Connection

  Long ago when my son wanted to play with me, he would use this argument, “Abba, if you won’t play with me, I will not be your best friend.”  Always a good attention-grabber.  Turning toward him, I responded, “I do not have to be your best friend. I am your father.  I love you but I don’t have to be your best friend.”

 

What happens behind the scenes takes place somewhere deep in the psyche – unspoken but ever-present – is love.  My son threatens me that unless I do what he wants he will no longer love me.  Love lies at the heart of this and all relationships.

 

Love is tenacious; it defies all logic and reason.  That much I have learned from the instances of betrayal I have dealt with through the years – where the one who was betrayed refuses to give up.  The adultery for them is like an apparition or nightmare.  Soon they will wake up and it will all be gone, they believe.  Love is also tentative; it is never sure that it really exists and it is impossible to test.  How do you know you re loved?  Because they say so?  Or because you feel that way?  What if that love is challenged?  How do we cope with the assault on our feelings?

 

A woman came to me with a complaint.  Her husband had left her and now in the wake of her abandonment she had problems with giving and receiving love.  There were several relationships sin the intervening years and each was a dismal failure.  She whispered in barely audible voice that she believed life had harden her to the point where she was no longer capable of love.

 

We have all been abandoned at various points in our life.  Doesn’t society tell us to seek out new and separate lives from our families, not in avoidance of love but in self-interest, to develop our abilities.  Families do not eat together.  Time is fragmented.  There are plays, ballet and sports.  Mom works.  Dad complains of overwork,  Even vacations are spent being entertained with specific interest and not as a whole unit.  Travel packages cater to programs for all ages.  The result?  More time spent apart.  Family gathering are infrequent, if at all.  Once grandparents and grandchildren lived together.  Now we are on polite and distant terms.  And love suffers.

 

The word “religion” comes from the Latin root meaning “to bind.”  It is little surprise then that as families have drifted apart so has modernity lost its moorings to faith.  

 

Now and then we encounter moments when loneliness and separation dissipate and we converge, as one.  One such time are the Days of Awe.  We come together as a fragmented, broken family to renew our bonds as distant relations and to God as equals.

 

During the Holy Days we recite a litany of sins:

>For the sin of spitefulness

>For the sin of corruption

>For the sin of xenophobia

>For the sin of lying

>For the sin of evading taxed

>For the sin of lust

>For the sin of stealing

All these are presented before the Master of thew universe, pitiful creatures all, seeking the same thing.  Forgiveness.  Absolution.  Healing the brokenness of our hearts and families.

 

In the midrash God quotes Jeremiah: “I have loved you with an eternal love.” (31:3)  “Note that the phrase does not say “endless love” but an eternal love.  Otherwise, you might think that God loves us for two or three year or maybe one hundred years.  But H=s love is everlasting, to all eternity.”

 

Coming together at synagogue on the Holy Days is the great leveler of humanity.  We come seeking love and acceptance and are given it.  We laugh, cry, shudder and touch one another.  The unspoken question: What has happened to us?  And whereto from here?  How can we turn ourselves into a whole one, not fragmented torn and lonely?

 

It is our tradition that a Jew be buried in their own tallit.  We would do well to remember that life is short.  Give up the ego. Check it at the door or in the cloakroom.  Find yourself with those who also want to find themselves and their lost connection.

Hanukkah O Hannuka! Come Light the Menorah!

Hanukkah and Purim have a number of similarities.  They are both minor holidays that are outsize in the way we celebrate them.  Another is they are both about anti-Semitism.  On Purim the villain, Haman, wants to destroy the Jews.  On Hanukkah the enemy are the Greeks.  Both stories have great drama with the aim of eliminating the Jews almost succeeds but, in the end, after much pain and near failure, the enemy is vanquished and we are free.

 

In Dara Horns’ People Love Dead Jews, there is a chapter on the anti-Semitism where she distinguishes between what she calls “the Hanukkah version of anti-Semitism” and “the Purim version of anti-Semitism.” Hanukkah anti-Semitism is that which destroys Jewish civilization from the inside by pressuring Jews to gradually become non-Jews, while Purim anti-Semitism is a little bit more direct: kill all the Jews.

 

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries we have witnessed both forms of anti-Semitism.  They are each insidious and seek to eradicate us from the earth.  It is a lesson we would rather avoid confronting which is why we go to such great lengths to change the import and practices of the holidays.  Purim has become a time of revelry and drinking (without recalling that the reason for getting intoxicated is to forget the pain of those who tried to murder us).  Hanukkah has morphed into a mimicry of Christmas with gifts being exchanged and eight “crazy nights” preferring to put aside the whole idea of assimilation to the point of our disappearance.

 

There is nothing wrong with either practice so long as we do not forget the primary reason we observe these holidays.  And so that these words are not misunderstood, the lesson is not “they tried to kill us, let’s eat”; it is listening to the “still small voice” of G-d and acknowledging our place in the great chain of tradition that spans the epochs.  We are not Jews because of anti-Semitism: there is anti-Semitism because we are Jews.  It is tragic if we forget this.

 

I have learned from survivors that there were two reactions to the Nazi assault on our people.  One was utter bewilderment.  “Why is this happening to me?  I am a proud German (or other nationality) and have served my country patriotically.”  That they were Jewish was incidental to their lives, hence their confusion why they were being slated for death.   The other was an understanding.  “I know why they hate me.”  Both types were filled with horror but the latter understood that living Jewishly was why they were being afflicted.  They grasped and accepted the meaning and import of Hanukkah and Purim.

 

Traditionally, on Hanukkah we read psalm 30.  One line reads, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”  Hanukkah’s epic tale contains deeply emotional aspects of assimilation and hatred.  The psalm undergirds the meaning and hope that we express on the festival of lights.  The twin hopes we aspire to integrate on the upcoming holiday are to live an authentic Jewish life in consonance with what G-d has given and to know that doing so will infuse those tiny wicks with new meaning; flames, sparks and embers that can lift our spirits and elevate our souls.

 

After the Holy Days

 We have passed through a bubbling cauldron of contradictory and complex thoughts.  First, we anticipated the New Year, Rosh Hashanah, by preparing ourselves for meeting G-d and being fully aware and grateful of another year of life granted.  Then we fasted and afflicted out minds and souls with an unfiltered look at the detritus accumulated through this past year.  All out wrongdoings were views through a realistic prism of tarnished thoughts, actions, and inactions.  We atoned, weeping for ourselves and our loss of life's path.  Then came Sukkot with its heavily grounding in the earth - waving palms and etrogs, sitting in our Sukkot, reading the challenging ideas of Ecclesiastes…  Then came Yizkor on Shmini Atzeret, and finally dancing and celebrating our gift form G-d on Simchat Torah.  Joy, sadness, celebration, contemplation, remembrance….so many varied thoughts and practices as the summer recedes blending into Fall.

And now.

What is life about?  

Perspective.  Viewing life’s events through the lens of growth and hope.  Here is a story to illustrate.

A writer sat in his study. He picked up his pen and began to write:

** Last year, my gall bladder was removed. I was stuck in bed due to this surgery for a long time.

** The same year I reached the age of 60 and had to give up my favorite job. I had spent 30 years of my life with this publishing company.

** The same year I experienced the death of my father.

** In the same year my son failed in his medical exam because he had a car accident. He had to stay in the hospital with a cast on his leg for several days. 

** And the destruction of the car was a second loss.

At the end he wrote: Alas! It was such bad year!!

 

When the writer's wife entered the room, she found her husband looking sad and lost in his thoughts. From behind his back she read what was written on his paper. She left the room silently and came back shortly with another paper on which she had written her summery of the year and placed it beside her husband's writing.

 

When the writer saw her paper, he read:

** Last year I finally got rid of my gall bladder which had given me many years of pain.

** I turned 60 with sound health and retired from my job. Now I can utilize my time to write better and with more focus and peace.

** The same year my father, at the age of 95 without depending on anyone and without any critical conditions, met his Creator.

** The same year, God blessed my son with life. My car was destroyed, but my son was alive and without permanent disability.

At the end she wrote: This year was an immense blessing and it passed well!

 

The purpose of all our holy days is to make us reframe our lives, refocusing our emotional and cognitive energies on a life that is meaningful.  That is why there are so many wild swings in practice and import.  The sum total of our days will be judged by how we interpret it.  Let us use this time in the aftermath of such a powerful series of prompts to consider how we can alter the pattern of our days.

Life's Path

 What is most important in being a Jew?

If you asked each person you know they would come up with a different response.  We look, study, and integrate what is most important to us and that will differ from person to person. Answers would probably wildly range from being guardians of the earth and protecting the environment, to social justice, to loving people, forgiving those who harmed you, getting close to G-d, showing kindness to strangers, repairing the world and on and on.

 

The ancient rabbis also reflected deeply on what is most critical in being a Jew.  One said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself:” another stated “If it hateful to you do not do it to others.”  And then there is the old argument about whether if one had to choose one over the other - study or practice- which is preferable?  (Study won that discussion.)  Even “Google” weighs in on the question and determined pikuach nefesh, saving a life, was most important.

 

This is the season when we contemplate the course of our lives.  Inevitably what will come to mind are the places where we veered from our elected path.  It is our judgment call how we assess ourselves and what intend on changing, based on what we think is most important.

 

One question that we should also consider during this auspicious time of year is, “What makes me happy?”  Now do not be deceived into thinking, “Oh, that is an easy question.”  It is not.  It may be the most difficult question you ever ask.  

One writer answered this way; “I want to believe there’s some reason for living….”   This is a wise response.

 

When the day ends, and you lay down to sleep what determines whether it was a good day or one that was wasted?  I suspect we make that determination based on doing what makes us happy.  Can you answer that?  If you can, you hold the key that unlocks the door marked “a contented life.”  Not every day will be contended or happy but if we know that drives us, our reason for being alive, we can then be a whole body and soul, not one that is distracted and unfocused.

 

No two people are alike.  Everyone will come up with a different answer to their life's pathway, one that touches them soulfully.  Of course, there will be similarities, but one core Jewish belief is that we all have something vital and unique to contribute to the world.  Acting on that innate gift not only allows us a genuine sense of contentment but also provides a necessary ingredient to the world’s brokenness that only we can provide.

 

Answering the question of your life’s pathway is exhilarating and liberating as you no longer need be enslaved by what your neighbors, community or world thinks.  You are your own universe capable of greatness and joy. No wonder the psalmist informs, “You have made us little less than angels.” (ps. 8) 

 

Viktor Frankl challenged, “Being human means being conscious and being responsible.”  What Frankl means is that we must work to find our life’s passage, the reason for our being, why we exist and then mete it out.  In its wake, will come contentment.

 

Holy Days

I remember a story told of Baron de Rothschild’s wife going into labor.  She cried out, “Mon dieu, mon dieu!”  Her husband rushed to the doctor and told him to come quickly.

“What is happening?” the doctor asked.  She cried, “Mon dieu, mon dieu!”

“Just wait a bit longer,” the doctor soothed.

Again she cried, My God!”  And again the doctor counseled patience, “She is not ready.”

Finally she moaned, “Oy vey!”  Then the doctor rushed in.

 

The words we say over this next month of Ellul leading to the High Holy Days, the Yamim Noraim, are powerful.  But when they are infused with meaning they become something that transcends the words on the page or anything that can be uttered.  When we cry out in anguish over our internal pain, the ones we have suffered and the ones we have caused, it rises to the highest heights of heaven.

 

The shofar cries.  Shevarim are like the gasps of breath we take between our choked tears.  The teruah discharges throaty cries that consume us. The shofar does not simply blast, it weeps.  One hundred times the shofar cries.  According to tradition, these are the number of tears shed by a mother whose son was killed in battle.  A parent who will never again see their child.  Each shriek from the shofar is a tear.  

 

One tear for the estrangement between you and your relative.

One tear for the friend lost because of intransigence, the inability to forgive.

One tear for the lies told, even the “white” ones.

One tear for the homeless child who waits for his mother to return home from begging or selling herself.  In Columbia.

One tear for the victim of cancer.

One tear for refusing to take five minutes to help someone in distress.

One tear for not rising to our potential.

One tear for love lost.

One tear for saying, “I have no time to help” when what we really meant was, “not interested.”

One tear when we promised to be present but were too preoccupied to be there.

One tear from the promise we made to live Jewishly.

 

Words are insufficient when the shofar cries its staccato sounds.  And words no longer matter when we weep our losses for each tear wends its way to God.  Ribbono shel Olam said through the blinding passion of wet tears of regret and sorrow, is enough to penetrate any space between our Maker and us.  And more.  It is enough to make the Holy One weep alongside us -- just as we once wept on the shoulder of our parent and their heart was ready to burst in compassion.

 

It takes courage to weep for our insufficiencies, our wrongs, and losses.  The shofar and ech meaningful word we shout out to God urges us to take one more step and allow our cheeks to become wet with our pain.  It takes empathy to cry for the wounded world we have made, for the hungry eyes that stare at us from Finley Park, for the Israelis that live in constant fear of a state of war, for the Ukrainians that have needlessly suffered and for the neighbor down the street that returns to an empty, silent home at the end of the day.

 

These yamim noraim are aimed at stopping us from blaming.  We hold ourselves responsible.  Can we be courageous enough to face ourselves?  Are we courageous enough to cry for our pain?

 

During the year we pray for one another.  Now, we pray for us.  We pray for the strength and courage to take a long look at what and who we have become.  And God?  God holds us tightly, enveloping us in celestial arms and weeps at our return.

Knowing, Unknowing and Change

What would we change if we knew what existed beyond space and time?

Have you ever wondered how different your life would be if you knew what you now know?  

 

 

Jacob, father of our people, lived a life of paradoxes.  He and his descendants brought and spread monotheism and morality; they produced marvelous inventions, creations that changed the way the world thinks and imagine, and became the fixed point of the attention for humanity.  Yet, Father Jacob was both a hero and a deceiver. While his story is the foundational point for the world and his life was often adrift in an almost unfathomable series of choices, most of his own making, each one full of adventure, promise, redemption, and terror.

 

“O human race! Born to ascend on wings,

Why do ye fall at such a little wind?” -Dante

 

Jacob’s majestic dream mirrors his life.  He climbs a ladder to unimaginable heights and plummets to earth faster than his ascent.  On Pesach, we say “My father [Jacob] was a wandering Aramean…”  What if those words were exchanged for “My father was a deceiver?”  Choices.  With the whisp of a single breeze he/we are compelled inwardly to choose one way over another, and life is diverted and never be as it once was or could have been had we elected a different track.

 

Life is full, brimming with endless possibilities.  We make decisions, never knowing what might happen if we choose another course.  Endless are the possibilities of what might have been at another college, making another career choice, a different mate, an uttered the word from our heart instead of withholding it before death intervened and took away that opportunity; and far too quickly we become so absorbed in the life we elected that we forget what else might have been.  We sometimes imagine alternate realities in our dreams and thoughtfully reflect on those choices as the years pass come back to us in moments of deep introspection.

 

In Kabbalah it is called the “shattering of the vessels.”  This is the brokenness we experience when we consider the wrongness of the path taken and the harm and pain we feel and relive over and again.  Interestingly though, Kabbalah does not view the cracked vessels we have become as mistakes but as opportunities.

 

If we knew then what we know now how would we change the trajectory of our lives?  What choices would we tell ourselves to avoid?  And which would we opt to take?

 

Jacob made some awful decisions; his tale is one of flight, fall and acceptance.  His life is our own.  It is no coincidence that we are called Israel, which ultimately became Jacob’s name after he realized that life was not about self-doubt but listening to the gentle breeze and accepting what G-d brings to us.

 

Jews are master storytellers.  At Passover we not only share the story of the Exodus but the seders of our youth, yarns about our grandfather, the long nights of the past, the aroma of soup boiling in the kitchen...  Each year we retell the victory of the Maccabees with their inspiring narratives.  We read stories each week at Shabbat services. And we are actors, comedians, and chapters of our lives each telling the story of a different adventure.  Sure, we know the outcome and when telling the story, we cannot help but wonder and imagine what might have been a different outcome had we been wiser.

 

But we are not.  

 

The saga of our lives is like Jacob/Israel.  We are lost and found.  We despair and are galvanized by hope.  Each step taken has been replete with meaning, both intended and unimaginable but not without meaning.

 

Like Jacob/Israel we have travelled to distant places with different outcomes, most of them in our mind’s eye as the stories grow and morph as we learn to view them through the lens of our newfound maturity.  We can see our footprints in the many stories we tell about ourselves.  They have been full, meaningful, and even if some have been missteps we are buoyed by the words of the Kabbalah, the breaking of the vessels has presented us with new opportunities.

 

At any given moment we exist in the summer of our lives, full of expectation and dreams and choices yet to come.  We are the story and each day we write a new chapter.

Time

When we were young a day was an enormous passage of time.  A few hours at the beach would stretch out toward infinity.  It lasted forever.    Thirty minutes at the playground felt like an entire day.  Clocks used to run slower then.  And one moment, frozen in our memory, sometimes informs the rest of our lives.  Who does not have a lasting memory of being told you were thick-headed or stupid?  Or being chosen last at the game?  Or being told how intelligent/beautiful/clever/incompetent you were?  This moment stands out in our thoughts and comes back time and again reminding us of that powerful event that stays with us the rest of our lives. A split second comment we heard at six years old resonates eighty years later.

 

With age, time speeds up significantly as days blur into weeks.  We are still impacted by what happens to us but those moments do not become as calcified in our mind’s eye as earlier, youthful events…and everything happens so much more quickly!

 

Years pass, weeks quicken to months, and ultimately years spin into decades as memories tend to gel and blend into a giant mosaic sometimes resembling more Jackson Pollack than a Rembrandt.  No longer individual pictures, we begin to remember our life’s events as a narrative with large panels depicting the flow of time.

 

Certain ideas become the sole focus that we pursue at specific segments at moments in story of our life.  When were young it was usually mastering some art like running, swimming, gymnastics, creative projects...  School became our primary focus as we grew to understand that much of this learning would eventually develop into an amorphous idea called a “profession” which would yield virtually everything that we needed for the rest of our life.  

 

Responsibilities mounted.  Whether children, relations, dogs, home, car or possessions the amount of energy required to simply stay still is enormous.  We yearn to slow down for time to creep forward the way it used to when we were young.

 

And then one day we are beyond the exigencies of crafting a career, amassing wealth and possessions.  Adrift, what are our priorities as we settle into the winter of our lives?  Have we missed opportunities?    Can we reclaim what was lost?

 

Norman Vincent Peale remarked that when he was young the ticking of his grandfather’s clock was ponderous.  “It seemed to say, “There—is--plenty – of –time.   There—is--plenty – of –time.  There—is--plenty – of –time.   There—is--plenty – of –time.”  But modern clocks, having a shorter pendulum with a swifter stroke, seem to say, “Time to get busy!   Time to get busy!    Time to get busy!    Time to get busy! ” 

Maybe it's time to get a new internal clock, one that covets and savors each precious moment, as when we were young.