Seeing Awesome

              

                 

               There is no question that the world is pretty awesome for my daughter.  Granted, she is limited in many ways: she can’t talk, control her bladder, or even walk without bumping her melon frequently.  But, imagine a world where a hanger could provide a solid twenty minutes of entertainment.  Or where an avocado could be more than just food, but a mushy delight for the fingers.  Or where a simple cupboard is a hidden world of endless mystery.  Depth is everywhere, and that is awesome.  On the other end of the spectrum, the scourge of our generation is boredom.  Nothing is so exciting and every minute requires at least a new and usually a more intense stimulation.  What are we missing, and what skill does my daughter still have? 

                The answer comes from an unlikely place.  A Yale professor spoke at West Point on the topic of leadership.[i]  The title of his speech says it all, ‘Solitude and Leadership, If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts’.  He cites a study done at Stanford that showed that the multitasking generation that is able to facebook, text, and study at the same time has severely impaired thinking.  Multitasking is not a skill, but an impediment to real, deep thought.   The crisis in leadership starts at home, and by home, I mean ones most personal home-his headspace.   Without deep thinking, there is a paucity of ideas, and the ability to see awesome is diminished. 

                This Yale professor was on to something.  This is exactly the idea that Jacob taught the world as the first person to coin the term, ‘awesome’ or נורא.   What did he see that was so awesome and how did he get there?  Jacob was on the way out of Israel, in a desperate plight to seek refuge from a blood thirsty brother.  On the way, he went to the temple mount for a prayer session, and a nap.  During the nap, he dreamed the famous vision of a ladder with angels ascending and descending and none other than G-d staring down from the top.  He awoke and realized that he was in a place of intense holiness, ‘how awesome’! A three letter Hebrew repeats four times during the dream sequence in a view verses, הנה.  The world is commonly translated as, ’behold’.   The English translation is not bad and its etymology is even better.  Behold comes from the old English word, ‘to keep’. In other words, it means to hold on to one thought or observation and take it in.  The intensity of Jacob’s vision and the realization of a higher being depended on his ability to delve deeply into one thought and hone in on his vision of the ladder. 

                That is why G-d is called awesome, or נורא.  He is a Being that can only be reached through deep thought that is dependent on us, not on him.  That is why the world נוראis passive.  G-d can’t make us see His Awesomeness, we need to think it through.  Kids have an uncanny ability to zone in on one thing and explore to its end, and that thing becomes awesome (everything was created with wisdom), even just a hanger. [ii]

               

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[i] For a full text of the speech see William Deresiewicz speech at West point

[ii] Granted, in a different way, kids attentions can be easily swayed, but when in the moment the intensity is great and undistracted. 

The gift of aging

                24: 1 ‘And Abraham was aged ((היה זקן, well along in days and Hashem blessed him with everything’

                The biggest battle of our age is not radical Islam, not a sinking economy, and not cancer, but aging.  We are all in search of everlasting youth, and the great desire of man is to conquer both death and the process that leads to it.  However, it could be we are looking at it all wrong.  A midrashic source from this week’s parsha on the verse above[i] says the following:  Abraham did not age.   He exclaimed to G-d:’ father and sons go to one place and no one knows who to honor.  And if you were to crown us with old age people would know who to honor’.  G-d said to him, ‘you have asked for a good thing, and with you it will start’.  Prior to his time in the book there was no old age and since Abraham stood up (and complained), G –d gave him old age as it says, ‘And Abraham was aged’.  Further, in a different part of the midrash it says that ‘old age’ is a crown and beautiful thing.  In our purview, beauty is associated with youth and vigor.  So why did Abraham feel a lack without wrinkles and a white beard; what was he seeking?

The way to understand Abraham’s request is with the following metaphor.  Imagine if a person worked out his whole life and his muscles never changed.  That would be a cruel state of being- a person has worked hard and has nothing to show for it.  That is what was behind Abraham’s request to G-d.  Abraham’s whole life mission was to bring holiness to the body, which is why circumcision began with him.   He was the first person to understand that spiritual enlightenment lay not with meditative mantras on a mountain, but with real change in this world.  And whenever a person wants to make a genuine change in the world, it has to start at home first, with ourselves, which means making the body into a vehicle that expresses soul.

