Reading Parshat Naso, one wonders how the Princes of each tribe felt when they realized they each brought the same gift. Imagine a bridal shower, they lovely young couple gets a lovely crystal vase. Very pretty. The 2nd gift, the same vase, the 3rd, the 4th, the tenth, maybe by now they are not so excited.
In life, we have a lot of repetitive patterns of how we dress, of work responsibility, of chores. When I buy clothes for the kids, I can get blue for Daniel, or pink for the girls; it used to be that my own shirt options were basically white and light blue. It can be hard to find ways to express ourselves.
In Payless last week, Hannah found a pair of shoes that were labelled “You be you.” For $7, you can buy authenticity, you can actually buy being yourself!
Obviously, authenticity is much deeper. You can’t rely on rainbow shoes for authenticity. The fact that they can sell “being you” speaks to our deep, unmet need for self-expression. I can’t pull of wearing rainbow shoes. Am I really able to express my deepest self?
I want to share a Talmudic sugiya that speaks to a Jewish view of authenticity. The sugiya is speaking specifically about prayer, but I invite you to read it as a statement about authenticity in general:
Mishnah Berachot 4:4
Rabbi Eliezer said: He who makes his prayer fixed (keva), his prayer is not supplication.
Gemara: Brachot 29b
What is the meaning of “fixed”?
R. Yaakov bar Idi said in the name of R. Oshaya: Anyone whose prayer is like a burden on him.
And the Rabbis say: Anyone who does not recite [his prayer] in a supplicatory manner.
Rabbah and Rav Yosef both say: [This refers to] anyone who is unable to innovate something [in his prayer].
R. Zeira said: I am able to innovate something in [my prayer], but I am afraid to do so lest I become confused.
Abaya bar Avin and R. Chanina bar Avin both say: Anyone who does not pray during the redness of the sun.
I invite us to think about this as a general statement of authenticity. I see in this text 4 approaches:
1. Attitude: Yes, I do the same thing, but it’s about bringing an emotionally engaged attitude
2. Interpretation: I can conform but have an individualized mindset—what kavannah do I bring to a repetitive task?
3. addition: I have to find a way to express myself—add to what is given me
4. response: I have to live in response to outside—not just me expressing myself, but world making impression on me
Expression through interpretation,
For Yaakov and the rabbis, repetition is a fact of life. The question is, what attitude do we bring to bear? How do we interpret the task?
In our parsha, the chiefs of each tribe bring the same gift. The midrash, however, sees each of them having different symbolism. For Issachar, for example, the gifts represented Torah study, something with which Issachar dedicated themselves to. My favorite interpretation in that midrash is for Dan, the tribe which the nazirite Sampson belonged to: the silver bowl represents the shaved head of the nazirite.
When we talk about kavannah in prayer, we are adding through interpretation: yes, I say “you are holy,” but how can I be holy like God today?
I heard about a janitor in a hospital who loved his job. I would have a hard time: spend 20 minutes cleaning a roomn, then go to another dirty room. What is transformed? The place is the same at the end of the day—there’s not much to show for my work. I would find the repetition depressing. This janitor, hgowever, had a positive attitude: she was helping people heal. How we see our situation can make it deeply meaningful
This approach sometimes doesn’t feel enough. My personal challenge is Wednesday’s song of the day: “Arise, god of retribution & judge the earth”-that’s kind of a scary thought. I think our world needs less retribution, more healing. Also, we read “when will you simpletons listen”-not a phrase I use much. I davven it in Hebrew & ignore the English. That’s not a very authentic solution.
