Truth

Pretending, make-believe, is a game we are good at playing and winning. It enables us to be many things we would otherwise be unable to be. Mask wearing offers many benefits but has equal number of powerful drawbacks.

Leaders, who hold empires on the illusion of control, are carrying an enormous burden. Not only do they have to exercise control over their environment but must keep their own emotional needs constantly and check as well. During times of emotional stress the burden becomes overwhelming.

The trouble with the façade is that it is not as stable as the stuff underneath.

Kabbalists, mystics, call this universe “Olam Sheker,” a universe of deceit.  Pretenses obfuscate truth and do not allow us to see reality. The next world however it’s called “Olam Emet” because everything is in accordance with the Divine Will. It is complete truth.  All is as appears.

A little boy was called to the witness stand. The prosecuting attorney cross-examined him and then delivered what he thought was a crushing blow to his testimony.

“Your father has been telling you how to testify, hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” the boy answered.

“Now,” continued the lawyer, “tell us what your father told you to say.”

“Well,” the boy began, “Father told me that the lawyer would try to get me tangled up but if I would jus tell the truth, I would be right always.”

Talmud says, “Truth is the seal of God.” (Shabbat 55a)

Truth

There is a Yiddish expression, der emes iz der bester lign, Truth is the safest lie."

Listen to these two ideas:

1) Everyone must be willing to entertain change for the sake of growth.

2) All must be consistent with their inner self; to do what make sense to the soul and not heed the outside voices.  "But," you interject, "aren't they conflicting statements?"  Yes, they are.  And still they are both true.

There are two kinds of truth - the immutable and the ephemeral.  Ephemeral truth is based on the needs of the moment.  It is the kind of statement found in the "Dear Abby" columns. It seems right.  Abby uses common sense based on circumstance and time.

For example.  There is the old Jewish line about the kid who murders both parents.  The boy then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan.  He speaks a truth.

For example.  It is a modern truism that character is developed largely through the media of sorts and the arts.  Growth patterns then follow after what they see and learn at music, art, little league and the rest.  And the best time to hone these skills is during the weekend.  It is also a truism that music, painting and sports collide with Shabbat and Holy Days as they vie for the same time slot.  So how can we reconcile that conflict?

All this reminds of the rabbi's dilemma.  Two entrepreneurs vehemently insisted to their spiritual leader they they were correct in their business venture and the other was at fault.  One at a time the present their arguments.  After the first states his case,  the rabbi turns to the first litigant and says, "You are right."  The other then states his case and the rabbi grudgingly said, "And you are right."  The rebbetzin, listening by the door, burst into the room and said, "How can they both be right?"  The rabbi responded, "You too are right." 

Ephemeral truth is like that.  Contradicting statements can be simultaneously ne true.  A dog can be both smart and dumb at the same time.

Immutable truth differs from ephemeral truth in one dramatic way: it never changes and cannot be contradicted by time or circumstance.  Whereas children “need” to learn how to play trombone, it is not essential for them or an adult to know how to play.  Similarly, it is important to call friends often so that they know we care, but it is not essential that we do so.

Immutable truth is grounded in being.  The Aseret haDibbrot (Ten Commandments) is one example or Immutable Truth.  There are no extenuating circumstances for shaming parents or for committing adultery. Everyone understands the inherent evil in these acts. Likewise, even though we have lacunae or doubts there is God, always.  Job, the improbable theologian, does not doubt God’s existence or His goodness. Job simply says, “God knows.”  There is a helmsman at the wheel. This is what we need to know, accept and understand.

There are three major Jewish festivals during the year, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot.  Sukkot is our time of uncertainty.  It gives rise to all the ephemeral truths of our lives birth, death, wealth, change, despair and hope.

It is hard to think much between reading labels and mopping the floor. Still, the overriding message of Pesach is freedom, which is more of a call than a truth. Pesach is the holiday that calls to our soul, “wake up.”

