Change

Time reminds us to circle back.   Each passing year brings us the same occasions- birthdays, holy days, anniversaries.  In fact the Hebrew word for year, shana, means to repeat.  I guess you could translate the words, shana tova to mean, “have a good “repeat” this time around.”

As we draw close to the New Year our tradition asks that we revisit an old familiar place, our history, and with good intention and enough willpower, have a better “repeat.”

The Sages knew the value of exploring the past.  They use a passage in the Torah to help illustrate.  Abraham digs wells and names them.  His son, Isaac, repeats the same process.  What we are to learn from this is that each of us needs to explore our roots by delving into them in a process that successive generations have performed.  It does not matter that we are doing what has been done before.  By digging our own wells we continually uncover new truths and a powerful means to rise above what we have been.  We are not yet who we can be.

Heshbon HaNefesh is the process of making a personal inventory of where we have traveled, who we have become.  In Recovery programs this is fourth step along the path to wholeness.  For many this is the most vexing step because it involves looking at an unvarnished picture of ourselves.  It involves answering questions like, Who have I hurt?  How have I settled for less than I could have given?  Have I practiced what I have preached to others?  Do I like what I have done?

In the thirteenth century a Spaniard, Raimon Lull, pursued a woman and attempted to woo her.  After many years, Lull finally succeeded in arranging a secret rendezvous.

Silently she revealed a body wracked by cancer.  Raimon Lull’s life changed.  Turning from his life’s course, he became an eminent theologian.

While illustrative of how change happens, Raimon Lull was only able to chart a new life for himself because he asked himself to face the meaning of his actions.  This was not the easy path but it was the one that led him to realize his potential and self-worth.

Ellul, this month, is when we are directed to practice Heshbon HaNefesh.  What an inventory allows us to do is make a fresh start.  In our siddur is a quote from Martin Buber, “You cannot find redemption until you see the flaws in your own soul.”  All change starts with seeing a real reflection of our self, flaws included.

The Talmud teaches us in its pithy fashion, “Blessing is found only in a thing hidden from the eye.”  Change is not easy; it requires great courage; but it yields profound blessing and it all begins when we circle back to the beginning and are fearless in looking at who we have become.

Get ready for Ellul is here.

Who may ascent the mountain of the Lord?

Who may stand in His holy abode?

One who has clean hands and a pure heart. (Psalms 24)

Length of Days

It was ordained that no one should live beyond 120 years.  That number represents the outer boundaries of human life.  Moshe rabbenu died when he was that age.  For this reason, Jews have often said as a blessing to one another, “May you live to 120!”

It seems that staying alive is an art: eat the right foods, do the right exercise, take the correct vitamins and you may be rewarded with longevity.  It is usually a blessing to live a long life, although it is not always.    The Jewish approach to life is one of quality not quantity.  What good does innumerable years of misery amount to?  The only positive part about such a long life is that it gives us ample opportunity to “get it together.”

Here is an authentic Jewish approach to meaningful years:

Rabbi Hannina said, “Much have I learned from my teachers, more from my friends, and yet more from my students.”   -Talmud, Taanit 7a

Events are teachers.  Failures are teachers.  Successes are teachers.  And students are teachers…only if we are paying attention.

Meaningful living is connected with growth.   Through the millennia we have hoisted the idea that learning ennobles the soul and enriches life.  It lends quality to our years.  There is an old adage, “the more things change the more they remain the same.”   What a terrible statement about life.  While it is true that human nature may remain the same we do not have to accept that for ourselves.   We do not have to sop growing just because we pass out of teenage years.  As David’s poem goes, “even in old age they shall bring forth fruit.”  -Psalm 92 

Growth can be ongoing.  And each time we gain wisdom our universe glows a bit brighter.  Life looms larger.  The colors of the world become invested with greater vibrancy.  And length of pales beside the quality of each moment lived.

When Rabbi Noach assumed the rabbinical post from his father, Rabbi Mordecai, his followers noticed subtle changes in the way he did things.  His ways were unlike his father.  The disciples gather and asked why he was conducting himself so differently.  He answered, “I do just as my father did.  Just as he did not imitate, so I do not imitate.”

A life that matters comes from an open heart and an open mind.   Open them to Torah.

On Differences

On Differences

In his book Intolerance, Henrick Van Loon describes a primitive people who lived in a remote valley surrounded by treacherous mountains.  They had a belief that beyond their home, outside the valley, lived vile and dangerous evil spirits.  If anyone ventured beyond their homeland they would surely perish. 

Once a courageous villager made his way to the outer world.  After along time, he returned and reported what he had found.  When they heard what he had done, the villagers immediately put him to death for blasphemy.

The story has real implications for the way we approach those who voice dissent.  We do not put them to death but often we marginalize them.  We call them “misled” or “deranged” (poor thing!).

In our faith, we encourage questioning.  That is what the Talmudic tradition is all about.  Only by asking thoughtful questions do we arrive at new understanding and real personal  growth.  Here is an example.  In the Torah, it states, “Do not oppress the stranger because you were strangers in Egypt.”  Exodus 23:9

There are four named methods to interpreting any verse in the Torah.  Below they are applied to not oppressing the stranger.

The first is called “p’shat.”  “P’shat” is the obvious meaning of the text.   Exodus 23 indicates that we are not allowed to take people who are “not like us” and treat them as less than equals.  This is especially true where the “others” are a minority and already at a disadvantage, as we once were in Egypt.  Rashi adds that if we taunt the stranger they have every right to respond, “But weren’t you once just like me?”

Additionally, the Hebrew word for stranger is the same as convert.  The verse has the added meaning of respecting those who cast their lot with the Jewish people.  They must be accepted as any born Jew.

The second methodology is called, “remez,” hint.  Every Hebrew letter has a numerical equivalent (called gematria).  “Stranger” has the same value as “limb.”  What this comes to teach us is that a stranger is actually a part of us, a member of the same body.  Why would we hurt ourselves?

Author Naomi Remen describes speaking with a Holocaust survivor.  Here is what he says regarding strangers:  “I say to Him ‘God, is it ok to ‘luuf strangers?’  And God says to me, ‘Yitzak, vat is dis strangers?  You make strangers.  I don’t make strangers’.”

In other words, the word “stranger “is subjective and negative.  Nobody has to be a stranger unless we make them so.

Third is “drash.”  In explaining the verse in terms of “drash,” the rabbis note that the parsha in which this mitzvah comes is right after the one with the Ten Commandments and it begins with the conjunction “and.”  Therefore, they say, not oppressing the stranger is equal to any commandment given at Mt. Sinai.  This is a big mitzvah.

Finally, the last method of interpretation is called “sod,” or secret.  A prominent modern rabbi, Noach Weinberg, has made the observation that the motivating force for Jews is “program or pogrom.”  In other words, it takes a lot to shake us out of humdrum lifestyle.  We do not change easily.  Only when we are challenged do we open ourselves to real growth.  The “sod” of not oppressing the stranger is: When the day comes that the stranger will be one with us, we will be at the portals of the messianic era.

It may be said that arguments for the sake of heaven are the pathways to God.

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?