Drash For Saturday Morning, Shabbat Bereishit

When God Began to Create…Me!

“When God began to create heaven and earth, the earth being unformed and void…”

So opens the 1985 JPS Tanakh, turning away from the traditional rendering of the Hebrew:  “In the beginning God created heaven and earth…”

The new rendering accounts for an unfolding understanding of the Hebrew grammar, where the first two words (Bereishit bara) are now understood to be nouns in construct state.  So if bara, creation, is a noun and not a verb, then it reads literally (in translation):  “In the beginning of the creation by God of heaven and earth…”  Then the JPS version is a poetic, yet accurate rendering of the Hebrew.

A theologian would say that the new rendering teaches two things whose opposite were implied by the old rendering.  First, the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth was not the beginning.  It was not the start of the story of the universe, only the start of the chapter of the physical universe.  That means that a different universe, that of incorporeality, of spirit, pre-existed the physical.  Or may have.  Second, it does not teach that the earth was formed out of nothingness – creatio ex nihilo.  The earth was formed from pre-existing matter.  No waving of any magic wands, as it were.

So what’s the difference?  The difference is that we know from outside the Torah that the earth’s formation wasn’t the beginning of the story.  And similarly we know that the earth had to have been formed from pre-existing matter.  So, the opening verse of Genesis does not set us up for a stark choice:  Torah or science.  In fact, there’s absolutely no choice necessary.  The either-or dilemma that some fundamentalist readers of the Torah on one side and some scientific absolutists on the other side insist exists, in reality, is…a fabrication.  It’s only necessary if you’re a fundamentalist of either Torah or science.  But if you’re the type who tries to mine every source of truth for the truth that’s in it, and not set it up as the be-all-end-all, then you know that there’s ample wisdom to be found in both places.

          So…you can breathe easy!  Your religion – Progressive Judaism – doesn’t require you to choose between its wisdom and that of the scientist.  You’re thus freed from being an absolute materialist.  And you’re freed from the stigma that religionists are those who cling to fairy-tales.  Isn’t it liberating!  So now you can focus on the important questions of life!

          And the important question of life on my mind today is about the creation of…Me!  Oh, I don’t mean the physical creation of Me.  All that stuff about my father’s sperm fertilising my mother’s ovum, creating a zygote which grew and developed into a foetus, et cetera, et cetera.  Oh, all that stuff matters and is interesting on a certain level.  But that’s not the Me I’m talking about today.  I’m talking about the Me that I encounter when I close my eyes and contemplate my life.  When I consider the life experiences that have made me who I am.  When I dream the dreams that are the motivation for me to get out of bed each morning, do the work to which I’ve committed, love my wife, fret over my kids.  God created Me – that Me – just as He created heaven and earth.  From pre-existing matter.  When I made a commitment to religious living, when I made the decision that the progressive Jewish life would be my life’s path, then I opened the door for God and me to begin the really important act of creation.  To take all the baggage I was then carrying, all the experiences, the triumphs and the disappointments, and give me a context for understanding the importance of my life.  And with that context, to begin the process of creating a life that matters.  Of course, my life mattered before I made that commitment.  But now it mattered in a different way, because I had joined myself to the ever-unfolding narrative of the Jewish people in their quest to be a Holy People.

          I have many Christian friends of the Born-again sort.  They understand that their uniquely Christian selves did not have their genesis when they were born.  Rather, at some point after the age of cognition, they made a decision, made a commitment to an idea.  Each one was born on their birthday, but then each experienced a second birth when they saw a clear picture of the Me they were supposed to become. 

Now if I went around to the members of my congregation telling them that they would do well to experience being “born again” in that way, they would think I’d gone off my rocker.  They would start plotting my exit from the congregation’s pulpit!  That’s because the language of born again has been effectively hijacked by another religious faith, one with which Progressive Jews are unlikely to feel any strong affinity.  But when you really think about it, that – being born again – is not really an inaccurate description of the process that many of us have gone through.  Of the process that is a worthy religious goal.  Yes, even in our religion:  Progressive Judaism.

          It’s really not that different from the rebirth that ideally happens when we commit to a career path.  The quest to become the best and most successful whatever we’ve committed to – doctor, barrister, musician, teacher – will ideally consume us and motivate us and guide our priorities and actions.  If we don’t experience that rebirth – if we don’t make a commitment that consumes us in that way – we may very well achieve what we set out to do, but chances are we won’t become what we set out to be.

          Likewise, when we marry and commit the rest of our lives to our partner.  Ideally, we begin moving toward a new definition of ourselves.  To be sure, one can be half of a couple without going this process.  One can be a worthy partner.  But to really be married, to grow into a person for whom that marriage is an inextricable part, we must experience the rebirth that comes when we commit from the depths of our soul.

          This kind of rebirth, this kind of commitment, is not an everyday thing.  Not in pursuit of career, and not in marriage.  And not in religion.  Most Jews don’t think of their religious ‘walk’ in such terms.  I was born a Jew and raised a Jew, and being a Jew is just part of who I am.  Or, I made a rational decision to become a Jew (for whatever reason) and jumped through the hoops that were placed in front of me, and then a beit din told me that I’m now a Jew.  But we seldom think of our Jewishness as the result of a a rebirth, or a life-changing decision.

But that sense of rebirth is a worthy goal, in all three:  career, marriage, and religion.  In order to really be a doctor, to really be a partner, to really be a Jew, we must make a commitment that, at the end of the day, re-defines us and sets us on a new path.  That can be scary, because when you turn onto a new path you’re stepping off the familiar, oft-trod ground.  You’re stepping off into directions heretofore unknown.

          When God began creating heaven and earth, He stepped off onto such a path.  There’s a delightful Midrash where God is being scolded by the angels for creating man.  Since man had turned out rebellious and violent and predatory, God had clearly made a big mistake.  So God thinks about it and agrees. “Okay, I made a mistake when a created man.  But I did create man.  So we’re stuck with him; let’s make the most of him.”  The Midrash, in effect, humanises God by acknowledging that even He could not always anticipate what He had unleashed.  But He created even so.

