*A Circle Within the World | Maya Tevet Dayan | 6 Minutes on Friday | 21.11.2025*
Did you know that the average mother is interrupted every three minutes? When I read this estimate, which appeared in a popular magazine, my jaw dropped. Even though I know it, almost twenty years now that I’ve felt this interruption in my own body every few minutes, still, seeing it written down froze me in place.
Every three minutes.
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In another article, researchers explain that mothers experience around 400 “thought resets” every day.
Yes, here too I know exactly what they mean.
Four hundred times you have to somehow pull yourself back into focus.
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It turns out that each of these moments spikes cortisol levels in the body. And reduces more and more gray matter in the brain, meaning it erodes areas related to short-term memory and to a sense of self.
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Do you know that feeling when by the end of the day you no longer remember who you are?
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It also turns out that this happens even in families where partners share the workload. Mothers still carry three times the mental load. And every time someone asks, “How can I help?” it only throws the mother back into the role of project manager.
And now it turns out it’s not only exhausting. It affects the brain.
Your memory, your sense of identity. And the constant vigilance. In other words, stress.
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When I read all of this this week, I was actually busy with something entirely different: I was studying the story of the Jewish sage Honi the Circle-Maker, preparing for a joint evening of learning I led with Rabbi Beni Lau. Rabbi Beni told me beforehand that he can’t stand Honi the Circle-Maker. He even wrote about it in one of his books, how much he can’t stand him, and in general he dislikes people who threaten God and make us think they have some power we don’t.
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But I had no formed opinion about Honi the Circle-Maker. The last time I heard the story was in kindergarten, and all I remembered was that he drew a circle and rain came. And so it happened that this week I read the story for the first time, truly.
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And what can I tell you? I fell in love.
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If you’re like me and haven’t encountered him since kindergarten, then I’ll tell you briefly that Honi is a prophet close to God. He knows it, the people know it. And God knows it. And when a drought comes and no rain falls, and the holidays pass and still no rain, and the people become frightened and anxious, they ask Honi to pull some strings and use his connections. Only at first God ignores even Honi. So Honi draws the famous circle – which in the text is called a “cake,” and which no biblical figure before or after him ever drew – and he announces to God that he will not step out of the circle until rain comes. God sprinkles a few drops. Honi says he meant real rain. Then God pours down a deluge. Honi says no, he meant rains of blessing. And then God sends rains of blessing. So much blessing that the people return to Honi and ask him to have God stop. But that Honi refuses to do, and here the story ends.
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How could I not fall in love with him?
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As a poet, I loved God’s insistence on precise wording. As long as Honi asks in imprecise language, he receives imprecise rain. And when God refuses to make allowances for that, I felt God was asking the human being not only which rain they seek, but what exactly they want to bring into being.
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Second, as a scholar of Hinduism, I was moved by the way Honi speaks to God eye to eye. Just like Hindus who look straight into the eyes of the gods in the temple.
Of course the Jewish God isn’t used to this. Everyone begs Him, prays, pleads, fasts – very few speak to Him with firmness and make demands. Few understand, like Honi, that not only does the human being need God, God needs the human being too. Otherwise He would not have created humans in the first place. And to remain without them after they died of thirst would leave God lacking. Honi knows this, and God knows that Honi knows. And He complies when Honi says enough.
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Enough.
That is probably what I loved most about this story, this time as a mother. That Honi is a righteous man of boundaries. He draws a cake, which is a circle, which is a boundary. He says enough to God, and then to the people when they return to him after the rain. Enough.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if throughout that long drought people turned to Honi for help every three minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had already forgotten who he was from all the broken trains of thought. What were Honi the Circle-Maker’s cortisol levels when he stood inside that circle? When he realized it was much easier to deal with God than with the people? If you’re mothers, or if you were daughters and sons of mothers, I trust you know what I mean.
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I read this story as a rabbinic guide to self-realization: one, state clearly what you want to achieve. Two, remember that God Himself needs you in a state of fullness, and ask for that from Him eye to eye. And three, set a clear boundary while you bring yourself into being. A boundary against interruptions from the outside, and against interruptions from within. Meaning, set a boundary for yourself too.
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On Facebook this week I asked which parts of your daily life is no one allowed to disrupt when you set boundaries? And received a variety of answers - my coffee mug, the morning hours, choir rehearsal, my records, my pillow, my evening workout, the chocolate, the afternoon nap, and more. One answer that came up again and again was: my notebook, my planner, my writing pages.
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Exactly like me. For me, what no one may touch is my writing, and my writing hours, which include the hours of learning and thinking that gather into writing in the end. My circle is the door. Every time I close the door, I close it for the sake of my writing and against the interruptions that come one after another. For the sake of my cortisol. And so I can remember who I am. And then I bring God into the room, the best partner in creation. And then I try to sharpen the words. Just like Honi the Circle-Maker.
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And in this season when we await the rains, and await the ways we will bring ourselves into being, I wish all of us to know how to draw a circle within the world, and widen space for ourselves.
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And if you’d like to enter my circle, you can do so in two weeks. Every Sunday we will push the world and its noise a little farther away, close the door, open the week with inner listening, balance cortisol, and write and learn together. The winter inspiration season with me in Hebrew will begin on December 7th, and may the rains come with it.
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Meanwhile, wishing all of us a Shabbat Shalom,
*Maya Tevet Dayan*