I occasionally catch glimmers of news headlines as they pass through my feed—but because of what I’ve come to realize, I don’t watch the news.
When it comes to Am Yisrael—the Jewish people—we rise above what is merely natural. As the Gemara says, “There is no constellation for Israel” [Talmud Shabbat 156a]. Meaning: even when the nations read reality through fixed patterns—mazal, inevitability, the “given-ness” of history—Israel is not locked inside that frame. Not because the world has no order, but because the order itself is not the final authority over a soul bound to HaShem; even within the natural system, covenant can open a higher door. And it’s not incidental that in that very sugya, Chazal anchor the idea in Tanakh, reading the warning not to be shaken by “the signs of the heavens” as something that unnerves the nations, while Israel is called to a different inner stance [Talmud Shabbat 156a; Yirmeyahu 10:2]. Through teshuvah, tefillah, and mitzvot, a Jew can be lifted above what would otherwise feel “sealed,” and Chazal speak explicitly of how tzedakah, tefillah, and teshuvah tear up harsh decrees [Talmud Rosh Hashanah 16b], because our deepest identity is covenantal, not merely cosmic. And Chazal there are even more concrete than our common phrasing: the Gemara enumerates ways a decree is overturned—tzedakah, crying out, and the refashioning of a person’s name and deeds, with an opinion that adds even a change of place—because return is not only remorse but re-creation [Talmud Rosh Hashanah 16b]. And it’s telling that in that very sugya, the Gemara speaks about reading the stars, and about Avraham Avinu being shown that what he “saw” in the constellations was not the end of the story—because HaShem can raise a person above that reading, not by fantasy, but by relationship and promise [Talmud Shabbat 156a]. Chazal even hear this in the language of “HaBet na haShamaymah”—as if HaShem is saying, go out from the narrowness of that calculation into My word, where the covenant is not a denial of nature but a sovereignty above it [Talmud Shabbat 156a; Bereshit Rabbah 44:12]. “Nature,” “creation,” “reality,” the whole framework of the world as people ordinarily define it—these are all categories of finitude. Even a mighty river is only a reflection of something deeper. And in the inner language of Torah, “river” can hint at shefa—a flow from Above—so the question is never only what the water is doing, but what the Source is communicating through it.
Take note, these matters are discussed in the Talmud, specifically [Shabbat 156a]. And it’s striking that this teaching appears in a sugya that touches astrology and destiny, precisely to clarify that Israel’s “story” is not owned by the stars—it is held, moment by moment, by HaShem’s ongoing providence and by the soul’s power to return. In that sense, “Ein mazal l’Yisrael” is not a slogan of denial; it’s an invitation to live as a people whose truest address is not “what is likely,” but “what is demanded of me now,” and what becomes possible when a human will bends back toward its Root. And this is why the sugya does not pretend the world has no patterns; it insists only that patterns do not get the last word over a covenant-bound soul [Talmud Shabbat 156a].
Sometimes a single number quietly ties worlds together. Gematria 156 holds “Tziyon,” “Yosef,” “Yechezkel,” “Melekh ben David,” as well as phrases of mitzvah, love, and divine presence in the same measure, hinting that exiles, prophets, kingship, and loving avodah are not scattered themes but facets of one inner root. And even on the peshat side of that remez, those four names already sketch a single redemptive arc—Tziyon as the locus of return, Yosef as the force of gathering and sustaining, Yechezkel as the prophet of exile and rebuilding, and Melekh ben David as the maturation of malchut—without needing to force any one equation beyond what the hint naturally suggests. At the same time, gematria is a delicate instrument: without an explicit mesorah or a verified calculation, it’s best treated as remez—a contemplative hint—rather than a proof. That itself is part of the holiness here: not forcing certainty where Torah did not demand it, but listening for resonance while staying anchored. When I line these words up side by side, I’m not trying to force secrets, just listening to how 156 repeats and asking what it might be whispering about the heart of redemption, attachment, and who we are inside HaShem’s story. And in that listening, there’s already a kind of geulah-work: gathering scattered sparks into a single intention—seeing the “many” as a hidden “one.”