          We never know what will be the ultimate result when we step off into the unknown of a new career path.  Or of marriage.  Or of religious life.  All are part of the great adventure of life.  Of the process that results in the Me I see when I contemplate who I am.  Had I not had the courage to make such commitments, my life would have unfolded – would be unfolding – in a far different manner.  But the emerging Me is the Me that made these decisions, these commitments.  Who submitted to the process that began with a rebirth.  A rebirth that can only be seen as a positive and desirable thing.  Do you have the courage to experience it?   

Drash for Friday Evening, Shabbat Bereishit

The Audacity to Create

There’s a saying in Hebrew:  Kol hat’halah kashah.  Every beginning is difficult.  Whenever an Israeli starts a new enterprise and hits a snag, he will shrug and invoke:  Kol hat’halah kashah.  It’s meant to be more than a bit fatalistic.  You start something new, and there will be difficulties.  Because after all, the very concept of beginning is fraught with difficulty.

          Why do you think this is so?  Surely it is attributable, at least in part, to our inability to anticipate every possible circumstance, every possible consequence.  Some of us are stuck in Stage One Thinking.  Remember that?  Of course you don’t!  I spoke of it two years ago, when I came as guest rabbi to help you to celebrate the High Holy Days.  Was that really two years ago?  Yes, Virginia…it was.

          Anyway, since you likely don’t remember, let me refresh your memory.  Stage One Thinking is when one sets a course based on how good it sounds, on how good it feels, without any attempt to think through the likely, or possible consequences.  Many of us are stuck in Stage One Thinking.  Even some national and world leaders at the highest echelons are stuck in Stage One Thinking.  There are political ideologies out there that are absolutely based on Stage One Thinking.  And that’s scary.  But even when one is not stuck in Stage One Thinking, it is probably impossible to anticipate every possible consequence.  So in every new endeavour there is a danger of some unforseen consequence messing things up.

          One consequence that is as predictable as the rain in a Queensland summer, yet seldom taken into account, is the resistance to change.  We tend to be creatures of habit.  We can very easily be taken out of our comfort zone.  When something new is in the air, the resistance to change factor is often a consequence to deal with.

The Torah reading tomorrow morning will be from Bereishit, the very first reading in the Torah.  We’ll read from the creation narrative, which you also heard read yesterday if you came for Simchat Torah.  Whether you think the creation of the earth actually followed the narrative in the opening chapter of Genesis word-for-word or not, is not relevant to my message.  What is relevant, is that the account follows a logical sequence.  The steps in creation follow a perfect logic:  light and dark.  Sky and sea.  Sea and land.  Different lights to mark the times and seasons.  Creatures of the water.  Creatures of the land.  Man and woman.  All the seed and fruit-bearing plants to provide the basis of the food chain.  It looks as if God thought it all out well in advance.

Ah, but there was a snag!  Man and woman didn’t turn out quite as planned.  And the angels chided God for this.  His answer?  “Meh!  It would have been better if I hadn’t created man.  But I did, so we’re stuck with him!  Get over it!”  It’s a delightful Midrash, because it suggests that even God Himself cannot foresee every possible consequence.  God cannot foresee everything and yet has the audacity to create.  Then we too, unable to foresee everything, should have the same audacity.  Especially so, since anything we’re likely to create is not nearly as big as the world itself.  So how much trouble can we get ourselves into?

When God began creating the heavens and the earth…He took a risk.  He could not have anticipated every consequence that He unleashed.  But still He created.  And we, too aught to have the courage, the audacity to create.  To look around us and imagine what we might do better.  To get out of our respective ruts.  To stop spinning our wheels.  To try a little boldness.  To try to find a better way.  Many among us have a great example of such risk-taking to offer.  Let’s make this a year when, looking back on it next year, we will be able to say of ourselves:  We were willing to take risks.  We thought things through as best we could, and then we stepped out in confidence.  And our own little corner of the world is now a better place because of it.  Shabbat shalom. 

I Did Not Give a Drash last Shabbat...

...I was away, speaking at an interfaith conference in Toowoomba.  Here's the talk I gave, on Judaism and Multiculturalism:

A Jewish View of Multiculturalism

Rabbi Don Levy

Gold Coast, Queensland

I’ve been asked to speak to you today on the subject, ‘A Jewish View of Multiculturalism.’  My brief did not include a working definition of the term ‘multiculturalism.’ Since it means different things to different people, I am therefore going to fill in a definition.  Multiculturalism for the purposes of my talk is ‘the ideologies that acknowledge and celebrate that society is comprised of people from a diversity of cultures, and policies that encourage and enable people from various cultures to live according to them.’  I understand my brief then, to be the answering of the question of how Jews and Judaism see the validity of, and support, this enterprise.  So, here we go!

          First of all, some statistics.  According to the 2011 census, there are 97,335 Jews in Australia, or 0.3% of the total population of about 22.68 million.  Likewise in the world as a whole; the most authoritative estimates show the total number of Jews as being no more than 15 million, in a total world population of some 7 billion.  That means that, most optimistically, Jews comprise 0.2% of the world’s population – very close to our proportion in Australia.  But because almost 12 million of the world’s Jews live in two countries – the United States of America and Israel – that means that Jews are pretty thin on the ground in the rest of the world.  Specifically, in the Arab world (except Morocco), Africa (except South Africa) and Asia.  In these three parts of the world with the exceptions noted, Jews are especially thin on the ground.

          So why does this matter?

          It matters because the premise of multiculturalism is that it is good for groups in society to retain strong parts of their unique identity.  The premise is that the ‘salad bowl’ society is better than the ‘melting pot.’  In societies where many people’s family origins or cultural cues are different from the majority culture, it is a positive thing when they retain a strong element of that culture.  They then bring this element to the patchwork of cultures that comprise the larger society.  Which is richer for that.

