Alone But Not Alone

This Pesach will be a lonely holiday for many of us. It will be a long one as well, three days for us chutz l'aretz folk. 

For those who will have to be alone—as in alone alone—for Pesach, there is the concern that what sort of Seder could they possibly conduct? Ask the Mah Nishtana to oneself? Answer the questions oneself? 

Especially if one has happy memories of previous Sedarim surrounded by multitudes. Or at least one other person to share the experience with. 

A lot of our mitzvos have to be practiced in solitude nowadays. This isolation is a major adjustment for our communal programming. We are so used to Jewish practice along with our tribe that for some, it's akin to an identity crisis.

But I wonder: Have we forgotten the point? Sure, it's fun to do things with others—davening,  rituals, celebrations, meals, etc.—but the point of these practices isn't always the company.  It's service. Avodah. Which, in the end, is between Hashem and the individual.  

There is an article by Rabbi Pini Dunner that is circulating, telling over a story of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as witnessed by Rabbi YY Jacobson. 

My Zeidy had been chummy with the Rebbe, and while not chassidish, he was quite the fan; this story confirms why. The Rebbe was an Eved Hashem. He could have a solitary Seder—by choice—because he saw it as a mitzvah, as opposed to a family dinner. 

Browsing through the Mishpacha Magazine website, I came across a story called "Night Light" by Michal Marcus, printed in 2016. The story is about a teenage girl who is feeling lost. Her parents have recently divorced; her mother is no longer frum, her father is tired and preoccupied,  her sister is newly married and wants to escape into her new life, her brother is away in yeshiva. There's only so many times she can knock on her friend's door. 

Shabbos now involves takeout and awkward silences with her father. Without the home-cooked meals, the warmth of family, the joyous flair, she struggles to hold on to Shabbos. 

The one person who is attuned to her predicament is her teacher, and after a disastrous Shabbos by her mother, she finds herself at her Morah's apartment.  

Her teacher lives alone, no family nearby. She explains to her student that she tried to get Shabbos right—while she didn't have the husband and kids yet, she could go to other homes and get it right there. But it still wasn't hitting the mark. 

She made Shabbos for herself. She felt odd busily preparing for one, eating for one, singing alone.

“And it hit me: Shabbos wasn’t about the challah and wine. It wasn’t about the husband and kids. It wasn’t even about zemiros. Shabbos was about Hashem. It was about His creation, all of it — including me. It was about all the beautiful things I enjoyed, and all the difficult ones I couldn’t understand. It was about finding the Source.”

She falls silent. The candle sputters. The room is draped in peace. “Once I realized that, it was fine having a meal alone. Do I wish my Shabbos was different? Of course. But the core I have. No one can take that away. Shabbos — all of life really — is just about the two of us: Hashem and me.”

This was the message the girl needed to hear. That even though there was no longer a happy, complete family, she still had Hashem, and Shabbos is their day together. 

Hashem redeemed all of us from Mitzrayim on Pesach. Pesach is not about the cute four-year-old lisping the Four Questions. It's an opportunity this year to dig deeper, to discover new insights, to reaffirm our connection Above, when we are cut off from those besides us.

For Cuteness!

A number of months ago, there was an article in the NY Times that niggled at me. And niggled at me. And niggled at me. 

I have found the only way to deal with the niggles is to write about it. 

The article, by Pagan Kennedy, was called "Why You Want to Eat This Baby Up: It’s Science." She begins by describing how since childhood, she never wanted to have children, to the horror of everyone. 

She just doesn't find babies cute, she claims. According to her, that's the only reason a woman would want to have a child. 

Like, for reals?

The only reason why people have children is because they're cute?

What I never quite understood about those who profess no desire to besmirch their comfortable existences with demanding little humans is this: we were ALL children once. Our parents besmirched their comfortable existences to create and raise you. 

Additionally, how long are we cute? Not very long, in the grand scheme of things. Many babies enter the world colicky and crabby. Babies leak from every orifice. As Han's friend joked, "Babies begin smiling when we're about to chuck 'em out a window." Cuteness is for survival. 