                After a life time of hard work in making the body into an expression of the soul, Abraham complained to G-d and said, ‘hey, I’ve been working hard my whole life and I have nothing to show for it’.  In response, G-d gave him a wizened body: lines of wisdom and a face of care and compassion.  Why is it that wisdom is associated with a white head of hair and a white beard?  Because white is the idea of clarity, and the idea that the façade is not important, rather what is behind it.  The whiter a person gets the more the inside is revealed.  It shows that what is driving life is not the body itself, as white is actually associated with death,  but an inner light .  It is no surprise then that a beard in Hebrew is called a ‘זקן’ or ‘old man’.  The idea of a beard is that ideas flow down from the head into the body.  Old age should reveal a lifetime of accomplishment  in this area, where the ideas of the soul slowly imprint on the body.   Therefore, think twice next time you buy an anti-wrinkle cream, as those wrinkles may be the product of the best type of growth.

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[i] the midrash is bothered by the words ‘היה זקן’. Why does the verse have to tell us that he was an old man? We already know that he was past one hundred years old

The value of an unknown future

The media is not known for its affinity for the religious establishment. Yet, it could be the media unknowingly will help create a religious revival.  With the constant conjectures of what the future holds: will Greece default, will Israel attack Iran, and what will be with this so called Arab spring, the media is creating a culture of dealing with an unknown future on a consistent basis.  This creates a mentality that the future will be different, that what there is now won’t be.  Used healthily, this creates growth, unhealthily, paranoia. Either way, this mentality originated with Abraham, who popularized an orientation towards the future.

                The first communication that G-d has with the future Jewish nation is as follows: ‘ And G-d says to Avraham, go forth from your land, your birth place, and from the house of your father to the land which I will show you’.  In other words, G-d says to Abraham, get out of your comfort zone, and go somewhere unknown.  So Abraham grabs his wife and nephew as well as his stuff and goes.  Then we have a strange verse that says ‘…and he went out to go to the land of Canaan and he came to the land of Canaan’. That is akin to saying: ‘I took a flight to Chicago and landed in Chicago.’  Well, where else exactly was I supposed to go that I have to tell you that my flight actually landed in Chicago? What this tells us is that when it comes to the land of Canaan, present day Israel, the place is the journey.  The leaving to go is the arrival.  The very nature of the place will always be unknown, and for someone who lives in Israel, this couldn’t be closer to the truth.  The very existence of Israel is consistently under threat because we are not supposed to know what will be. Why? To shed the status quo habitually is growth.

                On a deeper note, this is the foundation of faith.  It is the idea that I live with desire to change the future even if I don’t know exactly how it will turn out.  Why? Because the nature of infinity is that it is always beyond our grasp, therefore, all we have is the striving.   

number seven billion

                We are on the eve of the seven billionth birth. The number seven billion is big.  My second grade teacher had a computer program that had an old Apple flash numbers across the screen as it counted to a million.  As the school day ended, the computer continued at a breakneck pace still caught in the hundreds of thousands.  We were told the next day that it took till five o’clock in the afternoon until the computer final reached its target.  How long would it have taken the computer to reach seven billion? Each billion contains five hundred of these days, or in other words, the computer would have continued to count from second grade, through junior high, and through part of high school.  It’s hard to feel important in such a big world.  That is until we turn to Noah. 

                What brought the deluge?  Strange to think that the final mistake of mankind was stealing.  Sexual immorality and idolatry were bad, but stealing did it as it says, God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with robbery through them, and behold I am about to destroy them from the earth’[1] .   Why did G-d mention robbery when the other two transgressions are at least as wrong and more difficult to rationalize? After all, we all steal a little bit.  Every time we are at work and surf the net a little, or make a short call, or wake somebody by accident, or even if we don’t smile to people on the street we’ve technically stolen (our face is not ours since we don’t see it, therefore, as it is public property we have a responsibility to keep it presentable. If not, we have 'stolen' a smile from a person). 

                The second mishna of Pirkei Avos answers the question, ‘Shimon the Tzaddik was from the remnants of the great assembly.  He would always say, ‘The world stands on the three things: Torah, service (prayer), and good deeds’.  There are two fundamental ideas in the Mishnah that are difficult for the mind.  Hence, Rabbi Shimon needed to say these ideas constantly so that people would internalize the idea.  Two  impediments to spiritual growth are that people don’t realize the manifold degrees of greatness and, more relevant to our discussion of the seven billionth birth, that our actions impact the world at large. 