          Australia certainly matches this description.  She is a country of immigrants, and many Australians today, even if they were born here, have shallow roots here.  They trace their family origins to a vast number of places.  This certainly contributes to Australia’s being an incredibly tolerant place.  You have absorbed repeated waves of immigration for various parts of the world, and each immigrant group added something unique and desirable to the mosaic that is Australian culture.  This is as noticeable here, in the ‘wilds’ of Queensland as it is in the metropolises of Sydney and Melbourne.

          For the Jews’ part, there were Jews among the first European settlers to this land; eight Jews were among the passengers of the First Fleet, and over 1,000 are estimated to have arrived over the following 60 years.  But the largest group of Australian Jews originated in Europe and came here as refugees after the Second World War and the Holocaust.  Later groups of Jewish immigrants to Australia, or notable size, came from South Africa and from Israel.  But the largest and most influential group consists of Holocaust survivors and their offspring.  Proportionally, Australian Jewry contains the largest proportion of Holocaust survivors- and their offspring – of the entire Jewish Diaspora.  Specifically, 35,000 Jewish refugees of the Holocaust found their way to Australia’s shores.  80,000 went to the United States, but in the community of about six million Jews there, they are less of a force.  This fact very much colours attitudes among Australian Jewry, something which I’ll address in just a moment.

          Because Jews are such a drop in the bucket of Australia’s population, they struggle to retain something of what is unique to them as Jews.  They also struggled to make their presence felt in the national dialogue.  Why should it matter?  Because it is a non-negotiable in Jewish life, that each individual and the Jews as a group, must make a positive difference.  Our religious teaching suggests that the world is not yet complete.  If God created the physical world in six days and then withdrew from His creative energy from the equation, it was to make room for humanity to ‘finish’ the world by creating a just order, a place of goodness.  This imperative is so strong, that often Jews who are outwardly, entirely non-religious have absorbed it and integrated it into the actions that comprise their lives.  As a result, Jews are represented out of proportion with their numbers in public life:  in politics and other social leadership, in academe and in the helping professions.  In Australia, and in the world.

As much as Australian Jews have worked to make a positive difference in society, because of the reality I noted above there is also an undeniable insularity among Australian Jews.  Compared with most other countries in the Jewish Diaspora, Australian Jews are more likely to have attended Jewish parochial schools.  And anecdotally, among Jews here, all or most of their close friends are more likely to be Jewish than among American Jews, which is of course my point of reference for these observations and comparisons.

Tendencies toward insularity aside, there is a strong tradition among Jews living in non-Jewish lands that the civil law of the land trumps Jewish law.  This is an important point when talking about multiculturalism. Many citizens, here in Australia and elsewhere, fear that multiculturalism by necessity creates a different social order for each group.  And to be sure, there are members of minority groups who wish for their own laws and customs to trump the larger civil order.  But not Jews; that is, when the latter is more stringent.  This principle is known in Aramaic as Dina d’malchuta Dina – the Law of the Land is the Law.  It was already articulated in the Jewish legal writings of early antiquity.

As an example of how this works, Jewish law allows the marriage of males from age 13, and females from 12.  But in a place where local law does not permit marriage at such a young age, no Jewish authority would sanction a marriage of anybody below whatever is the legal age locally.  I should mention that, while Jewish law does PERMIT marriage at such a young age, I cannot think of any Jewish community in the world where marriage at such a young age has been normative since the mid-twentieth century.  And even then, only among Jews in the Arab world where it was normative generally.

Conversely, where Jewish law is more stringent than local civil law, Jewish law prevails.  Another example from marriage law:  today, Jewish law does not permit plural marriage.  So a Jew living in a country where plural marriage IS permitted, would be constrained by Jewish religious law to forsake the ‘right’ to more than one spouse.  But there is only one element of enforcement when Jews do not meet the higher standard of Jewish law.  That is the force of the community, which will choose to exclude anybody who flaunts its norms.  In a land where Jewish law is not the civil law of the land – that is to say everywhere INCLUDING Israel which is a modern parliamentary secular democracy – there is no other sanction.

Jews try to circumvent local civil law, usually by lobbying governmental bodies, when the clash between Jewish law and civil law creates a specific hardship.  For example, in America until about the 1960’s, in various states there were so-called Blue Laws, restricting most types of business activity on Sundays, the Christian ‘Sabbath.’  Where there were sizeable Jewish communities in these states, their leaders often worked to get exceptions to these laws since the Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday and such laws would result in an inability to do business two days out of seven.  But if such an exception was not forthcoming, no Jewish religious authority would advocate breaking the law – hardship notwithstanding.

Jewish law requires that the Jew disobey civil law only in three matters.  If it would require a Jew to commit murder.  Or perform some indecent and prohibited sexual act.  Or commit idol worship.  In these three cases, Jewish law instructs the Jew that he must disobey the law, even if the penalty of such disobedience is death.  In any other matter, he must obey the civil authorities.

Jews try so hard to be ‘normative’ to their environment that they often deeply resent laws that separate them even when a legal remedy exists.  For example, when the Australian parliamentary elections were called for 14 September 2013, many Australian Jews were deeply offended as this was Yom Kippur, the ‘holiest’ day of the Jewish year.  This, despite that early voting is readily available in Australia meaning that no Jew would be forced to vote on that date.  But some members of my congregation found it offensive that an election would be held on that day, because it represented an instance where Jews must choose between their religious faith and fully participating in national life.

