Rosh HaShanah: Living a Life of Meaning
Sermon by Rabbi Jennifer Hartman
2013/5774
Our son will get straight A’s and be the captain of the lacrosse team. While in high school he will design a web program to help teachers create their own computerized multiple choice tests and it will be such a success that the profits will cover the small gap between his tuition and the giant scholarship that he will be offered by his college of choice. He and his girlfriend will give swimming lessons to underprivileged children during the summer.
Our daughter has to take a pre-AP course now, in eighth grade, or she won't be setup to take AP classes later on. And without AP classes on her transcript, she is looking at a state school, maybe not even the main campus of a state school. She definitely cannot take time off from Model United Nations to join the film club because everyone knows that the film club is code for “slacker kid.” Once she is ready to apply for college we will have to hire a professional to polish her personal statement because everyone else does.
Are you anxious yet? I am anxious! The expectations these parents are putting on their children are overwhelming for both the parents and the children. Yes, these are real anecdotes drawn from the work of child psychologist Wendy Mogul. I have a feeling that many of the people in this room have dreamed the dream or felt the pressures described above. There is a belief that the only way we, or our children, will find success is through a degree from a prestigious college or university and a high powered profession. We think that the best predictor of adult achievement is high school and college degrees. And yet, we know well that too often academic and financial success do not give us a sense of meaning or purpose. This was recently reinforced for me when a friend returned from a life changing trip to Israel.
My friend took a ten day trip to Israel to see the work that the Jewish National Fund is engaged in, visit with friends and explore the reform movement. He had the opportunity to watch as hundreds of people, most of them in their 20s and many of them all alone, descended from an El Al plane to a sea of cheering and smiling faces. These people were making Aliyah and being welcomed to their new home. These were individuals truly living their ideals, their values, their dreams. As he traveled the country he was exposed to the ingenious inventions and designs that Israelis have created and the priorities of the Israeli people. He saw an indoor playground that was built by the Jewish National Fund for children in Sderot. Rocket fire from the Gaza strip makes it too dangerous for them to play outside. He had Shabbat dinner with friends outside of Tel Aviv. He sat at the table with multiple generations of one family. Great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins all came together to have a joyous and festive meal, to be together and a part of each other’s lives. This trip was truly a coming home experience for him.
This was not his first trip to Israel, he had been there many times before. Yet this time he was seeing things anew. Before his trip he had begun to feel unsettled, during his trip he began to articulate what had been gnawing at him. He wondered why so many of us choose to live far from our families. He felt that we have our values backwards. This was coming from an Ivy League educated young man with a lucrative job in New York City. By most accounts he was living the dream, but he began to question if he was living the right one. While his job was profitable and fun he did not feel that he was contributing to society, he did not feel that his work had a higher purpose, he did not feel he was making the world a better place in which to live. He realized that his soul was missing something.
There was recently an article in the New York Times entitled “The Busy Trap” by Tim Kreider. In it the author talks about how many of us proclaim that we are busy. We are proud of this, but we veil it as a complaint. The author writes: “Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. The people who complain are almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.” We live to work when people in most of the western world, Israel included, work to live. We are busying ourselves with things that we think will make us successful or feel fulfilled when too often it does not.
Interestingly, Psychologist Daniel Golman writes that high school and college degrees are not the best predictors of one's success as an adult. Empathy, optimism, flexibility, a good sense of humor, the capacity to function as a team member, and a positive reaction to setbacks are what will best predict our future ability to succeed. These are also many of the same values that will ensure our souls feel fulfilled. Let us look at these attributes one by one.
Empathy. We are commanded as Jews to comfort the mourner and rejoice with the Bride and Groom. The bereaved cannot say the mourner's Kaddish without having ten people present. We, the community, must be there to feel their pain, to walk with them through their grief, to support them and care for them when they feel most alone. The sheva brachot, the seven blessings that are said at every Jewish wedding ceremony cannot be said without a minyan. Our tradition is structured so that the bride and groom do not rejoice alone. We are obligated to visit the sick and take care of the widow, and the orphan. What could better teach empathy than being with people during times of their deepest sorrow and greatest joy?
