November, 2024 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
November, 2024—I quake a bit as I write that date. It is late October and I’m not sure what November 2024 will bring. But I am guessing that, whatever the outcome of the election on November 5th, there will be stressful days to follow. There I go, breaking my rule not to prognosticate about future events. I will be happy to be wrong.
I’ve been thinking about this election all year long, wondering how to be calm, how to be centered, how to be useful—as a person, as a rabbi, as a part of our community, citizen, creature—whatever the outcome, whatever the reaction to the outcome. At this point, two weeks out, I have three questions that I am asking myself and would love to ask you as well. Maybe it will be four questions by the time we get to Pesach, but this is what I’ve got on my mind right now:
Who is the person I want to be in these times? When I wake up in the morning, how do I want to step out of bed into the day? We can’t control how we feel, nor should we. But I think there are decisions to make about how we move with those feelings into the arena of our lives. Maybe we could think of this as a default setting. Feelings move and change. Undoubtedly sometimes I will be scared or angry or offended or confused or demoralized. As these feelings make their way across me, to what do I return?
I am drinking a cup of tea right now, pausing to ask myself this question. My own answers come to me as I stop and reflect. They don’t need to be yours. But I think it might be helpful to contemplate one’s default setting. It is easy to default to complaint and indignation, to depression, to a sense of superiority, to paranoia, to self-hate, to denial, to numbness. I imagine that we’ll feel all of these at times. But these may not be what we want to revert to day after day.
For those with a mussar practice, I think this is the essential work, to cultivate qualities of character (called middot, measures) that will help us to meet the days of our life. For those of us who don’t already have this practice, a place to start might be to ask ourselves what middot we would like to set as our default setting. Or maybe which middah, singular, would be a good place to start. Here’s a classic list, from the eighteenth-century Rabbi Mendel of Satanov (I pause a moment here to appreciate that there once was a place in the world called Satanov): equanimity, patience, order, decisiveness, purity, humility, righteousness, frugality, diligence, silence, calmness, truth, and separation (from unhelpful influences). These might not be your list or mine, but they give you an idea of the practice in its traditional form.
It might be that our own default setting is built into our make-up, so that there is little we can do to upgrade. But maybe it’s not as fixed as we think. The premise of mussar is that, with attention, prayer, self-examination and support from friends, we can stretch and grow in some measure towards being the people we want to be. My own haphazard practice is what I affectionately think of as “slow mussar”: I work on one middah for ten years at a time. I’m about four years into my latest, the third middah that I have taken on to contemplate and occasionally exercise. I have definitely changed and maybe even (who knows?) improved in some small measure from each decade of my super-slow practice. I feel like I have some resources with which to meet life that I might not have had if I hadn’t undertaken this bit of reflection several decades ago.
It seems especially important these days to strengthen, or soften, ourselves to meet challenging times, should they come.
What is my sphere of influence? Let’s assume for a moment that all of us want to help build a better world. I’ve been thinking a lot about agency these days, about what I can change and what I can’t. Some of us grew up being told that we could do anything in the world that we set our minds to. Others got exactly the opposite message. Neither of these is exactly true; our capacity to make a difference is somewhere in a floating middle.
There is a song around these days—Olam Hesed Yibaneh (written by Rabbi Menachem Creditor)—“I will build this world from love / You must build this world from love / And if we build this world from love / Then God will build this world from love / Yai la-lai-la-lai…” This song gives me the heebie-jeebies. I think it is the word “world.” I hope that sometimes I can build a conversation from love or build a meal from love, but the world…? That’s a big bite.
I’ve told this story before, so forgive me, but I think about it a lot. When I was much younger, I worked as an organizer with homeless people in LA. One thing I did a lot was go to the local welfare office with all my 24-year-old strength and a clipboard and advocate for someone to get a night of housing or some lost Food Stamps. I fought fought fought, and I often won the hotel voucher or the meal chit. But sometimes I lost. And these losses really got to me. I felt like I was the only person between the heartless office and some poor soul sleeping on the asphalt. Sometimes I left crying and swearing.
One day I went to a wonderful psychologist associated with the movement, someone I knew would understand. He did. After listening to me awhile he said, “You remind me of a Southern belle who thinks that Daddy will give you whatever you want just because you want it so much.” It was a welcome splash of cold water; just because I want something, just because I’m right, doesn't mean I will get it. I don’t run the world, or even the downtown welfare office.
Neither am I totally powerless. After October 7th last year I thought long and hard about my own sphere of influence (I was in Prague, flattened with COVID, so I had a lot of time to think). What I came to is that there is very little I can do to bring about a cessation of violence in Israel or Gaza. There is a little I can possibly do in that direction, and I try to do it.
But I do have some agency here in our Mendocino Coast Jewish Community. It seems to me that peace anywhere, even a tiny place far from the center of conflict, is peace in the world, and I would do what I can to have MCJC be a place of peace in our hurting world, where people feel safe and cared for and respected. I’ve worked hard at it this past year, as have many of you. I hope that our little community is a little place in the world built from love.
Where can you build a better world? Where can I? The answers, again, will be different for each of us. But I think it is helpful in a hard time to be honest and realistic about what we can each do and what we can’t. And if it doesn’t turn out to be such a hard time, well, it’s good still to think about.
What do I need in these times? Community, friendship, a regular check-in with someone who cares about me, good information, good sleep, a healthier body, a good joke, a plan, an organization, good food, Shabbat, prayer, money, inspiration, trees, cold water, warm water, free time, a working car, a carpool, art, a schedule, less of a schedule, a meditation practice, a yoga mat, a good novel, singing, a role model, a mentor, antidepressants, a kiss, Talmud study, silence, a cat or two, a change of diet, a bit of courage, a bit of self-love, something I do just for my own joy, a secret mitzvah, a dream.…
Each other. The Mystery.
We will get through November, 2024 and points beyond. We will build small parts of the world with love, with intention, with bits of the best of ourselves and bits of the rest. Love to all of you.
PAIGE NOTES
Let’s take a moment for a deep inhale and then a slow exhale. And another one. I needed that so I thought you might, too. The High Holidays can feel anywhere across the spectrum of moving and uplifting to sad and arduous. The only thing I don’t think anyone would call them is relaxing and spacious. So our tradition gifts us this entire next Hebrew month of Cheshvan without any holidays so we can catch our breath. When I lived in Jerusalem, everyone would refer to this time as ach’ray hachagim, “after the holidays,” when life would become more spacious and calm. We might use this holiday-less month to integrate any insights and notions from the holidays into our day-to-day. Did a verse from one of the prayers inspire an idea that you want to think more about? Did one of Rabbi Margaret’s sermons spark a personal intention for the year? Did a moment of reflection provoke a new behavior you want to try out? If so, now is the time to move more slowly and actually process the fruits of our spiritual harvest.
Meanwhile, our two calendars have returned to being in perfect alignment, in that November 1st falls right on the new moon, Rosh Chodesh (the first day of) Cheshvan. While there are no holidays in Cheshvan, November is filled with Election Day, the end of Daylight Savings, Veterans Day, Native American Heritage Day, and Thanksgiving! Some might not yet feel the ach’ray hachagim calmness as we approach the apex of Election Season. The “Prayer for Our Nation” in the High Holiday machzor might have landed differently this year than in others. In the midst of all this, a helpful phrase for me recently has been “Life just keeps on life-ing.” When we have done all that we can do—whether that’s praying during the High Holidays, changing our clocks back, or casting our vote—sometimes it’s enough to take a deep breath and keep on life-ing.