          An anecdote along the same lines:  many of you have heard of the famous Jewish-American barrister, Alan Dershowitz, who is a law professor at Harvard University.  In his autobiography, Chutzpah, published in 1992, Dershowitz tells about the beginning of his years teaching at Harvard.  The university had classes on Saturdays at the time.  As a newly-hired Assistant Professor, he waged a strident battle to gain exemption from teaching Saturdays.  Since Dershowitz today is well-known as being a not particularly observant Jew, he quips that Harvard, by making him fight to avoid teaching Saturdays, kept him Sabbath-observant for several years longer than he otherwise would have been.

          I mentioned the State of Israel a moment ago and I’d like to return to her even though we’re talking more about multiculturalism in Australia.  I mention Israel, of course because she is the only Jewish-majority country in the world and therefore gives perhaps a truer glimpse into Jewish attitudes on multiculturalism – by showing how multicultural-minded Jews are when they are the dominant group.

          Israel is a modern, multicultural state where every citizen has the right to practice his or her religion as long as those practices do not violate civil law.  The latter is based largely on English Common Law although some aspects such as land tenure originate in Ottoman Turkish Law.  The only way that Jewish religious law has general authority is in minor ceremonial matters.  That is, only rabbis offer prayers at public ceremonies.  And the food in all government cafeterias is kosher.  And government offices are closed on the Jewish Sabbath and holy days, which are also national holidays.

Not only do all Israeli citizens have the right to freely practice their own religion, but each religious group in society enjoys a certain amount of autonomy.  So although there is a national system of secular schools which is open to all children, each religious group runs its own parochial school system at state expense, for parents who want their children to be educated according to their faith’s requirements.  And authority for the so-called ‘personal status’ issues are ceded to each recognised religious group:  Jews, Muslims, various Christian sects, Baha’is and others.  So, for example two Jews would go to the Jewish religious authorities to get married while two Muslims would go to their respective authority.  The religious groups are given such absolute authority that there is no civil alternative for marriage.  Of course this creates problems when a couple are not both members of the same religious group.  In that case, if there is to be no religious conversion of one of the principals, they must travel abroad to obtain a civil marriage, which is then recognised in Israel.  By the way, I mention this twist of Israeli law not to advocate for it.  I bring it up only to illustrate the absolute autonomy of religious denominations in Israel.

So Israel is a Jewish country in the same way that Great Britain is a Christian country.  In the UK, the Church of England is a unique public role as the state’s church, but members of other religious groups have freedom to practice their own faith.  Likewise, for example in Greece the Greek Orthodox Church has a special role but many Greeks freely practice other religions.  Israel is very similar.

So Jews, whether they are a minority or the majority, instinctively practice multiculturalism.  We are ready to assert our rights to practice our faith in a place where there are few Jews.  And to assert the right of others to practice their respective faiths.  This is why I am willing to travel all the way up here to Toowoomba to participate in these conversations.  Between the religious groups, you have a wonderful feeling of shared destiny and partnership here.  I come because there is unfortunately no organised Jewish community here.  But an opportunity for Jews to participate in these conversations should not be lost.  Thank you, and Shalom.    

Drash for Yom Kippur Afternoon

Yom Kippur Afternoon

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Jews

Step Three:  Continuous Self-improvement

I began Rosh Hashanah by presenting an important premise.  That premise is that it is important to be effective.  To make a positive impact.  When we feel that we’ve been effective, then we can feel that we’ve lived a life that matters.  And this task – to live a life that matters – is a task placed before each one of us.

          A popular notion holds that, when we die, we will face a Divine Tribunal.  And before that Tribunal, we will behold a life’s accumulation of our misdeeds.  This image is found within our prayers on Yom Kippur.  As we have worked our way through the machzor, we have heard language suggesting this image.

          While nobody knows the mechanics of how the Divine Tribunal might work, many of us imagine that we will face it.  The notion supports the hope of Divine Justice.  We look to the world-to-come for the settling of accounts.  But I think we over-emphasise the aspect of accounting for all our misdeeds.

          Some people are evil and spend their lives working to circumvent laws that they know are good.  They might not seek specifically to do harm to others, but because they are focused so totally on themselves they are willing to do evil to achieve their goals.  Others find it convenient or even amusing to hurt others.

          But that does not describe everybody in this room.  It probably describes none of us!  Most of us mess up, and frequently.  But it isn’t because we want to do so.  Sometimes, try as we might to stay on the straight and narrow, we allow our passions to lead us astray.

          I’m not going to tell you to forget the Divine Accounting.  But I do recommend that you shift your focus from the list of your misdeeds.  Instead imagine the Divine Judge asking you:  did your life matter?  Did you bring goodness into the world?  Did you, despite your mis-steps and lapses, attempt to live a life that made a positive difference in the world?  And if you did, did you succeed…even in small measure?  If so, that’s being Effective.

          So it is important to be Effective.  It doesn’t mean, to be a macher.  It doesn’t mean, to be successful.  It means that, when you will have passed by, someone would be able to point to a positive difference from your having been there.  That’s where The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People comes in.  Dr Stephen Covey researched the Habits of people who were certifiably Effective.  He pulled out those Habits that, he’d found, were common to most.

If you’ve been following my presentation of The Seven Habits, you may have counted only Six Habits.  On Rosh Hashanah I presented the first group of Three, those calculated to take you from dependence to independence.  And they are:  Be Proactive.  Begin with the End in Mind.  Put First Things First.

          In the course of Yom Kippur up to now, I have presented the second group of Three Habits.  These are calculated to take you from independence to interdependence.  And they are:  Think Win-win.  Seek first to Understand, then to be Understood.  Synergise.

          So what about the Seventh Habit?  The Seventh and final Habit is the one that is calculated to enable you to achieve continuous self-improvement.  And that habit is:  Sharpen the Saw.

          When Clara first moved to the USA, she was aghast that Americans build homes out of timber.  In Israel, the chicken coops are built of timber.  And if you’ve been to Israel, you know why.  There are no old-growth trees there.  The forests have all been planted since the 1950’s.  And with little annual rainfall, the species that grow are not the kind that yield timbers suitable for building homes.  Plus there’s the threat of attack from the air.  So houses and other structures are invariably built of concrete blocks.  But a chicken coop…you can build that out of any scrap timber.  Cow shed?  Concrete blocks.