Shavuot, however, is the holy day of Immutable Truth. It beckons and we understand the depths of its eternal truth.  But Immutable Truth, unlike the truths of the moment, is difficult to accept. It leaves no room for negotiation. It just is.

This is, by the way, why I believe Shavuot Is always “forgotten holiday.” Strangely, Shavuot is the most power-laden holiday on the Jewish calendar. God speaks on Shavuot. His voice echoes from Sinai and Truth is heard. There’s no getting around the Law or Voice. It spans the epochs and is unchanging.

Got to Feel It

You can mask your feelings through words. You can obfuscate the truth through clenched teeth. It is possible to blur of the distinction between that which lies at the center of our self and that which our mind dictates to our mouth. In other words, we lie.

Not necessarily malevolent lives. Not the kind of which thrust themselves like poison darts toward the hearts of the people we hate.  Most lives are more pedestrian; they are more like self-deception.

Purim for example is not fully understood.  Purim is not one of those holidays that bears up to close analysis. We can find a myriad of reasons for the lack of historicity of the event, the non-clarity of major players in the almost goofy nature of the tale. Purim must be felt.

A group of students approached a great poet to discover the secret of his art. Visiting him at his home, they asked to see the place where inspiration came to him. The poet pointed to a small splash of green fence stop in buying unsightly wall in his backyard. The students blinked unbelievingly at the sight. They asked, “This is where those great poems came from, while you were sitting facing your ugly lawn?”

“You are looking in the wrong direction,” the teacher responded. “Do not look around you-look up. Then you will see what I see.  Look,” he said pointing to the sky, “see how high it is!”

I think most of life is like the artist’s depiction - it is to be felt. 

The founder of the Conservative movement, Solomon Schechter, said more than 100 years ago, "Pleasures are the manifestations of God's love."  Absorb the joy. Feel the wonder of another season of hope and life.

What's Real

Too few of us are willing to take the biggest risks of life. Safe, small but usually win out in the end. The sure things in life are little league baseball, work, even over time, cleaning, love, giving tzedaka, watching things --like TV going to movies and plays, eating out etc..

These activities are good. Most warm self. Some are wonderful. The one aspect they all have in common is that they are not concrete. They are of the genre that can be called “avoiding life.”  As one sage put it, “It is far easier to love the starving Ethiopian than own family.” We run from the concrete into the arms of the ephemeral for gratification.

They are distractions that remove us from the real fields of human life. Here is a great truth: the place where all the most important decisions are reached is around the kitchen table. Note that it is not sitting around the expensive in frilly divan. Not at the fancy-schmancy restaurant. Or on vacation in the Bahamas. They happen in the same place with the most angry confrontations occur. The kitchen.

In rabbinical school one of my teachers, a famous scholar and author, lamented, “Most people don’t go to Shull because they are afraid of really meeting God. They are frightened that may be during prayer God will actually appear and scare the dickens out of them. Worse, then they will have to do whatever God commands. They will be hopelessly trapped.”

I laughed.

I see now that what I took for a joke was more true than I was capable of understanding back then.  People are genuinely afraid of commitments which involve a deep emotional component. That is why falling in love is so easy -- and revered  in youth when there is little commitment but lots of palpitations -- and being in love is so trying. Being in love makes real emotional demands while falling in love is hedonistic far less dangerous.

So it is with three-day-a-year religion, dance classes, yoga and horticulture.

The biggest risks in life are the ones most richly rewarded. True, the feeling of wonder that accompanies the first shoots of life in the garden and the great pride comes with graduation are lovely. Far greater than these, though, is the knowledge that your children will carry on after you; that they will continue to live Jewishly; they will be moral.  Or a lasting love, one where we have worked and invested our core self. There are a few of these kinds of risks. We only have three or four of them. But they are without peer in power and meaning.

