The Days of the Years

I find this week's parasha, Vayigash, to be one of the most moving in the Torah.  This is the parasha where Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers and reunites with Benjamin; Jacob learns that his treasured son, Joseph, is still alive; Jacob and his sons make the journey down to Egypt; and there is a beautiful, tearful reunion between father and long-lost son.

One of my favorite moments is when Joseph presents Jacob, his elderly father, to Pharaoh.  It's clear that there is mutual respect between Pharaoh and Jacob, that each man recognizes the power within the other.  Pharaoh asks Jacob,

כמה ימי שני חייך

How many are the days of the years of your life? (Bereishit 47:8)

Many commentators note that it's a little odd for Pharaoh to inquire about the age of his visitor, and Rav Hirsch offers an interesting explanation.  He points out that Pharaoh distinguishes between days and years; he takes this to mean that Pharaoh recognizes that a person can live a long life while only truly making full use of a few of his days.  In other words, the years of one's life represent the sum total of time lived, while the days of one's life are only those times when one lives up to one's full potential.  Jacob, too, understands this subtle distinction.  He replies, 

מעט ורעים היו ימי שני חיי ולא השיגו את–ימי שני חיי אבתי בימי מגוריהם

Few and bad have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not reached the life spans of my forefathers in the days of their sojourns. (47:9)

When evaluating the qualitative nature of his life, Jacob feels that he has fallen short.  Compared to his forefathers, Jacob believes he has not truly lived his life to its greatest potential, and this pains him.

I find it humbling and somehow reassuring that Jacob, one of the great fathers of the Jewish people, judged himself so modestly and struggled with the feeling that he had not lived his life as well as he would have liked.  Personally, I spend a lot of time on the mental hamster wheel of, "Am I doing a good job with my life?"  There are a lot of factors:  Am I happy?  Am I making other people's lives better?  Do I express enough gratitude?  Do I spend enough time on worthy pursuits?  Am I stretching and challenging myself enough?  Inevitably, I will answer, "no," to at least one of those questions, thus sending myself into a spin of shame and fear that I am wasting time, that I am not using this life that I have as well as I could--should--be using it.  It is a very fine line between healthy self-evaluation and unproductive self-shaming, and I am the first to admit that I do not always walk it successfully.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently because my grandmother passed away on erev Chanukah this year, twelve days shy of her 101st birthday.  My Nana was, to use her own terminology, "a hot ticket."  She was an athlete; she got a college education when few women were doing so; she volunteered at causes that were important to her; she gave generously of her time and her money; she never lost touch with anyone.  At least in my mind, my Nana was someone who made full use of most of her days.  She lived a long life, and she lived it well.  In the days since her death, I've been thinking a lot about how, when I am ready to leave this world, I want to look back on my own life and believe that I used it as well as my Nana used hers.

Recovery is about putting the days back into the years.  When I was really struggling with my eating disorder, I spent years existing but didn't truly live even one of those days.  Now, I have the chance to live my life so that when I get to the end of my years, I'll be able to say that I lived the days well.  To be honest, sometimes it feels like a lot of pressure.  But it also feels like an incredible opportunity.  To keep it manageable, I need to start small--take it day by day, little by little.  Since we are about to begin a new calendar year, I encourage all of us to think about the concept of, "days and years," and try to infuse our days with more meaning.  As we enter 2015, I wish all of us a year of days well lived!    

Out of the Cave

Sometimes, you don't even realize how thirsty you are until you take that first sip of water, and suddenly it's like you can't get enough--you've been waiting for that water forever.  That's how I felt this past weekend when I attended a Limmud conference and had my first real Jewish learning experience since returning from Israel this past summer.  Returning to studying Jewish texts and history felt exciting, satisfying, and comforting--and the best part was that one of my amazing teachers from the Pardes Institute was there, so she and I got to learn together and enjoy some quality catch-up time.  Soul nourished, bucket filled.

