Todays' Moment of Zen 1/29/2009

I'm a huge fan of Rebbe Nachman and the Breslov movement, two small, concise books called: Restore My Soul & Outpourings of the Soul have had dramatic effects on my life, both opened new doors to my fundamental understanding of both the world and my place within it. For your enjoyment today’s moment of Zen comes from the blog A Fire Burns in Breslov:

'The tzaddik falls seven times, and rises.’ A tzaddik is not one who doesn’t fall; a tzaddik is one who gets up after each fall!”

Two sides of the same coin and the metal in between

I must confess I’m a bit of a philosopher; this might not be a great shock to you if you know me or read my prose often. But I’ve been kicking an idea around lately about the nature of groups. I was thinking about the orthodoxy and its place in the context of the whole. What I mean to say is that in all groups there exist people who are more rigid, more extreme perhaps then others. This applies to all organizations. Green Peace has people who speak to others about our effects on the environment and it also has people who chain themselves to trees, who throw blood on people to get them to see things from their point of view. All groups have people in them who are more and less committed to their cause, people who are more radical about some parts of their doctrine then others, etc.

This fact forms these groups into essential living organisms, and everyone ultimately finds the place in an organization that they generally agree with but in a specific spot. So someone who wants to save the Elephants might become an advocate and go o speaking tours, writing books, trying to influence minds, while another may become a biologist and devote their energy to saving the specific environment that Elephants live in. Both people believe in the same idea, both have taken an active role and yet both have expressed it in totally contrary ways. This is amazing and necessary. It’s a stunning example of the diversity and elasticity of the human mind and of the human will. Two people with different educations, strengths, weaknesses, etc have joined together to do something outside of themselves, something greater then the sum of their parts.

I confess that this idea came to me while thinking about all the denominations of Judaism. More specifically while contemplating the role of the orthodoxy in the world and what I came up with is this. Let us think of the Judaism as an animal, in this model the orthodoxy is the spine, the bones, the structure. Without it the body wouldn’t be able to hold its shape and the animal would ultimately be a big bag of tissue. A useless lump of nothing, everything would fail and the animal would be nothing. Yet if all the animal was, was its structure then what would it really be, it would be a nothing as well. It would be a lifeless artifact on display in the Natural History museum, like all the dinosaur bones it would be gone except as a piece of hasty that has ultimately been forgotten and set aside.

So there is a complementary nature to the orthodoxy and everything else around it. Together the two (not just two obviously) help to keep the whole alive. The ‘radicals’ challenge the orthodoxy, forcing it to adapt and change to the changing needs of the people around it, the time and the place that it exists in here and now. While the orthodoxy gives the rest the structure and the security to go beyond itself knowing that there is a solid foundation within it. So there exists a symbiotic relationship, one cannot survive without the other both would be incomplete without the other and both need each other far, far more then I believe either will ever concede. I know personally I need both, I know that I need to have the flexibility to stray sometimes far, far off the path. But I also know that without a path to stray off of I would never be able to find my way. Shalom Aleichem and Eretz Israel.

Um, can you hear me?

Clarity, I write about it all the time, often finishing one of my more flamboyant posts with the edict: Clarity or death! I’ve been doing some thinking about clarity and just how hard it is to be clear. This all came to me this afternoon, I saw speaking to my boss about some work I’ve been doing over the last three weeks. Finally after finishing up our talk she asked me if I had sent them into our main administrative office in Indiana. I had not and when she asked me why I told her that we had never discussed it, that I never knew where it was supposed to end up. We were both amazed that we could have miscommunicated on such an important point. Yet we had and all because we both assumed that we were well understood.

Inconceivable!!! I almost wasted a lot of work, it had almost been for naught, as it was I sent it in and got it in right under the deadline. But disaster was far closer then I would have liked and all because neither one of us could see beyond our own initial assumptions about what we had talked about. I assumed that if there was anything else that I needed to know she would have told me. She assumed that if I really wanted to be a part of the process I would have gotten into contact with the correct people. Both of us were right, both of us acted properly and yet but had very different mental pictures of the situation. Thank god we communicated, it could have cost me a job I really like, I could have mad her look bad. We both almost suffered from horribly passive aggressive behavior all due to us assuming we knew what was going on in the others head. As so I say to you today, do not let important things in your life go without being sure you get real and lasting clarity. Do not fall into the traps of passive aggressive behavior and most importantly Clarity or death!

