Un-Tied: Harmonizing the Head and the Heart

On Shavuos, there’s a beautiful custom among some Jewish communities to decorate the synagogue with flowers, recalling the miraculous greenery around Mount Sinai. It resonated with me, so after Shacharis, morning prayers, on Shavuos morning, inspired by the festive spirit, I put on one of my favorite floral ties from my college days for the Yom Tov meal I was invited to.

In college with my favorite floral ties and a floral kippah I had made.

Upon seeing me, one of my Rabbis commented on my tie not with criticism, but with a story and a perspective that has stayed with me ever since. He gently suggested I might consider taking it off. I’m thinking he meant until I'm married, when some men in Chabad begin wearing ties, as the Rebbe did.

Then he shared a story about the mashpia, spiritual mentor, Rabbi Shmuel Levitin.

When Rabbi Levitin first arrived in America, he saw a young yeshiva student wearing something unfamiliar to him: a tie. He turned to the boy and said, “A gartel between the heart and the lower part of the body, Chassidus encourages. But a gartel between the head and the heart—I never heard of!”

That image stuck with me.

A gartel is a belt traditionally worn by Chassidic men during prayer, symbolically separating the heart from the lower body. As noted in Gemara Shabbos 10a (and Berachos 24b), this separation helps fulfill the halachic requirement that the heart not “see the nakedness” during Shema and other prayers. The deeper teaching in Chassidus is that this physical separation helps prepare the heart for elevated service, to align the physical with the spiritual.

But what Rabbi Levitin said adds a new layer. The tie, tightened between head and heart, became a metaphor for disconnection. If prayer is avodah she’balev, “the service of the heart,” then our goal is to have unblocked, open communication between our mind and emotions. As Rav DovBer Pinson writes in Inner Worlds of Prayer, “The ultimate purpose of the gartel is not to separate, but to indirectly and paradoxically inspire a hamtaka—a sweetening, a coming together of the higher and lower selves.”

This aligns with the famous quote: “The longest journey you’ll ever take is from your head to your heart.” We all experience the challenge of bridging the gap between intellectual understanding and emotional belief, taking what we know and really feeling it. For example, thinking and knowing that all is really good now, and truly feeling and experiencing this truth.

Although I haven’t found the source yet, I think Rav Pinson also mentions a Tzaddik who would intentionally wore a loose-collared shirt during prayer, as a way of keeping that pathway between head and heart free of restriction. It was an embodied reminder that prayer isn’t only about lofty ideas but about internalizing those ideas, letting them touch and shape the heart.

So what might be restricting your own inner flow between your mind and your emotions?

We may not be wearing literal ties around our necks, but metaphorically, we carry plenty. Negative thought patterns, emotional stress, limiting beliefs from past experiences, judgments about ourselves or others—all of these can act as constrictions. In Chassidus, we learn that a tzimtzum, a contraction, is only for the purpose of gilui, revelation. The contraction is not meant to suppress, but to make room for clarity and communication.

When we release the inner “tie,” there’s coherence between the brain and the heart. And when there’s coherence, there’s more than emotional harmony. There’s improved physical health, sharpened cognition, and deeper spiritual receptivity.

The heart naturally wants to expand. When it’s allowed to do so, through self-compassion, positive thought, bodily awareness, and prayer, it births elevated emotions, which give rise to elevated thoughts, which then loop back to inspire the heart again. It’s a cycle of wholeness, not suppression.

Maybe the goal isn’t to remove all “ties,” but to be more mindful of what restricts us and what frees us. After all, the ultimate prayer experience is one where the heart and the head are in conversation, not conflict.

In Koheles 3:11, Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon) said, אֶת־הָֽעֹלָם֙ נָתַ֣ן בְּלִבָּ֔ם, “the world He put into their hearts.” By removing the constrictions between the head and the heart, we can uncover the light in the depths of our heart.

On and since Shavuos, I left the floral ties behind. Not because there’s anything wrong with beauty or celebration, but because I’m learning to listen more closely to what truly allows my soul to flow.

PS I hope my wife takes a liking to my floral ties… And floral kippahs ;-)

with one of my floral ties, 2024.