And what passes for news, whether mainstream or even “independent,” often feels devout in its own way—yet strangely lacking in passion and life. It leans negative. It looks at the world as though it’s ending, not beginning, and it paints everything upside down. It can train the mind to live in the outer shell of events, where the loudest thing becomes the truest thing, and where the heart is taught—quietly, constantly—to brace rather than to cleave. The danger isn’t information as such; the danger is the slow education of the heart into panic, cynicism, and spiritual shortness of breath, until the soul forgets that HaShem is not only “at the end of the story,” but fully present inside the day itself, and that a Jew’s inner work is to keep turning the day back into a place where emunah breathes.
So the conclusion is simple. In light of all this, it doesn’t take much to see there is no true map there, no real truth in the news. Why should I consume myself with falsehood—something that is the very opposite of Shabbat—when I can bring Shabbat into my week? The Torah doesn’t frame Shabbat as a mere day off; it calls it covenant-consciousness: “Surely you shall keep My Sabbaths; for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations” [Exodus 31:13]. And the Torah reinforces that this sign is not a mood but a brit olam, a covenant woven into time itself, “between Me and the children of Israel… for in six days HaShem made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed” [Exodus 31:16–17]. And the Navi echoes that the “sign” of Shabbat is meant to become da’at—knowledge that HaShem sanctifies us—so Shabbat is not only rest from labor, but an ongoing education of the soul in kedushah [Yechezkel 20:12; Yechezkel 20:20]. And it’s not only a future promise—it is a present taste: “Shabbat is one-sixtieth of the World to Come” [Talmud Berakhot 57b], echoing that Shabbat is the name our liturgy gives the ultimate horizon—“a day that is entirely Shabbat and rest for life everlasting” [Mishnah Tamid 7:4]. In the inner map of the Sefirot, the six days can be felt as the six emotive powers in motion—expansive and constrictive currents, building and struggling—while Shabbat is the return of everything to its root, where the soul breathes from a deeper place and the Shechinah is revealed as “home.” Why would I risk letting the news, which can function like a kind of practical avodah zarah—an obsession that crowns the “what happened” as king—enter my Shabbat? Why would I risk warping holiness just to catch a glimpse of sizzling, spicy, sautéed falsehood? If the “headline” becomes a crown, then the mind bows. Shabbat comes to unseat that counterfeit kingship—not by denial of the world, but by restoring the world to its true King.
When a Jew watches the news, it can pull the heart into din-consciousness, into a posture where the world is interpreted mainly through fear and fragmentation, and then the mind starts serving that picture. Din has its place—clarity, boundaries, responsibility—but when din is detached from rachamim, it becomes a lens that fractures instead of a discipline that heals. But when a Jew is able to see their Shabbat in every day of the week—not only preparing for the seventh day, but bringing the seventh day into the other six—then “Remember the day of Shabbat to sanctify it” [Exodus 20:8] stops being a slogan and becomes a lived orientation, where even Tuesday can be held inside the light of Shabbat. Tuesday—so often felt as “ordinary”—can become a vessel for the extraordinary when it’s lived with Shabbat-awareness: not rushing past the soul, not serving urgency as an idol, not letting the world’s noise decide what’s real. And even in the peshat of Creation, Tuesday carries a quiet hint of this possibility, because it is the day where the Torah says “ki tov” twice [Genesis 1:10; Genesis 1:12], as if to whisper that what looks like “midweek” can still hold doubled goodness when it’s aligned above.
And then, in the blink of an eye, the veil will lift, and we will [understand] that redemption has already begun, because “Whoever recites ‘And the heaven and the earth were finished’ becomes a partner with the Holy One, Blessed be He, in the act of Creation” [Talmud Shabbat 119b]. And the Gemara there frames this partnership as testimony: not merely reciting a verse, but standing inside Shabbat as an ed—an inner witness—that the world has a Creator and a covenantal pulse, and that the human mouth can align with that truth until it reshapes the heart [Talmud Shabbat 119b]. Not only because we speak holy words, but because we step into a holy stance: we testify that creation is not random, history is not ownerless, and the deepest news is that HaShem is still speaking—right now—through the covenant, through Shabbat, and through the quiet courage of a Jewish heart that refuses to be ruled by fear.
Kol tuv u’verachah.