Stepping Out

It is always a choice.

A bird steps out from its perch high atop the cliff.  The winds loop, roil, and howl up here.  It is a dangerous first step.  Fear could paralyze the trajectory of the bird.  It knows that if its mind seizes up, everything will become a hopeless jumble; the bird might forget its appointed task.  Dark images begin to crowd to the mind’s eye of how its small body would twist hopelessly through the air not knowing which direction was up or down.  It may even crash into the cliff in the long screech to death.  The plummet would be inevitable.  If that vision were allowed to become concretized in the bird’s imagination it would mean the end for the bird.

Fear takes control.  It breaks the focus and steady contact with our higher self.  Fear disconnects us from our strength.  Fear separates us from us.  Sapping our energy we become pawns to chance winds and malicious designs.  We are prey for evil influences.  At best, we survive.  At worst we fall short of meeting our destiny and wind up despising what we have become.

There is another way.

The bird may gingerly push off from its nook, spread out its wings to catch the breeze.  At once it is in flight, afloat on invisible strings from heaven.  With thoughtful and deliberate motions the wings start to move in tandem with the rising winds.  They are buffeted and pulled upward closer to the clouds.  Upward.  The power is intoxicating.  Soaring, an overwhelming exhilaration takes hold.  It is done. 

“This is who I am!”  “This is my path!” 

The realization brings the bird to the limits of its capability.  No, it brings them closer to their new expanded potential.   The boundaries of the universe have been stretched.

The wings flap and tilt and direction is changed.  Another shift and the flight pattern takes a sudden dive.  Racing even faster than the flow  of air now the bird gleefully pulls out of the rapid descent and once more is borne higher and higher.

It is a choice that has been made. 

Reality itself is a choice.  We choose to be victims.  Or we can be beacons of endless energy and potential.

It is true that there are times we may feel crowded by external factors – people pushing us off the cliff -- but the decision always belongs to us alone.

We decide which road we take.  We choose where we wish to live.  We opt to simmer with rage.  We can choose to forgive.  We make the decision to judge someone favorably.  We can damn them and us.  The endless loops that replay in the mind causing endless bouts of angst are not beyond our control.  

Each of us possess the greatest gift of God; endless potential.

Allow us to step off the edge into the air, Lord Master.  Make us firm in the conviction to trust ourselves and You.   Help us to let go of the earth that binds and constricts our consciousness.  Give us the courage to forgive them.  Grant us the strength to forgive ourselves.  Trust.   Help us to choose, Avinu, our Father, the ultimate path of life.

Derekh Eretz

Certain Hebrew terms convey great meaning.  Yiddish is the same.  Ever try translating ‘shmooze’?  Or ‘noodnik’?   Or ‘oy gevalt’?

The phrase derekh eretz is similar.  It conveys great depth.  Derekh eretz literally means the way of the land.  But the inner meaning of the phrase goes well beyond that.

Our ancient tradition has laws that cover just about every situation we would ever encounter.  We know how much tzedakah to give, how to give it; what kind of spouse to choose; how to litigate; what is kosher and how often to have sex.  Yet the one thing the tradition cannot legislate is derekh eretz.

The Torah tells us what honesty means but it cannot detail the intricacies of facial expression, body movement, or the way we look at one another.  There are just too many variables to consider!

          For example.  The Torah tells us to respect our elders.  It says that we should show them courtesy and deference that.   Yet, what does this mean?  Rabbenu Yonah of Gerona, centuries later, interprets to mean that when speaking to or about the elderly and scholarly we are to use words of respect.  This is derekh eretz.

The Midrash makes a remarkable statement when it says derekh eretz kodma la’Torah, that is, even before the Torah was given, humanity was endowed with a sense of derekh eretz, an understanding of correct behavior.  While the Torah teaches us how to conduct our personal and communal lives it is understood that without derekh eretz all else is devalued.

The Talmud states that a wise person does not open his mouth before being addressed by one much wiser; they do not interrupt another mid-sentence; they do not reply hastily…”.  All these ideas are one person’s attempt to address what is derekh eretz.  It is ultimate common sense.