During the last session, I went to my teacher's class on Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a great sage who lived in the Tannaitic period (10-220 C.E.).  My teacher opened the class by describing Rabbi Shimon as someone who was "zealous and inflexible," but had to soften his positions a bit due to his life experiences.  Rabbi Shimon thought learning Torah was absolutely the most important pursuit a person could undertake--certainly more vital than farming, which one could argue was essential for survival.  He even prioritized Torah over saying the Shema--the Talmud Yerushalmi (Brachot) cites the famous dispute among the sages regarding the appropriate time for saying Shema, and Rabbi Shimon asserts that if one is learning Torah, he should not stop even for the Shema.  Since one is required to say Shema twice a day within specific time windows, that's making a pretty bold statement.

Perhaps the most famous story about Rabbi Shimon is the one in which he hid in a cave with his son for twelve years to escape execution by the Romans.  A miraculous carob tree and water well appeared in the cave, providing Rabbi Shimon and his son with food and drink while they hid in the cave, day in and day out, studying Torah and praying.  When they finally emerged from the cave at the end of the twelve years, Rabbi Shimon was so distraught at the sight of people engaged in mundane daily activities (as opposed to learning Torah), that his eyes burned up everything he saw.  As punishment for destroying His world, Hashem banished Rabbi Shimon and his son back to the cave for an additional twelve months.  Upon exiting the cave for the second time, they saw a man running with two bundles of myrtle in his hands.  When they learned that the two bundles were in honor of Shabbat--one for shamor and one for zachor--Rabbi Shimon finally realized that the "simple people" who engaged in day-to-day living weren't forgetting G-d at all--in fact, they were sanctifying Him.

I couldn't begin to tease apart all there is to learn from this story, but one element that I love is how Rabbi Shimon in many ways epitomizes cognitive rigidity, but ultimately learns to adjust his worldview to allow for some gray in between the black and white.  Personally, I am no stranger to black-or-white thinking--it's something I still struggle with, particularly around topics that are emotionally charged.  When my eating disorder began during my freshman year in college, I had to eat dinner at 6:00 pm exactly, no matter what.  That was the Right Time, and any other time was the Wrong Time.  This meant that I often ate dinner alone, because most people vary their dinner times based on other activities or with whom they'd like to eat, but I could not be flexible.  If the choice was, eat with friends at 6:30 or eat alone at 6:00, I chose the latter every time.  I had rules for everything:  rules for eating, rules for exercising, rules for studying--and anyone who didn't follow the same rules was obviously doing it wrong.  In hindsight, I can see that my eating disordered response to "rule breaking" was similar to Rabbi Shimon's:  contempt, disapproval, anger, and fear.  That led to a lot of loss--I spoiled many relationships, lost opportunities for connection, and missed out on fun because I could not bring myself to be flexible.

My favorite part of the story of Rabbi Shimon is that when Hashem sent him and his son back into the cave as punishment, they understood that it was punitive and they wanted to come out, which was why their sentence was only twelve months long.  When they were allowed out, Rabbi Shimon was finally ready to be flexible.  He didn't throw his standards and priorities to the wind, but he was able to see the gray area in between the two extremes.  Reflecting on my own experiences, I see that when I was really "in" the rigidity of my eating disorder, I didn't even realize how stuck I was, nor was I ready to contemplate change.  But once I'd had my first taste of recovery, I no longer wanted to go back to that same level of inflexibility.  When I did slip back, I understood that it was a setback and I wanted to move forward.  That's how I learned to make room for the gray, little by little.

At the end of the class, my teacher left us with this lesson:  "Ultimately, you have to come out of the cave."  A life lived in rigidity and extremes is not compatible with the rest of the world, and if you want to be able to relate to other people, you have to be willing to let go, at least a little bit.  For me, recovery has been my process of "coming out of the cave," and I've found that it's beautiful out here in the world.  May we all be able to experience the pleasure of life lived in the gray zone!

Vulnerability

"Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection."

--Brené Brown

Every morning, my wake-up routine is the same:  1) Modeh Ani;  2) hand washing and netilat yadayim; 3) turn on the light (whimper); 4) make the bed; and, 5) wake up my iPhone to see if there are any breaking news headlines from Israel on my lock screen.  This past Tuesday, November 18, I groggily went through the motions like I do every day, until I got to step 5, at which point I saw the following: "Jerusalem synagogue attacked, four killed."

