Future Shock

Not so very long ago famed author J.K. Rowling was asked to address recent college graduates. It was a moving talk. Having eagerly devoured her many Harry Potter books, the students were anxious to hear what advice this successful writer had to offer. What Rowling chose to speak about was failure. Rowling explained that her parents urged her early on to pursue a vocational degree. In having a trade, they believed their daughter would never experience the poverty they had endured. But she had other ideas. This is what the famous author had to say:

"What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be … without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. 
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me…I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had and old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale that I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default. Failure taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way."
Rowling’s advice is priceless. It cuts through humanity because the fear of not succeeding keeps the best of us stuck in our rocking chair.
During Sukkot there is a special prayer that we say during the Grace After Meals, "May the Merciful One (HaRachaman) restore the fallen Sukkah of David." Can God really repair the two-thousand-plus year old lean-to? No, say the great Sages of the Talmud. In that prayer we are asking God to restore to the people confidence. We want to be able to transform our painful past into a better future. In other words, the prayer wants us to build better "us" from the ashes of our failures. The pathway to wholeness happens when we overcome the internal hurdles that hold us back.
I am a professional bumper-sticker reader. One that struck me recently read, "What if you had no fear? What could you accomplish?" 
I mulled that question over in my mind for a very long time. What, indeed, could life offer if I was unafraid of failure? What mountains would come into reach? So many times, the fear of crashing keeps us from trying new things, having new experiences, finding our hidden strengths.
There is a novel web-site that has visitors writing letters to themselves in the future. Called FutureMe.org, people from all over the world write letters to themselves. The messages invariably contain a single element that remains a constant: the writers hope they can get over their pain. 
The creator of FutureMe.org sees this site as an attempt "at forward narrative, a poignant, maybe desperate, assertion of personal continuity over time. … More deeply, such a message implicitly accepts a duty to future generations. … Future me may reject present me’s choices, but my message … is, in its way, an attempt to acknowledge responsibility rather than evade it. Globe and Mail, April 28/07
People are deeply concerned that they will not survive the pain they are living through now. Here is one entry dated October 27, 2005, Dear FutureMe, How are you now? you happy? did you find your "next big thing"? work ok? did dad survive the transplant? 

Unlike the usual conventional wisdom, "failure is an option" is closer to the truth than it not being an option. In fact, failure is how we learn. The greatest challenge for us to be unafraid of non-success. Think of what is possible, as the bumper sticker read, if we allow ourselves to fully test the limits of our abilities. And if we fail? We have learned our limitations and will have grown in the process. And towering above us is the Lord God who urges us to test the limitations of what is possible and grow to become what He has envisioned for us.

Wonder of Wonders

Miracles abound in our people’s past.  Perhaps the most famous miracle of all was when the Sea parted allowing the slaves to pass through to newfound freedom.  Celebrated each year at the Passover Seder we recall this powerful deliverance.  Yet, there were others too.  Think of the manna in the desert or the appearance of wells slaking the thirst of those on the forty year trek.  What about the walls of Jericho?  Or the famous walls of Solomon carved from rock without use of any metal?!  Hanukka remembers another kind of miracle; great light generated from a miniscule amount of oil.

It is surprising that the birth of the universe is not accorded status as a miracle.  Perhaps that is because no one witnessed the event.  Note: something qualifies as a miracle only when people are involved.

Miracles are often abrupt.  They happen swiftly and are over.  A malignancy disappears: Life goes on.  An accident is avoided and we drive from the scene shaken but unharmed..   Miracles can happen on a small scale: A person walks away after a fall from a treacherous height.  Miracles may occur in a grand way: The salvation of the Israelite nation after Hitler is miraculous.  

Purim is all about miracles.  Yet, the holiday is built around the one Book which makes no mention of God.  Nowhere in the tale of Mordecai and Acheshveros is God named.  What exactly are we celebrating?  

If a miracle is defined as something beyond the bounds of what is normal and expected, what do we make of the eclipse of the Holy One in the chronicles of Esther?

Perhaps the greatest mystery is also the simplest one to solve: a miracle only happens to us when we acknowledge it.  Otherwise it passes unnoticed.  In fact, if you think about it for more than a moment, you will realize that every miracle in the Torah can be explained away or ignored much in the same way we can miss the grandeur of a birth or regeneration of nature.  Maybe that is why the holiday of Purim will still be observed after the Messiah comes: we will still need to be reminded to find holiness and miracles that happen every day..

The Broken Heart

Just having learned of President John Kennedy’s assassination, Daniel Patrick Moynihan exclaimed, "When you’re Irish, one of the first things you learn is that sooner or later the world will break your heart."