Benny & Sydney

I’m having one of those days today; you know the kind of day when nothing feels just right? That’s today for me, two days ago my great uncle Ben died, he was 93 and had been dealing with Alzheimer’s for a long time before this. In the last few weeks his condition rapidly deteriorated and we were all hoping for an easy passing. God granted that small comfort to all of us when two days ago with his family around him he passed. Often it was what I had been praying for of the last week when I asked for his full Hebrew name and I’m very grateful that it happened so quietly.

When I heard about it I didn’t really give it much thought, after all I’ve barely seen him in the last ten years. Its felt like he was gone for a long time. But that feeling and the reality behind it are two totally different things, sitting in shul, being with my family, sitting shiva, talking about him, its makes it real. For my mom it was especially hard, her fathers, my grandfather Sydney was Ben’s youngest brother and he died almost twenty years ago. I was four going on five when it happened, he had fought a long hard battle with cancer and in mid February he finally succumbed. Now I’m twenty four going on twenty five. I’ve listened to people tell me how much like my grandfather I am for my whole life. When he died I was to younger to really get it, I barely have any real memories of him, most of what I remember are other peoples stories.

So yesterday and today and many more days perhaps I think I’ll mourn for my grandfather as much as for anyone else. I think about what it might have been like growing up with a grandfather, all that we could have shared together. I’ll always wonder about those possibilities. And so I and my family were looking for a grave, in a cemetery covered in snow in twenty degree weather yesterday. Yesterday was as much about my grandfather as it was about anyone or anything else for me. The fact that so many of us felt it was so important to find, if only for a moment speaks more for the man who was my grandfather more then anything I can write. I can think of no greater tribute to a man I barely got to meet but whose memory I will always carry with me for all the days of my life.

In the Waiting Line

Maybe I'm just in a melodramatic mood this morning, but on my way to work I was listening to a random mix I have on my ipod. Its a mix of singles that I have from various artists and its nice to listen to when I just want music but don't want to make a decision on what to listen to. This song came on and it really hit home with me, its a hauntingly beautiful song by Zero Seven, here are the lyrics:

Wait in line
'Till your time
Ticking clock
Everyone stop

Everyone's saying different things to me
Different things to me
Everyone's saying different things to me
Different things to me

Do you believe
In what you see
There doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me

Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe in
What you see

Nine to five
Living lies
Everyday
Stealing time
Everyone's taking everything they can
Everything they can
Everyone's taking everything they can
Everything they can

Do you believe
In what you feel
It doesn't seem to be anybody else who agrees with me

Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe
In what you see

Ah and I'll shout and I'll scream
But I'd rather not have seen
And I'll hide away for another day

Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe
In what you see

Everyone's saying different things to me
Different things to me
Different things to me
Different things to me
Different things to me
Everyone's taking everything they can
Everything they can

Farbreng' all night

I was looking up the spelling and meaning of a Hebrew phrase this morning and I came across this on Wikipedia about the farbrengen:

There's a Chabad Chasidic saying "when two get together to talk of their spiritual failings, it is two Godly souls vs. one animal soul." The reasoning is, the Godly souls are selfless and are more than happy to unite and help each other in the spiritual failing at hand. However, the animal soul is innately selfish and thus each animal soul will not join forces. Thus, at a farbrengen, when Chassidim get together to inspire one another, they have the help of each others' Godly souls, greatly out-numbering the animal souls.

The farbrengen was one of my first, first hand encounters with Hasidim and will always have a place in my heart. Reading that reminded me of many, many, many wonderful afternoons and evenings gathered around a table with friends and strangers alike singing various niggunim, listening to hassidic stories/midrashim and eating and drinking into the wee hours. If you've never experienced such an event then your missing out on something very special. Shalom Alechem!

