I have a journal on my night table with a drawing of Dorothy, Toto and the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz on the cover. The title reads: “Excuse me while I pause and reflect.” On the inside cover, there is another quote and a picture of the Scarecrow: “I will sit and have a quiet think.”

Of course, as we know, the Scarecrow is in search of a brain and, believing his head is empty, takes more time to think about things than the rest of us. He considers this a deficiency. But I am not so sure it is.

In January, I had the opportunity to attend the second of four meditation retreats that make up the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s Rabbinic Training Program. The retreat included Torah study, yoga, meditation instruction and a great deal of sitting and thinking.

I didn’t think about any one thing in particular – just whatever came up, whatever was in my mind at the moment – which turned out to be quite a lot of “stuff.” Once you really start to pay attention, the number of different things that fill a person’s mind (or at least mine) in a short period of time is staggering. There is the task at hand, concerns about whether or not I am doing it “right” and a whole lot of self-consciousness around the other people in the room. Of course, there are also the concerns about my family, wondering if the kids got off to school ok – what was in their lunch boxes. And then there are the concerns about my work – did I finish that letter, make that phone call? Who is next on my list to call? And soon I also started thinking about the people I didn’t call or forgot to call – not recently, but maybe three years ago. Of course I also have to think about what I had for breakfast and what I am going to have for lunch. And then there is another opportunity to be self-conscious or worse, judgmental about the people around me. You get the picture. My mind, and I am assuming this is true for others as well, is a very busy place. No wonder we feel exhausted!

During the retreat, I had the opportunity to notice all this and to notice that all that chatter, clutter and multi-tasking doesn’t actually help me accomplish more or live better. It just makes me miss out on the things I do accomplish and the parts of my life that are already good. With so many distractions, how can I be fully present for anything in my life?

Of course, this type of mental hyperactivity is the disease of the 21st century. We have created a world where most people are expected to think about more than one thing at a time. Cell phones, Internet, PDAs and Blue Tooth don’t really help matters, only make it worse by enabling us to fill our heads with “stuff” every moment of every day.

Yes – this is a contemporary problem. But it turns out, not uniquely. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, writing in the mid-1700s in “The Path of the Just,” a book of ethical teachings, quoted the prophet Jeremiah as saying, “No one regrets their wrongdoing, they all turn away in their course as a horse rushing into battle.” Luzzatto suggests that Jeremiah was referring to the phenomenon of people operating on impulse and by habit without taking time to reflect He called this a tool of the “evil impulse” to take man away from the good by filling him up with too much to do and too little time to reflect on his situation.

Although that is not typically the language I would use, I am not sure 24/7-commerce isn’t a “tool of the evil impulse.” After all, it does indeed pull us away from being present and available for the things most important to us (family, learning, the life of the spirit). Luzzatto’s response to this illness is a prescription of regular and fixed times for reflection, be it meditation, journaling or another practice and provides Jewish textual resources for doing so: “All who deliberate on their paths in this world will be worthy to witness the salvation wrought by the Blessed Holy One. (Talmud Sotah 5b)

Basically, Luzzatto, Jeremiah and the rabbis of the Talmud would have us sit and contemplate for a period of time on a daily basis. What they are talking about is a Jewish practice of mindfulness – becoming aware, seeing the whole of where you are at any given moment and paying attention – deep attention to your own life. This is what I engaged in during the retreat, and a practice I hope to nourish in myself for the future. It starts with silence and just sitting. If you see and hear more silence in services over the next few months, you will know why.

As I learned on retreat that the Scarecrow is in fact the wisest one of all – while his brain may have been empty of clutter, he certainly was quite “full of mind.”