Moving On!

Dear Reader,

Just to let you know I'm going to cease posting to this blog.  Given that Clara and I are abou to leave Australia, and hence Rabbi Don won't be in Oz much longer, I am starting a new weblog.  You can find it at jewishhorizons.blogspot.com.  I hope you enjoy continuing to read my thoughts as we enter into a new period of transition.  Thanks!

Rabbi Don

Counting the Omer: Friday Night, 10 June 2016/5 Sivan 5776

Today is Day Seven of Week Seven of the Omer.  That is Forty-nine Days of the Omer.  The Theme is:  Seven Principles

So, just as all good things must come to an end, so too this year’s Counting of the Omer.  Whilst I’ve enjoyed offering a new thought every day during this period, I have to admit I’m happy it’s coming to an end.  Writing something substantial every day is a bit draining!  Maybe I should take a lesson from Twitter and limit myself to 140 characters!  No, I don’t see that happening; I just don’t think in bytes of 140 characters!

I’ve used this, the last week of the Counting, to go over the principles articulated by Dr. Stephen R Covey in his blockbuster book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  When I read this book, and took the course that expands upon it, I found these principles to be nothing short of life-changing.  But the most incredible things is that we already ‘know’ virtually all the Habits, at least superficially, because Covey’s nomenclature has so permeated our culture, and the words and phrases he coined have become standard English.

In offering the principles as daily thoughts, it is not my intention to give you a ‘Cliff Notes’ version of Covey’s book.  Rather, my purpose is to whet your appetite to buy and read the book if you haven’t yet, or re-visit it if you read it sometime ago.  I am so convinced of the need to re-visit The Seven Habits, that I keep it on my Kindle e-reading device and yes, I do refer to it fairly often.  Does this mean that I succeed in living out The Seven Habits constantly, 24/7/365?  Negative, and that leads me to some feedback I received yesterday.

I am grateful for the feedback I’ve received from you during this time of offering daily thoughts.  Firstly, because it tells me that someone is actually reading them!  And secondly, because it tells me that you are engaging with the material.  Some of your feedback has taken me to task for something I wrote.  That’s okay, because you were nice enough about it!  But it reminds me of what a colleague, Rabbi Mel Glazer in Colorado Springs, tells members of his congregation when they tell him that they disagree with something of other that he has said or written.  I’m not speaking for you, he would tell them.  I’m speaking to you.  I’ve learnt so much of importance from my esteemed colleagues, and from those whom I’ve served in the rabbinate, over the years – and this has to be one of the all-time best gems of wisdom.  If you think a Rabbi is attempting to speak for you, which is understandable because after all, an unofficial function of the Rabbi is to serve as a sort of mouth-piece for the Jewish community to the greater world, you might take offense at something the Rabbi said or wrote because you disagreed with it.  But when you understand that he is speaking to you, it changes the calculus considerably.

The feedback I received yesterday was from someone who has been reading my daily thoughts, and sometimes reacting to them in an e-mail.  As I prepare to wind up the series, she offered her sincere apologies for not living up to the principles I’ve been writing about.  I explained to her in private, and now I’m going to repeat in public:  Any behavioral habits that I advocate in these thoughts are not be taken as prescriptive.  That’s why I’ve offered so many anecdotes telling you about instances where I have not lived up to the principles I’m advocating.  It’s not because I like writing about myself so much!  (Okay, maybe in part…)  Really, I’m trying to illustrate to you that even simple principles are difficult to live out constantly!  So when I offer these thoughts, I’m not trying to show you how messed-up you are.  Rather, I’m offering an aspirational view for you to consider and, if you agree with what I’m saying, which might help you in your efforts to be happier, to be more effective, whatever.  Please don’t read my thoughts, see yourself as falling short, and thinking poorly of yourself for that!  I only want to uplift you!

So we’ve gone through six of the Seven Habits.  The first three dealt with the private person, or as Covey put it, achieving private victory.  They are:  Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, and Put First Things First.  It’s easy to see these as organising principles, but they are really much more.  They have to do with taking your Corre Values and adjusting the way that you operate in every sphere to help you to live them out.

The next three Habits dealt with the public person, or as Covey put it achieving public victory.  They are:  Think Win-win, Seek to Understand, then to be Understood, and Synergize.  These three Habits help in those areas of life where we are interdependent with others.  In other words, in just about every area of life.

The final Habit is really appropriate to highlight as we prepare for the weekly Sabbath.  It is:  Sharpen the saw.  Covey challenged us to see our bodies and minds as tools that we use to accomplish.  And just like any tool, these need to be maintained in order to continue to get the job done.

One uses a saw for cutting things.  And as you use it, the blade becomes dulled.  When that happens, if you continue using it you will find it works less and less efficiently.  Does that mean that we discard a dull saw?  Of course not; we take it to a specialist, who sharpens it for us.