          But in the USA, at least in many parts of the country, we have sufficient quantities of useable trees to build many homes out timber.  And timber is a fine building material.  It provides a degree of natural insulation.  It breathes and gives to the forces of Nature.  Timber isn’t used in the parts of the country that are subject to hurricanes, because clay bricks or concrete blocks are more likely to withstand high winds.  But in Colorado, there are no hurricanes.  And little chance of tornadoes.  So they build from wood.  The home that we bought, when I retired from the Air Force, was a timber home.  And it had a timber deck wrapping around two sides of the structure.

          Timber is not a difficult material to work.  And if you have a timber home, you’ll have to work it a lot.  Because individual boards dry out, or rot.  Or otherwise weaken.  The timber must be painted periodically.  And the owner of a timber home often finds himself sawing wood to size.

          A saw is a wonderful tool.  One feels a great deal of satisfaction from the process of measuring the amount of board to be cut off.  And marking where the cut will go.  And then you make one stroke of the saw with almost no pressure.  That makes a notch in the board.  And then you put your back into the act of drawing the saw through the board.  If the saw is sharp, it cuts right through.  Hardwood requires more effort, but the sharp saw still goes through quickly.

          But if you use the saw repeatedly and do not sharpen it, its teeth become dull.  It begins cutting through the timber only with difficulty.  Until it will barely cut at all.  The saw must be sharpened if it is going to keep working.  If it is going to be effective.

          So you take the saw and get it sharpened.  Because it makes no sense to just replace it.  If you want it to keep doing its job, you get it sharpened.  And likewise we must sharpen ourselves, as if we were a saw, if we’re going to continue to be effective.

          So how do we sharpen ourselves?  We’re not saws, are we?  Of course not.  But like saws, we can’t work constantly and expect to be effective.

          Obviously, we need rest.  Both physical and mental rest.  That’s why Shabbat is such a gift.  For one day in seven, if we’re honouring Shabbat, we have an opportunity to rest and refresh ourselves.  We avoid physical exertion.  But we also avoid creative exertion.  We give our minds and spirits a chance to recharge.  We take time to praise God and to learn a little something from His Torah.  But there are lots of hours in Shabbat that we’re not in shule.  During those hours, we take time to be with people whom we don’t get to see every day.  Otherwise, instead of getting on the computer, we read.  Instead of mild entertainments, we enjoy a walk outdoors or something cultural.  Instead of running errands and shopping, we allow ourselves a rest.  I’m not expressing some theoretical ideal that none of us does.  This is certainly how Clara and I spend our Shabbat, and afterward we feel refreshed.  We make much about the differences in practice between Orthodox and Progressive Jews.  Some of us look with some contempt upon practices such as pre-tearing the toilet paper.  But except for a few details like that, and the use of automobiles and switching on a coffeemaker, I would submit to you that there is little difference between the ‘ideal’ Orthodox and Progressive Shabbat.  Obviously, not everybody in this room is living up to, or even attempting, to reach this ideal.  If you’re not, this is not an admonition.  Rather, this is sympathy.  You need and deserve the rest and refreshment that Shabbat brings, and you’re missing out.

          There are other aspects than rest to Sharpening the Saw.  Various forms of recreation help revive the spirit.  When I take my boat out for an afternoon, or spend an evening playing ukulele, I feel refreshed.  Physical exercise helps.  Getting away from our routines helps; holidays away are very restorative.  As is learning.  People who go back to school – for an advanced degree or to learn a new skill – in middle age usually rave about how it makes them feel younger in the sense of being more energetic and having a fresh outlook.  But you can experience that same refreshment without enrolling in uni in your fifties.  You can get it by attending a casual class, learning for its own sake.  Among the possibilities here, is my Judaism for Dummies class that meets Wednesday evenings.  It’s well-attended, but we always have room for one more!

          Finally, people who have retired from their life’s occupations often experience a sense of being redundant because not as many people are depending upon them.  An antidote to this is volunteering.  There are so many opportunities for volunteer service in our community that nobody need feel unneeded.  Even if you’re still working, volunteering is a great thing.  You may know that your rabbi is an active member of the Southport Volunteer Marine Rescue.  I man the radios about twice a month at the Seaway Tower.  I’m a busy enough man without the extra duties.  But I find that it’s spiritually refreshing to do something different, for the benefit of a different part of the community.

          You’ve heard all this before and in truth, the notion of how to recreate and refresh yourself is more-or-less self-evident.  But then, as I pointed out before, most of the content of the Seven Habits is self-evident.  Most of us don’t practice these Habits.  And those who do, sometimes struggle to do so.  But it isn’t because they’re rocket science.  It’s because they require intentionality.  They require that we go against other, longer held habits.  One must really work to live according to the Seven Habits.  But the effort is well-spent.

When we think about Yom Kippur – about the Day of Atonement – we often internalise that we’re supposed to approach it with a spirit of regret.  I did this – or I failed to do that – and it did not avail me.  But if we can’t get past that spirit of regret, then we haven’t achieved anything.  Do we focus on regret, on where we missed the mark, but not find a way to teach ourselves how to do better in the next year?  If so, then we are only setting ourselves up for failure in the coming year.  If we are sorry for what we didn’t succeed to do in the past year, the antidote is to march forward and do better.  And if we did fail, chances aren’t that we are evil.  Rather, we simply didn’t have the right tools to succeed.

The Seven Habits are great tools to succeed where we failed before.  Take these simple, almost self-evident principles to heart and work to put them into effect in your everyday lives.  Then you will have increased your chances of a different, and better result next year when we again enter this sanctuary to proclaim, Ashamnu, Bagadnu…  The Seven Habits are not the only such tools available.  But they have worked for millions of people.  Clara and I can attest most definitely that they have worked for us.