                A complete life does not require that we only need to be nice to our friends or that we only need to be wise or that we only need to be meditative.   All three important and they represent the three relationships a person needs for fulfillment.  A person needs a relationship with other people, and needs a relationship with himself, and needs a relationship with G-d.  When these relationships are missing, the world can no longer stand, and this is why G-d tells Noah, we need to start over- the world had run amuk with idolatry, sexual immorality, theivery.  Idolatry is an easy one.  Idolatry is a corrupted version of man’s relationship with G-d. Instead of connection to G-d, idolatry reinforces a person’s relationship to himself.  He worships those forces that can help him.  Promiscuity is the antithesis of wisdom, or of connecting to yourself properly.  Why?   Because instead of nourishing one’s essential self, the soul, through wisdom, a person connects to ones non-essential self- the body.  And finally, robbery is the opposite of loving kindness, rather than give , a person takes for free and annihilates his relationship with other people.  Now we can understand why even robbery can destroy the world.  It was the last pillar left, and once it fell, everything came crashing down around it.

                The other idea of the Mishnah is that our actions stand up the world.  Up until now, people thought that scientific law and the sun’s rays kept the world afloat.  But, the idea that is hard to grasp, especially now in this giant world, is that our actions are what cause tsunami, earthquakes, and floods and they are what prevent them.  Even though I seem to be one in seven billion, a blip on the radar, my actions reverberate not just in our world, but also in spiritual ones. The realization that our actions are important, not only in a practical sense, but in a global sense can be what refines them.                      

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[1] Genesis  6:13

Happy as me

                        Of the seven major Jewish Holidays, Pesach continues to impress.  A vast majority of Jews attend a Seder even if the rest of the year there is scant a trace of obvious Jewish behavior.   Next, there are the two heavy weights, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.  Whether it is Jewish guilt at work, or a genuine desire to connect through prayer at least once a year, Jews participate in droves.  Then, we have some light fun with Purim and Channukah.  Drinking and fire, who wouldn’t want to be part of the fun; well, actually, many Jews miss out on these oldies but goodies.   And finally, there is Shavuot and Sukkot, two out of the three major pilgrimages to Jerusalem.   They lag far behind in participation and have been nearly blotted out of the secular Jewish psyche.  What has been lost?         

Pesach is the holiday that tells us there is a supreme being.  That works for most people.  The idea of a G-d gives the world meaning and order.  And how else can we explain a consciousness and our ‘soulful’ values, a G-d makes serious sense.  The problem starts around Shavuot.  There is an alleged transmission of a script from this force that has likely given us consciousness.   Aside from the innate disdain for having to live according to a script that is not our own, this script has lots of ‘chutzpa’ as well- it carries with it a plethora of demands.                         

After this comes Sukkot, the holiday of immense Joy.  What is it about Sukkot that makes us so happy?  We get to be our true self again.  The Jewish word for repentance is ‘teshuva’, to return, and that return is to ourselves.  Now, that we are back to being ourselves we can express it through Sukkos, and this is why it is called the time of our greatest Joy!   Each sukkah is decorated uniquely, and everyone finds that Esrog that is most beautiful to their eye’s and budget.  There is nothing more joyful than being your true self and expressing it creatively. 

                                

Back to Life

There are few things that get on my nerves.  However, one thing that always bothered me is when people would say that watching tennis is a bore.  And if they’d humor me and watch some of the game with me, they‘d want to talk during points or get up right before a crucial juncture in the match. The gall of such people! Can’t they appreciate the unique form that each players uses? Can’t they appreciate the shot selections, angles, and movement of each player?  It can be a thing of beauty.

                 Obviously, from my perspective, their lack of- we’ll call it respect- stems from a lack of appreciation for the details.  What they are watching and what I am watching are two entirely different games.  I see variety, where they see sameness.  I see genius, where they see luck.  And consequently, the way I treat watching the game- with rapt attention and respect- is vastly different than the way they treat watching the game.  This prosaic example can be applied to any field and its experts.  A curator sees a Mona Lisa vary differently than I do, and a cosmologist sees a very different sky than I do.  The difference?  Details- they know how to appreciate how every detail is important and plays a crucial function in creating the brilliant sui generis of the form. 

                Whenever there is a lack of sensitivity, the term we use is quite appropriate.  We say we are ‘deadened’ to the thing. If standing in front of a Van Gogh, I say in front of a curator,’ why are these globs of paint worth so much’, she would likely turn red with anger, pucker her lips in disgust, and say, ‘you fool, you have to be dead not to be appreciate this’.  In a certain sense, she’d be exactly right.  Her whole vitality resides in the angry brush strokes of Van Gogh:  their angles, shades, and texture ignite a passion within her.  On the contrary, for the pedestrian art viewer, it is globs of paint and, after a few of them at a museum, the inclination is to take a seat and a nap.  With this in mind we can begin to understand what are job is on Yom Kippur.

