Wholly Beautiful: What We Say to Girls

Sarah is a kindergartener here at Woodlands. She’s great: energetic, curious, and loving. She’s got the face of a kindergartener: bright eyes and big, enthusiastic smile. I was thrilled when she and her dad came in to see me this summer.

When they walked into the office, Sarah was, as usual, beaming. She had the look of a kid who had been playing outside for the last few weeks – she even had a bright pink cast on her right wrist to prove it. Despite the cumbersome cast, though, she was carrying a pile of no less than 5 books, clearly from the public library. She had on her usual mismatched outfit of different patterns and colors, including some bright pink sparkly shoes.

They walked into the office. “Look at your SHOES!” I exclaimed with glee.

She beamed back and modeled them a bit, pointing her toes and clicking her heals.

And in that moment, I disappointingly thought to myself, “I did it again.”

Because while it was a great moment of connection, and Sara had no problem showing off her kicks, I wish I had chosen to comment on something other than her clothes. I could have inquired about the stack of books in her arms, or even the story behind the cast on her wrist…but instead, her shoes.

It’s a small thing, I know. And, really, truly, I think pink glittery shoes are awesome. I do! But I want to do better.

I want us all to do better when it comes to how we speak to young women. For sure there have been hundreds of sermons on the topic of how the media affects a girl’s impression of her body and of her self-worth, or how our tradition encourages us to care for our mental and physical wellness. But what I want to draw your attention to is something much more discreet, much more subtle, much more subconscious – the little things we say to females every day that have more of an impact than we think. It’s the comments we make about what a girl is wearing, or comments like, “look how much weight you lost!” Or it’s simply commenting more frequently on how pretty she is, rather than how smart she is. Subtle changes in the comments we make could make a world of difference in building a better future for our girls.

Now, I acknowledge that this is something that affects both genders. Young boys and men are just as subject to chatter about their bodies and style choices. We make judgments everyday about a boy’s masculinity and therefore his toughness and his worth. But today I will focus specifically on girls, because I do believe that the attack on them – through comments on their physical appearance - has taken a bigger toll in a quantifiable way.

For example, in 2004, adolescent females (ages 12-17) were more likely than adolescent males to report getting treatment for mental health problems – with close to 24% of the female population seeking help[1]. Girls were also were more likely than boys to engage in disordered eating with 6% of females reporting vomiting or using laxatives to control weight compared to just 3% of males.[2]

What’s driving these statistics? Our society is notoriously obsessed with a person’s body and their looks. But there are a number of reasons why girls might report more difficulty maintaining their mental health and self-esteem in such a society. According to the US Department of Education, girls physically mature about two years earlier than boys. As a result, girls have to deal with issues of how they look, their popularity and their sexuality before they are emotionally mature enough to do so.[3] Studies show that self-esteem in girls peaks at the age of nine, then, for many, begins to plummet.[4] It plummets so much that by the age of 15, girls are twice as likely than boys to become depressed.[5] Our emphasis on sex, beauty, and overall desirability hits girls harder than boys and it is hitting them hard.

This incredible pressure to look and act a certain way at an early age causes depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and a general sense of low-self worth. We exert this pressure every day in even the littlest ways, most often subconsciously and unintentionally. But in a time when the news and media are buzzing with messages to “lean in,” and that girls have more opportunities and choices today than ever before, we have to take a good, hard look at ourselves and challenge ourselves to do better in regards to the subtle messages we are sending.

Because too often we think this is not something we are guilty of. We cringe when we hear reports of women in religious countries who are beaten for showing too much skin from under a veil. We feel shame when we hear of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men throwing rocks and spitting at schoolgirls who are walking to school in uniforms – calling them prostitutes and other slurs. We distance ourselves from these groups and claim them radical. But we should not dare to think that we are not throwing stones and slurs ourselves. Lest we think we are different, consider that we too are throwing rocks at young women when we:

- Give a girl a hard time for needing a bigger dress size (I have actually heard this conversation in the Marshall’s dressing room –  shame placed on a girl for growing and assurances that the little girl can and should do something about it),

- We too throw rocks when we make more mention of the outfits our girls wear up to the bimah, rather than the fact that they are up there at all,

- We throw rocks when we comment on a young person’s weight – even positively! Indeed, studies have shown that appearance compliments – positive comments about a person’s body – can lead to higher body surveillance and body dissatisfaction.[6] When you think the message you are sending is “good for you for losing the weight,” it likely be received as: “keep it up…you’re better because you’re smaller.”