But why do we have kids? As Jews, we know why. Heritage, mesorah, passing on the flame, etc. etc. The cuteness is just a perk. 

The Mundane is Sacred

This is the opposite of escapist reading. Knausgaard plunges you into the material world, not just with his choice of subjects — apples, adders, tin cans, faces — but in the telling. He narrates and philosophizes as he empties the dishwasher, boils macaroni, combs lice from a child’s hair. A whole entry is sparked when a daughter loses a tooth and gives it to him — it’s not her first, and thus has no drama for her anymore. Knausgaard is left holding it and wondering why we stop marveling at loose teeth, why we stop marveling at the world. This becomes the central preoccupation of the book: to restore our sense of awe, to render the world again strange and full of magic, from loose teeth to rubber boots to hardened pieces of chewing gum (“which with their grey color, hemispherical shape and many little indentations resemble shrunken brains”).

Parul Sehgal is reviewing Knausgaard's book "Autumn." I suppose it can become tiresome, after a while, consciously viewing our everyday surroundings with awe. 

Yet as the world spins its wheels as busy, busy, busy—we forget why we are so busy to begin with. We neglect the quality of life we are supposedly seeking. My neighborhood has burst into annual bloom, and most of the blossoms only remain but a few short days. Gazing upon such short-lived beauty soothes the soul. It would be to our benefit to actively seek out all forms of wonder.

In one scene, Knausgaard’s daughter throws up on him on the subway: “The stench filled my nostrils, and vomit was dripping slowly off my jacket, but it was neither disgusting nor uncomfortable, on the contrary I found it refreshing. The reason was simple: I loved her, and the force of that love allows nothing to stand in its way, neither the ugly, nor the unpleasant, nor the disgusting, nor the horrific.” 

We cannot selectively love. A person is composed of many parts, and as we cannot selectively numb emotions within, picking and choosing what aspects we love in another is not possible. When a girl says, "I want to be loved for who I am," she must acknowledge that she also has annoying parts, as does her future significant other. 

Children, especially, like Knausgaard's barfing baby—the love must be unconditional. They are also sources of an ever-flowing vat of wonder. 

Wajahat Ali was preparing for hajj, yet the demands as father of two small children were interfering with his mindset.

I recently complained to my wife about how our kids’ sleep schedule (or lack thereof) was stealing the time I needed to be truly ready for this moment. I immediately felt guilty. It occurred to me that I had to think of these frazzled pretravel days — and all of our days — differently.

After all, what’s the point of saying, “Here I am,” when you’re not present at home? What’s the point of seeing the Kaaba if you can’t appreciate the miracle that is two manic munchkins running around after midnight?

. . . part of me believes I still have a chance to do it right — starting before I leave. That means watching another “Paw Patrol” episode with patience instead of resentment, and bringing renewed energy to being the kind of dad who will return to kids who have actually missed him.

. . . I hope to return to my family in Virginia, see a bag of soiled, affordable diapers in the trash near the doorstep, hear the voices of babies who are gearing up for another all-nighter, and smile, grateful to be home.

The mundane does not interfere with the sacred. The mundane is the sacred.  

The Sport of Meaning

I can post this now that the Superbowl is over. I think. 

As a female, I stereotypically do not comprehend my brothers' and nephews' hysteria over sports. On any given Sunday (cough), the screen is lit up in Owen's house, flashing tomorrow's brain damage patients. 

Yet, it would seem, rabid fandom can fade. (I call this "growing up.") Sridhar Pappu reported on this phenomenon last year. 

You know when you were a kid, and you got really into something? A TV show, a toy? But then when you grew up, you put away childish things. Why shouldn't sports be along those lines?

My nephew is 14, and is quite taken with football. His mother is happy with his passion, because he needs an outlet to decompress after yeshiva, and this is a pretty safe one. It does not follow that he should be still relying on it when he's 44. 