In the same way, the ‘saw’ of our bodies, minds…also of our initiative, must be ‘sharpened’ from time to time.  That’s why we take days off from our work, whatever it is, relax, and engage in recreational activities of our own choice.  That’s why we make time to work-out in the gym, or take a run/walk/bike ride, go for a swim of sail, play a round of golf, a set of tennis – whatever activities we particularly enjoy.  Doing so, leaves us refreshed and ready to tackle the next challenges in our work.  If we don’t take time off, and do these wort of things to refresh ourselves, we find ourselves becoming progressively less effective.  So doing so is not self-indulgent in any way:  it is necessary, as necessary as eating well and getting a good night’s sleep.

G-d, through the Torah, offers a way to Sharpen the Saw that has surely stood the test of time – and that is, the weekly Sabbath.  The Torah specifies the Sabbath of rest as being on the seventh day, which begins with sunset today.  This aspect is only considered binding upon Jews.  Some – most – Christians have made Sunday into their day of rest, since that is the day of the week when their saviour arose from the dead according to their scriptures.  Our Muslim cousins make their special day on Friday.  And that’s fine – they are still, in principle, taking one day in seven to refresh themselves and their faith.  Of course it would be more convenient for us Jews, if everybody else would adopt the same day we mark as the Sabbath!  But otherwise, it’s simply important that all take their day of rest from their industrious and creative work, and take the time to contemplate, consider, rest and enjoy.

If we are not careful to ensure that we have enough opportunity to recreate, all the six aforementioned Habits won’t make us effective.  We’ll burn ourselves out for sure.  So Sharpen the Saw is important, because it is the key to everything.

And now I sign off from the daily thoughts.  I wish you a restful Shabbat, and a joyous Shavuot.  And I will be back next Shabbat with the weekly thoughts!

Counting the Omer: Thursday Night, 9 June 2016/4 Sivan 5776

Today is Day Six of Week Seven of the Omer.  That is Forty-eight Days of the Omer.  The Theme is:  Seven Principles

Here it is, Thursday night.  Since you know there are only two more evenings – this and tomorrow’s – before Shavu’ot, you know that we’re on the Home Stretch here.  In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People we’ve reached the sixth Habit, the third of the three that have to do with being effective in interdependence.

So the Habit for today is:  Synergize.  I know you’ve noticed, that this Habits all sound familiar.  That’s because these words and phrases, coined by Dr. Covey, have entered into popular consciousness.  Covey’s Habits have, in effect, become part of our culture.  Today’s Habit is no exception.

Synergize is a term that most of us know, and most of us know what it means.  It means that, by combining together, we equal more than we do collectively as individuals.  To put it differently, the total is greater than the sum of it parts.  In maths, two plus two always equals four.  But what synergize teaches us, is that in human capital two plus two could effectively equal five.  The reason is that, when we pool our talents to complement one another, we in effect make each member of the team stronger and more effective.

Although this concept seems to break the laws of mathematics, most of us see the deep truth in it.

I don’t know about you, but I can usually find reasons to forget trying to work together with others and go it alone.  No matter how hard we work to build a team, at the end of the day it is comprise of individuals who, in addition to their strengths, all have their quirks and challenges.  It is always tempting to take your own talents, make the most of them, and don’t worry about motivating and working with others.

But we must.  Because however many times others have disappointed me, I’ve probably disappointed others as much.  It’s simply a fact of life.  Because we’re all imperfect, subject to mood swings, errors of judgement, and muddled thinking.  So even when I think I’m avoiding others’ quirks by working on my own, what I’m really doing is operating in a bubble where I am not availing myself of others’ perspective.

The Habit synergize applies to teams at work.  In clubs and organisations.  In religious life.  In marriage and other interpersonal relationships.  It’s really universal.  This Habit – like all the Habits – can help you whatever your walk in life.  They are universal, like few things in life are.

Counting the Omer: Wednesday Night, 8 June 2016/3 Sivan 5776

Today is Day Five of Week Seven of the Omer.  That is Forty-seven Days of the Omer.  The Theme is:  Seven Principles

Tonight we continue with the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  While the Seven Habits are not coined in specifically Jewish terms, when I was exposed to them I as a Jew found that they resonated deeply with me.  The book, by Dr. Stephen R Covey, provides a simple and do-able process for living a life in concert with the values that you have identified as your own.  That’s what this is about at its core:  tools to enable you to live out your values, rather than being constantly tossed around on the sea of contingencies.

Tonight’s Habit is:  Seek to understand…then to be understood.

Everybody wants to be understood.  We crave understanding from those around us.  Out of our need to be understood, we can busy ourselves night and day, explaining ourselves to everybody who will listen.  And therein lies the problem.

Most of us are so intent on being understood, of having people hear us, that we forget to listen to others.  How many times have you tried to explain something to someone else, and felt that they weren’t really listening to you?  That instead, something that you said had triggered in them thought about themselves and their own concerns?  I’m guessing that you have.  And I’m also guessing that you have been that other person, not hearing what someone else was saying because you were thinking about yourself.  If so, you’re in good company!  It is such a common pitfall, that when someone can transcend it and really focus on what someone else is saying, that person is really exceptional.

Try it!  When someone is ‘bending your ear’ about something important to him or her, try to focus completely on what they’re saying, but even more so on the person’s underlying concerns.  Focus your energy on giving them empathy.  Just for once, try to forget that you exist, excep as a sounding board for that person’s concerns.  Try very hard to take in, and understand them.  Don’t worry a bit about it they understand you.