All day at work--before school, in between lessons, at snack time, at lunch--I scoured the Israeli news sites for the latest information on the terrorist attack in Jerusalem.  By the end of the day it was clear that along with four rabbis--Rabbi Moshe Twersky, Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, and Rabbi Calman Levine--a Druze police officer, Officer Zidan Saif, was also dead, having been killed in the line of duty by the two terrorists.  

I have spent all week trying to come up with something to write that would capture the heartbreak, grief, and fear that I, along with the Jewish community at large, felt in the wake of this horrific event. I've tried to think of something I could write that would be a fitting tribute to the men who were cut down while davening Shacharit, and to the brave police officer who died trying to stop the slaughter.  After five days of thinking, I've come up empty, not because there isn't anything to say but because I can't find the words.  Who am I, after all, to write in honor of men I've never met; who am I to try to put words to pain large enough to engulf an entire nation?

In the end, all I can do is write about my own little corner of the experience--what it's like for me, an American Jewish woman, to watch tragedy unfold in the nation I consider my second home.  I can think of many words for that, but the one that comes up the most is: vulnerability.  This is ironic, because vulnerability is something that historically I've tried to avoid at all costs.  Back when my maladaptive protective strategies were at their apex, I used to watch other people get smacked in the face by vulnerability and think, "Ha.  Suckers."  At the time, it never occurred to me that you can't shut out vulnerability without sacrificing connection.  It's no coincidence that I only fell in love with Israel, and got reconnected to Judaism, once I was in recovery--once I was ready to open myself to connection and the vulnerability that inevitably follows.

For me, loving Israel wholeheartedly is one giant exercise in vulnerability.  It is emotionally risky to be so invested in a place where terror could strike at any moment and where war is always potentially around the corner.  Caring deeply about people who live in such a place means that I send a lot of emails and text messages that begin with, "Are you okay?"  It means being willing to remain engaged with the land and its politics, even when those politics frustrate or disappoint me.  And, as Tuesday's attack reminds me, it means that being an openly observant Jew in a world that often does not like openly observant Jews or Israel, can be (sadly) an inherently vulnerable position in itself.  

But.

Although the price is vulnerability and vulnerability is often uncomfortable, the reward is connection that is some of the sweetest I've ever felt.  Although I've never liked discomfort or uncertainty (who does?), I can't imagine disengaging if it would also mean severing my connections to a land and to communities that bring me so much joy and light. 

Brené Brown, vulnerability researcher extraordinaire, teaches that we are hardwired for connection; in fact, we can't live healthy lives without it--and, as a result, we also can't escape vulnerability.  For me, living a life in recovery means that I am both connected and vulnerable, for good and for bad.  Sometimes, like this past Tuesday, being connected means taking part in collective grief as your team suffers.  But even in times like that, it is worth being vulnerable to hurt if it means also feeling the sweetness of being part of a whole.  I am grateful every day that I am finally in a position to start leaning into vulnerability without shrinking away, and I wish for all of us the courage to remain open, even when there are fresh wounds.  Stay connected; don't disengage.  You need your team, and your team needs you!

   

Leaving with Wealth

I find going back to Sefer Bereishit to be quite satisfying--you just can't beat the narratives, and reuniting with some of the key figures in the collective history of the Jewish people is very sweet, indeed.  This week's parasha, Lech Lecha, has SO much packed into it that it's hard to know where to start.  In the spirit of finding something new with each read of the Torah, this week I'm going to explore an angle of Lech Lecha that I previously often passed by:  The Covenant Between the Parts.  In this covenant, Hashem promises Abraham that the Jewish people will inherit the Land of Israel, but first they will go through a painful period of exile and slavery.

"And He said to Abram, 'Know with certainty that your offspring shall be aliens in a land not their own--and they will serve them, and they will oppress them--four hundred years...and afterwards they will leave with great wealth." (Bereishit 15:13-14)

The Talmud teaches that the Jewish people were exiled and scattered throughout the world only so that converts might join them.  On one level, this could be referring to the many people throughout history who were born non-Jewish but chose to convert to Judaism.  But there is a Chassidic interpretation that I like even better:  that the "converts" are actually sparks of holiness that have been dispersed far and wide.  The idea is that every soul has its own sparks strewn about the world, and it is only by traveling through life--a journey that is often rocky--that one gathers up all of one's sparks.  All the struggles and challenges we face, which might feel like random bad luck, are actually given to us with the purpose of allowing us to extract from those experiences the sparks that complete our souls.