The men interviewed in the article said that they reached a point where they couldn't tie their emotions anymore to something as meaningless as sports. To be upset because some guys throwing around a ball lost? Pathetic. 

Jeremy Gordon used to be bummed by his team's losses, but then realized how lame that was. He found a solution: Fair-Weather Fandom. He calls himself "the lowest of the low" as a "bandwagon sports fan," but "The cultural insistence on being a 'real fan' begins to seem deeply silly — it isn’t as though St. Peter judges your bona fides at the pearly gates."

What really matters? 

How to Stay Sane While Dating, I

I blame "hishtadlus" for this. 

Doing one's hishtadlus becomes an endless, unverified list of "musts," from makeovers to unfounded "segulos." If one hasn't gotten what one wants, that means more hishtadlus is required, from single events to throwing money at kabbalists. But I heard from Esti Rand, quoting Rav Dessler (I think), that hishtadlus is simply: I do my part, Hashem does His. If the desired outcome doesn't occur, that doesn't mean "do more hishtadlus." It means Hashem doesn't want you to have it . . . yet. 

Han entered my life when the last thing on my mind was dating. I repeat, he was sent—I cannot claim I "found" him, because I wasn't looking. It then became quite, quite clear to me that I was not the engineer of my (married) fate. My actions, beyond the acceptable minimum, were not necessary. 

When one realizes they are not in control, it is both terrifying and freeing. I am not in control! (Panic.) I'm not in control! (Yeeeeees!)

Emunah/bitachon: Emunah is the recognition of God; bitachon is actually trusting Him. I find the latter to be, at times, difficult, especially with my tendency to worry. 

Now, how to go about it? Well, shiurim help. When I'm wound up, a meaty shiur usually unspools me nicely. I recommend Rabbi Ephraim Stauber on this specific topic, especially since he cites Brené Brown. Rabbi Efrem Goldberg is also great.

When one begins tackling their relationship with Hashem, there are all sorts of pleasant side effects: happiness, calmness, relaxation. Because here's the thing: You want to get married? You make some basic effort at dating? You don't have to do anything else. But you have to have faith.

Rosh Hashana Cometh

Self-flagellation and I are old friends. If I am calm and content, my subconscious says, "That's enough of that, now," and obligingly rustles up a memory from 2nd grade that proves what an unworthy human being I am. 

 

Gordon Marino ponders the purpose of remorse ("What's the Use of Regret?"), a topic which is rather apropos for Rosh Chodesh Elul, no? 

"Self-forgiveness" shouldn't be encouraged, he says, for that merely removes responsibility or an incentive to improve; self-torture should not be endless, however, since we "lose faith in ourselves," and ruminate helplessly on the past without progressing into the future. 

We can learn to let things go, but before we let them go, we have to let regret get hold of us. Perhaps the old biblical formula is best — repent, ask for forgiveness with a sincere resolve to change your ways.

Ah, the old biblical formula is best! What a surprise. 

Kierkegaard observed that you don’t change God when you pray, you change yourself. Perhaps it is the same with regret. I can’t rewind and expunge my past actions, but perhaps I change who I am in my act of remorse. 

Without reflection of past sins (Viduy?), one cannot change. Isn't that what we're here for? We're here to do, initially imperfectly, then acknowledge our mess-ups and act upon that to elevate higher. 

I'm, Like, Soooo Busy

As we know when it comes to food choices, there's what the head believes, and what the scale says. 

The same premise works with another precious commodity: time. No one's got any, right? That's a trendy topic, like bone broth (an imminent post). 

Laura Vanderkam believed the same—and considering her schedule and family size, so did I. Yet after carefully logging her hours, she was delighted to discover otherwise ("The Busy Person's Lies").  

Despite her fourth baby and speaking engagements around the country, she wasn't being run to ground. Sure, there are busy weeks here and there, but those busy weeks are not reflective of the usual normal. 