Coping with pain is the great trial we confront time and again. It is no simple matter to deal with the pains of life an adult, well-adjusted manner. We want to scream, curse, cry, or ball up into a tight cocoon where no one can touch us. The older we get the more the same patterns of behavior repeat themselves in our lives. We do the same thing over and over. The source and kind of pain changes but not our reaction to it. 

There is a discussion among the sages in the Talmud about right and wrong blessings. In the midst of one long conversation a rabbi comments that it would be a sin to approach your home, see smoke rising in the distance and pray, "I hope that is not my home." Such a prayer implicitly asks that it be someone else’s home.

A minister was giving an impassioned sermon to his congregation and said, "Everyone in this church is going to die."

The preacher then noticed a man in the front row who was smiling broadly. "Why are you so happy?" the minister asked. 

"I’m not from here. I am just visiting my brother for a couple of days."

We know what pain is like. We are familiar with its taste, texture, how we react to it. For most of us, we are far too intimate with the way it feels. We all know that Moynihan was correct: the world will and does break our heart.

A strong Jewish current of thought is that we are supposed be familiar with a broken heart. That kind of woundedness gives us empathy for others who suffer. It makes us better friends and spouses, better parents and leaders. Above all, it makes us better Jews. Our job is to help people, not be personal consumers for our own welfare. That is why it is a sin to be unconcerned with those who suffer - whether we know them or not.

In the aftermath of the Great Liberation from slavery the Jews threw themselves on the shore of the Sea as the waters rushed to engulf the Egyptians coming to capture them. As the languid waters suddenly gushed over the helpless bodies of the slave-masters, hosts of Angels began to sing in heaven. Praising God’s might and sovereignty they cascaded into a massive chorus of praise. "Stop," said the Holy One. "My children are downing and you sing?" 

Shir HaShirim Rabah 5

Waiting for Elijah

 Opening the door for Elijah was a highlight of our Seder evening, an experience we treasured ever since childhood. That full goblet waited for the prophet, and we couldn’t see him, but somehow the level of the wine seemed to drop. Just a little, didn’t it? Eliyahu hanavi, we sang happily. We dramatized the tradition that told us he was here to announce that the Messiah, son of David, was coming.

This year when we enter the closing days of Passover, when that same tradition predicts that when the long-awaited deliverer does arrive, it will be on one of these days.

And what will happen then? 

The Jerusalem Talmud in the tractate Sanhedrin presents rabbinic teachings about the week when the Son of David will arrive, and what disaster will take place each day of that week. Deluge, earthquake, etc. Nature, too, will do its worst to bring the Messiah.

The Tzemah Tzedek, was asked why David’s song is read on the Seventh day of Pesach, rather than the Song of Deborah, since the women rejoiced more than the men when the Red Sea split. He answered: “The Haftarah is the Song of David because on the final days of Pesach there is a revelation of Mashiach, who is a descendant of David. Thus, it is to honor Mashiach that we recite the Song of David.”

What he will do, that no one else could do, would be to cure this planet of its trouble, its corruption and its wars.  

We need this now. more than ever.

Pesach’s Meaning

 Pathos is understanding feelings, particularly disease (think pathology) and  the root causes of sadness.  Empathy is related to pathos but is more about feeling what other people feel, understanding them on an emotional level.  Both are commands on Pesach.

 

-On the holy day we open ourselves to understanding the pathology of hatred, the superiority of one people, or class, over another.  Were our ancestors slaves in a distant land?  Yes, historians have located the time and name of this people from ancient Egyptian documents.  These are your ancestors.  They were untermenschen, subhuman, ignored and abused.  Our concerned God heard the pitiful cries and sent His deliverance releasing them from the lash of their overlords.  

The pathology of understanding the past should lead us back to God and knowledgeable enough to recognize those same signs of raw discrimination emanating from hatred in our day.  And those signs are present now.

-We are commanded to feel as if we were personally liberated from bondage.  This is empathy.  We need to feel the empathy of being on the side of the oppressed.  Everyone understands pain.  We have all felt oppressed and abused at some point(s) in our lives.  We used those reference points to feel the prize of liberation.  It is a great gift that we should not take for granted.  We are free here.  We have a Jewish homeland.

Virtually every day we learn of some group in the world that is being oppressed.  We have to make a decision to be on the side of the victim or victimizer.  Who would dare to stand with the victimizer?  Every time we are silent we are providing fuel for the victimizer to carry on their path of hatred.

Empathy is two sided.  As Hillel pointed out millennia ago, “If I am not for myself who will be for me?  And if I am only for myself what am I?”  

We are not fulfilling our mandate if we do not stand up for ourselves, our people.   And we are woefully inadequate when we do not stand in solidarity with the other. 