Do regret the past when it is regrettable.  But do not forget to look forward.  Do not forsake the effort to free yourselves of those aspects of your past, which you’d rather leave behind.  Consider these Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as worthwhile tools to adopt.  Let’s do some smart things to ensure at least the probability that we will come upon Yom Kippur next year with a sense of success putting spring into our steps.  Ken yehi ratzon. 

Drash for Yom Kippur Morning

 Yom Kippur Morning

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Jews

Step Two:  From Independence to Interdependence

(Part Two)

On Rosh Hashanah I began my High Holy Day drash series on the principles that I learned from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  This book has been life-changing for Clara and me.  In trying to decide how to theme my drash series for these all-important days this year, I decided use these Seven Habits.  The truth is that I’ve been thinking about this for several years.  I have found over time that doing the drashot for these holy days is a very effective way to present ideas far too complex for one drash.  If you have been unable to attend every service of this season and would like to benefit from the entire series of drashot, you can find them posted to my blog.  After the service this morning, I’ll be happy to tell you where to find it.

          On Rosh Hashanah I talked about the first three Habits, those which can and will enable you to make the transition from dependence to independence.  They are:  Be Proactive.  Begin with the End in Mind.  Put First Things First.  If you master these Habits, you will have mastered yourself.  You will have achieve Private Victory.  You will be able to live by your Core Values.

          Last night I talked about the need to go beyond independence.  Whilst independence is a worthy goal and absolutely essential, it is not the end of the road.  Interdependence is.  The Road to Happiness, necessarily, passes through a place called interdependence.  Because we are not self-contained, solitary creatures, we find happiness when we learn to master ourselves and learn to live effectively with others.  In Covey’s phrase, we strive for Public Victory.    

The next group of three Habits are calculated to take you from independence to interdependence.  They are:  Think win-win.  Seek first to understand, then to be understood.  Synergise.

Win-win is a mindset that refuses to recognise life as a zero-sum game.  Zero-sum means that there is only a finite amount of resources, and there can never be more.  So in zero-sum, in every situation where there are two competing visions, one will win, one will lose, or there will be a compromise.

About the only thing in life that is really zero-sum is time.  As you may have heard me say before, time is a limited commodity.  Every hour we spend doing ‘X’ is an hour we’ll never have available to do ‘Y.’ If we spent an hour watching television, we didn’t spend that hour reading.  If we spent it playing the ukulele, we didn’t spend it fishing.  With the passage of each hour, the remainder of our life is thus one hour shorter.  This is absolute.

Okay, so it’s not completely absolute.  We can lengthen our lives – maybe – by healthy living.  You know:  control your weight, eat healthily, exercise regularly, give up bad habits, keep a positive outlook.  Do all or most of these things, and maybe, just maybe, you can squeeze some extra years out of your life.  But maybe not.  Genetics are the biggest influence on longevity, and you can’t change that.  So for the purposes of my thesis, we can call time zero-sum.

But there’s a mindset that infects many people, a mindset that is absolutely fallacious.  And that is, that everything, or at least almost everything, in life is zero-sum.

For example, wealth.  Many people – I would venture to say, most people – erroneously think that wealth is zero-sum.  That is, there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world.  And when somebody other than me succeeds in amassing wealth, he has done so at my expense…and the expense of everybody else.  But there’s no truth at all to that notion.  When somebody else succeeds, the chances are that he is increasing the chances of others, to succeed.  That’s because, in his wealth creation, he has probably created one or more new businesses, which in turn employ other people or at least generate sales across other businesses.

But most of us think that someone else’s amassing wealth, just takes part of a fixed amount of wealth available out of circulation.  That’s why people who have not amassed wealth, often want to punish those who have.  Why they want to Soak the Rich.  Soak the Rich, usually with crippling taxes, is an attitude that is widespread.  Not enough money in the public coffers to fund all the schools?  Soak the Rich.  Keep hospitals open?  Soak the rich.  Built new highways, and keep the existing ones in good repair.  Soak the Rich.  Soak the Rich often makes those of us who aren’t rich, feel good.  It makes us feel righteous.  It takes some of the sting out of the reality that we’re not rich.  But it doesn’t free up wealth to make anybody else better off.  Because wealth is, at the end of the day, a commodity without limit as to its potential growth.

The zero-sum mindset infects thinking on all kinds of things, not just economics.  If I want ‘X’ and you want ‘Y,’ the zero-sum mindset says that there is only the possibility of one of us getting what he wants.  So it’s win-lose.  Or the alternative is ‘compromise,’ which means that I get half of X and you get half of Y, or some other proportion, and neither one of us is happy.  In that case, it’s likely to be, Lose-lose.  Zero-sum is the mindset of limitations.

Win-win, in contrast is the mindset of possibilities.  Win-win says:  I want X.  You want Y.  Let’s figure out how each can get what he wants.  Now it may be that both X and Y are not obtainable simultaneously.  But it may be possible to achieve X and Y serially.  For example:  I want to go to Hawaii on holiday, and Clara wants to go to Europe.  I only have enough days of annual leave to go to one of the two places.  So we do one this year, and plan for the other next year.  That’s an example of Win-win thinking.

Sometimes, even with a Win-win mindset, both the desired alternatives are not possible.  An example.  I want to retire on a sailboat, cruising America’s East Coast and the Bahamas.  Clara wants to retire in Israel.  Unless we opt to split up in retirement, it may not be possible to do both.  That’s where a Compromise may be necessary.  In this view, Compromise is a tool, employed so that everybody can get at least some of what they want.  But Compromise, when it is a mindset as a product of zero-sum, makes nobody happy.

So Think Win-win does not mean that everybody gets everything they want, when they want it.  It does mean that, when there is an apparent conflict between two desires, the default attitude is to explore ways that both can be achieved.  Instead of automatically defaulting to Win-lose, or Compromise.