- And indeed, we are throwing rocks at young women when we ourselves talk openly about how dissatisfied we are with our own bodies.

This last rock, this last thing we are guilty of, is the one we can start with. Experts call it “fat talk,” and most of us, men and women, are guilty of it. New York Times contributor Jan Hoffman reports that “fat talk” is so endemic in our society (93% of women admit to engaging in it!) because we find it empathetic and a way to build relationships. Fat talk, according to Hoffman, often reflects not how the speaker actually feels about her body but how she is expected to feel about it.[7] Hoffman offers an example:

“First friend: “I can’t believe I ate that brownie. I am so fat!”

Second friend: “You must be joking — you are so not fat. Just look at my thighs.”

The second friend’s reply, an “empathetic” self-deprecating retort to maintain the friendship on equal standing, includes reflexive praise of the first friend’s body, supposedly feeding the first friend’s hungry cry for affirmation...But to do so, the second friend has eviscerated herself, a toxic tear-down by comparison.”

We are slowly tearing ourselves down.

This happens between friends, and very often, between mother and daughter. As the Girl Scout Research Institute reports: “A daughter's dissatisfaction with her weight is greater if her mother is also dissatisfied with her own weight, in spite of how much a daughter actually weighs.”[8]

This statistic is what makes me most scared, now as the mother of a young girl. I try to take account of what I say around her to try to establish better patterns for when she can actually understand. But in doing it for her, I realized, I need to be doing it for me. I, you, we, deserve to speak better to ourselves. The toxic tear-down and the comparing benefits no one.

Folks, this isn’t about young girls, young boys, or teenagers of either gender – this is about us and how we treat our minds and bodies. This is about the way we choose to view ourselves, and therefore others. Best selling writer Geneen Roth offers,

“The most difficult part of teaching people to respect and listen to their bodies is overcoming their conviction that there is nothing to respect.  They can't find any place in them that is whole or intact. . . . The possibility that there is a place in them, in everyone, that is unbroken, that has never gained a pound, never been hungry, never been wounded, seems like a myth. . . But then I ask them about babies.  I ask them to remember their own children and how they came into the world already gorgeous and utterly deserving of love.  They nod their heads.  They realize that brokenness is learned, not innate, and that their work is to find their way back to what is already whole.[9]”

The rabbis teach that after Moses broke the ten commandments, he rose up Sinai to receive a new set. The day he came down with the new set was this day: Yom Kippur. The Israelites placed the broken set of tablets in the ark with the new set.  They laid them together in order to remind the people that despite the brokenness and imperfection we feel, we must always strive toward the goal of wholeness - the way we were supposed to be before we let others drive us to angrily smash our self-image.

Indeed, our Torah portion this morning will declare that “It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” (Deuteronomy 30).

This is our responsibility and it is not beyond us to achieve. We have the words here in our hearts and in our mouths.  In order to help the girls in our community live fuller, more positive lives, we must start with helping ourselves. We have to love ourselves and our bodies first.  We have to take “fat talk” out of our vocabulary and believe that even if we don’t look exactly the way we want to, we are still deserving of happiness and love.

We have to start reading new cues. Instead of commenting on the sparkly pink shoes Sarah wears, I need to comment on the stack of books. I should ask her which one is her favorite. I should celebrate her mind, not what she puts on her body. This morning I pledge to try to do better and I hope you will too. On this day when we purposefully fast - as you feel the hunger pains and the rumble in your stomach - understand that others inflict this on themselves daily and that the pain is not only physical, but spiritual as well. Our changed comments may be small, but their impact over time can be tremendous.

I found a favorite book to read to Noah. It’s called The Paper Bag Princess.  There’s a beautiful young princess named Elizabeth who’s set to marry the young prince Ronald.  Unfortunately, a dragon comes and destroys her castle, burns all her clothes, and takes Ronald away. Elizabeth is left covered in ashes, with nothing but a paper bag to wear.  Nevertheless, Elizabeth begins a quest to get her future husband back. Sure enough, Elizabeth uses her wits and outsmarts the dragon.  As she opens the door to free Ronald, he says, “Elizabeth, you are a mess! You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag. Come back when you are dressed like a real princess.”

