This week we are introduced to the power of the Hineni stance, to the power of saying “Here I am” in the face of life’s trials. Avraham is the first to say it, and he says it three times in the course of his akedah (the binding of Isaac) experience. Below we will journey with Avraham and consider the nuance of each instance of Hineni and how we might adopt such a stance towards our own trials.
Hineni #1: Opening and Empowering
The first Hineni is a response to God’s calling of Avraham’s name before the instruction to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22:1). Avraham does not yet know what he is being called to do, but he must have intuited that it would not be easy.
Hineni, he says. Here I am, opening to whatever is to come, offering myself in service to God and the universe, hearing a call but not yet knowing the specifics, responding with courage, confidence and trust, and inviting more information – I am here; What can I do to serve? I offer my whole self up on a platter to be used for good. Can you feel that deep desire, that rising in the chest – please use me as a vessel, a tool – that readiness to serve? Hineni is not an assent to do something generically helpful, but an offering for God to use me in particular, a request to fulfill my unique role. How am I meant to be of service to the universe right now? We don’t necessarily get clear answers, but we let the urge rise up in us and send it out on the wind.
Maybe there is some resistance in you to this stance, some fear of what will be involved. When God came looking for Adam and Eve in the garden and called out ayeka, “where are you,” they hid behind the bushes (3:9). Can you feel that in your body, the urge to hide, to cower in a corner, to turn away, to curl up? It’s ok to feel that; be gentle with those hiding parts. And at the same time, maybe you can also sense in a deeper place inside you the energy of Hineni, the capacity to open and empower, to stand as tall and sturdy as the mountain Avraham was to climb, your feet planted far apart and your arms raised up in a power stance, sensing your own fierceness and confidence, getting up from your crouched position of fear and turning into a lion. I am here. Hear me roar. Whatever comes my way, I can stride tall and confident through it. I can do this hard thing. Hineni.
Avraham hears his mission and jumps into action. He rises early, saddles his donkey, chops firewood, gathers his servants, his son and his materials, and sets off (22:3). Energy. Avraham was filled with energy, and this, too, is part of a Hineni stance. It is Self Energy, the energy of being so fully in yourself, in your confidence and courage, that there is this inexhaustible divine flow of energy pulsing through you, an aliveness that reaches all the way to your fingertips. You know what you need to do; you have clarity, focus and direction, and there is energy that comes with this sense of purpose, divine life energy. Hineni. Here I am, alive and full of power and energy.
Along the Way: Returning to Presence
As we move forward on our path, we easily lose this energy. The fear returns, the worry, the despair, the impossibility of the task, the obstacles. And so Hineni needs to become a regular practice for us. Avraham said it three times on this akedah journey. We, too, are making our way up a mountain, first with determination, but then gradually some doubt and dread creep in, so that our energy is sapped, our footsteps slowed and heavy. It’s hard to keep going. And so we say Hineni again. And this time it means something slightly different. This time it means – I am here in the present; I don’t let worry over the future cloud this moment; I stay present to just this footstep, to just this breath.
Hineni can thus become a mantra for us, a remedy for our preoccupation, distraction and anxiety. Climbing the mountain with Avraham, you can focus on just this one step in front of you, feeling the sensation of movement in your foot and leg and whole body, feeling the sturdy ground under your feet as you move, hearing the sound of the donkey neighing behind you, feeling the cool wind brush your face and the warmth of your child’s small hand inside your own larger one Hineni. I am here, attending to each moment as it comes, letting go for this moment of the worry over tomorrow. Here now, in your chair, being present to the physical sensations in your body, the way your breath moves up and down in your chest, the places where your body meets the chair, the feeling of your clothing against your skin. This kind of Hineni is a practice of deep, restful mindfulness, letting everything else recede and just being here now.
Hineni #2: Relationship
Now, this child who is with you is frightened and calls out to you, as Yitzhak called out to his father Avraham – avi, “my father (22:7).” In our preoccupation, consumed by the looping worries in our head, we might not even see the child or hear her call. Maybe what Yitzhak meant was – Abba, where are you? Where did you go? And so saying Hineni to this call, as Avraham did – this is his second Hineni – is a way of awakening also to the person standing right in front of us. Ah, yes. I’m here with you now. I was distracted by worry, but I’m back now, right here with you.
In a moment of fear or despair or any intense emotion, this Hineni becomes a way of saying to the child, perhaps an actual child in our lives or perhaps an inner child – someone who is turning towards us with wide eyes, searching for comfort and connection – Hineni becomes a relational statement, a way of saying, gently, tenderly – I am here for you. I see your pain and I am right here with you. It is the speech equivalent of what happens just before and after: vayelkhu shneyhem yachdav. The two of them walked on together (22:6 and 8). Hineni is a way of saying to that frightened child: I will walk with you through the fear, through the valley of the shadow of death, through the storm, the war, the crisis, through whatever comes, I will be right here beside you, holding your hand. It may be hard, it may be awful, but Hineni – I will be right here alongside you. We have in us both the divinely implanted capacity to provide this companionship, and also the great need to receive it ourselves, our own frightened parts also searching for someone to hold steady with them, to walk with them and quietly say: Hineni, I am here with you through it all.
Hineni #3: Flexibility
The final instance of Hineni might be the hardest. Avraham has set out on his path with energy and determination and clarity of purpose. He knows what God wants and is going to do it; he has stepped up with his full self – Hineni. But then, just as he is about to carry it through, he hears another call, an angel calls to him twice from heaven; this time his name needs to be repeated because he is so engrossed and set in his direction. To say Hineni (22:11) to this new call – the call to stop what he is doing and change course, not to sacrifice his son – is even harder, to stop midstream, to pause and hear the new sound, the new direction on the wind. Hineni now becomes a statement of continual open presence. Here I am in this moment and in this one and in the next one, ever open to the unfolding of God’s will in the universe, to the dawning of new truths, not stuck in my old patterns and in the trauma of our collective past. I remain present and flexible, aligned with the God who continually makes revelations to me, uncovering new paths for me to follow. This is a hopeful Hineni that opens my eyes to new possibilities that I could not have imagined before. I see the ram in the bushes now and I understand there are options, unforeseen solutions to intractable problems. I was as stiff as a board before, but this Hineni makes me soft and pliable, like water, so that I can flow in new directions.
Walking Together
I want to close by returning to the relational Hineni of vayelekhu shneyhem yachdav, of the two of them – Avraham and Yitzhak – walking on together. We, too, are walking together through a trial, and the third Hineni, the opening of our eyes to new options, is not yet upon us. And so we offer to one another this second Hineni, we say to each other – I am here for you; I am here with you in your struggles, in your pain, in your despair, in your fear. I am here with you, walking alongside you. Maybe you can sense both your capacity to be here with others, and also your own need for their accompaniment, feeling yourself as both child and parent, offering and receiving Hineni from one another, feeling how these Hinenis – cast energetically into the air to reach each other – create cords of connection between us, and how these Hinenis, along with the larger Hineni of God’s own presence, how they all together weave a giant webbed net for us to lie in, to rest in, to trust in as we go. Hineni. I am here. We are here together.
Photo by Yan Krukau at Pexels
A beautiful approach to Jewish mindfulness. I hope I can add it to my daily practice.
An amazing read and so relevant to our world today.