The First Quiet Shabbat

By: Idan Ladani, brother in yoga, 15th cycle

The First Quiet Shabbat

Saturday morning. I’m waking up after a night where once again, the dreams of what happened there returned. I drift in and out of sleep.

I rise from my bed in my room at the ashram, and soft, soothing music fills the air. I notice the meditation room preparing itself with calming energy and gentle music for the morning meditation.

Morning meditation—a concept that once felt strange and distant to me, something only for “spiritual types.” But something in the restlessness I’ve carried ever since the war calls to me: “Give it a try.”

I take a sip of water, do a few stretches facing the peaceful landscape and stillness of the Jerusalem hills, and then sit down in a simple cross-legged position. I close my eyes and listen.

I listen to the surroundings, to my breathing, to my heart, to the calming music. I try to focus.

Thoughts wander, bringing with them a mixture of emotions: unease, tension, and worry, all blending with a powerful longing for quiet.

From an unclear place within, my body (and perhaps my soul) calls to me, and a feeling both half-new and half-familiar arises.

I’m not a deeply spiritual person. I’m a soldier, an officer in an elite unit, a practical, goal-oriented individual. But somehow, in this setting, in the morning meditation here at the ashram, maybe it’s the silence, the food, or the people, who like me came searching for a moment of peace—something allowed me to let down my guard for a second.

And for a single moment, I surrendered to the quiet…

After such a long period of relentless thoughts, overwhelming emotions, images of Gaza replaying in my mind, a practical, mission-driven way of operating without emotion—just for a brief moment, a few minutes, I suddenly felt a sense of relief.

For a moment, I truly breathed…

For a moment, I listened, but to myself…

For a moment, I was present, just me, without all the noise and the storm in my head and heart that hasn’t left me for months.

I may not be a deeply spiritual person, but on that morning, for a brief moment, I felt like myself again.

Written on Shabbat, July 19th, early morning, at the ashram in Mata.