Support Your Shul

 When God gave His holy Torah to the people there was thunder shattering the air already thick with smoke.  The earth convulsed, as it was about to give birth to a new universe of order and justice and hesed.

 

And yet as we come to the next book of the Torah we are perplexed.  God speaks to the people through the Ohel Mo’ed, the Tent of Meeting.  In there, God spoke directly to His servant, Moshe.  When the Divine Voice spoke Moshe heard clearly, the ancient ones tell us.  Those outside the Ohel Mo’ed heard God’s Voice indistinctly.  They had to try to listen to hear the words being spoken.

 

Many of the sages wonder why the change.  Why was God’s Voice so thunderous at one time and barely discernable the next?

 

An answer: God was preparing us for a time when His diminished Voice would have to be sought.  That is why we come to the sanctuaries of today; it is where the Voice is most keenly felt.

 

That is why synagogue has been the central hub of all things Jewish for millennia.  From that place we feed the hungry; it is where we learn Torah.  Synagogues are places where children are educated; babies are named, brises are conducted, weddings performed and mourners encouraged.  From this cornerstone of Judaism cemeteries were purchased, news about Israel was gathered, and Federations were born.

 

When something goes wrong where do we gather for mutual support and strength?  Where can we pour out our heart without fear of ridicule or judgment?  It has always been the same whether in France, Poland, Russia or Yemen.

 

That is why support for the Synagogue remains the first and most critical arena for our ongoing care.  Without this what would remain?  Most of us know from our personal experience growing up in small hamlets around the south that when a synagogue closes in town there is no Jewish life left.  It is dead.

 

Consider either a gift to the synagogue of whatever amount you can afford….or even better….think of leaving a legacy grant to the synagogue in your will.  Imagine the great good that can be done in preserving and enhancing Jewish life in  for years to come!  The power of extending the gift to the next generation – as it was gifted to us – lies within our hands.

 

Remember all Jewish events and program are extensions of what we teach and promulgate.

 

Yet. Don’t wait to be asked.

Torah Truth

 There are many Torah passages which could raise eyebrows well into the nether regions of the forehead.  Among them are the age of the universe versus our almost six thousand year calculation, manna feeding at least 1 1/2 million freed slaves for forty years, burning bushes and parted seas to name a few.

The question actually runs yet deeper:  If the Torah cannot be read at face value, if we cannot trust it to tell the truth all the time, how can we depend on it for truth any time?

No one who reads Torah with any degree of seriousness will fail to notice these and other incongruities.  In fact, it is probably the most frequent question asked of rabbis today.  What do I tell people?  Even more, how can anyone, including a rabbi, have faith with such unbelievable tales and inconsistencies?

I am fond of telling the story of the grandfather who greets his little one at the door.  

“So how was Hebrew School today, Yaacov?”

“Oh great!  We learned about how General Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt.  Cornered by the Egyptians with their troops, General Moses fired bazookas and strafed the advancing army while the Israeli navy placed pontoons across the Sea.  The people narrowly escaped!”
“Oy,” said the grandfather. “Is this what they taught you??”

“Grandpa, if I told you what they said, you’d never believe it.”

On a primary level, the Torah is filled with stories.  The tales we tell are human, full of adventure, achievements, falls, and recoveries.  They are great stories that we know well and retell through generations.  Think of Adam and Eve.  They tell the story of reward and punishment; listening to God and the penalty of disobedience.  Think of Noah, the savior of a world.  What about Abraham, the one who discovered and was discovered by God?  The narrative then follows Abraham through his trials and triumphs.  This is story-telling at its finest.  These are well worn tales that have traveled the world many times over, through millennia.

On a secondary level, each story contains kernels of knowledge and philosophy that we often miss (because we stop in step 1).  For example, the depiction of Adam and Eve serves the purpose of telling us we are free.  God rewards and punishes but the real lesson is about personal control and responsibility.  And Noah?  It is all about choosing your destiny regardless of what the outside world does and thinks.  Consider that Noah’s righteousness was singular in a world gone bad.

On a tertiary level, we are guided by the Zohar which states, “If the Torah were mere tales I could tell better stories myself.”  We learn through metaphor.  In Eden, we understand the trappings of Paradise.  We are not meant for utopia.  Our lives are only validated through struggle.  We are Adam and Eve.  We choose banishment because there lays our greatest hope.  Abraham is the paragon if self-discovery.  We must pass through walls of flames, become scarred before we can contemplate wholeness.  We must travel far in our youth to find what is most close, so close that it cannot be seen; only perceived.

Is there more?  Yes, there is always more.  That is why it continues to feed our souls after a ll this time.