The ability to focus on someone else is such a rare ability, that it won’t go unnoticed.  And if you are able to do it, you will be able to touch someone else as you never have before.  And chances are, that person will later be committed to addressing your concerns.

I’ve found that, in community building, one of the toughest challenges is to help people transition from the ‘what’s in it for me’ mindset to a ‘let’s see what we can do for you’ attitude.  But in order to build real community, it is necessary to bring a group of people to that point, where their regard and concern for others replaces the complete focus on their own needs.  I’ve found that if one or two people in the community can model this quality, it becomes infectious.  Try to understand before You try to be Understood is an important tool in that transition.

Counting the Omer: Tuesday Night, 7 June 2016/2 Sivan 5776

Today is Day Four of Week Seven of the Omer.  That is Forty-six Days of the Omer.  The Theme is:  Seven Principles

The first three of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which I presented to you over the last three days, are intended to help you achieve independence.  We can overcome the negative habits that we’ve built up over a lifetime, and replace them with the positive habits Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, and Put First things First.  If we can adopt these three habits, we can begin to take control of our lives and feel far less as if we’re caught in a relentlessly-rushing stream of helplessness from which we cannot extract ourselves.

Starting tonight, I’d like to present Habits four through six, which are geared toward developing interdependence.  Very few are the endeavours in life that one can enter into and accomplish without working successfully with others.  We are social animals, and we need to have others in our lives.  It is fine – and actually, quite healthy for most of us – to seek solitude from time to time.  I’m an introvert, and people of this personality type need solitude to recharge after they’ve been drained by being around others.  But to creat a life where one is absolutely independent is not good or healthy. 

Tonight’s Habit is:  Think win-win.  When trying to settle on a course of action that involves others, it is normal that different members of the group find themselves being pulled in different directions.  There are sometimes situations where the various choices are mutually exclusive.  But in most situations, it is possible to find a way where the various parties get satisfaction.  The mindset of trying to find such solutions, is called win-win.

There is a mindset that in every disagreement one side must win and the other must lose.  This is a result of a mindset that is called ‘zero-sum thinking.’  It is a common pitfall.  In most cases, a mindset of Win-win will find a way that all parties can get at least part of what they seek.  And if the effort is made, they can realise the most important elements.

Zero-sum thinking says that everything I gain, is at someone else’s expense.  In other words, in any situation there are a fixed amount of resources – whether money, time, human capital, whatever – and the pie that can be sliced between competing interests is of a fixed size.

An example of Zero-sum thinking is in economics.  Say I succeed wildly in business and make a lot of money.  There’s nobody who should think that I’ve made my money at their expense.  There is not a constant supply of money in the economy; it is fluid and increases as people produce goods and services that others wish to purchase.  So, expect perhaps for those producing and selling a product that directly competes with mine, nobody should think that I, in making a large amount of money, have prevented someone else from doing so.  Usually the opposite is true:  when one person makes money, he spends it on other peoples’ good and services and creates wealth to build a demand for things in the marketplace.  But there are many people who have a Zero-sum mindset; if I earn a million dollars (halvai!), they think that’s a million less for other people to earn.  But economics simply doesn’t work like that.

People adopt Zero-sum thinking to just about every area of life.  Think Win-win is its antithesis.  Think Win-win is a mindset that starts on the assumption that there are enough resources to fulfil everybody’s needs.  The challenge is, within the framework of a group and its efforts, to find a way to make it so.

Think Win-win says that there is enough for everybody, we just need to have a broad enough vision to find a way to achieve enough as a group to satisfy everyone.  Think Win-win is a patently optimistic way of looking at life.  It starts from a assumption that satisfying everyone is desirable, and possible.  The person who Thinks Win-win will never be a ‘cheapskate’; he will always be generous with others, because he knows that whatever he has, he can always get more.  It’s just a matter of finding the way.

There are limits times when Zero-sum is a reality.  For example, in an election for a specific office:  several candidates are running, but only one wins.  On the other hand, the winner might coopt the talents of his opponent(s) by offering a position in his administration.  It is a common consequence.  Look, the loser didn't get the office they sought but they didn't necessarily have to be vanquished from public life.

In this sesne, even competitions that are superficially Zero-sum can be turned into Win-win situations.  As I said, it's all in the mindset.

Counting the Omer: Monday Night, 6 June 2016/1 Sivan 5776

Today is Day Three of Week Seven of the Omer.  That is Forty-five Days of the Omer.  The Theme is:  Seven Principles

First of all, I’ll wish you a Chodesh Tov, a good month.  With the setting of the sun today, Rosh Chodesh Sivan has begun.

The third of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, is Put first things first.  Every day when I wake up to begin a new day, I have in mind a list of things I wish to accomplish that day.  Now the aggregate of time required to accomplish these tasks never amounts to the amount of time I have available.  It hasn’t always been so.  There have been times when my life was far more hectic than it is now.  But my task-load nowadays is – well, let’s call it ‘manageable.’  That said, by the end of the day I haven’t always gotten through all the tasks I had assigned myself to accomplish that day.

