It's All About Perspective (Yom Kippur 2023)

I'm going to tell you 3 stories, and then ask you what they might have in common or what they illustrate. The Baal Shem Tov told this story: Once, a musician of great but unknown talent. came to town. He stood on a street corner and began to play. Those who stopped to listen could not tear themselves away, and soon a large crowd stood, enthralled by the glorious music whose equal they had never heard. Before long they were moving to its rhythm, and the entire street was transformed into a dancing mass of humanity. A deaf man walking by wondered: Has the world gone mad? Why are the townspeople jumping up and down, waving their arms and turning in circles in the middle of the street? "Chassidim," concluded the Baal Shem Tov, "are moved by the melody that issues forth from every creature in G d's creation. If this makes them appear mad to those with less sensitive ears, should they therefore cease to dance?" A second Story: R. Aryeh Levin, originally from Eastern Europe, who immigrated to Israel in 1905 and died there in 1969 has been called a Tzaddik In Our Time, the name of the book one of his students wrote about him (P. 339, 413). He lived in Israel during very difficult economic when there was much poverty, which included Rabbi Levin himself, and difficult political times, times in which the British jailed and executed many Jewish patriots living in the territory of the Palestine Mandate. Rabbi Levin's friend the eminent scholar R. Chayim Berlin, made a vow with one of his friends, R. Yitzchak Blaser, that whichever of the two died first, the other would visit in a dream and tell him about the world beyond. Indeed, after his death, Rabbi Blaser appeared to R. Berlin. One of the things he related was, The Profundity of the Divine judgement is immeasurable." Perhaps on the basis of that information, R. Levin taught that Rabbi Akiva used to say, whatever the merciful God does, is done for the good. And Nachum of Gamzu used to say, This too is for good. Rabbi Levin explained that while R. Akiva's approach is that whatever happens, some good will come out of it, Gamzu taught that whatever happens is goodness itself right now, even though we may not perceive it. In other words, from God's perspective, it is all good. A third story, based on the metaphor of one spiritual teacher:* There was an apartment building with many floors. The people who lived on the first floor would look out their windows and see garbage, crime, dirt, homeless people sleeping on the street, and hear loud noises. The people on the middle floors would look out their windows and see a park with trees, grass, and hear birds singing in the trees. And the people on the top floor would look out their windows and see beyond the park, a beach with palm trees and an ocean. When someone from the middle floor met someone who lived on the first floor and remarked how beautiful the park was at that season, the person on the first floor exclaimed, oh no! There is no park here, there is only dirt, crime, and deprivation. And when a person from the upper floor remarked to the people on the first floor and the middle floor, isn't it wonderful to live in a place where we can see the beach and the ocean? The people on the lower floors said, there is no beach, there is no ocean here. You are mistaken. What do these stories have in common? What are they saying to us? I would like to suggest that these three stories tell us that the difference in how we see life is more about us than about life itself. The author Ken Keyes wrote: "we see things not as they are but as we are." We can see that this is true in our conception of God through the ages. The God of Torah is, as the 13 attributes of Exodus tells us, compassionate, gracious slow to anger, great in kindness and truth, forgiving and cleansing (34:6-7). But also God is portrayed as angry, jealous, and whose destructiveness is to be feared (Ex 20: 5 and elsewhere). The people who lived at the time when the Torah was written lived in a time of more hand-to-hand combat, destruction, and fear. We can also see this in the human conception of the Greek Gods, who were seen as having the human traits of capriciousness, jealousy, unpredictability, and taking revenge. As we have changed and evolved, our conception of God has changed. The Torah says, that God made us in God's image (Gen. 1:27); but truly we make God in our image. Perhaps a quotation by the quantum physicist Max Planck will clarify this point further. He said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” A corollary to that is, when we change, the things we see will change. It's as if we are each living in our separate alternative universes. They are parallel universes, but your universe is completely or almost completely different from mine. I have spoken and written about one of the Chassidic masters in 19th Century eastern Europe, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. In his commentary on the Torah portion Behar in Leviticus, he enlarges on an image his brother, Rabbi Zusha of Hanipol, described: a pipeline of blessings from above. Rabbi Elimelech wrote: "When the holy One created the world in goodness, God created pipelines that carry Shefa, an abundance of blessings to fulfill humankind's needs. The blessings are ceaseless, but when we fall from our spiritual level and lack trust in our creator, a true provider who supports and sustains everything in never ending abundance, one causes a stoppage, a disruption of the Shefa, with impure thoughts and lack of faith and trust. A person needs to trust completely. Trust in God with all your heart, and the abundance of blessings will run interrupted always then you shall never lack for anything." So what stops the flow? My teacher, Rabbi Joseph Gelberman z'l of blessed memory wrote about this in his little book, Spiritual Truths. He suggests that persistent negative thinking is the culprit (P. 23). He was from the Chassidic lineage of the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. These Chassidim found the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, in advocating joy always as their main value. They saw the results of choosing joy in their own lives. Rabbi Gelberman used to say, I am not always happy but I am always joyful. He also stressed that joy is a decision and a choice. Our task then, is to move from the bottom floor of the apartment building, where what we see is unpleasant and unpredictable, to the middle floor and hopefully move to one of the top floors where we see beauty and appreciate being alive. The Torah tells us in Bechukotai, a portion at the end of Leviticus, that it all comes from us. We think that events are coming at us, but really, the Torah says, "the same will be done to you" (Levit. 26:16). In other words, the world is actually mirroring us, not acting upon us. What we experience is a reflection of our own thoughts, words, deeds and emotions. It doesn't seem that way, but everything in Torah is testable. We don’t have to take the teachings of Torah on faith. My grandmother used to say, "try it, you'll like it." And that's what I'm suggesting here. All change begins with the person and shows up in our experiences. As I said on Rosh Hashanah, everything is energy and energy can be changed. Thoughts produced that energy and thoughts can be changed. You all remember the Broadway production of Peter Pan, which was shown on television in 1955 and has been available on video for decades. It starred Mary Martin and I think it was shown each year for many years. In the script, one of the children asks Peter Pan, "Can you really fly?" Pan answers, "I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind's back and away we'll go! How do you do it? You just think lovely, wonderful thoughts – and up you go! Now, think lovely thoughts." The children suggest: Fishing, hopscotch, candy, picnics, summer, sailing, flowers, Christmas! And they all rise up into the air. There is more wisdom here than we know. Some of you know that I insulate myself from TV news because it doesn't increase my happiness, and can pull anyone down. We can preferentially look at the good and have a vision of ourselves as happy, living the lives we want to live. We can open our hearts. Albert Einstein once said, "there are two ways to live your life – as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle." This view, appreciating and enjoying everything about our lives, helps us to rise up to a higher floor and live there. We are each in our own alternative universes depending upon what we are willing to think about. The power rests with us, and as I said in my talk on Rosh Hashanah, I have taken the word impossible out of my vocabulary, as God asked Moses in the Book of Numbers, is God limited (11:23)? The flow of the shefa, of blessings, is unlimited. It is limited only by what we are willing to think about, to choose, and to become. There is no price to be paid for happiness. It is its own blessing and we can start to live that blessing today. Let us free ourselves from persistent negative thinking, from fear, from a limited perspective, and rise to see the beach, the palm trees, and the beautiful ocean of blessings that can flow to us. Eloheinu means our power. May we use our power, the power to join with the Divine, for good for ourselves, for each other, and ultimately for the Oneness of all. May you have a blessed year of happiness and joy. *Caroline Myss

