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.

A Dog's Life

I went to see “Food Inc.” playing at the Nickleodean Theater.  The presentation about how food is prepared, what’s in it, the political behind-the-scenes trading that goes on is alarming.  

One facet of the film is outstanding, though.  The unnecessary and terrifying cruelty to animals is shameful.  Crowded to the point where they cannot move, fed powerful growth hormones that render them incapable of even walking, kept in perpetual darkness, fed unhealthy diets and so much more the animal industry appears macabre, at best.

I cannot help but wonder about Michael Vick who was sentenced to prison for his involvement for dog fighting.  Recently released, people reasonably argue whether he should be rehired as a professional athlete after his conviction.  

Why doesn’t the government crack down on the food industry in the same way as they prosecuted Vick?  Is it really that different?  True, Vick arranged fights and bet on the animals.  True, the food industry is supported by the public that buys from them.  But this is where the differences end.  The treatment of animals is vile.

It is not necessary to abuse life.  In fact, the Bible is quite clear when the Lord tells humanity that we are to take care of His creatures.  It is a sin to purposefully cause them pain and harm.   Here are just a few of the many references: Deuteronomy 22:10, 22:6-7, 22:4, 5:13, Leviticus 22:28, Exodus 23:5, 20:9, Psalms 23:1—3, Genesis 1:26.

Why do we punish one man and richly reward others for doing the same?

A New Day

There is no such thing as “having no choice.”  There is always an alternative.  In fact, the choice we make in any situation says something about us to others and something about us to us.

The first part of that last statement is pretty clear: if we are short-tempered people will be wary of us.  If, on the other hand, we are kind and generous, those around us will respond in kind.  The second part of the statement sounds confusing but it is as obvious as the first. Let me explain.

How we act creates self-definition.  We form an opinion about ourselves based on what we do.  Psychoanalyst Erving Goffman tells the story of a man who walks on the beach determinedly not looking at anyone.  He walks with a stride that says, “I do not see any of you.  I am busy doing something very important.  You can tell by my gait, by the way I gaze at distant objects, by my indifference, that I am outstanding.”  While striding along the seashore the man dons a mask that causes him to imagine that he is above all. 

And he wonders later why everyone is so distant.

Here’s another example. A woman wears the persona of a sharp businesswoman.  Her words are terse.  She does not tolerate idle conversation.  She is methodical and critical of anyone who says anything “stupid” or meaningless.  When she looks in the mirror she ties her hair tightly back without looking to closely at the reflection she does not like.

The Mishna tells of the great sage Hillel who passed a stream one day and saw a skull in the water.  He remarked, “As you have done to others, so others have done to you.”  Hillel was commenting that the way we treat others will come back to us.  Yet, I suspect he was saying something even more profound: Hillel was sounding a warning.  If we behave cruelly we will come believe in cruelty as a way of interacting with others.  The way we are seen is the way we will ultimately see ourselves.

That is why our faith places such a strong emphasis on how we behave, the way the talk, how we treat one another, and the way we approach God.  All these things impact others and the world.  But they also impact us.   Nasty words spoken by us make us feel nasty, unclean.  For many, there is only one thing to do when feeling dirty by our deeds, do more of it, which is a downward spiral.

We have a Mikveh which is a demarcation point where we go to divest ourselves of the accumulated psychic grime.   We have a daily “confessional” where we strike our breast and beg for a new beginning (new self-definition).  And, of course, we have Yom Kippur as a grand, large scale, opportunity to change.

I like to think of the many holy days that dot the Jewish calendar as moments of potential transformation too.  Shavuot is coming.  Least appreciated of all the festivals, Shavuot celebrates God’s ultimate gift to the Jews, Torah. We pray, sing, and study into the long hours of night as we seek an encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He.  Such an experience would alter the trajectory of our life.  Perhaps every mitzvah is an invitation to change how we are viewed and how we perceive ourselves. 

There is a tale about a man who once rigged an electric battery to his doorbell.  He was happy when he heard a loud ring when someone pushed the button.  He then connected a wire from that same battery for a light in his bedroom.  However, the light did not work.  So he called an electrician who examined the contraption and said, “Don’t you know that it takes more power to shine than to make a noise?”

It may take more power to shine but when we do we are radiant.