Developing an eating disorder is like going into exile from one's true self and entering a harsh world of isolation, desperation, and fear.  When one is in that state, it is difficult to imagine that anything good could come out of it.  "I'll be lucky to get out of this alive," you might think, "Forget about leaving with riches."  But, Chassidut teaches that perhaps the eating disorder isn't random bad luck, at all; rather, it is an experience given to a person in order to grant him or her sparks of insight and strength upon emerging from it.

Personally, I would not wish an eating disorder on anyone, but I also would not trade for anything the blessings I've gained in recovery.  Because I struggled with an eating disorder, I am more thoughtful, courageous, and resilient than I would have been had I not had that painful experience.  Recovery has given me the ability to go beyond the food and body obsessions that plague so much of the general population--I see that for what it is, and I'm not falling for it.  I am able to name my feelings and sit with them, rather than numbing myself with distraction after distraction.  Years of therapy have allowed me to understand myself and my own strengths and weaknesses much more clearly than I ever would have otherwise.  And, along the way I have connected with many special people--friends, mentors, and clinicians--who have brought much love, light, and truth to my life.  Was life in the eating disorder miserable?  For sure.  But I truly believe I have emerged with great wealth.

For all of us who are in exile in one form or another, I wish for us the ability to appreciate the riches we're accumulating as we go through our experiences.  Persevere through struggle, and gather your sparks--it's wealth you can't get any other way, and it's 100% worth it.

The Challenge of Vows

Two three-day yom tovs down, one to go...Cheshvan is around the corner!

It's this time of year when the "religious/secular dichotomy" in my life feels most pronounced.  On the one hand, this is the marathon holiday season full of rituals and observances designed to mark sacred time.  On the other hand, I live and work in a completely secular environment that is not particularly attuned to the rhythms of the Jewish calendar.  In order to keep my head at least partly in the realm of the chaggim, I need to make an effort to find some outside inspiration.  As I've mentioned, this year's source has been the book, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared by Rabbi Alan Lew.  I particularly connected with his chapter on Kol Nidre, and I've been wanting to write about it ever since Yom Kippur but haven't had time because of all the holidays!  Sigh.

While discussing the nature of vows and what happens when we inevitably make a vow that we are unable to keep, Lew cites parasha Mattot, which deals with a woman who makes a vow and then can't keep it because she is living under the control of a man (husband, father) who won't let her follow through.  When this happens, the Torah's stance is to forgive the woman for not keeping her vow.  Lew notes that the Torah pushes for the ideal situation in which one would always be free to keep one's vows.  However, as a historical document, the Torah came about in a time when women did not have that freedom, and the Torah recognized this and made an allowance for it.  The Torah doesn't compromise on its values, but it does leave room for people to operate in an imperfect system, with the idea being that over time, the values would win out and the system would change.

Lew then turns to the commentaries of the medieval Spanish kabbalist Ibn Gikatilla, who interprets this story on another level.  Gikatilla sees the woman in the above situation as not an actual woman, but as the neshama, or soul, inside each person.  The domineering man who won't let the woman keep her vow is not actually a man, but the yetzer hara, the evil inclination.  In other words, the neshama is the Divine spark inside each of us that represents the will of Hashem, and the yetzer hara is the negative impulse we have that often leads us to act counter to that will.  Our innermost voice, the voice of our core, always comes from the neshama, from Hashem.  However, because we live in a world full of stimuli that bring out our negative impulses and dysfunctional behaviors, we often can't follow through on what we know we should do.

Gikatilla says that in such a case, we are not to be blamed, for we are just like the woman who can't fulfill a vow because she is overpowered by someone else.  We don't need to be punished (or punish ourselves), because in that moment there may be nothing we can do about it.  However, Gikatilla continues, what we can do is build up the neshama so it can become strong enough to resist the yetzer hara.  How do we do this?  There are many options:  prayer, meditation, performing acts of kindness--whatever keeps us aligned with our core.  If we do enough of those things, our neshamas will be strong enough to resist negative impulses and we will be able to act in alignment with our souls and with Hashem.