Try to Understand before Trying to be Understood is largely self-evident.  And it is a Habit that, once adopted, you will use many times every single day.  The reason is, of course, that we seldom understand one another automatically.

Many of you have read another of my favourite books, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, by Dr John Gray.  Gray’s thesis is that men and women communicate so differently, it’s as if we’re from two different planets.  His premise is that, once we accept this, we will be able to communicate more successfully with the opposite sex.  And if we are able to communicate more successfully, we can live with one another far more successfully.

The difficulty of understanding and being understood transcends the male-female divide.  Some of us grew up speaking different languages.  Even for those who grew up speaking English, we have different cultural references that hamper us in communicating.  And even when we have no such barriers with a given person, our differing agenda can easily cause mis-communication.  So even when we’re talking to someone of our own sex, and even if it is a fellow Jew, we can and often do experience difficulty in putting ideas across.

So difficulty understanding others, and making them understand you, is almost a constant in life.  We spend a lot of time and energy trying to be understood.  And therein lies the crux of the matter.  We’re all intent on being understood.  So with two people struggling to be understood, a meeting of the minds is often difficult at best.  In any transaction, each parties is likely to be so intent on getting their idea across that the two end up talking past one another.

We break the cycle when we focus on the other party.  When we put aside our own imperative to be understood, and focus on trying to understand.  Then, having had a meeting of the minds on The Other’s concern, we will be free to work on getting our own across.  By putting The Other first, we solve half the problem.  This, instead of continually talking past The Other.  When we practice this, we break through communications barriers that hamper working together productively.  We clear the decks to work together toward common goals.

Synergise means using the power of the many.  Synergy means that the total is more than the sum of its parts.  Most of us are familiar with this concept.  If you’ve got a group of people with a common goal, that goal will more likely be met if the group’s members pool their talents and divide their labours.  This tends to bring success to the entire group.  Independent action is far less efficient.  A group of people working together in cooperation accomplishes far more than the same group of people, working just as hard, independently.  We practise this habit whenever we divide tasks on a large project, so that we’re not duplicating one another’s efforts.  Many of us utilised this habit in school, especially if we went to professional school, when we formed a study group and each of us studied a separate chapter of the assigned reading, made notes, and shared the notes of even made oral presentations on our chapter to one another.

We find it easy to imagine using all these habits in the context of, say a work group.  When we work closely with others, it is often not by our own choice.  The group has been, in effect, imposed upon us.  We probably have no choice but to make it work.  We therefore grasp at these, and perhaps other habits to get the best result out of the work.

But most of us have a hard time applying the same principles to other areas in life.  To family.  To friends.  To one’s congregation.  For some reason, we have a hard time seeing the similarities between these settings, and our professional work.  But they really aren’t very different.

More than that, we often prefer to work independently because we think it is easier.  And in a sense, it is.  Working independently, we don’t have to trust others to do their part.  We don’t have to learn others’ weaknesses and strengths.  We don’t need to rely on others, and thus risk disappointment.

But in most of life, we are not independent.  We therefore must internalise the lessons of how to work and live cooperatively.  Because interdependence is ultimately the key to effectiveness.  Interdependence means learning to trust and depend upon others, and letting them trust and depend upon you.  Only when we become interdependent, do we become truly effective.

As you remember, we began with twin premises.  First, that there is great virtue in living a value-driven life.  Why would we not want our deepest-held values to guide us as we go through life?  I can’t imagine one person in this room telling me, honestly, that they would not prefer to live that way.  So what prevents us from living according to our values?  Two things.

First, most of us have never clarified and articulated what our values are.  We might have some vague idea of what they are.  If asked, you could probably rattle off a list that would sound good to your own ears, and others’.  But they would not have been formulated carefully, and contemplated, to the point that you would be able to intentionally live by them.

Second, you probably don’t have a series of life habits that are calculated to enable you to live according to your values.  Even if you can easily tell me what your Core Values are, can you tell me how you go about living according to them?  For most of us, the answer would be no.  And the reason would be that we have never thought too deeply about what it takes, to live according to one’s values.

 Stephen Covey, before death took him from this earth, did think vdeeply about what it takes to live according to one’s values.  And he has left us with the gift of the Seven Habits.  The Seven Habits are likely not the only possible methodology for living out one’s values.  But they have worked for many, many people.  Including your rabbi.  I therefore recommend to you, as you consider your lives in the coming year, to consider this formula for effectiveness.  Gut Yontef.

Drash for Yom Kippur Evening (Kol Nidrei)

Yom Kippur Evening

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Jews

Step Two:  From Independence to Interdependence

(Part One)

Last week on Rosh Hashanah, I started my series of drashot for these High Holy Days by introducing the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It’s a book, written by Dr Stephen R Covey, first published in 1989.  Most of you have heard of this book, and probably some of you have read it.  After all, it’s been called the best-selling and most highly-acclaimed business and self-help book of all time.  And to me, the reason why is self-evident.  It’s because it’s really a book about living and operating in the context of a value-driven life.  It’s not a book about personality, or about little tricks and short-cuts to success.  In that way, it stands out in the field of its genre.  Its wisdom is truly wisdom:  timeless, not faddish.

          I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People years ago.  I followed up my reading of the book by attending one of the seminars based on the book’s teaching.  Clara attended also.  For both of us, it was life-changing.  What we learned, we have used every day of our lives since.  Does that mean that every day, in every way, we have been successful in letting the Seven Habits guide our actions?  Of course not.  That’s because remaining true to your values, as meritorious a mindset as it is, is often not easy.  Okay, it’s seldom easy.  But Easy is not a primary value for our lives.  If it is one of your primary values, I cannot counsel strongly enough that Easy is not a worthy value.  I’m not saying that we should seek to make things difficult.  But to avoid everything that is difficult, to habitually take the course of least resistance?  If that’s a guiding principle of your life, then your life is only a shadow of what it could be.  And that is a tragedy.

