Returning, Again and Again (Shabbat Shuvah)

This coming Shabbat, which falls in the midst of the Days of Awe, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is know as Shabbat Shuvah—the Sabbath of Return.

The focus for the day—and for this entire ten day period—is on taking a spiritual accounting of ourselves, making amends to those we have wronged, and thereby returning to our best and truest path.

But how can we know when we have really changed our ways?  So often, our efforts are just superficial, short-lived makeovers. What are the marks of genuine, deeper transformation?

Moses Maimonides offers a profoundly wise response.  He suggests that we will know that our teshuvah is complete when we return to the same circumstances where we went astray, with the every opportunity to make the same mistake—and yet make a different choice.

There is something in the way this life plays out—call it God or fate or karma or psychology or what you will—that tends to return us, again and again, to the same circumstances where we miss the mark.  Some of the surface details may change, but the underlying challenge remains the same.  Each of us has her or his work to do, and that work keeps re-appearing in all aspects of our lives.  In other words, we cannot outrun our problems.  They will almost always pursue us.  We can change our jobs, our locations, our relationships—but nothing really gets better until we change ourselves.

So Maimonides reminds us: we will keep finding ourselves in the same situation of our failure, again and again, until we finally figure out how to correct our mistakes.  We repeat and repeat and repeat until we figure out how to make teshuvah.

In the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn: “This is the path of working where you find yourself, with what is found here and now.  This, then, really is it. . . this place, this relationship, this dilemma, this job.  The challenge of mindfulness is to work with the very circumstances that you find yourself in—no matter how unpleasant, how discouraging, how limited, how unending and stuck they may appear to be—and to make sure that you have done everything in your power to use their energies to transform yourself before you decide to cut your losses and move on.  It is right here that the real work needs to happen.

Sharing the Cookie (Idaho Statesman Sept 2012)

A few years ago, researchers at the University of California conducted an experiment.  They gathered student volunteers and divided them into teams segregated by gender—three men or women per team.  They randomly chose one student from each group to act as leader.  Then they put the groups into separate rooms, where each was presented with a complex moral problem to solve.

Thirty minutes later, the researchers interrupted each team, entering the room with a plate of four cookies.  Each of the three team members obviously got one cookie, but that left a fourth cookie, just sitting there. This should have been awkward—but it wasn’t.   With incredible consistency whoever had been arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie, and ate it, without any hesitation whatsoever.  

This person had performed no special task. After all, the leaders had been chosen at random. Their position was based on nothing but dumb luck.  Yet it left them with the sure sense that the cookie should be theirs.  

Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball and Liar’s Poker, shared this account in a commencement address he delivered at Princeton University.  He used it to sound a warning against a real and present danger: the tendency of those blessed with prosperity to attribute their good fortune to merit and, by corollary, to insinuate that the poor are deserving of their misfortune.   This notion of America as a meritocracy, where success is a sure sign of virtue, is actually written into the 2012 Republican party platform, which touts its “positive, optimistic view of an opportunity society where any American who works hard, dreams big and follows the rules can achieve anything he or she wants.” 

Torah recognized the fallacy in such thinking three thousand years ago.  Deuteronomy 8 warns of the hubris that can accompany prosperity, of misconstruing wealth as a mark of our own merit: “The Eternal is bringing you into a good land. . . in which you will lack nothing.  And you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Eternal for the gift of this good land.  But beware, lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this treasure.’”

The Talmud speaks of the true nature of affluence and paucity when it notes: “If one man does not come into poverty, his son may; and if his son does not come into it, his son's son may, for poverty is a wheel that goes around and around the world.”  Therefore, those who are blessed with good fortune must never forget that much of what we have is due to dumb luck. Our advantages are largely a fluke—as are the disadvantages of the underclass.  Contrary to that Republican platform, many Americans work hard and dream big and receive very little in return.  And others, born into tremendous privilege, hardly work a day in their lives, yet live like kings and queens.