         A friend tells the story of a newspaper boy standing in the cold rain.  An old man saw the boy shivering in a doorway and went to buy a paper.  “My boy, aren’t you terribly cold standing here?”  The boy looked up with a warm smile and said “I was, sir, before you came.”

         This is derekh eretz.

Truth or Preference?

One of the great masters, Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Koktsk, taught that when God crafted the world and was about to create people, He first threw away “truth.” 

Centuries and millennia passed when the Mishna declared that the world stands on three principles, “Torah, worship, and acts of generosity.”  What is noteworthy is that “truth” once again is missing from the list.  How could the world possibly be created, much less survive, without this critical element?

Rabbi Larry Kushner observed that if everyone held on to his or her own “truth” and was unwilling to let go of it there would never be peace.  Peace is only possible when every person is willing to forgo some measure of what they hold as their personal “truth” for the sake of something greater.  Those who grow righteously indignant and scream their vehemence cannot find common ground with anyone but the few who agree to go along with them.  For the rest of us there are few areas of commonality. 

For certain there are some inviolate truths.  Yet, it is informative to think that our faith does not permit us to foist our beliefs  (truths) on others.  We know we are the “chosen” people but only because we have chosen not because we are superior.

I will often ask students to name some “truth.”  Without much hesitation I get answers like not stealing, being honest, not hurting, being kind, respecting elders, and a host of other agreeable ideas.  In each instance we can raise problems, which question the foundation of their “truth.”  For example, is stealing still wrong if you or someone else will die if you do not?  I bring up the Holocaust as an example.  Is being honest always the correct thing to do?  I suspect people who are too honest have injured us all.  Does respecting elders extend to pedophiles? 

Truth is neither a constant nor an absolute. 

Another colleague, Rabbi Jack Reimer, once wrote that at the end of the Amida (and Kaddish) you take three steps back when saying Oseh Shalom (the One who makes peace) because peace is only realized when we back up, leaving room for other ideas, other truths.  In much the same way I have taught that we place the mezzuzas on our doorframes on the right hand side, in a slanted position – not horizontally or vertically – to demonstrate that every home must harbor compromise if there is to be shalom bayit (peace in the house).

Everyone wants peace but the critical idea conveyed by Torah is that being rigid with our “truths” will not lead to that destination.  Rabbi Shimon said two thousand years ago, “Be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar.”

The Cat's Meow

We know one another reasonably well. We ought to, after years together. One of the things I try to impress time and time again is the need for dialogue, healing, and love within the family. We can’t expect to find harmony in the community, or the world if there is no harmony in our small, micro orbit.

     When, years ago, a small plaintive sound was heard on my front step I knew something ominous was about to occur. I just didn’t know how life would change so quickly.

     It turns out that a small black kitten had found its way to our home. Making tiny throaty noises it painfully asked for food and succor. We gave both, in abundance.

     The kitten moved into the house bringing with it a litter box, countless toys, sheds of once venerated fabric on chairs and couches, smelly open cans of cat food and the most strange noises next to my head around four a.m.

     Not that I am complaining. The fact that half my family remained allergic to cat dander has nothing to do with this article. Nor does the fact that a bunch of kids and one cat makes for some unusual reactions in my house around 6:30 each evening. A new love object entered our lives.

     I happen to be a big fan of animals. I love dogs. Had quite a few of them over the years. They were my best friends growing up.( Did you know that my first pulpit was in a small English town called Barkingside? No joke.)

     What worried me was that the cat becomes the equivalent of a house member. I have had more than a single argument with members of the congregation on the differences between a human and an animal. Some tenderhearted, well-intentioned people are under the misapprehension that animals and people have the same value. Oy.

     It is a disturbing fact that only a little “ t “ separates a rabbit from a rabbi. And secretaries seem not to keep the two distinct even with spell check. As Alfred E. Neuman once said,  “What? Me worry? “

Hanukkah's Value

     Value is arbitrary. That is to say, the value we place on something is totally subjective. Nothing tangible has any intrinsic value.

