Reputation

Fregt nit rofe, nor dem khoyle, goes a popular Yiddishism.  It means, “Don’t ask the doctor ask his parents.” So what if the sign says, “”professional"? What matters is who stands behind the sign.

A person’s reputation stands as the paramount description of them. “A good name is better than most precious of oils,” remarked king Solomon. A well-deserved name outlasts a person’s life. Why else are there some who more life in death than some who work in our midst? The good name they created by the mitzvot they have done transcends life.

There is a great illustration of this in the Torah. Eve’s sin was not in listening to the serpent in the garden, it was convincing her mate to eat the forbidden fruit. In doing so Eve destroying the great trust man and woman held for each other. Once violated, a good name is difficult to restore. “What does he think of me now Eve might have wondered.

There are others who hunger for accolades: they run after the press. “Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself,” wrote Shakespeare of the damage caused by self-aggrandizement. Hillel put it well, “a name made great is a name destroyed."  People who seek a good reputation for its own sake find it about as easy as grabbing onto a fistful of jello. Reputations are achieved through deeds, not desire.

Living in the Future

Here is a parable for our lives:

A family climbs aboard a train.  They have no car, no place to call home either.  Each member carries his own suitcase.  The parents have their heavy suitcases full of a lifetime’s accumulations.  The children bear only small packages.

The little ones have a future.  And that future is worth all the massive suitcases in the world.

Yet, in both instances grip our suitcases as if they are the only things in the world.  We live in the present rocketing toward some determined destination.  We bought the ticket, boarded the train, packed our valuables and believe we have taken all the necessary steps for taking charge of our destiny.  But that is far from the truth.  After many years of life we ultimately conclude that we have little power to control our future.

The late Carl Sagan once explained the difference between an astronomer and an astrologer: “An astronomer can predict precisely where every star will be at 11:30 on any given night, but cannot say the same for his teenage daughter. For that, you need an astrologer!”

We all have dreams, visions and extensive plans for the future.   Retirement accounts and insurance are a hedge against our well-devised plans.   And still the unforeseen happens.  Throughout the ages people have turned to divination, necromancy, enchantments, horoscopes, I ching, and cryptic biblical passages that they believe will open the gates of what-will-come.“  Indeed, he does not know what is to happen,” declares King Solomon, “even when it is on the point of happening, who can tell him?” 

In the Talmud, the sage Rabbi Yochanan taught: “Since the Temple was destroyed, prophecy has been taken from prophets and given to fools and children.”  Rabbi Yochanan was warning us against placing faith in our articulately designed plans.  Indeed, countless horrors have been committed throughout history because nations and religions refused to conform their beliefs to reality. Instead they sought to make reality conform to their beliefs, which resulted in terrible events (thank God there were no catastrophes because of the Mayan calendar last year).

Again the wise Solomon advises, “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.”

Do not live your life trying to peer behind impenetrable curtains.

Seek joy.  Live each day.

Lucky?

Prodigious twelfth century scholar Ibn Ezra produced incredible Torah insights that still provide illumination hundreds of years after his death.   Yet, there is reason to believe that Ibn Ezra was an unhappy man.  He wrote, “If I sold shrouds no one would die.  And if I sold lamps the sun would shine by night.”    These are not words of a man who saw himself as fortunate or successful; these are the words of someone who thought himself an umglick.  An umglick is someone who is severely handicapped by misfortune.  They are unlucky.

The first person who saw himself as unlucky in the Torah was Cain.  After he murdered his brother, Cain complained, “Am I destined to be nothing more than a vagrant and wanderer??” he cried after God expelled him.  Cain thereafter saw himself as an umglick. Life had soured. There was no point in finding the “silver lining” of life, there was none.

If we have ever experienced those dark nights of life we will remember that we had a choice to either continue to wander aimlessly in the darkness, bemoaning our misfortune, or seek light.

Many years ago I heard the story about a café on a long Texas interstate highway.  Truckers liked to visit the eatery and would often park on the shoulders of the highway and walk to it. Shortly afterward the highway department put up signs, “Emergency Parking Only” to discourage the trucks from parking on the side of the road.  The café then put up new signage, calling itself “Emergency Café.”