This reality creates a kind of moral responsibility.  When we realize that wealth is largely unearned, we understand that those who can afford to do so ought to share significant share of their bounty with those in need.   As Michael Lewis concluded in his address to those privileged Princeton graduates: “Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt to the unlucky.  All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you'll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't.”

                        

Standing at the Threshold (portion Nitzavim)

Some of our most memorable experiences happen in life’s borderlands, thresholds where and when we pass from one significant time or place to another. This week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim, offers just such an episode.  Moses, who is soon to die, enjoins a new generation of Israelites: “You stand here this day, all of you, before the Eternal your God—you tribal heads, you elders and you officials, all the men of Israel, you children, you women, even the stranger within your camp, from the woodchopper to the water drawer—to enter into the covenant of the Eternal your God, which your God is concluding with you this day. . . I make this covenant not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day and with those who are not with us here this day.”

This passage speaks powerfully to me this week, personally and professionally.  On Sunday, I sent my daughter Rosa off on a great adventure—a semester at the National Outdoor Leadership School.  We will both cross a threshold, as she begins her adult life away from home and I experience the unique mix of grief and joy that comes with such moments.

Meanwhile, all of us here at CABI stand together, as a community, at the threshold of a new year.  We will make choices, individually and communally, that will affect both us and those who will come after us.  It takes courage and faith to move forward, to break the patterns that have not been helpful and to solidify those that have brought forth blessing for ourselves and those around us.

As we prepare to enter the unmapped territory of the future, we can take comfort in knowing that our journey is guided by the wisdom of a deep and rich tradition.  We are Yisrael—the people who wrestle with, and sing of the Holy One. As we say farewell to 5772, we can all draw on this legacy to give us the strength to press ahead.  Before Rosh Hashanah, consider what parts of your past you would like to carry with you into the new year, and what you would choose to leave behind as you pass through this portal in time and space.

I’ll end with the words of poet Adrienne Rich, which can be found in Mishkan Tefilah, our Reform siddur:

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door

Healing Ourselves, One Act at a Time (portion Ki Tetze)

Summer is over, September is here, and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur lie just around the bend.

During this time of preparation for those Days of Awe, our tradition enjoins us to take a kind of spiritual accounting of ourselves, known as cheshbon nefesh.  We reflect upon the year gone by, consider our failings, and focus our energy on how we can do better in the coming year. 

While most of us have erred many times and in many ways, Rabbi Shraga Simmons cautions us against attempting to change too much, too quickly.  He suggests: “Don't try to conquer too many things at once; it may be too overwhelming. Instead, choose the areas that cut closest to the root of your problems. This will maximize your success in the teshuvah process.”

I would add that even as we examine and amend our shortcomings, we should also recognize and build upon our strengths and successes.  This can help us move forward with confidence.  Below, you will find a copy of a prayer that affirms our healing acts of the past year.  It is a nice supplement to the traditional “Al Cheyt” recitation of our transgressions.  By focusing up and acknowledging both our moral failures and successes—one or two at a time—we can each make significant progress in the coming new year, 5773.

L’shanah tovah,

Rabbi Dan

God our Creator and Guide, Let us speak now of the healing acts by which we bring You into the world, the acts of repair that make You a living presence in our lives:

Ál ha-tikkún she-tikánu l’fanécha. . .   

For the act of healing we have done openly or anonymously and for the act of repair we have done without personal gain

For the act of healing we have done by seeking forgiveness and for the act of repair we have done by forgiving others

For the act of healing we have done through righteous giving and for the act of repair we have done by opening our hearts

For the act of healing we have done by comforting the mourner and visiting the sick and for the act of repair we have done by pursuing justice and human rights, fairness and civility

For the act of healing we have done by making peace between one person and another and for the act of repair we have done by protecting nature and all its creatures

For the act of healing we have done by teaching our children the ways of peace and for the act of repair we have done by teaching our children the ways of Torah

For the act of healing we have done by honoring elders and loving the stranger

For the act of repair we have done in response to Your commandment: choose life and blessing

And all these bring nearer the day when You shall be One and Your name shall be One.