          There are a number of reasons for this.  Sometimes things just come up, and I assign to them a priority higher than that of the items on my task-list.  Sometimes they are true emergencies, and sometimes just things that are more critical to me or to someone else.  For example, if someone rings and just wants to talk, I usually won’t stop them – unless I absolutely have to go somewhere or get something done by a certain time.  I try to make time liberally for others who come to me as a Rabbi or as a friend.

          But sometimes, I’ll end the day without having accomplished my list of tasks, and in truth nothing came up during the day that trumped the items on my list in importance.  What happened was that allowed myself to get sidetracked into spending time on something that simply did not matter.

          If this was a few years back, I would offer as an example of a likely culprit, e-mail.  One of the first things I would do when I started my work day, was to open my e-mail and look at all the new messages.  But the truth is, almost every message comes with a subject line that gives the recipient a general idea of what’s in it.  Between the subject line and the identity of the sender, it is easy to make a judgement call as to how high a priority to assign to an e-mail.  And even if now, one can open it and read it quickly, and decide whether it warrants any quick action.  But the truth is that, even if it did not, I would usually set myself to responding to it immediately.

          E-mail is so, as the kids say, last decade.  Today, the first example of a time-waster that comes to mind, if going through my news feed on Facebook.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook is a wonderful tool for communication – you may be reading this blog post because I posted a link to it on Facebook.  But if I took time to read everything that all my ‘friends’ posted, I would never get anything else done!

          This is an example of not putting first things first.  I started my day with a list of task that were important for me to accomplish, yet I would allow myself to be easily sidetracked responding to an e-mail…even if it was clearly not very important.  I would even open, and read, and even sometimes forward e-mails with jokes or funny stories, when I had a list of yet-to-be-accomplished tasks.  If that’s how I prioritised my work, how could I blame anybody else when I did not accomplish what I had set out to do?  Of course – nobody.  Nobody but myself.

          It is all too human to allow oneself to get sidetracked like this.  Maybe the tasks at the top of your list are not especially pleasant tasks.  Maybe they are things that are difficult to do.  So you put them off, usually without much thought, burying yourself in little niceties that come up.  Because, at the heart of the matter, we don’t really want to do the tasks that we really need to do.

          I’ll never forget when I was in the Navy and was a watch chief with 11 people in my watch.  I had the task of writing, and presenting, quarterly feedback to each member of my team.  There was one member, a guy I really liked, but I had to give him feedback that was going to challenge him.  At least, I had to if I was going to accomplish the task with integrity.  So I wrote the counselling paper up, along with all the others, and I spent a good part of a watch sitting behind a closed door, counselling each person in turn about his performance.  The man in question, I saved for last.  When we sat down together, we began chatting and were talking – just about stuff – for some minutes.  Finally, he realised I was stalling; he pointed at the paper sitting on the table in front of me and asked me point blank:  Is it that bad?  No, it wasn’t that bad, but I’d been avoiding a task that I expected would not be especially pleasant.  I was not Putting First Things First.

          There is an old technique for knocking off a long to-do list.  Say, there are ten items on the list.  You take the easiest tasks, those which you can accomplish the quickest and with the least sweat, first.  In doing so, you cut the list down quickly:  from ten items to nine, then to eight, and so on.  By checking off items, you feel the psychological weight of the long list of unaccomplished tasks, lessen.  This is a perfectly legitimate technique, and I do it often, and it’s not what I’m talking about here.  Rather, I’m talking about how we sidetrack ourselves with time-wasting activities that are not going to lessen our to-do list at all.

          If we learn to Put First Things First, we will see how much more effective we will be.  Try it!

Counting the Omer: Sunday Night, 5 June 2016/29 Iyar 5776

Today is Day Two of Week Seven of the Omer.  That is Forty-four Days of the Omer.  The Theme is:  Seven Principles

We’re in the seventh and last week of Counting the Omer, and the last week of my offering daily thoughts.  Therefore, as I wrote yesterday, I’m going to use these days by going back to one of my favourite themes:  one which, since I learned it and adopted it in my own life, has been nothing short of life-changing in a very positive way.  And that is, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by the late Dr. Stephen Covey.  From the title, and given the way that the literary world classifies it, one might think that Seven Habits is just another business, or self-help book.  To be sure it is both, but it is much, much more.  It is nothing short of a way of life, a way of looking at the things that we do – whatever our life’s endeavour – and making ourselves more effective by providing a structure within which we can inject our own core values into what we do.  The Seven Habits are intended to help us make systematic that which we cling to on a philosophical level.  As I wrote yesterday, my intent is not that this series of brief thoughts on the Habits would substitute for reading the book.  Rather, my prayer is that it would spur you to buy and read the book if you haven’t already.  And if you already have read it, that my thoughts would provide a little refresher to help you to re-centre your life around the Habits.  I am so completely sold on The Seven Habits, that I dedicated an entire High Holy Days Sermon Series to them.  If you’re interested, you can read them on this blog by looking in the archives for September 2013.