When other people tried time-tracking, their anxieties over their supposedly neglected families and responsibilities faded. Some did find that their work was demanding more than they were willing to give, and they quit, but most were happy to learn that their lives were not overwhelmed. 

She concludes the article with the familiar message that time is precious: 

A life is lived in hours. What we do with our lives will be a function of how we spend those hours, and we get only so many.

Natalie Henderson, a pediatric I.C.U. fellow at the University of Louisville’s Kosair Children’s Hospital, tracked her time for several weeks. She found that despite her 28-hour shifts, she was sleeping more than she thought. Her service weeks were intense — 70 to 80 hours — but others were light enough that she saw she could carve out time for exercise and real breakfasts with her children. More important, though, was the reason she wanted to add these things to her life. In the pediatric I.C.U., she says, “we lose kids.” It’s a constant reminder that “time goes, no matter what you do. I’m covetous of the time I have. I want to make sure I use it more wisely.”

Life is full, and life has space. There is no contradiction here.

This past Sunday, 60 Minutes aired the story of the avalanched hotel in Italy, and the appreciation of the survivors. As one survivor realized, what should we be prioritizing? Our busy-ness? 

I think not.

Artsy Insights

Marina Abramovic, the . . . er, unconventional "artist," was interviewed in Time magazine. When Belinda Luscombe asked about her pain-inducing means to express herself, she replied: 

I always believed that people don't do anything really important from the state of happiness. Because happiness is to say that you don't want to change. 

Hm. Well, consider the initial stages of an ideal relationship. If both are happy, chances are they have been accepted as they are. Ergo the eye-gazing, ubiquitous grins, etc. Yet after marriage, there are adjustments. Some change, by he and she, will be needed to keep the boat steady. They aren't changing from a place of happiness; they are changing from a place of meaning.

Happiness = contentment = complacency. As we learn through Yaakov, however, we are not here to be content. 

Another point that piqued: 

BL: Why in history are there so few prominent female artists?

MA: Because, unfortunately, women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Because women want to be loved and to have a relationship, and to have children. You have only one energy in your body. And that energy will go where you focus it. 

Those great male artists were, for the most part, jackasses. In my belief, if "great art" emerged at the hands of a sadistic egotist, it's not great to me. The ends don't justify the means. 

As for her "unfortunately," I beg to quibble. Is wanting to be loved and to have children something to be dismissed as unimportant? Is that energy focus invalid? Not only in terms of art, but of career, too. We recall the "great artists," their work is prominently displayed. But does it matter? 

Human relationships matter.

#Blessed

Kate Bowler is a historian of the American prosperity gospel—"Put simply, the prosperity gospel is the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith." Ask any Jew, and they will scoff, of course, at such a precept being in Judaic belief. Yet there is a vast disconnect between official doctrine and the desperate flailings of the mind. For I see others, and also am guilty of, believing and acting on such a mindset. 

Chevi Garfinkel says, "Don't confuse bracha with accomplishment." Finding a life partner is a bracha. Having children is a bracha. Being healthy is a bracha. There is nothing one does to achieve that. There are wonderful people out there who are unmarried. There are wonderful people out there who are childless. There are wonderful people out there who are ill. If one believes that bracha comes from earning, the logic that would follow is that others "earned" misfortune as well. 

Blessed is a loaded term because it blurs the distinction between two very different categories: gift and reward. It can be a term of pure gratitude. “Thank you, God. I could not have secured this for myself.” But it can also imply that it was deserved. “Thank you, me. For being the kind of person who gets it right.” It is a perfect word for an American society that says it believes the American dream is based on hard work, not luck.

If Oprah could eliminate a single word, it would be “luck.” “Nothing about my life is lucky,” she argued on her cable show. “Nothing. A lot of grace. A lot of blessings. A lot of divine order. But I don’t believe in luck. For me luck is preparation meeting the moment of opportunity.” This is America, where there are no setbacks, just setups. Tragedies are simply tests of character.

It is the reason a neighbor knocked on our door to tell my husband that everything happens for a reason.

“I’d love to hear it,” my husband said.

