Welcome to Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day with me, Josh Feigelson.
I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you benefit from our time together.
In 2008, the great African-American poet and writer Maya Angelou published a short book called, Letter to My Daughter. In the preface, she wrote that she gave birth to one son, but she had thousands of daughters. This was a letter to them—a kind of summation of her life’s wisdom, maybe a kind of ethical will.
The first chapter of the book is called “Home.” In it, Angelou writes that, contra the idea that you can never go home again, it’s actually just the opposite. “One can never leave home,” she says. We always carry it with us.
Shortly afterwards, she sums up the chapter. And I think it’s actually best if we let her read the line to us herself:
This is the third episode in our miniseries on home. Last week we explored what it means and feels like to be at home in our bodies. And as much as I know Maya Angelou would agree that that’s an important starting point, I think her words here point us to an additional dimension of home, that it’s someplace in our minds too. And, like a turtle, we’re always carrying it with us, whether we realize it or not. So today I want to take up this idea of being at home in our minds.
I mentioned last week a teaching of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism: “Wherever your mind is, that’s where you are.” It’s not just that we can be in one place physically but another place mentally. It’s also that our minds can wander far from home, and we can follow them along, without even being aware of it. For instance, I’m sure this has never happened to you, but I know it’s happened to me: I look up from my phone and realized I were was scrolling for the last 30 minutes—and I’m like, where was I for the last 30 minutes?
Again, I’m sure this kind of distraction never happens to you. But, just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’ve experienced this once or twice.
If you have, you’re far from alone. In fact, you’re right on schedule.
Researchers who study our digital habits have found that the average American now checks their phone roughly 200 times a day. If you break that down across our waking hours, it means we are pulling out our phones to check out of our mental home once every five minutes. And once we dive into that screen, we stay there. The average adult now clocks about four and a half hours of smartphone screen time every single day. If you multiply that out over a year, it adds up to seventy full days. More than two months of the year, completely gone–on mental vacation, away from home.
What is this doing to the architecture of our minds? Dr. Gloria Mark, a researcher at UC Irvine who has tracked our attention spans for over two decades, found that in 2004, the average person could focus on a digital screen for about two and a half minutes before their mind jumped to something else. By 2012, that was down to 75 seconds. Today, in 2026? It’s down to just 47 seconds.
Forty-seven seconds. Our minds are being trained to constantly leave home—to pack up and move, over and over again, in less than a minute.
A massive study recently published in the journal Psychological Bulletin actually mapped out what heavy scrolling does to our brains. It found a direct correlation with a weakening of what the researchers call the brain’s “inhibitory control.” In plain English: scrolling physically damages your mind’s brake pedal. The more we do it, the harder it becomes to resist the next distraction, leading to higher baseline anxiety and a constant sense of mental displacement.
So when the Ba’al Shem Tov says, “Wherever your mind is, that’s where you are,” the terrifying reality of modern life is that our minds are currently scattered across seventy days of algorithmic feeds. We aren’t living at home. We are living in a temporary, hyper-stimulated, anxious exile.
Which brings us back to Maya Angelou’s definition of home as that safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. If your mind is constantly being pulled to sixty different places in a fifteen-minute scroll, you aren’t home. You aren’t safe. And you’re constantly being questioned by notifications.
But here’s the good news: We can always go home, mentally and spiritually. We can feel at-home. Our minds and bodies want and even need to feel that way. And, in my book, that’s precisely what Judaism is designed to do.
I talk a lot on the podcast about the idea of Shabbat as the OG Jewish mindfulness practice. Shabbat is all about being at home–not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. And it’s not just 25 hours from Friday to Saturday, but a way of being in the world.
In Hebrew, the word Shabbat has exactly the same letters as the word shevet, dwelling someplace, really being there. And, if you move the letters around, you also get the core of teshuva, returning—coming home. Just like our week revolves around the experience of Shabbat, you might say our minds and hearts are always seeking to practice teshuva—to return back home, to dwell, to be in a state of Shabbat mind, even when it’s a Tuesday afternoon.
So here’s a short practice to help us practice this, to arrive back home in our minds and hearts.
As always, begin by slowing down. Pause. Put the phone away and just be here, in this moment. Turn your gaze inward or close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Allow your body to arrive, allow your mind to settle down and catch up with the rest of you.
Now I’m going to invite you to just do the simplest of practices—noticing your breath. Just make a silent kavvanah, an intention, to yourself: I’m going to notice my breathing. I’m just going to be present with it. I’m going to shevet, to dwell at home—in my mind and heart.
When you breathe in, you can mentally note, “I’m inhaling.” When you breathe out, you can mentally note, “I’m exhaling.” The goal here is to very gently and simply lashevet, be at home—in your body, in your mind, in your heart. Here, now, in Shabbat mind.
At a certain point, you may notice that your mind has wandered away from home. When that happens, it’s a wonderful moment, because you have the opportunity to do teshuva, to return home—gently, compassionately, softly. Just gently bring your attention back to the breath, back to your kavvanah, your intention. Bring yourself back home.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that the Torah isn’t in some far away place—across the sea or up in heaven. Ki karov elecha hadvar meod, It’s actually super close to you, he says, on your lips and in your heart.
This experience of being mentally and spiritually at home—it’s the same way. It’s right here, always available to us. We can come home again and again and again.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.
Thank you for joining us for Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day, a production of Unpacked, a brand of OpenDor Media, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. If you like this show, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Check out our website, unpacked.media for everything Unpacked-related, and subscribe to our other podcasts, and check out the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Most importantly, be in touch–about what you heard today, what you’d like to hear more about, or to dedicate an episode. Write to me at [email protected].
This episode was hosted by me, Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Audio was edited by Rob Pera and we’re produced by Rivky Stern. Thanks for joining us.