Sometimes interpretation doesn’t get you quite far enough
Expression
According to Ravvah & Yosef, we have to add content. Authentic expression is a deep need. The Talmud says “the seal of god is truth,” something we echo by saying at the end of the Shema “adonay eloheychem emet,” The Lord your God is truth.—if we aren’t speaking the truth, we are not saying anything holy
I once went on pilgrimage over Rosh Hashanah to Rebbe Nahman’s grave, in Uman, near Kiev. There were tens of thousands of Jews, like us, not Hassidim, Israelies, Americans and others, davenning, celebrating Rosh Hashanah. Most Hassidic sects they all dress the same, but this was a beautiful variety of Jews. I attended a class where a leader of the movement told us that they do not encourage 1 form of dress, because then it wouldn’t be lev basar, a heart of flesh (lev basar has the same letters as Breslav, Rebbe Nahman’s birthplace). Here was the annual gathering of an international Hassidic movement saying that in principle, we should all express ourselves differently.
About 9 years ago, Tanya and I were visited by Rabbi Jack Gabriel, who taught us a unique way of doing the blessing before the meal. We hold hands, and say what we are grateful for. When Aliza was 3, she would always say “Thank you for the pool, thank you playground;” she eventually matured to superman. It was real—that’s what she was grateful to God for, so it was holy.
3rd opinion:
The last approach in the sugiya is that authenticity is not just about expressing myself. It’s sbout noticing what’s going on around me, internalizing it, allowing it to impact me, and responding. I could say “it’s 8:30, time to davven.” Or I could say, “wow, look at the sun rise, Blessed are you God who makes lights!” On this approach, we should focus less on self-expression, and more on letting the world make an impression on us. We need to observe the world around us, the people around us, celebrate great things, and respond to the needs we see
You can buy “you be you” rainbow shoes on sale for $7 at payless). But, obviously, you can’t buy real authenticity. Living truly authrntic lives means connecting to our hearts, trusting that bthere is some truth and value to what is there, and also letting our hearts be impacted by the world around us.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Yitro 5779: Shame and Murder
We read this Shabbat about the 10 commandments. We tend to think these are ingrained in the fabric of our society—just look at people trying to plaster them on the sides of courthouses—we think they are the basis for Western morality. But the fact is, many of them are flouted.
The first commandment, which Rambam says is to know there is a God: many people nowadays say they are atheists. The truth is, the God they don’t believe in, is a God I don’t believe in and in fact the overwhelming history of Jewish thought rejects. There is no invisible guy way up high in an invisible castle. Believing in God means believing in goodness, in right, that there is something toward which I personally strive that is greater than myself, and toward which we try to move the world.
Sadly, murder seems to be becoming more common—most recently, the bank shooting up the road in Sebring, where a gunman pointlessly murdered 5 victims on cold blood. I do not believe our society is adequately teaching the sanctity of life.
The Talmud says that there is more than one way to murder somebody. According to the Talmud, public shaming—halbanat panim—is a form of murder. Why is shaming a type of murder? On a literal level, halbanat panim means to make one’s face white—if I shame you and make your face pale, I have shed the blood from your face.
On a more figurative level, we are social animals. My livelihood, my experience in society, depends on what others think of me. Destroying someone’s reputation is destroying the life they built
I have been thinking this week about the video of the student from Covington, who smirked at older native American drumming. A picture of this was put on twitter with a very judgmental caption claiming the student was harassing the native American. The tweet went viral, was even re-tweeted by the congresswoman from Minnesota. This led to threats of expulsion from the school, and even a death threat against student.
It turns out the student was not harassing anybody. The elderly Native American had approached their protest, and was drumming in their faces. They just stood their ground. Should they have smirked and been silly? No, they were disrespectful, but they did not deserve to be dragged over the coals in front of millions of people.
We cannot let ourselves be recruited by the forces of judgment, into believing shameful things about others. The Jewish tradition teaches us to give the benefit of the doubt, and this will take the ammunition away from the forces of judging and embarrassing. Pictures can always be interpreted multiple ways. Giving the benefit of the doubt means to question the caption, and assume the best—they were kids, thought it was funny, and were singing along. Nothing about the video suggested anything more.