This perspective resonates with me deeply because it offers another paradigm through which to view the inevitable "slips" in recovery.  Speaking from personal experience, I can say that on my long journey through recovery there have been many, many bumps in the road, many times when I've known the right thing to do but haven't done it.  Every time that happened, I would be frustrated and angry with myself and would try to discipline myself through negative self-talk.  I would also worry that Hashem was disappointed in me because I had failed, yet again, to stay the course of recovery.  Needless to say, all that self-castigating and worrying helped not a whit; it felt "right" because I believed I deserved it, but it never helped me make different choices in the future.  I know many, many people in various stages of recovery who, from time to time, act out of sync with their recovery core values, and not one of them would say that self-punishment brought them lasting positive change.  Instead, a more productive approach would be Gikatilla's:  recognize that we are not to blame because in the moment we are overpowered; but at the same time, actively work to strengthen ourselves so that in the future we will be able to resist negative influences.  Personally, I find this a much more compassionate and empowering operating system than the endless cycle of, "try, fail, frustrate."

So, in this new year, wherever we are in our journeys, let's all work to strengthen our neshamas so that we can withstand the negative forces in our lives, in whatever form they come, so that we can live true to our vows and our commitments to a positive life.

Chag sameach and shana tovah umetukah!

The hand that blocks the sun

I can't express how grateful I am to the Jewish calendar that the High Holidays this year are not in the first week of school.  Instead, I've had a full three weeks to get back into the flow of teaching and have been able to keep holiday prep on the back burner.  Not anymore!  This week we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, then embark on the Ten Days of Awe, and proceed from there directly to Yom Kippur.  If you have a high level of spiritual discipline, you've probably spent the entire month of Elul engaged in self-reflection in preparation for these days.  If you're more like me, you've squeezed it in here and there and only now are realizing, "Oh...that's happening."  In the words of my new favorite High Holiday literary companion, "This is real and you are completely unprepared."

But, all is not lost.  Yesterday I was fortunate to attend a Shabbat afternoon shiur given by a local Jewish scholar and expert on Rav Kook.  I have mentioned my attraction to the teachings of Rav Kook several times on this blog, particularly in regards to teshuvah, a common theme at this time of year.  The speaker brought a number of inspiring sources; I will share one with you here.  (Rav Kook's language is a bit dense and philosophical, but hang in there.)

"Sin blackens the illumination of the higher wisdom that is manifest when the soul is in edifying harmony with all existence and its divine source...Every sinful act disrupts this ideal unity and places the orbit of life outside it.  The illumination that flows like a clear spring will not resume its influence on the will that has been profaned unless the person will turn back and be remorseful.  Then will the light of teshuvah, to the degree of its clarity in perception and depth of acceptance, restore the original harmony.  O return to me the joy of your deliverance, and a generous spirit sustain me (Ps. 51:14)" (Orot Ha-Teshuvah 9:6)

I love this passage as is, but what really resonated with me was the way the speaker boiled it down:  "Sin is the hand that blocks the sun."

It is our natural state to be in the sun--Rav Kook's "illumination of the higher Wisdom."  When we act in ways that are destructive or unhealthy, we block out the sun and put ourselves in darkness.  I'm not comfortable using the word, "sin," to define eating disorders, but the behaviors that go along with eating disorders are certainly destructive and unhealthy.  If one's natural state is to live in the light of a life free from an eating disorder, then engaging in behaviors definitely shuts out that light.

