Summertime

At this time of year I remember the soon-to-be freedom of summer of youth.  Doors would open and release its long pent up hostages after an interminable winter.  Windows would be raised letting in the warm spring air to diffuse the staleness of closed homes. 

Summer meant there were frogs to catch, adventures in the woods, and throwing myself into the brisk waters to get relief from the sun.  Summer, most of all, was the time of assimilation: an opportunity to review everything that happened during the year and put it into perspective.  In other words, summer represented growth.

A lot of life is spent is reactive mode.  We need “down time” to assess what has happened and gain perspective.  Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has written, “It is not what a person says or performs.  After an experience, change must be affected or the total experience has been wasted.” 

Life happens to us but the ways in which we respond to those events is the measure of us.  And what good is longevity of life if not to learn from the good and bad?

Rabbi Sidney Greenberg used to tell the story of a town hall meeting where the discussion centered on the use of a new electric chair for the condemned.  One man stood up and shouted, “Hanging was good enough for my father.  It’s good enough for me!”

From birth we move and grow.  What was good enough for daddy requires personal analysis.   It may be good enough for us.  Or not.  The wisdom of Torah always steers us toward positive change.  In fact, one could argue that the whole purpose of Torah is to take a clay human being and remake him into “little lower than an angel.”  This can only accomplished by ongoing growth, learning from mistakes, and being willing to accept the possibility that we are wrong.

Of course, at the end of summer, we are inevitably asked, “Nu?  So how have you changed?”  This is the question posed by Rosh Hashanna as God peers at us and asks, “What’s new?  How have you grown?”

On the other side, we also have an obligation to allow others the same luxury of growth.  George Bernard Shaw once remarked, “The smartest man I know is my tailor.  Whenever I go to him to be fitted he always measures me. “  The tailor assumed his customers would change by the time he next saw them.  Shouldn’t we look at people the same way?

Here’s a puzzle to ponder.  Is the following a compliment or insult? 
“You haven’t changed a bit.”

On the Way to My Meeting

That was me waving at you while you were sitting at Starbucks.  I saw you drinking coffee and talking animatedly with your friend.  You were involved in the conversation so if you did not see me or if it did not register who was waving that is alright.  You were at a meeting.

The reason I did not stop was because I was also on my way to a meeting.  I did not want to be late.

We all have meetings.  They keep us busy.  Some are needful, some are friendly, and some are painful.  But we all have them.  They color our days, occupy conspicuous places on our calendar, are a joy and annoyance and a sign that we are needed.  For some people, the more meetings the more we are needed.

Everyone has a place and everyone has a role.  At work we take places around the table, set up a little perimeter around our seat, and steel ourselves for what is coming.

Meetings vary.  Some are clearly charged and energized for change and a healthy exchange of ideas to get to the change.  Others are more like a regular doctor check-up: we pray nothing happens.  Problems arise when it is not clear which of the two is supposed to happen at the table: Is this the one where we are supposed to be creative or one where change is challenge and represents danger?

I was wondering which of the two you were at when I saw you.  You looked concerned so whichever kind of meeting was I think it was the wrong one.  The knitted brows were the give-away.

Judaism asks for change and growth.  It looks at life and wants us to shake our stasis.  In fact, this time during the Omer when tradition demands that we count the passage of days from Pesah until the next holy day of Shavuot, we are supposed to imagine a long steady climb up a mountainside to meet God (that is what happened many millennia ago).  As we trek up the hill we mentally prepare for THE MEETING. 

Anticipating this meeting we take a long steady look at what we ought to be doing for this conference.  Change or inertia?

The fact is sometimes we are eager for change and other times reticent.  Most people I meet, including myself, want both at different times.  There is one overriding principle, though, that was written by Robert Fulghum.  Here it is:

The wagon driver said to his passengers when they came to a long, steep hill, "Them that's going on with us, get out and push.  Then that ain't, get out of the way."

If there is one constant that we must always observe it is for us to allow others to flex and grow and for others to return the favor.

Master of Fate

One of my favorite teachers was Rabbi Levi Yitshak of Berditchev.  Why? Perhaps because he was so full of life and vitality.  Every subject he spoke of, or examined, was infused with a special urgency.  Rabbi Levi Yitshak was aflame with Torah.  It is true that some could not stand his brilliance so they instead retreated to the safety of their minds.  Most however simply stood in his light and absorbed the radiance.  It changed them forever.