We live in a society where people are judged & shamed, and lives & livelihoods are ruined. To not kill, is to not participate in killing, in ruining another’s life, by believing in the positive, giving the benefit of the doubt, and helping build, create life rather than destroy
The first commandment, which Rambam says is to know there is a God: many people nowadays say they are atheists. The truth is, the God they don’t believe in, is a God I don’t believe in and in fact the overwhelming history of Jewish thought rejects. There is no invisible guy way up high in an invisible castle. Believing in God means believing in goodness, in right, that there is something toward which I personally strive that is greater than myself, and toward which we try to move the world.
Sadly, murder seems to be becoming more common—most recently, the bank shooting up the road in Sebring, where a gunman pointlessly murdered 5 victims on cold blood. I do not believe our society is adequately teaching the sanctity of life.
The Talmud says that there is more than one way to murder somebody. According to the Talmud, public shaming—halbanat panim—is a form of murder. Why is shaming a type of murder? On a literal level, halbanat panim means to make one’s face white—if I shame you and make your face pale, I have shed the blood from your face.
On a more figurative level, we are social animals. My livelihood, my experience in society, depends on what others think of me. Destroying someone’s reputation is destroying the life they built
I have been thinking this week about the video of the student from Covington, who smirked at older native American drumming. A picture of this was put on twitter with a very judgmental caption claiming the student was harassing the native American. The tweet went viral, was even re-tweeted by the congresswoman from Minnesota. This led to threats of expulsion from the school, and even a death threat against student.
It turns out the student was not harassing anybody. The elderly Native American had approached their protest, and was drumming in their faces. They just stood their ground. Should they have smirked and been silly? No, they were disrespectful, but they did not deserve to be dragged over the coals in front of millions of people.
We cannot let ourselves be recruited by the forces of judgment, into believing shameful things about others. The Jewish tradition teaches us to give the benefit of the doubt, and this will take the ammunition away from the forces of judging and embarrassing. Pictures can always be interpreted multiple ways. Giving the benefit of the doubt means to question the caption, and assume the best—they were kids, thought it was funny, and were singing along. Nothing about the video suggested anything more.
We live in a society where people are judged & shamed, and lives & livelihoods are ruined. To not kill, is to not participate in killing, in ruining another’s life, by believing in the positive, giving the benefit of the doubt, and helping build, create life rather than destroy
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Vaera 5779: Hardening our Hearts and Gun Violence
Vaera 5779
In our parsha, we read about the first seven of the ten plagues, and Pharoah's famous reaction, his heart hardening over and over.
What does it mean to have a hard heart? To say “I don't care.” Balls of fire & ice destroying the trees? I don't care. Cattle dying? I don't care. Nobody has anything to drink, to eat? I don't care. I don't care what happens to other people—it doesn't affect me. Pharoah only cares at the tenth plague, when his own firstborn son dies.
All of us have the experience of our hearts hardening, of becoming desensitized to suffering. Shootings are not news, they need to be mass shootings. There are so many shocking things going on in the world—starvation in Yemen, oppression in Saudi Arabia, you name it-that we are just used to it.
When we no longer cry, really we are like Pharoah, our hearts have turned to stone. It happens to all of us, myself included. My chaplaincy supervisor, Joe Leggieri, once said that when you no longer cry, you're not fit to be a chaplain anymore. But the truth is, it's the only way we survive. I had a friend worked in hospice chaplaincy, and who used to joke he was friends with the angel of death; when he had terminal cancer, he made the same comment. When we see suffering on such a regular way, we get used to it, even befriend it.
I have to wonder whether we have become desensitized to gun violence. When shootings fade into the background, and we just shake our heads and accept them as a fact of life, our hearts have become hardened. There was a shooting in the Wellington Mall Christmas eve—how crazy is that? Today, the final draft of the Stoneman Douglas report was released. On the one hand, it is a great sign that people are not letting this issue die, fade into memory like Columbine and Sandy Hook. I am so impressed by the students of MSDHS, who took it to the streets of Tallahassee, Orlando (Disney's Main Street), DC, and even ran for office to keep this issue alive. They refused to let it become a memory, to fade into the history books.