“Ronald,” says Elizabeth, “your clothes are really pretty and your hair is very neat. You look like a real prince, but you are a bum.”

And the book ends: They didn’t get married after all.

End of story. The last picture is one of Elizabeth dancing toward the sunrise.

           

This is the message we should be teaching our young women. No, on second thought, it’s not a lesson we owe them, it’s an apology. We have to do teshuvah. We should say, “I’m sorry I get so fixated on how you look and what you weigh. Through the ashes of societal pressure and the paper bag clothes of the latest trends, through all that, you are smart, you are resilient and you are courageous.”

While Rabbi Billy was on sabbatical, I had the great fortune of officiating at the b’nai mitzvah services. At the end of the service, I would stand with the child in front of the ark, and offer a blessing, taking care to specialize it to the young man or woman in front of me. Through the weeks, I discovered that (subconsciously) a theme arose. I found myself saying, “Be kind to yourself. Nurture yourself – honoring all those beautiful traits inside of you. Only when you do that, can you go out into this great big world and make a difference.  Make the difference with you first.”

It took me weeks to discover the pattern and even more time to figure out why it quietly entered my blessings.  I found that as much as I was talking to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah, I was talking to myself.  A young woman of 13 who needed to know that her curly hair was beautiful; that her changing body was something to be cared for and treasured.

We all need to speak to that 13 year old inside of ourselves – the one who started to internalize all the negative press and all the comments, either good or bad, that people make. Lay a whole set of tablets alongside your broken ones and find the power already in your own heart so that it may manifest through your lips – creating a world of positive speech and of love. 

Ken yhi ratzon.

Closing Words

This morning we chanted Isaiah’s hopeful words:

9  If you remove the yoke from among you,
    the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, ¹⁰ if you offer your food to the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness
    and your gloom be like the noonday…

¹² Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
    you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
    the restorer of streets to live in.

Will you be the yoke that hangs heavy on the self-esteem of our young people or will you speak words of nourishment, becoming the repairer of the breach? We have the potential to rebuild the ruins and raise up a foundation for the next generation – if only we would join our voices in words of strength. This Yom Kippur day, let us stop pointing the finger at others and at ourselves. It is the day of God’s judgment, not ours. What a relief.

G’mar hatima tova, may we and our children be inscribed in the Book of Life.

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[1] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Survey on Drug Use and Health: 2005

[2] ChildTrends.org, Child and Youth Indicators Databank: Disordered Eating—Symptoms of Bulimia, 2006

[3] http://www2.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/adolescence/part8.html

[4] http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/depression_in_adolescence_does_gender_matter

[5] http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/how_raise_girls_healthy_selfesteem

[6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3101896/

[7] http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/fat-talk-compels-but-carries-a-cost/?smid=fb-share&_r=0

[8] The Girl Scout Research Institute, The New Normal? What Girls Say About Healthy Living (2006))

[9] Geneen Roth, Women Food and God (New York:  Simon and Schuster, 2010), 64-65.)

40 Years Later (MLK Shabbat)

Picture: an individual comes before the highest leader in the most powerful nation in the world.  The individual is hesitant but knows what they must do.  The law is wrong; it must be changed.  There have been many appeals, many of which were met favorably only to be overturned.  Now standing again before the supreme power, everything is on the line.  With one favorable decree, this individual and all those like them, could live according to their own laws and their own sense of dignity.  The individual has worked hard to get here, and after repeated struggles, he demands one more time: “let my people go.”

This week’s Torah portion recounts the last of the ten plagues: the ten wonders God displays in order to change the official status of the Israelites. Moses acts like the legal counsel, approaching the bench of a hostile government numerous times, advocating for a righteous decree.  After years of being whipped to build bricks and living in poverty, it is time for the Israelites to repossess control of their bodies and their lives.

Yet, in telling the story, we tend to rush past those moments when Moses comes before Pharaoh and demands safe passage for the Israelites.  We take it for granted that at least ten times Moses had to insist his way into Pharaoh’s palace chamber to stand there surrounded by armed guards and disapproving eyes…all to advocate on behalf of his people.  After how many refusals would you have turned back?  After how many refusals would you just have accepted the status quo?

Moses is the archetype of a process that still goes on today: protesting to the highest authorities to speak to our highest morals. He teaches that we must keep stepping forward, even when we encounter setbacks. This is often what we encounter when we seek change through the political process.