The Second Habit is Begin with the End in Mind.  Look, this Habit, like all the Habits, is not, as they say, ‘Rocket Science.’  The elegance of The Seven Habits is in their simplicity, the ease with which even I can look at them and ask, Why haven’t I been doing this all my life?  But the truth is that most of us have not being doing these things all our lives – not because they aren’t absolutely intuitive, rather because we allow ourselves to get sidestepped, our attentions diverted to other matters.  And that certainly would include this Second Habit.

How much energy have you wasted in your life, but just diving into a project without taking some time to visualise its final form, its outcome?  I know that I have, so I’m assuming you have also.  We fail to achieve our goals for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes, but less often than we claim, they were just beyond our reasonable capability.  Sometimes, we really had no strong commitment to the goal and therefore didn’t give it our all.  There are other possible reasons.  All of us have failed in something, and it is not a shame to fail.  Even the most successful people often fail at one endeavour or another.  But one reason, which is often to blame and which we can control far more easier than most, is that we spent time and energy flailing about rather than thinking out a plan and putting it into effect.

Begin with the End in Mind doesn’t mean that one must be a slave to one’s original plan.  Often circumstances will either come up or come to light having been present all along, that make sticking to the original plan a folly.  Of course we must see to our plans with the flexibility to adjust to unforeseen circumstances.  But if we didn’t have a solid plan that was focused on the desired results from the beginning, chances are we wasted time, energy and other resources.

The key, then is to make the best plan you can, but be ready to change if it makes sense to do so.  I can’t tell you how many times in my life, this Habit was served me well.  It will you, too.  Those who don’t grasp, or don’t embrace this Habit, find themselves constantly spinning their wheels.  I don’t know about you, but I just don’t think that I have the luxury of time to spend, spinning my wheels.  If I’m going to fail in something because I set my sights too high, or because I didn’t count on every possible impediment from the start, then if I’ve begun with the end in mind it is much easier to adjust along the way.

There’s an old cliché, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail and as with most clichés there is much truth in it.  And Begin with the End in Mind is related.  If we can visualise what the desired result would be, then we are in a better position to plan, and succeed. 

Counting the Omer: Saturday Night, 4 June 2016/28 Iyar 5776

Today is Day One of Week Seven of the Omer.  That is Forty-three Days of the Omer.  The Theme is:  Seven Principles

So here we are, starting the seventh and final week of the annual countdown from Pesach to Shavu’ot, known as Sefirat Ha-omer:  The Counting of the Omer.  It is customary during this time of the year, to become a little more serious and contemplative.  Shavu’ot represents the anniversary of the Sinai event.  We should experience each special Jewish day that commemorates a past event, as if we were experiencing the actual event present tense.  We therefore endeavour to prepare our hearts to receive the Torah, just as if Moses was even now ascending the mountain.

          I’ve devoted five full weeks of these daily thoughts, to the subject of Happiness, because I think there is no more important subject.  Being Happy is not just a desirable state, it is nothing short of an obligation.  And in truth, it is not always an easy obligation to fulfil.  First and foremost, because most of us go through life not even understanding what Happiness truly is.  And then, assuming we’ve crossed that hurdle, there are so many distractions along the way.  Sometimes it seems like happiness is, well, just hard work!  So many of us anaesthetise ourselves, seeking comfort and solace in things which are definitely not Happiness.

          Today, I’m going to start the final week of thoughts by digging up the seven most profound lessons of life that I’ve encountered.  These lessons are not original to me; they come from the late Dr. Stephen Covey, from his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  In presenting these ‘habits’ as life principles, I don’t mean to pre-empt Dr. Covey’s book.  If you haven’t yet read it, please find yourself a copy – or download it for your Kindle – and read.  For many people, myself included, Seven Habits has been life-changing.  Although it somehow gets classified as a ‘business book’ on some lists, it really has little to do with business – except that the insights one gains from it cannot but help you in business, or any other life path.  So, enjoy my daily thoughts based on the Seven Habits – but also order the book!

          The First of the Seven Habits is:  Be Proactive.  Most of us are familiar with the word, ‘proactive,’ which was actually coined by Dr. Covey.  It’s commonly thought of as the opposite of ‘reactive’ and that is Covey’s intent.  But in many people’s minds, it refers to the temporal realm meaning ‘act before something happens, rather than after.’  Now this is pretty good advice:  anticipate needs and prepare for them, rather than flailing around to account for circumstances as they occur.  It’s hard to argue that point.  But in truth, this is not what Covey had in mind when he coined ‘proactive.’

          Be Proactive means to act on Principle rather than circumstance.  It’s really much more profound than just getting a leg up on what might occur.  It means to be firm in our support of the principles that support your core values.  It means to work to brush asides emotions that can become overheated, and act in a way that supports what you believe to be right.  This is not easy to do.  First of all, because most of us are not truly aware of what our underlying core values are.  We know what we want.  But to know what values motivate you comes only after a process of self-searching and discernment.  The second big impediment to acting on principle is our prizing pragmatism.  Being pragmatic – acting according to circumstance – is usually more efficient and, at least in an immediate sense, effective – than being dogmatic.  And some pragmatism is probably a good thing.  We can’t always choose our world, or choose our battles.  Sometimes we do have to go along to get along.  We can’t fight every day of our lives.  But excessive pragmatism leads to moral complacency.  We would be well-advised, then, to stop to think about every sticky situation – obviously, when we have the luxury of time to think! – and decide to violate our principles only in situations where we can see a clear, long-term benefit in doing so and are willing to stick to our long-term plans.

