Catastrophe is not just crisis – it’s the unraveling of what we thought held us together. It’s the illness, the heartbreak, the devastating loss, the moment we realize things will never return to the way they were. But it’s also subtler: the quiet despair, the disorientation, the unnamed ache of being human in a world so distant from Eden.
Catastrophe disrupts our sense of coherence simultaneously – spiritually, psychologically, neurologically. It fractures how we understand ourselves and the world, overwhelming the nervous system’s need for safety and control. Our body longs to flee or collapse. Yet healing begins gently, by staying with ourselves without forcing resolution. Acceptance doesn’t mean surrendering to despair; it means acknowledging: This is what is. And I will not abandon myself here. The paradox emerges when we stop resisting, allowing ourselves to feel the depth of pain without numbing, fixing, or rushing to meaning. In that honest space, G-d can enter – not as a concept, but as presence. As real.
In that soft, steady presence, something shifts. Not because the pain vanishes, but because we’ve invited Him into our experience of it. We sense He’s here too That’s when we begin to let go – not to erase ourselves, but to gently open our grip. We move beyond acceptance into surrender, into bittul – letting Him take the wheel.
Hashem is not waiting beyond the catastrophe. He’s here, within it, if we let Him. When we stop escaping what is, we realize we’re not alone. Holiness doesn’t hover above the wreckage – it enters quietly, the moment we step aside enough to let Him in.