MLK experienced it in his era – appropriately being dubbed a “modern day Moses.” The world saw Moses cry “let my people go” when King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial delivering his “I Have a Dream speech.” His choice of venue was an demand to the government, it connected him to the century of appeals made to the highest courts and representatives – all the way back to the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13^th Amendment. He too was demanding: let my people go.  Let them go forward into a better society, girded with all the tools they need to succeed.  Let them be the agents of their own destiny.

Ultimately, MLK, like Moses, understood the power of the political process.  In a collection of sermons, King shared this thought: “Let us never succumb to the temptation of believing that legislation and judicial decrees play only a minor role in solving this problem. Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”

This sentiment is highly applicable to the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

Now, in regards to reproductive rights, we cannot put words in King’s mouth.  I don’t know how he stood on abortion.  What we do know, though, is that he supported family planning, stating as much when he accepted an award from Planned Parenthood in 1966.

Yet regardless of where King stood, his words, “Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless,” resonate.

We forget what the landscape was like for women prior to 1973.  Single women who became pregnant were fired from their jobs.  They were sent away, out of sight, to maternity homes for unwed mothers.  Married women who became pregnant were forced to carry their pregnancies to term even if they could not afford to feed that child, or if the mother was sick, or even if the fetus would never be able to live outside the womb because it had not developed the necessary organs.

The way women were treated was heartless.  They had no choice in their fate.  There was no trust that they could think and feel enough to make decisions for themselves.

40 years ago, Roe v. Wade changed that.

The historic decision codified what we know, what we have known for a long time: choice is the backbone of freedom.  When you’re free, it means that you determine your destiny.  You are the keeper of the keys.

This concept of choice stands at the center of Judaism.  When Moses demands the Israelites be let out of Egyptian slavery, it is ultimately so that they may trek towards Sinai and willingly, freely, choose a better life through receiving the Torah. Even today, the Reform movement thrives on the concept of choice and creating personal meaning.

Because what is slavery? The tyrannical seizure of a person’s body and life choices. Freedom is being released into a world where one can develop their own moral compass and make decisions for him/herself.

Unfortunately, maintaining this freedom is an ongoing struggle. Just as Pharaoh would offer freedom and then revoke it, in the 40 years after Roe v. Wade, individuals and groups have tried to take back a woman’s right to choose. 40 years later, women are being forced to listen to fetal heartbeats, to pay out of pocket for simple health care screenings, and, in the most blatant seizure of her body, forced to invasive transvaginal ultrasounds.

Yet we should not be discouraged.  Like Moses, like Martin Luther King, we can continue to step forward in the name of justice.  We can be on the front lines.  We can be diligent in making sure that women, minorities, and all others are afforded the freedom that our ancestors eventually won.  We may feel like we’re standing before the Red Sea and that the challenge is insurmountable, but if we dive in, the seas of change might just part.

Seeking Peace

In honor of the tradition of “Chinese food and a movie,” folks on Twitter decided to have some fun.  Using the hashtag #IfTheMovieWasJewish, individuals started getting creative with movie titles.  For example, if the movie was Jewish, the title of the movie might have been Willy Wonka and the Matzah Factory.  Other good ones were, Eat, Pray, Love, Call Your Mother, It’s a Tolerable Life, Silence of the Brisket, Little Shop of Horas, and Indiana Jones and the Mother in Law of Doom.

One suggestion that seemed particularly relevant this week was Twelve Kvetchy Men.  Not because we’ve probably been spending a lot of time with family (and our own, lovable kvetchy men) but because this week’s Torah portion rounds out the story of exactly 12 kvetchy men: Joseph and his 11 brothers. Kvetchy is an understatement, though.  Over the course of their story, we have learned that these 12 brothers can be rash, jealous, deceptive and unforgiving.  They take up many pages of Genesis in a long saga of vicious behavior…culminating in them plotting to kill their brother Joseph.  Only after this terrible episode and then years of maturation, the brothers are finally able to reconcile.

They live together peacefully, we think, in Egypt for about 17 years until their father Jacob grows ill and lies on his deathbed.  The brothers gather around to hear Jacob’s final speech. It’s quite a moment. Imagine them huddled close.  Think of how far they have come from flinging Joseph deep into a pit to die to now standing side by side in brotherly solidarity.  As one group they go to bury Jacob, giving him his last honor.