          Every time I am put in the position of acting on circumstance, I ask myself:  If I’m going to Be Proactive, what am I going to do here?  Often, I have stuck to my principles at a great cost, and that’s okay.  Sometimes, I’ve decided not to take up the battle.  I have, from time to time, regretted either course – usually, because the results were not what I’d hoped for.  But the important thing is to be able to sleep well at night or, to put it differently, to be able to look yourself in the eye – in the bathroom mirror, every morning.  At the end of the day, that’s what matters in life.  A good week, all!

Counting the Omer: Friday Night, 3 June 2016/27 Iyar 5776

Harambe the gorilla

Today is Day Seven of Week Six of the Omer.  That is Forty-two Days of the Omer.  The Theme continues to be Happiness.

As we inaugurate Shabbat – and complete the sixth of seven weeks of the Omer, I wish to add one more thought concerning animals.  Not necessarily household pets, also including wild animals.

          Dennis Prager, a prominent American-Jewish social commentator whom I cite from time to time, likes to ask a question of high school students.  Would you first save a drowning dog, or a drowning stranger?  He has been asking the question over 40 years, and results have been quite consistent.  About a third would save the dog, a third would save the stranger, and a third didn’t know what they’d do.

          Prager reports (in a 2013 column) that a Professor Richard Topolski and colleagues, took Prager’s superficial research to a different level.  They surveyed some 500 people, but the questions were far more nuanced than Prager’s.  They found that the answers varied, depending on the closeness of the relationship to the person drowning – it was not ‘automatically’ a stranger – and the respondent’s ‘relationship’ to the dog in question.  Perhaps predictably, for immediate family the person would be more inclined to save the drowning person first.  As the relationship with the person grew more tenuous, to where the person became a complete stranger, the preference for saving the dog first increased steadily.

          This result should not have surprised me much.  Like you, for many years I have heard my dog-owning friends and relatives gush about how their pets are members of the family and just like a human.  I’ve listened to ageing parents whose grown children have not settled down to parenthood themselves, talk about their grand-dogs.  I’ve listened to those childless grown children, talk about my (four-legged) child.

          As I mentioned the other night, I have owned pets – dog and cats, often both simultaneously – for most of my life, except whilst I’ve been married to Clara who simply has a preference not to have animals in the house.  And when I had them – before I had children – I did very much think of them as members of the family.  And yes, I probably did gush over them as many people do.  But not having a pet for 25 years, along with having children and being a representative of a venerable religion that has quite a bit to say about the value of human life and the difference between humans and animals, has given me a somewhat different perspective.  I was not surprised by Professor Topolski’s findings.  But I was appalled by them.

          Animals are not humans.  We allowed to eat them.  At least, certain species.  I have nothing but respect for my friends who choose to be vegetarians, or even vegans; the discipline they’ve taken on – especially the latter group – is far more stringent than even the strictest interpretation of kashrut.  I have only respect for those willing to take on a strict discipline for a good reason.  Respect, but without even a shred of agreement.  G-d gave us licence to enjoy meat, fish, cheese, yoghurt, and many other things – within certain restraints.  We try to limit our consumption of meat to that which did not require undue suffering for the animal.  We buy completely into the free range, stall-free, hormone free mindset.  We eat only cheeses made with vegetable rennet.

          The elevation of animals to a status equal with humans, is rooted in the emotions.  It just feels so good to look upon cute animals, and ascribe a human-like soul to them.  And the fairytale depiction of wild animals in children’s books and films, only feeds the moral confusion.  The truth is that predatory species of animals, kill other species without any moral reasoning.  Herbivorous species live their lives in constant vigil and fear from predators.  Carnivorous or omnivorous species, when we’re not keeping them as pets or otherwise in captivity, kill other animals for food – without any morals entering into the equation.  I can hear someone reading this thinking, well, that’s just like some humans!  Exactly!  And when those some humans kill other humans for their own purposes, we call it murder.  And ascribe animal-like qualities to the offenders.  Because even though humans don’t always live up to the morals that we consider necessary for the functioning of a social order, we understand that when they don’t, social order disintegrates and comes to resemble the jungle or the forest – the animal ‘kingdom.’

          That’s why the incredible – to me – outcry over the unfortunate death of Harambe, the ill-fated silverback gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo in the USA, struck me.  It has been pounding home in the media and ether since the incident last weekend.  In case you’ve been living under a rock, a child climbed into the gorilla enclosure at the zoo in question, and the 200 KG alpha male silverback rushed over and was dragging the three-year-old boy around when zoo personnel shot it dead.  They chose not to try to tranquilise the gorilla out of fear that the medication would take several minutes to have its effect, and in the meantime the gorilla might be enraged enough to do violent harm to the child.  So they quickly dispatched the animal, understanding that the child was at risk should they not act quickly.