God, History, and Torah

There is an ongoing tumult occurring in America.   The arguments are on campus too, largely waged between religionists on the right and religionists of the left together with secularists.  The distillation of the argument reached its apex a few years back in a courthouse in Pennsylvania.  The trial in Harrisburg is received a lot of coverage nationwide on CNN, FOX and virtually every newspaper in the nation.  The argument centered on the opening passage of the Torah describing creation.  How should biology –evolution -- be taught (if at all) in our school systems?

     One poll taken cites that 50% of Christian America                   believes the Biblical story of creation in the Bible should be          taken literally.  Various politicians have taken their stance on “intelligent design.”

What does Judaism have to offer on the subject?  In the Middle Ages, Maimonides one of greatest thinkers, teachers and physicians of his era and ours determined that science, by definition, could not be in conflict with religion.  That is, Maimonides believed that truth is not negotiable.  Torah is truth and to the extent that science would come into conflict with Torah, the Writ must not be understood properly.  If science proved something that contradicted Biblical thought, Bible required re-interpretation.    

Rabbi Abraham Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel, wrote that there is no contradiction between the Torah and evolution.    Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, another Orthodox thinker, wrote that if the theory of evolution proved to be correct, it would be a testimonial to the wisdom of the Creator.

Albert Einstein said that science without religion is lame.  Religion without science is blind.

Jews must not be lame or blind. 

In the first Sidra of the Torah, Beresheet, the Text says, Vayhi ha-adam lnefesh chayah, “Man became a became a living soul.”  What does “living soul” mean?  Rashi, the medieval expositor said it indicates two things; Death and dibbur.  Rashi believed that the gift of God to humanity was that we were endowed with the faculties of reasoning and speech.   To deny these gifts is to deny our destiny.

Kabbalah has long taken that philosophic stance that the Torah is far above the tales we all learned in Religious School.  The Torah is about lofty principles.  It is not a history book; it is a book about God. 

Here is one obvious biblical fact: In its own narrative, Torah depicts light as having preceded the sun.  Two questions should be shouting at the reader: How could there be light without sun? And, how could there be a literal “day” of creation when there was no rotation of the earth around its star?

Our answer is that Torah wishes to say something powerful about humanity, God and, the universe without being reckoned as a textbook.  Truth is always the goal.

Not in Vain

The Talmud records that the entire world once convulsed with such force that it almost split apart as the Holy One uttered, "Thou shalt not take My name in vain."
"Why then?" asks a nameless scholar, "Why was the earth was nearly destroyed then and not at any other part of the Decalogue?" 

Perhaps because all society and civilization unconsciously accepts that it hinges on this one notion.  Without this mitzvah world could not exist.  Let me share how:
When the President of the United States takes office he swears on a Bible to uphold the Constitution.  Why a Bible?  Why not just say, "I'll do my best?"  Or, "I promise?"

When a witness takes the stand in court they also swear to God to "tell the truth."

What is it about taking God's name in vain that is so fearsome that we practice it universally today? 

A point of interest: When a Jew takes the stand they do not "swear" to God because we take the prohibition so seriously that we know, even unwittingly, we will not tell the entire truth so we "affirm" instead of swearing.

By these actions we acknowledge that this particular commandment (mitzvah) is the most powerful statement we can make (I have never heard of an atheist saying that he would not take the vow because it was not meaningful or strong enough). 

I wonder if the psychic underpinning for this is that we do not believe that we really control our lives.  Sure, we govern our day-to-day activities but when it comes to the larger issues like life and death, hope and despair, we feel powerless.

I recall an old Ann Landers column that told of a woman who, when uptight, would sit with her vacuum cleaner and let the wind blow into her face full force.  Her relatives thought she ought to be committed but Landers responded that sitting and hugging the vacuum was a reasonable response when there is no alternative.

Feeling helpless is not unusual or unique to us; it cuts a wide swathe though humanity.

In the Mishna, Rabbi Akiva is quoted as comforting the Jewish nation after the terrible Hurban, devastation of the destroyed Temple, with the words, "Happy are you, Israel, whose Father in Heaven never departs from you."

The faith of Israel is that God is always with us.

A story related by author Herbert Weiner tells of a conductor making his way down the train collecting tickets.  He came to a couple of Hasidim. 

They looked up and asked, "Why don't you ask the people in the engine cab for their tickets?"

"They are driving the train," answered the surprised conductor.

"So are we," said the Hasidim. 

So to keep order in the universe and chaos at bay we hold fast to the integrity and holiness of God's name.  This knowledge reassures and comforts us.  Or as Psalms says, "I will not fear for You are with me."