But then a curious thing happens on the way back from burying Jacob.  After those 17 years of solidarity and brotherly love, Torah says, “Now Joseph's brothers saw that their father had died, and they said, "Perhaps Joseph will hate us and return to us all the evil that we did to him."  The brothers send an intermediary to remind Joseph that Jacob commanded that he forgive his brothers for what they did all those years ago.  The problem?  Torah has no record that Jacob ever said that.

Are the brothers back to their old tricks?  Was there never really a peace between them?

The rabbis take this up this problem in the midrash[1]. They ask: What did the brothers see after the funeral that frightened them so much?  The rabbis answer: As they were returning from the burial of their father, the brothers saw Joseph go to the pit into which they had hurled him, in order to bless it.  He blessed the pit with the benediction: “Blessed be the place where God performed a miracle for me,” just as any man is required to pronounce a blessing at the place where a miracle had been performed on his behalf.  [The brothers stood off at a distance, though, and did not hear the blessing.] When they beheld him at the pit, they cried out: “Now that our father is dead, Joseph will hate us and will fully requite us for all the evil which we did unto him.”

One misinterpreted action is enough for the brothers to question years of living peacefully together. 

The uncertainty leads the brothers to do two things.  First, they do not approach Joseph directly – they speak to him through an intermediary.  Second, they lie – putting words into Jacob’s mouth.  But the rabbis ask: can we really blame them? They teach: “[the brothers’] statement is introduced to teach us the importance of peace.  The Holy One, Blessed be God, wrote these words in the Torah for the sake of peace alone.”

It is almost as if the rabbis are saying “the ends justify the means.”  Sometimes moving on, or simply finding a productive way forward is much more important.

At the end of 2012, there are many complicated feelings still in the air.  In some respects it was an inspiring year. The Olympics brought the world together; the Giants won the Superbowl.  It was also a very difficult year, with many issues still unresolved.  Civil war in Syria, the looming “fiscal cliff,” rebuilding after the hurricane, and the debate around gun control gearing up as we still mourn Newtown. Not to mention all the things we have each experienced personally.

We’re going into 2013 with this complicated desire to just shake off the difficult parts of 2012 but also with the aspiration to address these most pressing needs in our personal lives and in our local and global communities.

This week, Torah speaks to this uncertainty and our conflicted feelings. It asks the best way to move forward when the pain and mistrust runs deep.  We could read the midrash to say that we should bluff our way into 2013, doing whatever necessary in the name of resolution, but I think there is more than that.

It teaches the importance of compromising. It encourages us to seek help when we cannot find the words or the courage to face the conflict in our lives. It tells us that the path to peace is not a straightforward one. That even when we think we have found resolution, there is still the natural potential for self-doubt or backsteps.

To go back to the #IfTheMovieWasJewish meme, Mark and I recently saw the movie Lincoln.  Given this week’s Torah portion, one part felt very Jewish. President Lincoln is speaking to Thaddeus Stevens, a man with very noble aims. Stevens’ feelings: your principles should drive you forward, no matter what.  Lincoln counters with a more practical but powerful metaphor. He compares noble aims to true north on a surveyor's compass. True north is essential, he tells Stevens, but you also have to navigate "the swamps and deserts and chasms along the way.” If you can't do that, he asks, "what's the good of knowing true north?"

Trudging into 2013, I believe we’re pointed north. We’re girded with the right values. Our challenge is to not be blinded or guided completely by principle, though.  We’ll only successfully move forward if we acknowledge the muck and mire that stands before us.  If we navigate the politics, the complicated feelings, the fact that our past does remain with us, then we can successfully traverse the difficult issues – hopefully reaching that most principled peace at journey’s end.  Ken yehi ratzon.

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[1] Midrash Tanhuma Yelammedenu 12:17

Kindling the Fire (Hanukkah Shabbat)

Hanukkah began last Saturday night, perfect timing for my family and friends to gather together for our yearly Hanukkah celebration in New Jersey.

Not a particularly observant man, my father made a strange but beautiful request.  He asked if we could do havdalah, the Saturday night ritual that separates Shabbat from the rest of the week.  Well, doesn't he know how to get his rabbi daughter excited!  "I'll bring the candle," I told him, "you grab some cheap wine and throw together some spices."