We’re talking about a huge and powerful animal here.  Many of us have seen and were moved by the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist, starring Sigourney Weaver as the naturalist Dian Fossey who befriended a troop of mountain gorillas in Rwanda.  But here we’re not talking about an educated adult doing a serious study of the primates, but a child who inadvertently finds himself in the hands of a huge and, presumably agitated, animal.

          Yes, of course the gorilla’s death is unfortunate.  And yes, there should be an inquest to determine whether the enclosure was not secure enough.  The de facto answer is yes, it was not, because the zoo has already begun beefing it up.  That said, the gorilla exhibit and its enclosure has kept people out of danger for 38 years.  So it would have been reasonable to conclude that it was safe.

          And yes, it is reasonable to question how close the child’s mother was supervising him.  But I would not be too harsh in the regard.  When my daughter Ma’ayan was very small, perhaps four, Clara and I briefly lost her whilst watching a busker in Covent Garden, in London.  We’d only diverted our attention for an instant, and the crowd swallowed her up.  I ran around for a frantic few minutes whilst Clara held fast onto Eyal, until I found her wandering towards another show that had caught her eye.  I had feared that she was halfway to Croatia, or Bosnia, by the time I found her.  This was not a result of knee-jerk racism; at that time, there were gangs of migrants from those countries at work in London, abducting children for human trafficking.  This was years before the Liam Neeson Taken movies, and when I later saw them I thought of that stressful episode in my own life.  Anyway, when I heard the story about how the child was safe and in reasonable shape after the ordeal, my heart went out to Michelle Gregg, the boy’s mother.  Having briefly, and easily lost control of a young child in a crowd once, I have a hard time faulting her.  I think most parents have had such a scare at least once.

          But not others.  Since the incident, Ms. Gregg has apparently been receiving death threats from ‘animal lovers’ who think she – along with the zoo personnel – is guilty of murder, or something close to it.  Animal rights groups, as well as a number of Hollywood loonies, have been stirring of the ether all week.  Even a number of naturalists – including the zookeeper who cared for Harambe for the first 16 years of his life until he was sold to Cincinnati Zo last year – are mourning and second-guessing the staff who had to make a quick decision of the gorilla or the boy.  The idea of leaving an agitated gorilla alone to see if it would further harm the boy or not, is absurd.

          But this is a symptom of the moral confusion concerning humans, animals, and their comparative statuses.  And this is a caveat which I wish to place after any positive thoughts concerning animals and the way that we attach ourselves to them.  Animals are wonderful.  If Clara should ever agree to it, I would adopt a dog without hesitation.  In the meantime, I certainly enjoy visiting friends who keep animals.  And I love visiting zoos where the enclosures are deigned to allow the animals to live in a healthy and pleasant environment.  And I expect the animals kept therein to be treated with as much respect as is practical.  But, folks, let’s keep this in perspective.  As easy as it is to love an animal, and as hard as it is at times to love a human, it is necessary to keep the boundaries between one and the other as clear as possible.  Wishing you a joyous and Happy Shabbat…

Counting the Omer: Thursday Night, 2 June 2016/26 Iyar 5776

Today is Day Six of Week Six of the Omer.  That is Forty-one Days of the Omer.  The Theme continues to be Happiness.

Yesterday I wrote about how pets – our animal companions – can help to increase our Happiness in a number of ways.  Sometimes, when I talk to people about pets, especially dogs, I ask them exactly what is it about their pet that draws them to it.  And I usually get the same answer:  unconditional love.  Pets, but especially dogs, are loyal to a fault.  They love their humans:  it seems, unconditionally.  When you neglect them, they show no anger or disappointment.  They just seem to try harder to please.  When you’re feeling down or unwell, they seem to sense it and the pour on the love even thicker.  They’re never too busy, or too pre-occupied, or too tired to notice.

Human companions generally compare poorly, because our love for one another is not unconditional.  Except, perhaps, mothers.  Even the most giving human being will ultimately wear out if they do not feel their love is reciprocated.  Not so an animal.

The reality is that an animal, even the smartest of animals, is in many ways like a perpetual child.  Like an eternal two-year-old.  A two-year-old loves unconditionally.  It is a sign of maturity when a person begins to love discretionally.  Those who cling to their animals because the unconditionality of their love is enduring, probably don’t themselves love others unconditionally. 

In reality, to love unconditionally is not a virtue – unless we’re talking about loving your child.  If we love unconditionally, then those whom we love will come to take our love for granted.  It is a sign of maturity when we learn to love with a certain amount of discretion.  If you expect to be loved, you must, yourself, give love.  Love is, as the songsays, a two-way street.  And you cannot be expected to give love long after you’re realised that your love is not reciprocated.  To love in that way is obsession, not love.  It is unreasonable to expect unconditional love, and it is dangerous to your emotional health to love unconditionally.

What animal companions evoke in us, then, is a pining for childhood, its simplicity, its innocence, and its lack of accountability.  And we know what it’s called when a grown man insists on clinging to childhood.  It’s called ‘the Peter Pan Syndrome.’  And it isn’t a compliment to say that someone is afflicted with it. (I don’t know if there’s a female equivalent of the nomenclature.  But I can tell you that I’ve encountered a woman or two who was in the throes of the ‘disease.’)