Some of the Master’s sayings were:

“You can get a hoarse throat davvening before the lectern.  But not before the Almighty.”

“Life can be so painful.  Know this: Gd Himself is in exile.”

“Lord, Master of the Universe”, prayed Levi Yitshak, “I saw a simple Jew bend down to pick up his tefillin when they fell.  He kissed them so sweetly.  Dear Lord, pick me up, your child.  Kiss me.”

“You can see whether a person really loves Gd by the way she treats people.”

“Your mind is the Holy of Holies”

We are a people in search of life.  To that extent pharmaceuticals are a reasonably safe investment.  They are about the only stock that has not done too poorly in the market downturn.  One reason for the popularity of drugs is that people are looking for some relief to take the edge off living and at the same time make life’s experiences more meaningful.  The best control over a random life, modernity thinks, is to be insulated from pain.

The Master thinks otherwise.  In fact, most of what he is quoted as saying revolves around sensation.  Levi Yitshak’s insistence is that we access joy within.  “Mitzvah g’dola l’hiyot b’simha,” It is a great Mitzvah to celebrate life, to be full of exuberance.  While the advice is simple enough it is not easily done.

There is an ancient tale about the powerful Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great.  He was sitting in judgment.  A man had come before him to plead for his life.  Alexander the Great, after hearing the defendant, pronounced his verdict, “guilty.”

“Your majesty,” he cried. “I appeal.”

“To whom do you appeal?” sneered the ruler.  “There is no one higher in authority than myself.”

“I appeal from Alexander the Small to Alexander the Great.”

There is much more in us.  We know this.  Becoming God’s vision of us would be consummate achievement-- for then we would know that we have become as “great” as deep inside we know ourselves capable of being.

             Earlier this year we read about Avram who was called up by God to leave everything familiar and travel to unknown parts; “to a land that I will show you.”  Yet, no sooner had Avram arrived in the Land when a famine urged him south to Egypt.  So Levi Yitshak asks, ‘Why did God lie to him?’  Why was Avram told that he could live in the new land when famine expelled him from it soon after his arrival?’

             ‘No,’ say s Levi Yitshak.  The Torah says, “that I will show you,” not that will be forever yours.   God was giving Avram a vision of the future, a glimpse of the deep beauty that would sustain him in the darkest times when faith might otherwise abandon him.  So when Avram sought refuge in Egypt from the land’s destitution, he remembered the promise and the vision of the Holy Land.  In the dark nights of terror when Avram feared for his life, he would later recall what he was shown and this was enough for him to survive.

In a seminal work by survivor Viktor Frankl, he questions how survival was possible where every attempt was made to dehumanize the victims of the Shoah.  The camps were to become a mirror of what the Nazis tried to impose upon their victims.  How then to remain human where all vestiges of humanity were absent?  How can a person survive when riven of all hope?  The brutality of the Nazis was matched by their continual treatment of Jews as certainly less-than-human and less-than-animal.  How did those who were able to survive find both the will to live as well as maintain an image of their own humanity in the midst of such depravity?

Those who were able to focus on small acts of courage and keep mental images of hope had the best chance for survival.  Frankl tells tales of heroism like sharing a crust of bread or aiding the sick in the midst of a hell that only promised punishment for acts of goodness.  In this place words of hope could be exchanged provided a glimpse of a possible future.  “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future - his future – was doomed.”  In other words, Frankl, like Avram, saw a picture of how life once was and could become once more… and this was enough to sustain him.

“Life is a journey”, said the rebbe.  “And how we you traverse the road?”  He answered, “We begin with a single step.” 

Our teachers, Masters, and rabbis never indicated to us that life would be unencumbered or simple.  What they did teach us, however, was that with a vision how life can be, we can at least be masters of our own fate.

Happiness

Happiness is temporal. It tends to come in washes. As soon as happiness sweeps in it is drawn back into the vast ocean before the next wave comes.

As a society we are obsessed with happiness.  We want it.  Buying more things is supposed to bring happiness and it usually does until the joy of newness wears off.  Then we go shopping once again for the happiness fix.  The same can be said for the completed business deal or quota exceeded or beating our rival.  All these things bring a brief helping of happiness.  Then what?

 Julius Lester wrote, “I don’t like it when gentile and Jewish friends greet me at Rosh Hashanah with “Happy New Year.”  Rosh Hashanah is not the equivalent of January  1.