                In general, we didn’t ‘mess up’ in a big way this past year.  We didn’t scam the world out of billions like Madoof, and we probably didn’t violently abuse anyone this year, and we probably may have never  been furiously mad at anyone this year.  Everything we did wrong was vastly more subtle, and to our sensibility, even largely out of our control. How can you not wake up late once in a while if you’re tired?  How can you not get a little agitated when somebody shows up ten minutes late to a meeting?  The reason why many of the little transgressions in our lives show up is because of our sensitivities.  We are not gauged to think that a little anger, a little late is a problem unless we really stop and think about it long enough to realize that, yea, could’ve done better there if I really tried.  However, this is where repentance comes in.  Repentance is the realization that every aspect of life is important.  Why?  Because G-d is one or, to put it differently, all is an aspect of G-d. 

In other words, the more we become connoisseurs of life, the more those little details are treated with a touch more sensitivity, rendering them a big detail, and then we treat them properly - we become curators to our own existence.  It is becoming alive in a real way through an increase in sensitivity to the spiritual side of life which is rapt with detail.  Life and death in Judaism are not defined by a failing body; they are defined by a soul that is alive or dead.  Does our soul pick up all the greatness and detail around us (As the 'rituals' of Judaism beg of us)?  After all, why else would repentance have been created before the world?  Did G-d expect us to sin?  Maybe.  But more than that, the real idea of repentance is not to bang our chest and read out a laundry list of sins.  It is to realize there is always another level of sensitivity I can reach, another level of life.  The fact that G-d created repentance before the world means that G-d made a world where we can always grow and develop to no end- and He expects us to.  So this Yom Kippur, it is time to enter the book of a good life and start to appreciate the details of our actions, for that is exactly where a passionate life is.  Enjoy the service and lay out a blank canvas for the new Year.   

New Year's parade

Red and green glow swords, cotton candy, and a festive mood engulfed our tiny community.  Everywhere children squealed with excitement while the women parked their strollers- singles, doubles, and even triples- on the street in anticipation.  No, the circus had not made a surprise detour to our sleepy mountain village.  Something grander, yet more subtle was happening. With black ink and a feather on some stretched cow hide, one letter was being written in an apartment.   A large group of men clad in black huddled around the table and spilled out onto the balcony.  See, one missing letter renders an entire Torah scroll ineffective. Therefore, upon completion of the last letter of the scroll, a wave of holiness descends upon the whole roll of cow hide and what were once remnants of a cow is in an instant imbued with serious divinity.  Once that letter is written, many new laws take effect, and reality changes.  The room with the Torah instantly becomes a place unsuitable to many activities that would have been permitted only moments earlier.  For a Jew, there is no greater cause to celebrate in the world than the mundane’s elevation to holiness- it calls for a parade.

            Or, it calls for the blast of a shofar.  There are two different types of shofar blasts on Rosh Hashana, a trua and a tekiya.  They are easily distinguished, the tekiya is a smooth long blast and the terua is a series of short bursts.  If we look at the Torah, there are two places where a horn is sounded and each time two different words are used to describe the blast.   In one place the verb used is from the language of trua and it is used in the context of war.  Obviously, during a war unification is broken and the trumpet notes the change with a series of short and broken blasts. In a different place, the verb is that of a tekiya, and that is in the context of a horn blast during a coronation.  That is a long  and unbroken sound for the King is what unites a people and so the blast is accordingly unified.[1]

            On Rosh Hashanah this describes our schizophrenic state of mind, both broken and complete, both happy and distraught.  On the one hand we are in the midst of an internal battle, and our job is to uproot the accumulated stench from the year- an enemy of falsehood has intruded and we need to get him out.  On the other hand, recognition of G-d’s Kingdom is consciously on our mind and the big ‘therefore’ that should engender.  Rosh Hashanah is the day the whole world is recognized as what is called in mystical terms a ‘chariot’, a place that can carry divine holiness.  This change from mundane to divine is marked by the shofar.

Think that there is a King in this world and that you are an indispensible agent of the King and the rest of repentance will be just details. 

           

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[1] See Nesivos Shalom