Seek Joy, Seek Peace - A Moratorium on Complaint

Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you had to bring us to die in this wilderness?! (Exodus 14:11)

Gevalt! Vey ist mir! Oy vey! (Yiddish kvetch words)

In seminary I wrote an article for the Onion-esque segment of the student paper entitled The One True Path, in which I parodied what I saw as a culture of complaint, about too much reading, too high expectations on our time, too many required classes, and so much more:

The [One True] Path:

• The best way to get what you want is to complain loudly and heartily.  Even if it won’t get you what you want, complaint is a valuable social skill.
• No matter how easy or difficult the task in front of you, be sure to complain as much as possible.
• No matter how good life is, complaining can only make it better.
• There is no reason too small or large to complain about… all problems are equal in the eyes of God if you only complain.  

Followers of The Path [understand God's apparently favorable response to the Israelites' complaints] to mean that God not only listens to the complaints ... but responds with sweet rewards. [Talmidei Haverim, 2003]

Take all of the biblical quotes on complaining - I won't list them here, but consider that it is not just the people, but also Moses, the highest prophet of Torah, and other leaders who whine to God). Add the Yiddish language penchant for complaint (see for example the book Born to Kvetch, a description of which tells us that Jews "even learned how to smile through their and express satisfaction in the form of complaint."

Is the Jewish culture really a culture of complaint?  Does the Jewish religion really reward complaint? (Is complaint, as the same description of Born to Kvetch implies, the reason for Jewish survival?)

A couple of weeks ago a meme suggesting "24 hours without complaining" reached my Facebook stream, reminding me of that article and the complaining I wanted to see myself as being somehow above. But I have have been catching myself complaining - a lot - recently. So I tried it - and I liked it.

This week I again find myself kvetching - at my two year old's newly discovered temper tantrum skills, about humidity, about sticky things on my chair, about people and things going too slowly, about my own behavior and things I perceive as failures, and.... I am not enjoying myself.

Complaining makes me feel so closed - physically - like I am shuttering myself, focused on myself - even when commiserating with someone else about outside concerns. Every time I complain I feel worse - physically and spiritually.  When I complain, clouds darken my day.

I'm returning to that moratorium. No complaints. It's time to be creative and constructive - or quiet. It is possible to note something I don't like without complaining - hard but possible.

So what combats complaining?  If complaining is about being closed, if it is darkness, then things that bring openness and light are the countermeasures.  Awe, love, mindfulness - being aware of how amazing our world is, and what I can bring to it.

And here's where I think Judaism has some pretty great counterpunches to its own internal culture of complaint:

• a custom of 100 blessings a day - literally counting our blessings and being aware of the amazing world around us;
• a tradition of song and dance - most traditional blessings have at least one tune associated with them; some Psalms have literally hundreds of tunes; even Torah and other traditional texts are traditionally read musically;
• tzedakah and gemilut chasadim and tikkun olam - traditions of giving, money and action, teaching and repairing, seeking to make the world a better place
• a desire for peace.  Yes, Israel is at war right now.  But our traditional greeting, Shalom Aleichem, means "peace to you" (American Jewish kids learning basic Hebrew learn early that shalom means "hello," "goodbye," and "peace" - but it really just means peace).  And many traditional daily and Shabbat request-prayers focus on peace. 

And so I call a moratorium on complaint (not to preclude constructive criticism or pointing out things I don't like in the act of making the world a better place) - and say instead that it's time to sing and dance and pray, to be in awe - even of the things I might kvetch about:

• to wonder at my son's independence, how he is learning new things, how long he can carry on a tantrum, and how he can change the tantrum mid-phrase so it is clear that it's more about getting something, anything, he wants than about the specific thing;
• to take advantage of slower moments to pause myself and take a breath;
• Bakesh shalom verodfehu - to desire peace and pursue it (Psalms 34:15);
• to sing and dance and be physically open;
• to connect with other people, learning and being in awe of their lives;
• to create - with words, with foods, with ideas, with play-time, with prayer;
• to seek joy and wonder in everything - to offer blessings for every day life - waking, eating, reading, connecting.

Fasting for the Breach - 17 Tammuz

The walls have been breached. Walls of sanity. And so, on a day I might not ordinarily fast, 17 Tammuz, commemorating the breach of Jerusalem of old, I am fasting. 

I concluded my last post, a few days ago, with a prayer that we shouldn't have to fortify our walls. But so many people suffer, even with fortifications, from breaches of sanity. My reading this morning: Iron Dome in Israel 90% effective at intercepting incoming missiles; girls in Kurdistan invent new and effective bomb detection system; friends and colleagues "pissed," and questioning "why," and wanting to protect not only their children but those of their neighbors and even, yes, the children of those who are inciting the hatred. 

I'm heartbroken. I'm a little lost in all this (why can't we just love?). And the breach of sanity has gotten to me. 

And so I am fasting in mourning for sanity, and in hopes that through this fast, in solidarity with others who are fasting (including Muslims fasting during Ramadan but also in solidarity), perhaps some sanity can be restored. I am fasting as a prayer for my son and the future that will be his. I am fasting as a prayer for our world. 

For more on the fast:

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/rabbis-without-borders/2014/07/14/you-can-bring-peace-in-the-middle-east/

On War, Peace, Love, and Writing About It All

Israel, war, terrorism, Gaza, Hamas, peace, prayer . . . the "labels" are easy to come up with.