But, here's the thing:  sometimes, the sun feels threatening.  It hurts the eyes, and too much exposure can burn the skin.  When there is no shade, the sun can overwhelm us...and sometimes it feels like "real life" in recovery can, too.  The world of an eating disorder is narrow, focused, and controlled, with little room for outside stimuli.  A full, healthy life, on the other hand, has more noise, more speed, and more (perceived) dangers.  It's not surprising, then, that when venturing into that healthy life, one might be tempted to put up her hand to block the sun.  The trick is to invest in healthy sun protection, like sunglasses and a beach umbrella, rather than seal oneself into a dark, windowless room.  The recovery versions of shades and an umbrella might be forms of "quiet time," such as taking a nature walk or reading a book, or methods of preventing "stimulus overload," such as committing oneself to a limited number of social events--especially those involving food--per month, instead of feeling pressure to attend everything.  In recovery, you learn that it's possible to get temporary relief from the sun without having to block it out entirely...and you can get right back to enjoying its rays as soon as you're ready.

As we prepare to enter the Yamim Noraim, I wish for all of us to live in the light of the sun, as we are meant to do...and when we need a break, to choose a healthy one.  Don't block the sun entirely; just grab a pair of shades and get back into the world.

 

Breaking Down the Walls

It seems I have, once again, been shirking my posting duties.  It's a transitional time of year, which is SO not my thing, and I've spent the past few weeks both reacclimatizing to my life in the States, and preparing my classroom for a new crop of eight-year-olds who are scheduled to arrive tomorrow (yikes!).  Blog entries require a certain degree of contemplative thought, and the truth is that lately I just haven't had it in me.  But I have been reading a fabulous book called, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared by Alan Lew (come on--how awesome is that title?).  Meant to be read in the weeks between Tisha B'Av and Sukkot, the book takes the reader on a journey through teshuvah and the process of self-evaluation that this time of year requires.  

When writing about Tisha B'Av, Lew frequently uses the image of the walls of your house crumbling down around you, leaving you exposed and disoriented.  This alludes to the literal destruction of the walls of the Temple in Jerusalem, but also to the metaphorical walls we all have around our own lives--the routines and material items that protect us and allow us to ignore the true issues that lie beneath the surface.  The month of Elul is our opportunity to remember who we are, where we are, and where we are going.  Lew describes this as a journey of "self-discovery, spiritual discipline, self-forgiveness, and spiritual evolution.  It is the snapshot the Jewish people pull out every autumn of the great journey all human beings must make across this world:  the journey from Tisha B'Av to Sukkot, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, from birth to death and back to renewal again" (8-9).

I tend to be ambivalent about Elul; I love it conceptually but feel overwhelmed by it practically.  The idea of reflective self-assessment and teshuvah is beautiful, but actually doing it usually leads me to feel self-critical, frustrated, and sad.  Why?  Because no matter what improvements I've made over the year, inevitably there are still those few ways in which I have not changed or grown.  These stumbling blocks tend to be the same from year to year, and although every year I resolve to "do better," I don't follow through because doing so is just too hard.  Elul brings me face to face, once again, with the truth that if I want these things to change, then I have to change.  This is a problem because, as I've mentioned, I hate change.  So, you can see why this is a perpetual struggle.

Lew suggests that a critical first step in getting out of points of "stuckness" is acknowledging that we play an active role in keeping ourselves there.  He explains that, "spiritually, the only question worth asking about any conflict, any recurring catastrophe, is this:  What is my responsibility for it?  How am I complicit in it?  How can I prevent it from happening again?" (45)  In other words, I don't end up in the same struggle year after year because the world is against me.  I end up there because I allow myself to stay stuck.  So, I need to ask myself, "In what unproductive ways am I engaging in this conflict?  How could I do things differently in order to get out of it?"  Asking and answering these questions honestly requires that we allow our walls to come down, so that we can see what is truly underneath.

This isn't easy, but personally I think it's worth trying.  When I'm old, I don't want to look back on my life and see pockets of aborted growth and missed opportunities in places where I chose inertia over action.  While this approach to Elul and the High Holy Days will require a lot of effort, I think my life deserves that investment of time and energy.  We all deserve to give that gift of growth to ourselves.

Here are some key questions from Alan Lew to get us started:

"Where are we?  

What transition point are we standing at?  

What is causing sharp feeling in us, disturbing us, knocking us a little off balance?  Where is our suffering?  

What is making us feel bad? 

What is making us feel at all?

How long will we keep the walls up?

How long will we furiously defend against what we know deep down to be the truth of our lives?"

(62)