“Pardon?” she said, startled.

“I’d love to hear the reason my wife is dying,” he said, in that sweet and sour way he has.

My neighbor wasn’t trying to sell him a spiritual guarantee. But there was a reason she wanted to fill that silence around why some people die young and others grow old and fussy about their lawns. She wanted some kind of order behind this chaos. Because the opposite of #blessed is leaving a husband and a toddler behind, and people can’t quite let themselves say it: “Wow. That’s awful.” There has to be a reason, because without one we are left as helpless and possibly as unlucky as everyone else.

For all the development of empathy, petty thoughts, feeding on fear, still lurk within. My brain, pathetically, has lurched to the blame mode—the very blame mode that I have been subjected to by others—when I hear of others' horrific pain. Because in my selfish, primitive, chimp-mind, I want guarantees: This can't, won't happen to me. 

One of the most endearing and saddest things about being sick is watching people’s attempts to make sense of your problem. My academic friends did what researchers do and Googled the hell out of it. When did you start noticing pain? What exactly were the symptoms, again? Is it hereditary? I can out-know my cancer using the Mayo Clinic website. Buried in all their concern is the unspoken question: Do I have any control?

I can also hear it in all my hippie friends’ attempts to find the most healing kale salad for me. I can eat my way out of cancer. Or, if I were to follow my prosperity gospel friends’ advice, I can positively declare that it has no power over me and set myself free. 

I struggle with this. It is so easy to say, to write, to nod matter-of-factly, but when in that situation, all that mental prep struts out the door.  

. . . And God is always, for some reason, going around closing doors and opening windows. God is super into that.

The prosperity gospel tries to solve the riddle of human suffering. It is an explanation for the problem of evil. It provides an answer to the question: Why me? What do you hear God saying when it all falls apart?

Well, for me, it feels like He's not talking. But that's because I'm not really listening. 

It offers people a guarantee: Follow these rules, and God will reward you, heal you, restore you. . . The prosperity gospel has taken a religion based on the contemplation of a dying man and stripped it of its call to surrender all. Perhaps worse, it has replaced Christian faith with the most painful forms of certainty. The movement has perfected a rarefied form of America’s addiction to self-rule, which denies much of our humanity: our fragile bodies, our finitude, our need to stare down our deaths (at least once in a while) and be filled with dread and wonder. At some point, we must say to ourselves, I’m going to need to let go.

Being frum is not about being certain. We are certain about a number of things; the existence of God, the validity of His Torah, the laws He gave us to follow. Often there are clear descriptions about divine reward. But remember Acher and that incident with the young boy who died while performing shiluach hakan for his father (two "long life" compensations right there)? Judaism was not decommissioned because of it. Acher is faulted for his inability to comprehend.   

But cancer has also ushered in new ways of being alive. Even when I am this distant from Canadian family and friends, everything feels as if it is painted in bright colors. In my vulnerability, I am seeing my world without the Instagrammed filter of breezy certainties and perfectible moments. I can’t help noticing the brittleness of the walls that keep most people fed, sheltered and whole. I find myself returning to the same thoughts again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard. 

*Sniff*

“I have a mom who was very religious,” Corporal Rubin said in the documentary. “And she always teach us: ‘There is one God, and we are all brothers and sisters. You have to take care of your brothers, and save them.’ To her, to save somebody’s life is the greatest honor. And I did that.”

—From the obituary of Tibor Rubin, whose parents died in the camps. 

Male Myth

"Why aren't you wearing what you wore on Shabbos?" Ta asks, aghast. 

"What? I'm not wearing that fancy-shmancy suit on a date!" 

"Why not?" 

"'Why not?' He'll head for the hills! I'm pushing it as it is!" (In my sweater and skirt ensemble.) 

"Men aren't like that," Ta shakes his head. "They want you do be dressed up." 

"Ta, my Hungarian father . . . you're like that. That doesn't mean all men are."

"They aren't?" 