“I have never understood what “Happy New Year” is supposed to mean.  I’ve never been sure that I want to be wished happiness.  I’m not sure I know what happiness is, or that it is as important as we think.  Happiness feels better than misery, but some of the most important periods of my life have been the ones of profound unhappiness.  For all the feelings of well-being that happiness bestows upon us, it is not the goal of life.”

For our faith, happiness is not found in the goal but the process.  Achievement is usually seen as the end result.  Did we score the sale?  Did we beat the competition?  Yet, as we learn in life (and as Judaism tries to teach), it is the ‘meantime’ that matters most of all.  How we get there is more important than our arrival.

Our sages, of blessed memory, tell us to be conscious of kavannah.  Kavannah is the how of life.  How we pray is important.  That we pray is important but when the act is meaningful, worthwhile, said with fervor, it becomes a powerful life-changing force.

How we speak to other people makes a great difference.  The words may be correct but when facial clues do not match the spoken word, the communication is undermined.

How we eat matters.  How we work, behave, do tzedaka,  or dress may be more important than what we do.   Disingenuous acts do not nourish the soul - neither the giver’s or the receiver’s.  Yet, when we act with kavannah, what we do takes on great meaning.  In fact, the way deeds are executed is the pathway to holiness. 

Shavuot is coming.  It is the anniversary of the Giving of Torah.  Traditionally we study throughout the long night of Shavuot because it is a time of seeking God.  It is the seeking, the quest, the kavannah that is the ultimate and most enduring happiness. 

An old Yiddish saying: “When the head is a fool, the body is in trouble.”  With thought and deliberation even the most insignificant acts become meaningful.

Investing psychic energy into our actions enables them to become holy. 

What We Believe

What do Jews believe?  Besides the Ten Commandments, which are kind of universal, is there a Jewish creed?  The closest we come to a Jewish statement of belief if Maimonides’ Thirteen principles of Faith.  These are they:
      1.  There is a God.

2. God is one, unique.
3. God is incorporeal
4. God is forever.
5. We pray to God alone.
6. The prophets were the emissaries of God.
7. Moses was the greatest of all the prophets
8. Both the Written and Oral Torah were given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
9. There will be no other Torah.
10. God knows the thoughts and deeds of all.
11. God will reward the good and punish the wicked.
12. The Messiah will come.
13. There is a life after death.

The Countup from Pesah

From the second night of Pesah and throughout this month (and the next!) we count the Omer (it says so in the Torah, check it out in Leviticus 23:15).  Each evening we tick off another digit as the day passes.  Why do we do this?

The most obvious answer is that we are counting up (the reverse of a count-down).  In this instance, we are counting off forty-nine days; the number of days that our ancestors walked their way to the mountain in the Sinai desert to receive the Words of God.

The language we use to count goes like this: : Blessed are You, HaShem, our God, King of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and has commanded us concerning the counting of the Omer.   Then you say:  Today is ___ day[s] of the Omer.

Generally, what do we count?  We count things that are meaningful.  When a birthday is getting close, we count.  When a rocket ship is about to be launched, we count.  When we find out about a pregnancy, we calculate the time remaining.  We number the days until vacation.  And here we count the days until Revelation, the anniversary of Torah.  Counting is about the joy of anticipation.

Long ago it was different than it is today.  When the Temple stood in Jerusalem, Jewish people used to bring handfuls of barley (the handfuls were called “omer”s) to the kohan’im every day..  If they missed a day of bringing the Omer, they were not permitted to make it up which is why we try hard to not miss a single night of counting nowadays.  Also, the omer was supposed to be cut at night which is why we count in the evening in our time.

One scholar, Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenberg, noticed that the commandment to count actually says, “You shall count for you…” What this saintly rabbi said was that when we count the omer, we are actually doing something that has deep soulful personal implications.  In counting off the days to the holy day of Shavuot, Torah Day, we are heightening our internal register of joy.  By making the time to mentally prepare for the greatest event of human history we create powerful anticipatory internal emotions.

What does this mean to you?  When we count the omer we create an internal hunger to feel the majesty of the moment of the Torah being given.  When the anniversary arrives it will be momentous.

At the same time, it also means that we craft the emotions we carry.  What we put into life is what we get out of it.  Whether it is the love that we continually nourish in our family, or the Shabbat candles that we faithfully light on Friday nights, or the ongoing effort we place into learning Torah, or simply counting up the days to Shavuot – what we take from life is what we invest into it.

Is there any greater truth than this?