Our Family Tradition

This week’s Torah portion is Vayechi, which means, and he lived. Jacob is about to die. He calls his son Joseph, Viceroy of Egypt, to give him final instructions about Jacob’s burial in Canaan. He adopts Joseph’s sons, Menashe and Ephraim, as his own. Later, just before he passes away, he blesses each of his 12 sons and dies quietly and peacefully, a very good death. His sons bury him and then become worried that Joseph will seek revenge for their plans to sell him over 30 years ago. Joseph forgives them completely. Later, as Joseph dies, the book of Genesis comes to a close.

The section of this portion I’d like to consider tonight is toward the beginning, where Jacob has called Joseph to speak with him. The Torah reads: “Jacob said to Joseph, El Shaddai had appeared to me in Luz in the land of Canaan and God blessed me. God said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous and I will make you a congregation of peoples, and I will give this land to your offspring after you as an eternal holding.”(Gen. 48:3-4) In the next verse, Jacob adopts Joseph’s sons. Why is Jacob speaking to Joseph about God appearing to him? What relevance does it have to the adoption?

To answer these questions, it’s interesting to speculate about the stories told in this family. God appeared to Abraham at least six times; to Sarah and to Rebecca at least once; to Isaac more than once; and to Jacob at least twice, and perhaps four times. There was a family tradition that a personal relationship between God and man could be a normal, or at least a periodic, occurrence. Were these experiences regularly spoken about within the family? I imagine they were. What might God have wanted the members of this very special family to internalize from these stories? When Jacob speaks to Joseph, perhaps one thing Jacob wanted Joseph to do was to carry forward the personal relationship between God and human beings into the next generation of his family.

This possibility of a close relationship with God is something that we need the Torah to inform us of. Without the Torah, this possibly might not be known. We might also ask: what kind of person might Jacob have been without God’s direct and personal intervention? He began life as a manipulative person, not content with what he had, but wanting what others possessed. He had a lack of integrity and ran away from conflicts. After God’s guidance: the dream of the ladder reaching to heaven, the 20 years spent learning patience and much else from Laban’s negative example, the wrestling match with the angel; Jacob emerges as someone with great personal integrity, who faces up to confrontations; one who forgives and is grateful for what he has, valuing all his personal relationships and having learned from his and his family‘s mistakes. His closeness to God was vital to his becoming the Patriarch we revere and from whom we are descended.

There are teachings here for us as well. Like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob; like Moses and all the many prophets, many more than 20, like the Baal Shem Tov and many of the Rebbes who came after him in the 18th & 19th Centuries – this personal relationship with God is available to each of us. And further: God cares about each of us as God cared about Jacob. Our development, like his, is being directed, so that we can continue to grow in goodness, as he did. Jacob says to Joseph earlier in the portion: “do kindness and truth, chesed v’emet, with me.” These are our two main subject areas: kindness and truth.

Our Divine Teacher, our Divine Parent cares about us passionately; directs our studies and desires us to be in this personal relationship with God, as Moses says in Deuteronomy, for our benefit. As the secular year draws to a close and the new year begins, may we strengthen this relationship with God by applying ourselves to the study of these subjects, knowing that Goodness is working with us, as Rabbi Gelberman once wrote, on our behalf, to bring about a better us, a better year, and a better world. This is what Jacob wanted Joseph to remember and to actualize. This is our task too: to bring forth and maintain our closeness to God, which is after all, not only our birthright, but our family tradition.