Part of risk taking means drawing lines. Saying “yes” or “no” to looting, lewdness, lying, allowing our children to inter-date or a living to Jewish lifestyle are a few examples of that kind of risk taking.  It is far easier to insist on good grade than moral backbone or mowing the lawn on Shabbat instead of spending a thoughtful day with family.  There are very few lines in a person's life that must be drawn in the world to chief the height of a lifetime’s success.

What is yours?

“Why you spend money for what is not bread?

And your wages from what does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good.”  Isaiah 55:2

Myth, Fiction and Truth

Myth is a dirty word.  It portends of specious argument; maybe flat out lies. Myth, at best, speaks of children’s bedtime stories; at worst, it is misleading and insults and degrades real historical events.

On the other hand, I believe that myth make us truly human.  It defines our psyche.  Myth makes sense of a senseless world.  Carl Jung taught that myth is often more true than what we perceive and have learned.

Years back I heard a sage remark, “God is more real than you” (addressing an audience).  The listeners were shocked.  Did he mean to intimate that he sees God more clearly than he sees his wife?  Did he mean to say that God speaks to him with greater clarity than people?  I do not think so.  What this scholar meant was that he understood “truth” as only coming from the Holy One. 

People are deceptive.  They misconstrue and misuse words and ideas.  They have skewed moral values.  Only God is the pure essence of truth.

I do not critically analyze King Arthur and the legends that surround him.  Did he really have a ”round table?”  What does it matter?  The important thing is that King Arthur held court with a round table indicating that he had a nascent understanding of democracy and sharing.

A lot of Americans seem to be obsessed with angels.  Books appear on shelves in libraries, on line and in stores detailing the names and various assignments of these otherworldly ethereal beings.  I have even seen parlor meetings to address the meanings and existential implications of angels.  Has America gone mad?

I have yet to meet someone who has empirical proof of their existence.  What about UFO sightings?  Are they linked?  I have yet to read in any scientific journal about them.  Yet good, learned folks are swarming to purchase tomes about their favorite angel.

What all seems to mean is that myth provides some semblance of order to an otherwise random universe.  Myth makes sense from deep personal pain as well as questions of existential nature.

So what do we make of miracles and myth?  They may be more real than any hard fact that we know.  For example, I do not believe in God, I know God.  That to me is more meaningful and true than bland facts.  That is my myth.  One of them, anyway.

Advice to Graduates

           Shimon, the son of Gamliel, thought hard.  When asked this question he could not help but search through years of lessons, discussions, and arguments.  “Sometimes,” he reflected, “they embraced each other; other times they stormed off in a discernable anger.”  He saw the greatest scholars of all time scratch their heads in wonder.  And now here he was being asked the question, “What is the greatest truth that you know?”

Shimon understood, after all the learning he had been exposed to, that this was the hardest question he had ever been asked.  Slowly, Shimon opened his mouth.  “All my life I have been raised with Sages.  What I have learned is that the best to learning the truth is silence.  When I am quiet and do not rush to make others hear my opinions I am free to hear the full story first.”

They nodded, listening.

Shimon drew in a breath and continued.  “Practice is more important than study.  After all, you can memorize facts galore but what a person does is more important than what he knows or says.”

A cool breeze blew through the orchard as if agreeing with the young scholar.  No sound was heard as Shimon continued.  “One who speaks too much brings sin into the world.”

Shimon, son of Gamliel, really lived in Israel two thousand years ago.  These words were actually spoken by him.  He said three things that I want the graduating class of any time or year to absorb.

1. Listen.  Do not make snap judgements.  If you are too busy speaking or contemplating what you will next say your mind will not be open to what is being uttered by others.

2. Be good.  Do good.  Words are cheap.  They can be spewed forth and be meaningless.  If you really want to make a difference in the world, follow the mitzvot.  Be a Jew.

3. If you prattle on and just let words gush out, sooner (rather than later), you will hurt someone.  It is so easy to wound another by careless words.  Think first.

Now make these words and truths yours and we will always be proud of you.

Rabbi Jonathan Case