August, 2011:

(photo credit: http://b.dryicons.com/files/graphics_previews/blooming_in_the_rain.jpg)

I think the Ego has received a bad rap in the development of our cultural “enlightenment philosophies.” The Ego has become a word that is used to point to something internal that must be tempered, punished, put down, or even nullified in order for us to fulfill a higher purpose. In my own readings I have found this usage of the Ego to be damaging. Though this might not be the intent of certain authors, it makes me feel that I have something sick that I carry around with me and no matter how much I try, I cannot fully overcome. I am no expert in Psychoanalytic theory, though it seems clear that the Ego serves an extremely important function in the way human beings interact in the world. The Ego is a function. It takes the base drives and desires that are most primal and enables us to enact them in a secure way that is connective to the people and world around us. The Ego is a tool of transcendence that elevates thoughtless impulse to meaningful action. Halleluyah!

As Ego is often equated with the Self, I think we can see the Self in a similar light. I try not to use the Ego/Self so casually and certainly not connected with words such as nullification or pathology. On a recent meditation retreat (Awakened Heart Project), the thought arose, “Cutting off the Self is like severing the end of an electrical cord.” Without an Ego we cannot access meaning or connect with broader states of mind – psychological or spiritual.

What has been feeling more integrative is to translate the New Age use of Ego/Self as the false sense of separateness, which is perhaps only one small sliver of the Ego function as Freud intended. I do think that our culture has become so individualistic that we struggle to empathize with the suffering of another without thinking “Thank G-d that is not me!”, nor truly rejoice in the celebration of another without thinking “Hey G-d! Can’t that be me!” There are times (not always) when this sense of being separate should be put down, admonished, or even nullified. Mindfulness is a compassionate way of keeping separateness in check.

My meditation teachers (most recently Rabbi Jeff Roth, Sylvia Boorstein, and Norman Fischer) helped me to see that separateness can be overcome by paying mindful attention to the accessible workings of the Ego/Self – the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise when you turn your gaze inward. It’s a jungle in here! Erratic pains and pleasures move and shoot through my body. Baseless judgments erupt attacking people that I have never spoken with. Moods swing like a dysfunctional pendulum. The insight hits home, “I have so little control over what is going on inside of me and it impacts my actions tremendously. This goes for everyone else too.” The walls of separateness melt against this tender connection when understanding that, as Sylvia taught, “All of us can mostlyonly act how we act.” In this process, the Ego/Self does not disappear. Rather it is affirmed and strengthened as an ever-changing process that helps us to unite our internal and external worlds.

Many Blessings!

photo credit (http://www.jub.si/en/about-jub/druzbena-odgovornost/)

Here is an excerpt from Viktor Frankl’s “The Doctor and the Soul” (Third expanded edition). It is definitely worth reading the whole thing and best read more than once. Frankl discusses an amazing practice of appreciating the time gone by and the dual nature between an individual and his or her responsibility.

“Time passed is certainly irrevocable; but what happened within that time is unassailable and inviolable. Passing time is therefore not only a thief, but a trustee. Any philosophy which keeps in mind the transitoriness of existence need not be at all pessimistic. To express this point figuratively we might say: The pessimist resembles a person who observes with fear and sadness that his/her wall calendar, from which s/he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who takes life in the sense suggested above (without pessimism) is like a person who removes each successive leaf from his/her calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors – after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. S/ He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life s/he has already lived to the full. What will it matter to him/her that s/he is growing old? Has s/he any reason to envy the young people who s/he sees, or wax nostalgic for his/her own youth? What reasons has s/he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that young person has, the future that is in store for him/her? “No thank you,” s/he will think. “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past – not only the reality of work done and loved love, but of suffering suffered. These are the things of which I am most proud – though these are things which cannot inspire envy.”

All that is good and beautiful in the past is safely preserved in the past. On the other hand, so long as life remains (transcendent life with a capital L), all guilt and all evil is still “redeemable.” This is not the case of a finished film, or an already existent film which is merely being unrolled. Rather, the film of this world is just being “shot.” Which means nothing more nor less then that the past – happily – is fixed, is safe, whereas the future – happily – still remains to be shaped; that is, is at the disposal of human responsibility.