Despite all the words written, shared, and reshared about the current situation in Israel, I - a rabbi, a leader in the Jewish community, a mom, a Jew, and a self-declared writer - find it nearly impossible to write about what is happening in Israel, between Israel and Gaza, Israel and Hamas, right now.

I feel physically blocked - in my heart especially, in my head and in my gut, a stiffness running throughout my body. My blood doesn't seem to flow right, I'm not breathing well, and the fetal position sounds really good about now.

"Again!" says the feeling. "Again?!" and, on a sigh, "again."

War does not beget peace. The horrid cycle of revenge only begets more revenge. Bombs, rockets, missiles - these beget terror, anger, and a mother-bear sense of protection. I know. I felt it on 9/11 in America. And I feel a little PTSD from being in Israel during suicide terrorist attacks, and from my last trip to Israel in the summer of 2006, when I, like many today, sat in or near a shelter (in restaurants and at "home"), counting the explosions and waiting for news: what hit, where, was anyone injured; smelling smoke from resulting forest fires.

Peace will come only when all cultures value life - everyone's lives - more than they value anyone's death. This has been said before. So why? WHY do we human beings find this so difficult? When will we learn to love more than we hate? Why do I feel powerless? Why am I convinced that there's no stopping the current Israeli government and military and the current Hamas government in Gaza? That neither side is in the right, justified in their actions?

And that's it: I find it hard to write because I feel powerless to do anything about the situation, that my words will stop no war.

But I refuse to let the fear, the feelings of powerlessness and physical blockage, get the better of me.  I am writing about them, because maybe you have felt the same things, and need to hear someone say it. And I am writing to tell you about the prayers - traditional words (so many Jewish prayers are about peace) and my own words - that I am filling my mouth with:

• Ufros aleinu sukkat shelomecha - spread over us the shelter of Your peace (traditional)
• Od yavo shalom aleinu ve'al kulam - yet may there be peace for us and the whole world (contemporary)
• Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom (hi ta'aseh shalom) aleinu - may the One who brings peace in the heavens bring peace to us (traditional)
• Praying for peace, for cooler minds to prevail over the heat-of-the-moment reactivity, for all the lives that are caught in the crossfire.  This prayer is specifically for Israel and her neighbors, and generally for our world.  May we move towards peace, joy, love, and creativity - and ever away from destruction. (My words posted to Facebook, 8 July 2014)
• Please, Holy Creator, PLEASE... (I ask here)
• bring wisdom to those in power
• create a peaceful heart in all of Your people and peoples
• mold our hearts for compassion and love-of-life
• Lo yisa goy el goy cherev, lo yilmedu od milchama - let nation not lift up sword against nation, neither learn war anymore (traditional)

May love and creativity abound - may all war and hatred end.  What else can I say? For a political understanding of the current situation that comes close to what I think, see Gershon Baskin's words here, and JStreet's statement here (this just comes close, and that I do not fully agree with everything JStreet says or does).

"How many times must the cannon balls fly, before they are forever banned?"

May we soon live in a world where we construct our buildings to welcome those who would visit, as Abraham and Sarah did, and not to fortify or fight against our neighbors. (Pics from Caesarea, Israel - 1993, copyright mine.)

Fixity and Flexibility

The hardest part of religion (or any part of life, frankly), for me, is that which is fixed.  I don’t like to follow rules.  The more rules you give me, the more I rebel - inside if not out.  Tell me that I have to do something a certain way, and that’s the only way I don’t want to, almost can’t, do it.

Perhaps this is a case of “point a finger out and three are pointing back.”  When I ask people to do things, I sometimes expect them to be done a certain way.  

Over the years, though, I’ve grown more flexible in the latter (I think) than in the former. I’ve grown deeply aware that things can get done well and properly even (and sometimes especially) if it isn’t done the way I expect it to be done.  But if someone tells me something has to be done a certain way, I still fight.

When I’m working on a project, large or small, I am prone to extreme flexibility - not setting anything in stone ever.  As a rabbi, if I am leading services, I frequently make choices in the midst of the service, based on who is present or a feeling in the moment, to add or skip a song or reading.  At a bigger event like the Community Day we did last Sunday, our Hebrew School students sharing their learning from the first third of the year, I am open to changes in the order of presentations even after the program is printed.  

I like the fluidity of water and dreams, ever changing and changeable.  In this week’s Torah reading, Jacob sees the ladder with angels ascending and descending.  As I understand dreams to be of us, I see Jacob processing his world.  When he wakes and says, “God was in this place and I, I did not know!” I think he is saying that his heart, which knew, was telling his head, which had not grasped that God is everywhere.

Head and heart.  Different parts of our body, in both of which thought forms and action derives.  Forgive me a bit of spin - the head is the place of fixity, of fixed ideas and of “set-in-stone” action, and the heart is the place of fluidity, of open ideas and flexible action.  

Both head and heart, both fixed plans and flexibility, are valuable.  When we choose to attend an event -- a play, a religious service, a carnival -- we expect certain things, because those event names carry some fixed meaning.  But if every play is the same, if every religious service is identical, sameness becomes droll.  We want something different -- a new inflection for Tevye or MacBeth, a different sermon or an innovative prayer that reaches out to where we are, a new ride at the carnival.

God of Jacob, dreamer of angels, dreamer of heavens, hear my prayer!  Give me courage not to require others to do things "my way," and strength to be flexible to all that comes my way, including fixity demanded by others.