          So while Easy is not in and of itself a bad thing, Easy shouldn’t be our motivator in life.  We don’t work to live our lives by the Seven Habits because they are easy.  Rather, we work to live by them despite their often being difficult.    

If you follow my speaking, either by regular attendance in shule or by reading my drashot on my blog or listening to my podcasts, then you know that values are a big concern of mine.  Specifically, I’m passionate about the proposition that we should continually work to clarify our values.  How can we live a value-driven life if we don’t have clarity on what those values are?  And we should use our Jewish tradition as one of the sources to shape those values.  And in our daily activities, whether work or play, we should endeavour to act according to those values.

          Recently I presented a three-month series in Gates of Peace, our congregational newsletter, presenting my own Core Values and how I acquired them.  They are:  Service before Self.  Excellence in all We Do.  Integrity Always.  And I challenged you to formulate your own Core Values and make them the guiding principles of your lives.  If you missed this series, I invite you to talk to me after the service and I will make it available to you.

          The Seven Habits are a series of behavioural devices that will help you to live out your values.  Just because we’ve developed a series of value-statements that reflect the inner motivations guiding us, doesn’t guarantee that we will be guided by them.  And the culprit, interfering with this dynamic?  Emotions.

          As I’ve said before, I’m knocking emotions.  They are what make us human.  They are what enable us to be all the things that ‘human’ implies.  They are an essential part of who we are.  But they are also something we must learn to tame and control.  We have names for people who constantly allow their emotions to rule their behaviour.  Drama Queens.  Anal-explosive.  Mercurial.  Unpredictable…although I submit that people who constantly operate on an emotional level are quite predictable.  So the point isn’t that emotions are bad.  Rather, that when we allow our emotions to always, or usually to guide our actions, we find ourselves hampered from living according to our values.

          Last week on Rosh Hashanah, I talked about the first three Habits.  Be Proactive.  Begin with the End in Mind.  Put First Things First.  These are not rocket science; they’re practically self-evident.  Covey shows us that, when we master these habits, we will experience Private Victory.  These will give us the ability to transition from dependence to independence.  Or at least, partial independence since truly, absolute independence being neither possible nor desirable.

          But independence in degree, as much as it means to each one of us who has managed to achieve it, is not the end of the road.  Independence is a way station on the Road to Happiness.  But that road then goes through a place called ‘interdependence.’  That’s where we take the selfhood that independence brings, and share ourselves with others.  Where we learn to rely on others, and allow others to rely on us.

          There is a romantic notion of the rugged individualist, the one who is self-contained and goes about his life in a self-imposed isolation and independence from, others.  The Marlboro Man.  Shane.  Captain Slocum.  At any given time, some of us have wished to be one of these.  But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know deep in our hearts that nobody finds happiness through isolation from others. 

Retreat into one’s self is an important tool to be used at times.  It helps us to clarify things without a lot of clutter and background noise interfering.  There have been many occasions when, all talked out and needing time for myself, I went off to find solitude for a morning or an afternoon.  Usually I found it by going for a bike ride or for a paddle in a kayak.  These are two activities that for me, are quite solitary.  But it is a temporary state.  On any given day we may wish the world would stop so we can get off.  But we know that retreat from the world and from others is not the road to happiness. 

Over the years I’ve met a number of ascetics as they’re called:  monks and nuns, Catholic, Orthodox and Buddhist.  None was happy.  Perhaps content on a certain level.  But contentment is not happiness.  And the proof, to me, was that after their period of retreat, they always re-surrounded themselves with other people.  Those who have experienced solitude and have grown through the experience, often spend much of their time teaching others what they learned through their solitude.  This need to reach out to others, even by those who found insight through solitude, proves my point.  We are ‘hard-wired’ to be with others.

I hope that I speak directly to you, my members who sit before me.  We definitely have an older demographic in our congregation.  This is not surprising given two factors.  One is that Jews come up to the Gold Coast to retire.  The other is that many of the under-sixty crowd are today avoiding religion either largely or altogether.  This mindset, by the way, is not limited to Jews.  So our congregation’s demographic balance leans heavily towards grandparents.  You who fit this description, feel an obligation to attend services.  But messages such as the one I bring today, might not resonate for you.  You see yourselves as ruled by a lifetime of habits and don’t feel motivated to reach for new ones.  This isn’t criticism, just my observation.  And I agree that it would seem natural to someone in the autumn of their years to dismiss all this talk about change and self-improvement as applying to younger people, but not them.  But while it may seem natural, that is most definitely unfortunate.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur attest to a different reality.  That nothing in our lives is pre-ordained.  Even when we might feel stuck in behaviour patterns that we have allowed to become ingrained into our personalities, we are never stuck.  If we take this days seriously, and really listen to their message, we know otherwise.

We can change and improve and thus find new joy in life.  And it is never too late to do so.  Each day is, as the saying goes, the first day of the rest of your life.  It isn’t over ‘till it’s over.  Each day with which we are blessed, can be occasion for renewal and moving forward.  If you feel continually tired, perhaps it’s partially because you are not allowing yourselves this joy.  Yom Kippur is for you, too.  If it is only an occasion for regret, then we’ve missed the boat.  It can, and should be an occasion for looking forward.  It’s something to think about.

          So tomorrow morning, I’m going to present the next three Habits.  Dr Covey believed that mastery of these three habits, assuming that one had already achieved personal victory, would lead to public victory.  Or to put it another way, they would enable one to transition from independence to interdependence.  And the Habits are:  Think Win-win.  Try to Understand before Trying to Be Understood.  Synergise.  Each of these Habits represents a vital tool.  Mastery of these tools will help you as you reach for interdependence.

          For now, gut yontef and an easy fast!