But what is responsibility? Responsibility is something we face and something we may try to escape. The wisdom inherent in common speech thus suggests that there are counterforces operating in human beings which attempt to relieve them of their natural responsible-ness. And in truth there is something about responsibility that resembles an abyss. The longer and the more profoundly we consider it, the more we become aware of its awful depths – until a kind of giddiness overcomes us. For as soon as we lend our minds to the essence of human responsibility, we cannot forbear to shudder; there is something fearful about man’s responsibility. But at the same time something glorious! It is fearful to know that at this moment we bear the responsibility for the next, that every decision from the smallest to the largest is a decision for a all eternity. That at every moment we bring to reality – or miss – a possibility that exists only for that particular moment. Every moment holds thousands of possibilities, but we can choose only a single one of these; all the others we have condemned, damned to never being – and that , too, for all eternity. But it is glorious to know that the future, our own and therewith the future of the things and people around us, is dependent – even if only to a tiny extent – upon our decision at any given moment. What we actualize by that decision, what we thereby bring into the world, is saved; we have conferred reality upon it and preserved it from passing.”

Many Blessings! 

Finding Your Voice
August 12, 2011

Wisdom comes to us from every corner of our existence, even the darkest places. Below is a teaching from Rabbi Ronnie Cahana who is currently in the beginning stages of recovery from a serious stroke. His words come from blinking his eyes and the patience of his loving family who help to transmit his voice. The teaching below is an inspiration to me as it relates to a struggle for all of us to find our voice no matter what the challenge is. May Rabbi Ronnie have a speedy recovery and sustained love from his community and family.

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ברוך אתה ה’ אלוקינו מלך העולם מתיר אסורים

Blessed are You Hashem, Our G-d, King of the Universe, who releases the bound.

An uncle of mine, an Israeli gentleman farmer, liked to say, “Just add more phosphorus; nothing should ever stop growing.”  The latter part of the sentence still intrigues.  I certainly don’t subscribe to the notion that all of nature devolves into mulch.  Creation has more spiritual content than that.  No, G-d’s Creation gives meaning from the Beginning to the End.  Pursuing the knowledge of G-d at every juncture of life is the purpose of Judaism.  We must chase after G-d in every encounter and always distinguish between good and evil in cold nature.

Not long ago, our morning minyan (Jewish prayer group) took on a challenge at the breakfast to bring to the table our personal stories of deep Jewish wisdom.  Perry Lande, may his memory be blessed, brought a teaching that still impresses me.  He said that he was taught by his father, Shepsel, before he joined the Canadian Army, that HaShem gives everyone “four amot” to take care of—about 6 feet square in land and air.  If you keep yours b’seder,  in order, he told us, then usually everything comes out alright.  An ama is about 1 ½ feet—the distance between our organs and our limbs.   We measure an “ama” by our reach—the space from our elbow to the tip of our longest finger, which is exactly where we put our tefillin shel yad on while making the bracha of love to G-d.

Taking care of our own spheres is a deep secret of how we can tend the divine garden and make it perfect.  However, in times of crisis, we need to open our ”arba amot”  and reach out to others and for others.  No ordeal should be experienced alone.  How wondrously close all of G-d’s creatures are to each other and what an impact we can have in each others’ lives.  I know that I have experienced this miracle and beyond.  I’m asking for us all to expand our reach, even as I cannot find mine just now.

From this vantage at the Montreal Neurological Institute, I’m deeply inspired by our Jewish values. Our Jewish Community doesn’t allow anyone, any family, to feel isolated and our Beth-El family outshines my life.  As I am trying to find my own shofar voice—naturally, brokenly, triumphantly—tekiah, shvarim, teruah, (steady and broken calls) I’m calling out to shul in gratitude: tekiah gdolah (great strong voice). And please collect your wisdom stories for the shul, share them and forward them around.

We always read a specific Torah portion, Parashat Dvarim on the Sabbath before Tisha B’Av (Jewish day of communal mourning) to dispel the loneliness of the Hurban, the destruction of the Jewish Temple.  Moses cries to G-d, “How can I bear this people alone?”  How odd this statement.  He did not even want to start the mission.  You recall that he told G-d that he couldn’t speak, but, in fact, we never see this evidenced.  Moshe was the most effective, eloquent orator ever.  He was G-d’s mouthpiece.  How could he ever say that he was a stammerer?

The Five Books of the Torah are filled with G-d’s speech.  In Bereshit (the first book), G-d calls out everything in nature and gives meaning to Creation.  In Shmot (the second book), G-d names the People and gives us purpose.  In Vayikra (the third book), G-d calls us personally.  In Bamidbar (the fourthbook), G-d speaks to the Jewish People from the Ohel Moed (Tent of Meeting). Now we begin Dvarim (the fifth book) - Elu Dvarim - These are the words.

Moses does not think that he cannot speak; he believes that the people cannot hear or understand G-d’s meaning and the beauty of life. Moshe feels alone if he doesn’t connect Israel to G-d. We are imprisoned if we only have a relationship with our G-d alone. We need community to find G-d together.

ברוך אתה ה‘ אלוקינו מלך העולם מתיר אסורים

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Ronnie Cahana