zalman interprets the phrase from Sefer Yetzira seemingly the opposite of its simple meaning. Instead of bringing a distracted heart back to a higher place of focus, the Tanya teaches that if your heart is running with great yearning towards a purely spiritual existence, return to the world-as-it-is and do the messy work of making life sacred. 

The running is towards God, the returning is to our purpose on earth. We might see this as running towards retreat and escapism, running towards purity and ideals and theoretical abstraction. Then we have to bring ourselves back to ground, accept the imperfections of body and world, and get back to work on whatever it is we are here to do. 

When do you yearn for a sanctuary from the hard edges of life? What makes you wake up with (or to) a sense of purpose?

Model 3: Running and Returning as Life’s Journey

The previous models make an assumption that the running necessitatesreturning. In other words, if your mind gets distracted, you’ll need to return to focus; if your soul yearns for ideals, you’ll need to gently return to a level of pragmatism to keep working towards making them more possible. The returning is the key (not a surprise given the importance of teshuva, another form of the word, in Judaism). 

But what if the running is not just inevitable, but also worthy? A few nights ago I was chewing over the final verse of the book of Exodus and discovered a fascinating interpretation by the 19th century commentary Haamek Davar.

“For over the Mishkan a divine cloud rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel on all of their journeys.” (Exodus 40:38)

“On all of their journeys whether by God’s will or whether in tempestuous anger like after the incident of the scouts. In any event it didn’t alter the essential work of the cloud that was continually (there).” (Haamek Davar)

I felt like there was something essential to this remarkable insight that when the text says the pillar of cloud accompanied the Israelites on every last one of their journeys, that includes some ill-advised ones that caused God and the Israelites a lot of grief! What could it mean that a sign of divine presence and protection goes with the Israelites when they are moving in alignment with their higher purpose, and also when they are running away from it?

I shared this text with my wife, Rabbi Laura Rumpf, and she immediately responded: “Running and returning are in service of each other. Sometimes we are in alignment, following our true north, but being out of alignment is also in service because it is part of our learning, part of our journey. Life is rarely about ‘I was right, then I was right again, oh and then there was that other time I was right…’”

The first two models prioritize returning once we’ve started running. But Laura and the Haamek Davar helped me see running and returning as the life journey itself. In Ezekiel’s vision, the angelic creatures are actually calledchayyot, simply “living things.” A real life lived is just as much running as it is returning. Like the Israelites wandering in the desert, through successes and failures, through inspired choices and tragic decisions, we too might see the pillar of cloud is there, establishing a strange symbol of continuity. Wherever you are, this too is part of your journey. 

What torah, what wisdom, is written in this chapter of your life?

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine