Anyway

  

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

 

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

 

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

 

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

 

Honesty makes you vulnerable.
Be honest anyway.

  

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for the underdogs anyway.

 

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

 

People really need help but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.

 

Give the world the best and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

 

 

Slaves

Good news and bad news. 

The bad news is that you are a slave.  

The good news is that you are free to choose your master.  

You can be enslaved to technology.  The trouble with that is that every now and again the “god” goes on the blink.  That can be infuriating.  When you are in the middle of a project and the internet or computer goes on the “fritz” it can cause palpitations.  Or can be a slave to purchasing new things or eating beyond satiation but these too are momentary highs which leave us feeling more empty than before.

Even surrounding ourselves with people, the buzz of never being alone is an enslavement.  They will eventually let us down.  People are often troublesome, stubborn, egotistical and unforgiving.  Believe it or not, education and learning can become a false god.  One wit wrote that Aunt Sadie thought that the eighth day of creation, rivaling God’s crafting of the universe, was when her son Marvin became a doctor!

When we become compulsive about any thing it will inevitably leave us feeling blank and hollow. Few of us control our lives opting instead to choose a master.

Choose God.  Continue your learning. Walk out of doors.  Eat good food.  Practice mitzvot.  Love people. Love the world. Love yourself.  Embrace your soul.  It is all of the above and more.

Nozek

First published  1994

At the far end of the Nozek synagogue in Warsaw, Poland (the last standing shul in the city after the Shoah) stood a slight man with a thin beard.  He shifted uneasily from foot to foot.  Slight wisps of hair rose upon his head like strand of cotton.  His eyes betrayed a nervousness that made him stand out, rather than shrink into invisibly as he seemed to want.  Half trying to hide behind one of the shul’s columns he seems almost tempted to push his way into the group of visitors but too frighted to take that step.  So, there he remained shyly gazing at the visitors into his home.

“Shalom,” I said offering my hand.  He returned the greeting and his Hebrew sounded good so I continued, “I don’t understand.  All the other synagogues in Warsaw, some thirty-five, were razed by the Nazis.  Why did they save this one?  Why is Nozek still standing?“ He looked confused.

“Do you speak French,” he asked.

I was more than two decades since I last uttered any semblance of French.  About all I remembered was “Where is Jean-Pierre?”

I tried to dredge up memories but came up empty.

So I tried again.  Finally, he understood and conveyed through our minimal language that the shul was preserved to be used as a stable for the horses of the invaders.  The synagogue structure still had use for the Nazis after they desecrated it.  Nothing else remained of the once magnificent synagogue.  It was stripped bare.  Where the sacred Torahs once graced the Holy Ark in regal splendor with the finest silver and gold ornaments, there stood an empty cove.  Shreds of prayer books littered the floor.

“I am a rabbi.”

He looked puzzled so I repeated, “I am a rabbi.”

“Ah.”

My thin companion brightened.  He leaned over and whispered, “My name is Christopher. But,” he glanced around to seek out teacher standing by the door,” my name is now Israel.  Shh.”

He was studying to become a Jew.  One of the last ones.

“Are your parents Jewish?”

“Well, yes and no…,” he answered.  “My parents were communists.” I could barely hear his words.

“I understand.”  I gazed at him for a few moments and wondered, what words of encouragement could I give this young man on his journey to reclaim his lost heritage?  It was a long road ahead and I wondered where he was on this pathway.

“Good,” I said.  “Very good.”

He smiled.  “Thank you.”

I held him another moment. “Do you know what teshuvah means?  Yes? You understand that it means you are here.” I pointed.  “And then you go over there.  When you come back here it is called teshuvah.  Return. Welcome home, Israel.”

His eyes grew moist.

“Shalom,” we bade one another.

Amping the dead and dying of Warsaw there are a few lives reaching out from the depths of annihilation.  

Survivors all.  Our obligation is to revitalize our most precious possession.  Be Jewish.  Do Jewish.

 

 

Accentuate the Positive

 “The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side; it has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illness, his sins, but little about his potentialities…”, observed psychologist Abraham Maslow.

 

It is far easier to focus on what is wrong than what is right.  It is what Dennis Prager calls, “the missing tile syndrome.”  You can visit a museum, study great works of art and become enraptured by the beauty that you see.  But, if you happen across a mosaic, fantastic and magnificent in its artisanship and a single tile - out of thousands - is missing, our natural inclination is to focus on the imperfection, the one missing tile, and miss the grander picture.  We are prone to look for flaws and focus on them instead of centering on what is right.  All we see is the broken picture.  

 

If this propensity was limited to artwork, it would not be so inditing, but we tend to do this with people as well.  We see their warts, personality flaws, and limitations while ignoring the whole human being.   What would life be like if we only saw what was best and admirable in people instead of looking for their shortcomings?  Certainly, we would be less critical of others, and accentuate their assets rather than their deficits.  Interestingly, most people would then live up to our positive observations about them: they would rise to our expectations and not live down to negative opinion.  There is an additional incentive to this novel modality; we would be happier people.

 

Most of the world lives with the belief that through economic prosperity, buying and owning more stuff, they are happier.  Wealth is generally measured by how much you have versus your neighbors.  Yet, polls have consistently found that wealth does not correlate with happiness.  Constant pitting oneself against others causes much heartache and dissatisfaction and the tendency to compare wealth feeds the propensity in us to undermine others, i.e., detailing their flaws, through defamation, character assassination or something more insidious.  

 

Bhutan is a tiny country of about one million in the foothills of the Himalayas.  In 1972 the government moved away from the rush to embrace the highest GNP to the GNH, Gross National Happiness.  The populace of Bhutan is not rich, but the general sense of wellbeing and contentment outstrips other countries.  They are happier people.

 

Robert Kennedy incisively said in 1968, “But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task.  It is to confront the poverty of satisfaction...that afflicts us all."  Unhappy people seek to validate their life by comparing themselves to others.  That does not make for a happier life.  The opposite.  To note what is missing from another person's life, or absent in your own, promotes a sense of dissatisfaction.

 

Think about this the next time you compare yourself to another person or hear someone complain about how so-and-so is not a good person because....  This is "the missing tile syndrome."  Life is greater than what we perceive as absent.  The mosaic of life is colorful, grand, and each piece utterly unique.  Everyone is broken.  And everyone is as perfect as they need to be.

 

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.