If you will it

"If you will it , it is no dream" - Theodor Herzl, Old, New Land (The State of Israel)

The road less traveled

I’m off the dereck, yup that’s right I said it I’m off the dereck. In case you don’t know dereck means path or way. So what I’m trying to say is I’m off the path. Or I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I had a conversation a while ago with a friend who told me that. My response was f*** you. As you might imagine that didn’t go over great with him. But you know something it really irritated me to hear him say it. There was an air of self righteousness in there that got under my skin. It’s a common thing to hear in the frum community. It generally speaking refers to someone who is slipping in their observance and I find it ridiculous, inane, sophomoric.

Why might you ask do it find it so absurd? It’s not because I myself have slipped in my observance and now find the idea of Torah Judaism to be repugnant. Although some may take it as such, it’s not because despite my slip in observance I feel some days that I’m closer to god now then I was before. Its not that I think that I’m doing the ‘right’ thing, that some how my interpretation and my life are ‘more’ correct then those who would use that colorful phrase to describe me. I don’t I just acknowledge that maybe, just maybe I’m on the right path, that I am in fact on the dereck.

How is it that I come to this conclusion? Our sages tell us that we can not judge someone until we have walked a mile in their shoes, the implication being that we can’t ever properly judge someone because we’re not them. We don’t know what they’ve been though and what ideas and experiences have helped shape them into who they are. In the case of me and the friend I’m referring to we’ve had very different experiences in our quests to find god and make sense of what that means. He started with Reform; he was friendly with the Rabbi who took him to all sorts of strange, possibly idolatrous happenings. Someone who lied to him about the Torah and eventually he broke away from it. He knew it wasn’t right and knew he needed to find something that was and as it stands now he’s happily observing Shabbat, keeping strictly kosher, learning at yeshiva part time, and integrating into a wonderful frum community. Mazal Tov my friend I love and respect him and wish him the best. I recognize that his collective experiences brought him to where he is now and that he is right where he needs to be. I on the other hand came to my Judaism with the orthodox community, I’m not counting my upbringing with Reform I never took it seriously, never went to Hebrew school, never had a bar mitzvah with them, and was never a part of the community unlike my friend.

My experiences started with Chabad, the Hasidic / modern orthodox communities in Brooklyn and Long Island and then eventually Aish and Israel. In short for the first three years of my learning I shunned anything was that not orthodox in its approach. Not that I was orthodox for the entire time, but that’s who I was learning from, that’s who was shaping my general approach and that’s who I identified with. I still identify with them, still see the world tinted through god fearing glasses, still find comfort and solace in an orthodox minyan, still don’t consider Reform a ligament Torah movement.

Now that I’m home I’m taking some time to expand my learning, to draw from less tradition sources, to integrate what I’ve learned into a coherent life philosophy that challenges me and forces me to keep growing and expanding but also fits into a life that makes me happy. Before my year at yeshiva in Israel I didn’t have the tools to do that. My ignorance was such that I wasn’t capable of doing so. Now though I am. Armed with a solid foundation I’m slowly adding tools to the box, slowly adding layers on top of the foundation, so when I’m faced with questions about my decisions, when I face obstacles and trials in my path I’ll be able to hold up to them and not topple over. I couldn’t be more on the dereck if I tried.

A time for...

A war rages in Israel once again and once again I’m in America, away from it all. It would seem that for me at least nothing has changed. But much has changed. I used to be a passive observer, a follower of the news, a person nor really connected to what is going on in the holy land. No longer and never again. My brother and sisters are dieing, are suffering and I’m not with them. I’m not trying to say I want to be in the middle of the action either but its hard being so far away from home in times like these. Now I have real friends fighting, I do not know what will happen to them. Now I’m really connected to Israel, I do not know what will happen to her. Will her preserver? Will she crumble? I can not and do not know. I on principal agree with the war, I’ve been to Sderot I know what the reality is there. On principal I disagree with war in general but recognize its place in the world. Pacifism only works if you’re facing an enemy who can’t stand to kill the innocent and Israel faces no such enemy. Hamas does want to destroy Israel and its goals are incompatible with the reality of a Jewish state. You can’t negotiate with someone who desires your death; otherwise you’re just giving them a chance to stab you in the back. Enough is being said about this in the news that it seems absurd to add more symbols to a topic already crowded with them. But this is the reality we live with. It pains me to be here while those my age are fighting and dieing for the land that I love. As strange as it sounds I would never join the American army, but if I do ever make aliyah, if I ever do make the decision to settle in Israel. I feel it will be my duty to serve in her armed forces. I have nothing against America. I just feel like there are enough Americans to fight for the country of my birth. That’s just the way I feel it can not be helped. For all my friends all over the world, in Israel and the Diaspora I wish you peace, I pray for your safety and the safety of all our brave brothers and sisters fighting to preserve the land that belongs to us all. Wherever I am my heart turns always to Eretz Israel.