Saturday night arrived and we gathered.  The Batons, our dear friends, joined us per family tradition. The kids looked quizzically at the yellow braided candle.  "It looks like bread!" "It looks like pasta!"  I explained the significance of each of the symbols and of havdalah itself.  Mark and I sang the blessings, drawing us near to the end of the ritual.

Candle burning with a mighty flame, I explained, "Now we're going to get very, very quiet.  If you listen carefully enough, as I extinguish the candle in the wine, you'll be able to hear the Sabbath leave our presence."  The room drew quiet, eyes were pinned on the blazing candle.   I tipped it slowly into the wine glass...and just before it could hit the wine to create it's one of a kind sizzle...just before the light went out…"beep! beep! beep!"...the fire alarm went off.  And thus Shabbat ended with a siren, and not a sizzle.

We all erupted into laughter, which turned out to be a great way to lead into the Hanukkah blessings and lighting the Hanukkiah. Luckily it was only night one and we had little fears of what the menorah would mean for the now-sensitive fire alarm.

The whole funny incident made me think about how we use fire in our tradition.  Fire comes around a lot, mostly because it is full of rich symbolism.  There's the obvious light metaphors.  “This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine”-type sentiments.

Consider the other fires we meet, though.  The fire of the Temple sacrifices, the pillar of fire God used to lead the Israelites through the black nights in the wilderness, the fire of prophetic vision, and, of course, the fire of the burning bush...the fire that burns but does not consume.

That fire in particular represents God manifest in the world.  It reminds us of God's enormous power - the power to warm and inspire, but also the power to burn and destroy.  Our tradition teaches that the way we harness this Divine power makes all the difference. Will you use it to provide light in the darkness or will you use it to burn things down?

That is what Hanukkah is about.  The Greeks possessed a great fire – the fire of war.  They used their fire and power to destructive ends.  They scorched the land and burned the Temple in order to torture the people.  They wielded it large and without control.

The Maccabees, though, they found fire in the smallest of places - one tiny cruse of oil.  They took the smallest amount of fire and kindled it into eight days of hope.  They used it to bring joy back into the world - not wipe it out.

May we create that sort of fire tonight. May these hanukkiyot that illuminate our sanctuary remind us of the Divine power that resides within each of us, and our obligation to use it wisely and carefully.  May we kindle it large enough to sound the alarm against indifference, hatred, and destruction. From the smallest spark may we blaze a light of love.  Kein yhi ratzon.

Truth and the Lost World

All sorts of people and disciplines try to define what is “real” in the world.  Science is after “the truth” as much as religion is.  But study science or study religion and you’ll see that “the truth” changes over time.  You realize that what we thought was real – what once was fact centuries ago is now considered ridiculous by modern standards.

This theme resonates throughout literature, but especially in the world of Michael Crichton.  He’s the guy that wrote Jurassic Park, Timeline, and the Andromeda Strain. His novels combine science with philosophy; writing fantasy that seems so real and so true.

 

One of my favorite passages comes from The Lost World. It concerns Jack Thorne, a materials engineer who specializes in building field equipment, vehicles, and weaponry for scientists all over the world.  In this particular section, he’s speaking to Kelly Curtis, a young woman fascinated by science.  In talking about some detailed scientific theories, he says to her:

"Are you listening to all that?" Thorne said. "I wouldn't take any of it too seriously. It’s just theories. Human beings can't help making them, but the fact is that theories are just fantasies. And they change. When America was a new country, people believed in something called phlogiston. You know what that is? No? Well, it doesn't matter, because it wasn't real anyway. They also believed that four humors controlled behavior. And they believed that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Now we believe the earth is four billion years old, and we believe in photons and electrons, and we think human behavior is controlled by things like ego and self-esteem. We think those beliefs are more scientific and better."

"Aren't they?" [Kelly asks.]

Thorne shrugged. "They're still just fantasies. They're not real. Have you ever seen a self-esteem? Can you bring me one on a plate? How about a photon? Can you bring me one of those?"

Kelly shook her head. "no, but . . ."

"And you never will, because those things don't exist. No matter how seriously people take them," Thorne said.

"A hundred years from now, people will look back at us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies." Thorne shook his head. "And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.”

