Temple Beth Israel, Eugene Oregon

Rabbis' Messages

D’var Torah for Shabat Shuvah 5767

By Barry Nobel

As Shabat is a day of rest and shuvah means turning (traditionally turning away from sin and toward God), the theme of my remarks is: “How Rest Can Turn Our Lives Around!” Can it really?

How Rest Can Turn Our Lives Around

My text is Deuteronomy 32:1-52, Moses farewell song before he journeys to the next world and the people enter the Promised Land. I want to comment on four segments of the story, but first, here are two preliminary thoughts:

1. For a hammer, the world is full of nails. For a mediating meditator or meditating mediator, like me, the world is full of conflicts to resolve with insight and compassion. There are certainly other interpretations of this text, but I hope this one is of some value to you.

2.   Before proceeding further, I would like to propose the following descriptions of two loaded terms:

Sin – Following Paul Tillich, I believe sin can be understood as separation, not a harmonious separation, but an alienating separation, a dueling duality between self and other, self and self, self and God. This dueling duality creates a win-lose mentality.

God – As Mordecai Kaplan points out (The Future of the American Jew 183), God may be thought of as the cosmic process that makes for life abundant, or human fulfillment; i.e. the process of working to meet everyone’s needs – the spirit of win-win.

Now onto the four segments of the parashah:

1. Flight-fight: Moses is denied access to the Promised Land.

Why? God asked Moses to speak to the rock and quench the people’s thirst by bringing forth water. Instead, Moses insults the people, and strikes the rock twice. (God as a Rock is the 1st image of God in Moses’ song).

Moses here demonstrates a kind of win-lose mentality, often characterized by flight/fight:

   a. Flight: Denial of reality (God’ message); and

   b. Fight: Blame/anger/hatred (toward others/self/God).

Message: The win-lose state of mind automatically separates us from the Promised Land.

In family mediation, I am struck by two consistent behaviors. Although parents clearly need to understand each other if mediation is to be of any benefit:

1. Their curiosity has evaporated. When I ask them what questions they have for the other parent, 95% of the time, they respond that they have none. Their attitude seems to be one of “I already know everything I want to know,” or “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!”

I want to tell them at that point: “You’re selling yourself short! You can learn more! You actually have greater responsibility – i.e. greater ability to respond constructively!”

2. They get out the blamethrower which inevitably takes them in the opposite direction from their highest goals. Blame is disempowering.

Image of win-lose: We struggle to move forward, wrapped in a shroud of denial with a big bag of blame on our backs, still hoping to emerge in the Promised Land! Life just doesn’t work that way.

2. Purification (actually mentioned in the previous parashah): Moses told the people they should have no fear on entering the Promised Land. God will destroy the other nations before them.

I don’t believe this message is to encourage ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Instead, we learn that our inner defilements (e.g. denial and blame/hatred) must be destroyed if we are to occupy the Promised Land. This is not such a far fetched interpretation when you consider:

For Gandhi, the Bhagavad Gita (in which God/Krishna tells Arjuna to fight against his relatives) is also an allegory for overcoming the evil/sin within us.

Muhammad pointed out that the greater jihad (jihad literally means exertion), is the inner struggle to overcome sin and align ourselves with God’s will. Not only is this struggle harder & more important than outer jihad, but it must come first to accomplish our highest goals.

Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

I like the story of the Cherokee grandfather who told his grandchild that he had two wolves battling within him. One was filled with hatred, envy, pride, etc. The other was filled with love, honesty, compassion, etc. “Which wolf wins?” the grandchild asks. “The one we feed,” replies the grandfather.

Shabbat – the Day of Rest – is a wonderful, traditional tool to feed our win-win mentality, to purify ourselves, enabling us to fully occupy the Promised Land.

What is Rest? We know it isn’t outer work. Nor is it the oblivion of sleep (even though sleep is very important - 43 million sleeping pill prescriptions were written in 2005). Nor does rest mean to indulge ourselves in the distraction of entertainment or – need I say? – shopping!

“The first step toward a Sabbath practice is to simply set aside some time to sit quietly without distraction – to stop doing and simply BE.” Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Jewish with Feeling 50

Rest, I believe, is well described as the inner, not outer, work of living with Awareness and Equanimity (Hebrew: hishtavut). Perfect rest is a developed balance of these two factors, awareness (of the present moment) and equanimity (maintaining an even/equal mind).