As a female, I'm judged all the time because I'm a girl. I'm "supposed to" have certain likes and dislikes. Adoring sci-fi and Batman is not a common feminine cliché. OK, I like makeup. And shopping. But many (many, many, many) other females don't. People are people, different people, man or woman.

Over the last few decades, it has become clear that the interests of women can vary. They build houses with pink hammers. They are soldiers. They skateboard. 

 

But men . . . men have had a harder time wiggling out of gender stereotypes. Enter "It's All Right to Cry, Dude" by Jim Windolf. Biblically, our men boo-hooed often. It was okay. Expressing emotion is as normal as a "typical" girl getting weepy. With all this female-emancipation stuff, one would think something as innocuous as men emitting liquid from their tear ducts would have been socially acceptable already. Guess not. 

 

Same here with "Single Men Face 'the Panic'." Unattached women of, er, a certain age have been known to complain of men—in general—that they don't want to commit, they're out having a good time, they all suck, while females fret over their expiration dates.

But this article shows that men, too, yearn for a hearth and home of their own. The clubbing and casual scene gets tiresome. Dudes can seek continuity and security as much as women do. Even they get asked the question, "Do you think all the good girls that you would want to marry are taken?" 

“Tonight I’m doing nothing,” [Jean-Marc Choffel] said. “I could go out, grab a girl, have fun. But the sense of life is to have kids and try to give them as much as you know. I believe in the power of the universe. I believe the day you go somewhere where you aren’t supposed to be, you end up falling in love and having babies. Definitely, I’m not giving up.”  

Girlies, the fellas are there too.      

It's Not About the Money

Steve Jobs was not known for his cuddliness. However, Nick Bilton discovered an important lesson upon hearing a story when Jobs was being a jerk to a waitress ("What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Being a Son and Father"). 

No matter what you do for a living, should you do the best work possible?

It's not about vocation, Bilton realized. He spent plenty of time in non-vocational work—waiter, hair washer, costumed cartoon animal. 

And yet it wasn’t until my mother found out that she had terminal cancer in mid-March and was given a prognosis of only two weeks to live that I learned even if a job is just a job, you can still have a profound impact on someone else’s life. You just may not know it.

His mother's appetite dwindled, then disappeared; the end was nigh. But suddenly she asked for her favorite, shrimp. Bilton bolted to the nearest Thai restaurant to fetch his mother's dying request. 

While I stood waiting for my mother’s shrimp, I watched all these people toiling away and I thought about what Mr. Jobs had said about the waitress from a few years earlier. Though his rudeness may have been uncalled-for, there was something to be said for the idea that we should do our best at whatever job we take on.

This should be the case, not because someone else expects it. Rather, as I want to teach my son, we should do it because our jobs, no matter how seemingly small, can have a profound effect on someone else’s life; we just don’t often get to see how we’re touching them.

Certainly, the men and women who worked at that little Thai restaurant in northern England didn’t know that when they went into work that evening, they would have the privilege of cooking someone’s last meal.

Shortly thereafter, Barry Schwartz's "Rethinking Work" presented this concept under more scientific parameters, complete with cited studies.

Though the custodians’ official job duties never even mentioned other human beings, many of them viewed their work as including doing whatever they could to comfort patients and their families and to assist the professional staff members with patient care. They would joke with patients, calm them down so that nurses could insert IVs, even dance for them. They would help family members of patients find their way around the hospital.

The custodians received no financial compensation for this “extra” work. But this aspect of the job, they said, was what got them out of bed every morning. “I enjoy entertaining the patients,” said one. “That’s what I enjoy the most.”

Finding meaning in what may be considered menial work is what makes life great. 

These are just ... examples from a literature of cases demonstrating that when given the chance to make their work meaningful and engaging, employees jump at it, even if it means that they have to work harder.

Humans are not motivated by money alone. We are more likely to help if not offered financial compensation. Schwartz was arguing for a change in workplace policies that would make meaning part of the job, but Bilton shows how one can find the meaning, even if it isn't obvious.