Crichton writes about science, he obviously believes in its value.  And so do I. Scientific discovery is exciting and essential.  It heals people; technology helps us communicate, machines make living easy or possible; science explains our natural world and our bodies, helping us to make healthy decisions.  It’s vital.

Crichton’s reminder is important though.  We can’t lose track of what’s real: our emotions, the rhythm of nature, the way we humans need one another.

These are the constants.  As Maimonides wrote: “Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.”  It’s still truth, whether we call it that or not.

Truth.  We may perceive it, we may not, but it’s there somewhere. Sometimes we discover it, sometimes we ignore it.  A lot like God. God is that constant.  God is that reality.  God is that Truth.

May we try to happen upon that Truth, to open ourselves to our most basic joys and tranquil experiences and to discover what is most real.

Turning (after Hurricane Sandy)

In the days leading up to Superstorm Sandy, I thought my eyes were going to turn into hypnotic spirals. Like most, I was glued to the TV, watching images of the storm heading our way, hoping it would drift out into the Atlantic at the last moment. 

But as each day passed, the storm’s spiral remained well-defined, turning counterclockwise towards the shore it would eventually devastate.

Instead of turning out to sea, it turned on us.  The first day, lighting candles and eating all the ice cream out of the freezer was fun.  The second day, less so. Unfortunately, some of our temple families are still today without power, living in the homes of friends and relatives who have taken them in from the cold.  We pray that it won’t be much longer.

Here in Westchester we’ve suffered.  It’s crippling to be without your normal routine.  It’s frustrating for your house to feel like a foreign ice-box and not the home-base it is supposed to be.  We’ve got totaled cars and damage to our homes.  It has not been easy.

And then we turn on the news and we see neighborhoods in Staten Island, New Jersey and Long Island that have been blown away. That too sends a shiver through our bodies. Entire buildings, entire lives will need to be rebuilt.

Here at Woodlands, we’re responding as quickly as we can. Soon we’ll be taking up a collection for those most affected by the destruction.  We’re also putting together a taskforce to figure out when, how, and where we can get boots on the ground to help with the clearing and rebuilding.  If you are interested in helping in this, let me or Rabbi Billy know right away.

There is something we can do right now, though. And that is to give money to the relief effort.  As a temple, we’ve set a challenge for ourselves: raise as much money in 10 days as we can.  Why 10 days?  We’re taking a note from the most famous 10 days in the Jewish calendar: the Eseret Yamei Teshuva – the 10 Days of Turning – the 10 days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  During the 10 Days, we’re supposed to turn our souls back to God. We look to rebuild ourselves into better people.

So here we are months after the High Holy Days with another opportunity for turning and rebuilding. 

Our “10 Days of Turning” initiative started last Tuesday and will go until next Friday, November 16.  You can give online or send a check to the temple office.

Certainly we can find it in ourselves to take part in this turning.  After all, the spirit of rebuilding and turning ourselves around is in the air.

Because it’s strange fate that Election Day was on Tuesday, the same day our initiative began.  That day, the message came through loud and clear from the American people: it’s time to turn towards the future. Part of that turning will be uniting our fractured political system.  We’re not just rebuilding the economy, we’re rebuilding the way we discuss issues.  As in the case of Hurricane Sandy, the enemy is not one another.  The enemy is climate change, poverty, and limitations of civil liberties. 

Our country must make a turn towards rebuilding a better society together.

President Obama put it best in his election night speech:

“Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It's not always a straight line. It's not always a smooth path. By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won't end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin.”

It’s where we begin with rebuilding after the storm, it’s where we begin to rebuild after a highly divisive election year.  We move forward.

There’s a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that sums it up best.

Mild-mannered Calvin is stuck doing homework on a beautiful Sunday. When no one is watching, he dashes off to become Stupendous Man, defender of freedom! Stupendous Man heads towards the earth at an acute angle, using stupendous force to begin turning the earth in the other direction. Stupendous Man turns the planet all the way around backward. Afterwards, Calvin’s mom asks if he finished his schoolwork. Calvin marches along in his Stupendous Man costume, saying it's Saturday. He doesn't need to do it until tomorrow, thanks to Stupendous Man.

Folks, we’ve got homework to do.  We have challenges ahead of us in the wake of this storm, in the wake of the election.  Our challenge is not to turn backwards, but to turn forwards.  We need to take on the challenges, take on tomorrow. May we do so speedily and productively.  Kein Yhi Ratzon.