Fiction

I love fiction; it is my great comfort in this world. We all have them, that is our comfortable places. Places where we run to when we just can not deal with things. Mine like I just said is fiction, more to the point stories and characters. And this weekend I read the latest edition in one of my all time favorite series. Its funny the book came out on November 11 and I bought it a few weeks later and then I waited almost another month to read it. Why might you ask did I wait so long? Because I knew that I needed to be able to read it all the way through. I knew that I would need seven to ten solid hours once I started to finish and possibly more since inevitably if I liked it I would need to read it again. I was right sometimes we know ourselves so well.

The series starts with the book Enders Game and they are written by Orson Scott Card, he is a Mormon. I say that right at the start because his religion obviously affects his writing. All the book sin the series deal with military history and tactics, also religion, politics, psychology and more. The characters are amazingly well written and with each new story they become richer and more fully detailed. Be forewarned: the more you read and deeper you get the more theology gets involved. This fascinates me and only makes them more appealing but may turn off others. I would even go so far as to compare the latest book “Ender in Exile” the one I just finished read and somewhat Prophet-ish. When I read it I was reminded of the books of stories of King David.

The first book in the series Ender’s Game however is the least concerned with scripture however and can be read, stand alone if series are your thing. I love how fiction, especially character driven fiction can explore our own very real day-to-day struggles. Reading a book that takes place in the distant future, has the ability to open up new doors for me in this world, in this time, isn’t that something? I have I suppose in my own way found myself in these books as well. They have helped me deal with my own problems, my own trials and opened doors and windows when it seemed as though I was facing a brink wall. So I say if I have piqued your interest check ‘em out and if not ignore the ramblings of a young fool and have a wonderful day.

Whom do you serve?

Mysticism really bothers me. Chassidut is deep and mysterious the Tanya in my limited study of it is all about the interconnectedness of all of our actions in this world. The premise being that there are other layers of being that we can’t perceive. Its brilliant stuff but it can be dangerous. Ideas like this can turn people into racist bigoted close minded fanatics. This is where I run into a lot of issues. Because there is one crucial thing about religious observance: it doesn’t work unless you really think it will. Studies have been done (I wish I could cite my sources but this is a work of philosophy not serious research), there is a body of serious scientific research that says people of deep faith and / or religious observance are generally speaking happier. It’s crazy but that’s the thing there is also a stipulation. The stipulation is this: if you are religiously observant and you don’t really believe then you don’t derive the same benefits from it. I guess that’s ultimately where I am with all of this. Ultimately you must believe with great passion and express your love of the name openly and without any reservations and… you should try to keep your feet on the ground just a little bit. I love all of this. I love that I’m the kind of person who thinks about ideas like this. I’m convinced that we all have so many struggles in this life all in different ways, all unique, all a chance to do something. If we allow this idea to fester within us it could destroy our souls. But ultimately we must trust, ultimately we all must serve something. It doesn’t matter who you are and for many people there are many things not just one. Some serve money, family, country, themselves, the possibilities are endless. Based on the working assumption that we all ultimately serve something I say, serve god. Really if we’re all choosing something chose that. This is not to say neglect anything of the others. Just temper it, serve a higher moral cause, i.e. the betterment of humanity. Yes act for yourself but in doing that serve something more. Life is about trust; life is about relationship building, take the time to do these things. I find them to be the only truly worthwhile things in my life. Everything else is just designed to facilitate my ability to build relationships. The truth is there, everywhere we go we reach out to others to get things we want, to get things others want of and for us. We put trust in the people we meet to help us, it’s an act of trust every time. Learn this, knowing it doesn’t do you any better if you haven’t internalized it. Learn to trust others and in trusting others learn to trust god and in trusting god learn to trust yourself.