      For instance. The reason gold is worth lots is because there is not an abundance of it and people want it. If people were not willing to pay for it, it would be worthless.

     For instance. Even money has absolutely no value. If we were to stop using it and instead bartered for our needs (or used ‘bitcoins’), the dollar bills would be only good for wallpapering our homes.

     Oil has value only because it is needed in our machine-based society. If we gave up on all forms of power that require petroleum-based products oil would be left to sit in the ground.

     Our holidays celebrate concepts. Think of it: we recall the Exodus at Pesah so that we will remember the value of freedom. We observe Shavot to be conscious of the value of the Torah and its morality. The High Holy Days are about Teshuva and Sukkot tells us about nature and the impermanence of things.

     What is Hanukkah about? Hanukkah’s concept is about hope and deliverance. The Festival of Lights occurs in the deepest folds of cold winter. We light candles in our home to dispel of darkness, the gloom. How much light does it take to chase away darkness? Only a tiny flame.

     Hanukkah is about the despair and forgotten people who discovered a tiny bottle of oil, which infused their hearts with hope. The message of Hanukkah is clear: Never are you alone and there is always hope for tomorrow. These are the values that buoy and sustain us. We as Jews, need to covet these with more fervor than “things”

A Joyful Festival of Lights to you and your family.

Choose Joy

Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, included as a part of our new democracy the right to pursue “happiness.“  

With all the grousing that we see on the nightly news, read in our papers, hear on radio, listen to in the aisles of the supermarket, and in conversations between friends you may begin to believe that happiness is a rare phenomenon.  Listen to what we talk about.  The weather is terrible, so-and-so has cancer, the next-door neighbor is a braggart, personal betrayals, unsatisfactory jobs, dishonest politicians, and someone’s dog always goes on our lawn.  Is finding happiness really that difficult that its opposite seems to fill our days?

People define personal happiness in a variety of ways but it seems elusive. 

Rebbe Nachman, a particular hero of mine, wrote, “The human’s image-making faculty is the source of all temptation.  If it becomes dominant, it results in depression…one forgets one’s purpose in life.  We have to fight back and aim to be continually happy so as to break the power of our imagination.” 

Nachman was indicating the idols we craft and the danger they create.  When we equate “things” with happiness we are making idols that will doom us to sadness.  No thing has the power to make us happy.  That which makes us happy is purpose.  And, of course, there is no greater purpose than the goal of proximity to God.

Why would closeness to God create joy?  There are several possibilities:

1.     A relationship with God is not self-defining or physically enriching.  It is a search, a question, and deep concerned thought.  It is direction, purpose.

2.     It is quiet.  Connection with God is meaningful moments of solitude and reflection bringing us focus and calm.

3.     Prayer is a paradox.  At once it elevates while another time it carries us to new sobering realizations about the self.  We do not necessarily get what we want but we get what we need.

4.     Closeness to God is not automatic.  It comes because we desire it.  The want to be close to our Maker pushes away the idols, which we have given too much attention to and have made us mostly unhappy.

Happiness is a choice, reveals Rebbe Nachman.  It is both a choice and takes ongoing effort.  It is also something our Founding Fathers believed was connected to God.  After all, that sentence in the Declaration of Independence includes “the Creator” as a part of that right and path to happiness.  It almost goes without saying that the Torah leads us to that same conclusion time and again.   Isn’t every tale we read in Genesis - from Adam to Joseph – about the human path to happiness including God?

Eleventh century scholar, Judah HaLevi wote, “Your contrition on a fast day is not more acceptable to Him than your joy on the Sabbath and holy days, it if is the outcome of a devout heart.”  Yom Kippur is surely a great day of reckoning and awe.  Yet, what God knows, and what He wants us to learn, is that the joy of life is supposed to outweigh the “oy” of life.  In the faith of our ancestors we actively seek the light of joy.  Drink a toast to God on Friday nights.  Light candles and bless Him and the ones you love.  Say a prayer for someone.  Sing the Sh’ma as you put your head on your pillow.