One of the primary recommendations of the report was that teachers should be allowed to carry guns. I am not going to weigh in on the merits of whether teachers should pack; we have an armed security guard here, and thank God for that. The problem is, if a shooter comes around, they will go somewhere else instead. We have not solved the underlying issue, we have come to accept it
We cannot afford to accept as a society the idea that deranged individuals, students who torture animals and classmates, should have access to weapons. We cannot simply accept that deranged individuals will act in hostile ways and not be held accountable. If we do, if we simply accept that the bad guys will have guns, then our hearts have become hardened. Yes, we do need to protect ourselves, to have an armed guard, but we also need to keep questioning how we have become such a violent country.
This week's parsha challenges all of us to maintain a heart of flesh, a heart which feels the pain of others, not to become complacent. Rebbe Nahman says that if we find our heart becoming desensitized, we should bang our head against the wall of our heart, we should tell ourselves to wake up, to remember this is painful, this is not right.
Torah challenges all of us to keep our hearts sensitive to everyone around us, to feel even minor sufferings of the individuals around us, and through this to create a humane society & world.
Shabbat Shalom.
In our parsha, we read about the first seven of the ten plagues, and Pharoah's famous reaction, his heart hardening over and over.
What does it mean to have a hard heart? To say “I don't care.” Balls of fire & ice destroying the trees? I don't care. Cattle dying? I don't care. Nobody has anything to drink, to eat? I don't care. I don't care what happens to other people—it doesn't affect me. Pharoah only cares at the tenth plague, when his own firstborn son dies.
All of us have the experience of our hearts hardening, of becoming desensitized to suffering. Shootings are not news, they need to be mass shootings. There are so many shocking things going on in the world—starvation in Yemen, oppression in Saudi Arabia, you name it-that we are just used to it.
When we no longer cry, really we are like Pharoah, our hearts have turned to stone. It happens to all of us, myself included. My chaplaincy supervisor, Joe Leggieri, once said that when you no longer cry, you're not fit to be a chaplain anymore. But the truth is, it's the only way we survive. I had a friend worked in hospice chaplaincy, and who used to joke he was friends with the angel of death; when he had terminal cancer, he made the same comment. When we see suffering on such a regular way, we get used to it, even befriend it.
I have to wonder whether we have become desensitized to gun violence. When shootings fade into the background, and we just shake our heads and accept them as a fact of life, our hearts have become hardened. There was a shooting in the Wellington Mall Christmas eve—how crazy is that? Today, the final draft of the Stoneman Douglas report was released. On the one hand, it is a great sign that people are not letting this issue die, fade into memory like Columbine and Sandy Hook. I am so impressed by the students of MSDHS, who took it to the streets of Tallahassee, Orlando (Disney's Main Street), DC, and even ran for office to keep this issue alive. They refused to let it become a memory, to fade into the history books.
One of the primary recommendations of the report was that teachers should be allowed to carry guns. I am not going to weigh in on the merits of whether teachers should pack; we have an armed security guard here, and thank God for that. The problem is, if a shooter comes around, they will go somewhere else instead. We have not solved the underlying issue, we have come to accept it
We cannot afford to accept as a society the idea that deranged individuals, students who torture animals and classmates, should have access to weapons. We cannot simply accept that deranged individuals will act in hostile ways and not be held accountable. If we do, if we simply accept that the bad guys will have guns, then our hearts have become hardened. Yes, we do need to protect ourselves, to have an armed guard, but we also need to keep questioning how we have become such a violent country.
This week's parsha challenges all of us to maintain a heart of flesh, a heart which feels the pain of others, not to become complacent. Rebbe Nahman says that if we find our heart becoming desensitized, we should bang our head against the wall of our heart, we should tell ourselves to wake up, to remember this is painful, this is not right.
Torah challenges all of us to keep our hearts sensitive to everyone around us, to feel even minor sufferings of the individuals around us, and through this to create a humane society & world.
Shabbat Shalom.
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