It is not difficult to see that these factors, when properly utilized, can overcome the defilements we have mentioned: awareness of what is really happening overcomes denial, and equanimity (a balanced, non-reactive mind) overcomes blame/anger/hatred.

Awareness involves opening our minds and hearts to new perspectives and experiences. It also leads us to become more aware of our blame/hatred of others/self/God.

To develop our awareness on Shabbat, we can ask ourselves: How can I listen more closely, more empathically, to the voices of the stranger within and without? Remembering that these voices may be feelings of upset, as well as thoughts. Also remembering that understanding our own or others’ thoughts doesn’t mean agreeing with their contents.

Hishtavut/Equanimity is “one of the most illusive and central notions of the Jewish mystical tradition.” Lawrence Kushner, The Way into Jewish Mystical Tradition 141-42.

This is a deep subject, but for our purposes hishtavut may be strengthened by committing ourselves to the practice of recovering a balanced/even mind. In other words, when we become aware of upset (e.g. blaming/anger), we can dedicate ourselves to “let go, let God” (as 12 Step Programs advise us). This means that rather than rationalizing anger/blame (e.g. telling ourselves “He deserves to suffer!”), and allowing these defilements to control our behavior, we can smile, acknowledge our fall into a win-lose attitude, and reaffirm our commitment to look for win-win.

To develop our equanimity, we can ask ourselves: Beneath my upset, what do I really need? What does the other need? How can I pursue these goals for a win-win outcome?

Example: Last Shabbat, while sitting doing nothing, I became aware that earlier in the week, I had experienced envy several times, but then I had buried this painful feeling. So on Shabbat, I asked myself what lay beneath this envy? And I found needs to make a greater contribution to the community, for creativity, and for recognition. I asked myself, “How can I celebrate these others’ successes and learn from them?”

Remember: Godding (doing God’s will) means aligning with the process of working to meet everyone’s needs (not just my own)! To succeed, Awareness & Equanimity can be developed as an essential part of our Day of Rest.

3. Relapse: Moses sings that the people will “wax fat,” fall away from God, and be defeated.

Waxing fat symbolizes to me the twin poison of fight-flight/aversion. It is the second primary fuel for win-lose: GREED!

Because we don’t know who we really are, we selfishly try to push reality away (denial & hatred), and/or selfishly crave something we don’t have and don’t really need (greed).

Message: Win-win is not a once-and-for-all accomplishment. This tremendous struggle requires ongoing effort. Shabbat Shuvah is a wonderful opportunity to refine our process, and Shabbat is a terrific practice, but yearly, or even weekly efforts alone are not enough if we really want to develop our tremendous potential as human beings!

Daily practice for the development of awareness & equanimity are needed if we are not to sell ourselves short!

Rabbi Hanan Sills tells me that for this reason, the three days after Shabbat are referred to as the afterglow of Shabbat, and the three days before as foreplay.

In the Bible we read: “In all your ways know God” (Prov. 3:6), and “I place God before me constantly” (Ps. 16:8).

4. Return: In the end, God will overcome our defilements. Sin, separation is overcome. We return to our True Home.

This reminds me of the Alan King story about the tourist who went to the Western Wall. Not being very knowledgeable of religious matters, he asked another tourist about the significance of the wall. The other explained: “This is a holy wall. If you pray at it, God may hear you.”

The visitor walked up to the wall and started to pray: “Dear God, please bring sunshine and warmth to Israel.” An authoritative voice replied, “I will my child.”

The visitor said, “Bring economic prosperity to this land.” “I will my child.”

The visitor prayed again, “Let Jews and Arabs live together in peace, dear God.”

The voice answered, “You’re talking to a wall.” Alan King’s Great Jewish Joke Book 5-6

Who is correct, Moses or Alan King? Will God overcome our defilements and bring us home or not?

In the spirit of win-win, both are correct! God can & will overcome our sin/alienation, but only with our help! We all have a role to play.

I’m wishing us all deep rest on this Shabbat Shuvah and for the New Year: Increased awareness of the voices of strangers within and without to overcome denial; greater hishtavut/equanimity to allow us to let go of the reactivity/blame/anger & greed we find; and success in Godding – strengthening our commitment to seeking win-win solutions within ourselves, at home, at work, in the community, and in the world.

So that’s how Rest (Awareness + Equanimity) can Turn our Lives Around, from sin (win-lose) towards God (win-win)!