How we feel is a choice.  And, of course, how we feel strongly influences how we behave toward others and see ourselves.  A good friend of mine had a cubicle office in a large room crammed with lots of other cubicles.  There were no windows, fresh air, natural light only artificial walls and long florescent light bulbs.  One day, he brought in a poster of a glorious sunset and put it up on his moveable wall.  The next day he brought in a window frame with blinds attached and placed it over the poster.  Not only could he mentally transport himself into the picture but mused, “Sometimes, I would have to shut the blinds because the sun was too strong!”

Torah is about life.  It is about how we interact and function in a world that is about all of us. Not just us.  Yet, if we continually walk in a world of darkness and anxiety the joys of life become drained and we may find ourselves an umglick.  It is hard to be mindful of others when our outlook is bleak.  There is no redemption in such a world.  Light cannot pierce self-imposed blankness.

An old legend tells of the wise King Solomon who understood the danger of wallowing in self-pity.  Solomon knew well that staying in there would diminish his abilities and sap his joy. King Solomon commissioned a jeweler to make a ring that would jolt him out of the thick clouds of despair. The jeweler brought him a ring bearing the words, “This too shall pass.” 

They always do.

Don't be Angry

When a person says, “I’m only human,” is usually the precursor to a fault.  It comes as a half excuse/half apology.  “I’m only human,” supposedly explains away why he did something regrettable.  As you might suspect, Judaism disavows any such thinking.  Psalms declares that God made us “little lower than the Angels.”  That reference is a lot different than being only human!  Our heritage holds fast to the idea that we should always strive to be better.  Excuses are self-serving: They do not ennoble us or make us better people.  In fact, the opposite is true; making excuses for ourselves insures that we repeat our old ways.

In the classic story of Cain and Abel, God warns the quickly reddening Cain of what his unchecked anger can lead him to do. “Sin crouches by the door,” God warns Cain, “but you can conquer it.”  We have the power to rule our actions and Torah demands of us to choose the path of goodness.  We are not “only human;” we are much more.

Being human is as easy as breathing; being humane is the work of a lifetime 

Rabbi Charles Klein tells the story of nurse, Elizabeth Kenny, who developed a treatment for polio.  Kenny was asked how she always managed to maintain her cheery disposition.  Was she just born that way?

“Oh no, as a girl I often lost my temper.  But one day when I became angry at a friend for some trivial matter, my mother said to me:

“Elizabeth, anyone who angers you, conquers you.”

She never forgot those words.

Elizabeth Kenny made a mindful decision to not roil with anger.  She indicates it is always a choice.  Nobody “loses” their temper.  It does not fall out our pocket like spare change.  Nobody says lashon ha-ra, gossip, by mistake, without their permission.  It does not just happen.  We make it happen.

I often speak about recovery programs because they are at once inspiring and a paradigm for conscious living.  Whether it is OA, NA, AA, Al Anon, or a host of other programs they push the participant to explore and use their full resources to change, which is not easy.  If change were a simple matter there would be no need for Yom Kippur.  Since change is challenging, at best, arduous at its worst, we need spurs to become better people.

Elizabeth Kenny’s story is also revealing in another distinct way.  Once change is effected it is no longer burdensome.  It may have been hard for Kenny to get rid of her anger at first but soon calmness became part of her character.  King Solomon’s Proverbs says it best when he writes, “Respond gently.  It allays anger.” 

Whose anger is Solomon speaking of?  Ours.  We may change people’s attitudes, postures, anger, and opinions but it is generally unlikely.  Most people have their set ideas and are not easily talked out of them.  The only real power we have is over ourselves.  We do not have to give in to specific, predictable patterns.  We can choose to act differently and by consciously resisting the urge to “strike back,” have a nasty retort, or engage in rumor-mongering, we graduate to a higher level of meaningful humane life.  And the best part is the next time we are faced with a similar conundrum, the forces that pulled at us before will still be there but they will be less strong.  The time after that, they will be even weaker, enabling us to resist the urge.

Solomon teaches us wisdom from four thousand years ago that when we think before we speak, deliberate before we act, we will longer be as bitter, as reactionary, or demeaning.