The capacity to function as a team member. To be able to work and share with others takes all that we learn with empathy as well as discipline and preparation. Our tradition teaches that we need to have savlanut (patience and tolerance), rachamim (compassion) and acharayot (a sense of responsibility). We need to be tolerant of both the things that are within our control to change and those that are not. We need to have compassion for the other people in our group, our business, our community. We need to treat them with dignity and respect, leaving space for their thoughts and ideas. We need to take responsibility for our actions and for other people.
The root of the word achrayut is achar which means “other”. We have a responsibility not only to do our part, but also to care for each other. When we live these values we root out entitlement and we extend ourselves beyond our own ego. Only in this way are we able to work cooperatively and productively with others.
Optimism. There is a rabbinic value - hakarat ha'tov - which means "recognizing the good." The idea is that there is already good in our life, but it is up to us to uncover it. This is why, when something apparently "good" happens to us, we offer the blessing, Gam zu l'tovah, which means, "And that is also for the good." And also if something "bad" happens to us, Gam zu l'tovah, "And that is also for the good." There is no more optimistic outlook than this, the Jewish belief that no matter what happens we have the ability to turn it into something positive. In every challenge is an opportunity to advance our lives.
A good sense of humor. There is a theory that the reason humor is such a part of Judaism is because we have suffered so much oppression that laughing is the only thing we can do to stay afloat. It is survival by levity. Sigmund Freud said that humor is a means of circumventing civilization’s obstacles by making our enemy small, inferior, despicable or comic. The holiday of Purim is a perfect example of this. We dress up and parade around to show how absurd our oppressor was. We even made his hat into a cookie that we joyfully eat. It is a skill to be able to take life’s disappointments and turn them into laughable moments of wry recognition and honest reflection. It is one not easily learned, but one that can help us put situations into perspective and better live with them.
Being flexible and having a positive reaction to setbacks. The story of the Jewish people is one of disastrous defeats and miraculous triumphs, one of change and reinvention, one of perseverance in the face of great odds. Knowing our story should give us all strength and a sense of determination. According to a recent article by Bruce Feiler, recognizing and understanding one's story, helps that person to feel grounded and at the same time a part of something bigger than themselves. The children who do the best are the ones who know their family’s story. They know the struggles their family overcame. They have heard about the hardship, the failed business, the sickness, the tumultuous relationships. They also know the success, the stories of travel and celebration. They see that through it all their family has remained together, they have figured out how to survive! In this way they have a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves and this it will survive even in the face of hardships. They have an identity, rooted in their past, that guides them. The Jewish story can do that for each one of us.
You may be thinking, Rabbi Gertman, this is all well and good, but we still need to work and our children still need to go to college. You are correct, there is a reality and we cannot ignore it, but that is a message you are hearing everywhere. And it has come at the expense of teaching our children and reminding ourselves that we must also be menches, upstanding, respectful people. Having an MBA from Harvard is meaningless if we don't have the moral character to conduct our lives properly. We need to raise children who understand they are a part of a bigger story, who give back to the community, and who treat each person with dignity and respect. The Talmud tells us that parents must teach their children to swim. They must teach their children not only the proper stroke, not only the skills to move forward, but also the correct way to breath, the way to take in air. We know how to successfully move forward, but we do not know how to nourishes ourselves and nurture relationships as we do this. We need to take in the values that nourish our souls and incorporate them into our lives. As these are the ones what will sustain us and our children as we move forward. These are the tools that help us succeed in teams and relationships. This is how we learn to accept defeats with grace and dignity. It is the breath that gives us the courage to explore the world and determine who we are. It is the ability to climb the corporate ladder with integrity and virtue. Our world will not end if we have less Ivy League graduates, but we will have serious problems if we forget how to treat each other, if we stop seeing each other as created btzelem eloheim, as created in the image of God.
Therefore I hope and pray that as we enter the New Year we all ask ourselves: are we raising citizens of the world? Are we living a life of values and intention or are we filling our time with meaningless tasks in order to satiate an inner emptiness? The holidays bring us face to face with these questions. Let us hope that we have the strength, the courage, the wisdom and the will to emerge from these days with a renewed sense of our goals and our purpose in the world.