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)