And that’s the but in my assessment of animals as bringing us Happiness.  They can and do, for all the reasons I stated yesterday.  But we should not allow them to make us wish for a return to childhood.  We cannot turn back the clock, and if we could, it would not be a good thing.  Enjoy your pets’ love, and love them back, but remember that adult love comes with responsibility.  Learn to love in a way that is not unconditional, and you'll be on your way to Happiness.

Counting the Omer: Wed. Night, 1 June 2016/25 Iyar 5776

Today is Day Five of Week Six of the Omer.  That is Thirty-nine Days of the Omer.  The Theme continues to be Happiness.

          Back when I was young, there was an expression that I haven’t heard in a long time:  Everything (or, ‘everybody’) is going to the dogs.  It meant, to understate, that things are not going especially well.  One doesn’t hear this expression anymore.  Nowadays, I hear the same sentiments expressed:  Everything’s going south.  In other words, down the tubes.  But one doesn’t hear this expression here in Australia, perhaps for obvious reasons; the very name ‘Australia’ means, a place in the southern hemisphere.  For an Australian, ‘going south’ as a negative would be, well, emblematic of the cultural hegemony of the people of the north.  The parallel expression in Australia is:  Everything’s gone Pear-shaped.  The first time I heard this, I thought it was a reference to the human buttocks.  But my Aussie friends tell me it is a reference to a pear’s being round – sort of, but in an imperfect way.  It’s off-kilter. 

          So, Dear Reader, you might be wondering at about this time:  What does this have to do with anything?  And it’s this:  we don’t use going to the dogs to mean messed up anymore, because, in most peoples’ minds, there no negative association with dogs.  The idea of dog ownership is rarely thought of in less-than positive terms.  Unless, perhaps, you’re a Muslim.  I’m not making a dig against Muslims.  But it is well-known that for Muslims dogs, like pigs, are ritually unclean.  In Iran, keeping a dog as a pet is an offence punishable by 74 lashes.  Muslim clerics in other countries have spoken out in strong terms against their followers keeping dogs as pets.  So I’m guessing that for most Muslims, the idea of keeping a dog as a pet, just doesn’t compute.  But in the Western World, dogs as well as other animals as pets are viewed quite favourably.  Although the keeping of ‘exotic’ animals has been on the rise, the two perennial favourite species to keep as pets are are canines and felines:  dogs and cats.

          Unless you’re my daughter.  When we came to live in Australia, she thought we would be able to obtain a Koala as a pet.  (See!  I know to call the furry little things koalas, and not koala-bears!)  Four years on, she’s still disappointed.  But I digress…

          There’s no question that most everyone we know can be put into one of two categories:  people who keep pets, and people who don’t yet keep pets.  Okay, it’s not that prevalent!  But some days it seems so!  Every now and then – this actually happened to us very recently – someone whom we never thought would introduce a pet to his home, surprises us by going out and getting one.  (In this case, you guessed it, a dog.)  It’s just so prevalent in our culture, that it’s almost a given that any and every family will have a pet.  The pet-less home (like ours) is very exceptional.

          Okay, okay!  It only seems so exceptional.  Statistically, 50 percent of all Australian households have at least one pet.  So of course, that means that we’re in good company since there are 7.6 million households in Australia.  But…only 35 percent of households in Australia have at least one child under 16.  So there are 3.8 million pet-less households…and 4.94 million child-less ones!  And, in case you were wondering, with regards to the pet of choice:  38 percent of Aussie households have at least one dog, 23 percent have at least one cat, and 12 percent have at least one of each. 

          Psychologists generally think of pets as a positive influence in people’s lives.  Having an animal companion can help alleviate loneliness for those who are widowed, divorced, empty nesters, or socially awkward.  An animal’s unconditional affection helps their owners to see life in affirmative terms, and can help a person who has been hurt in a relationship, to work past that hurt.  If the animal is of a calm disposition, as many of the most popular dog breeds are, they can help to calm a nervous person.  For children, having a pet provides structure and lessons in responsibility.  And the pet often provides a sort of glue that keeps the family focused together.  It’s hard to see a downside to pet ownership.

          Well, that it except for the cost of keeping a pet!  But that’s only a downside for the individual pet owner’s ability to save.  For the economy as a whole, pet ownership is an engine that pumped 6.02 billion dollars into the Australian economy last year.  That’s an average of $ 1,584 spent per pet-owning household.

          By the way, if anybody was wondering, Rabbi Don is not anti-pet.  Far from it.  I have owned dogs and cats, often both simultaneously.  But Clara is not a pet person.  And in truth, given our peripatetic lifestyle since we’ve been married, that’s not a bad thing.  Being pet-less gives us a high degree of freedom and mobility.  Of course, we’ve had to take more than a little grousing from our kids over the years.  Them:  Everybody else has pets!  Us:  Well, we’re not everybody else.  Them:  We’re going to be maladjusted if we don’t learn to live with a pet.  Us:  We’ll pay for your therapy.

          Kidding aside, there’s no question that having a beloved animal companion can, and often does, increase one’s Happiness.