Recently, I shared an idea about hearing our inner critic (see here). Along the same lines, I have been reading a book, called The Wisdom of Getting Unstuck: How to emerge from and avoid the muddy middle by Rabbi Shimshon Meir Frankel, in which he describes how we get bogged down in the voice of what he refers to as the Antagonist (we can see it as a modern reference to the Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination, which is the part of ourselves that tries to take us off the path of spiritual growth). For Rabbi Frankel, this antagonist is what keeps us from achieving the best person we can become.
In chapter 23, Peace Treaty, Rabbi Frankel writes about the importance of making peace with this antagonist, and even listening to it as a guidepost. While we don’t want to allow the antagonist to control us, it can often voice something that we need to acknowledge and hear as we venture along the path to success so as to enter the this road with due diligence. This technique is complicated and requires the fortitude of having worked on removing any controls from this antagonist.
We struggle daily with this antagonistic, doubting voice. It can be frustrating to get caught in the debate inside ourselves that gets raised by this opposing voice. Yet, there is a time and place for the voice to at least pipe up in the process of change and growth. It is there to make sure that we are truly meeting our goals. Through making peace with the Antagonist we can learn how to allow this otherwise negative voice to exist without engaging it, disarming its pervasive ability to overwhelm and then control the narrative we are trying to construct.
Black Fire on White Fire – the multiple levels of Torah.
Every so often, I come back to the following story (see here for the original posting). I find much comfort in the layers that I have gleaned from it. Here is one version as I recently wrote up for Congregation Ahavas Achim’s Shavuot Journal.
Hasidic stories have many layers of interpretation and points for reflection. From the simple niceties of storytelling to deep esoteric concepts, many of these stories require time and focus to explore the breadth and depth of the lessons we can glean. One of my favorite stories describes the origins of how R. Dov Ber of Mezeritch (Maggid of Mezeritch) became a follower of the Baal Shem Tov (see Sefer Baal Shem Tov, vol. 1 pg. 7-8 or Keter Shem Tov Helek 2 23a).
(Freely translated/adapted): I heard from a Hasid, at some point R. Dov Ber began hearing about the greatness of the holy Rabbi, Baal Shem Tov, and how people would travel from far and wide to witness and receives his prayers. R. Dov Ber was known as one who had a sharp mind and was an expert in Shas and Poskim. Additionally, he had his hands in the wisdom of the Kabbalah. He was curious as to what made the Baal Shem Tov so great.
He finally decided to travel to the Baal Shem Tov in order to test him. As he was travelling, he began having regrets, for R. Dov Ber was a matmid, (someone always immersed in study) and he was unable to maintain his learning while travelling, thus distressing him. He finally resolved to continue, knowing that he would hear Torah when he arrived to see the Baal Shem Tov. Alas, this was not to be. Instead, the Baal Shem Tov shared a story about a how he was travelling for days and ran out of food to provide for his wagon driver. He then happened upon a poor non-Jew from whom he purchased bread to provide for his wagon driver. The Baal Shem Tov also described how he ran out of food for his horses on a journey. While the stories contained tremendous wisdom, R. Dov Ber did not see the wisdom or depth of the Baal Shem Tov’s words.
R. Dov Ber went to his assistant and told him to ready the wagons for his return trip the next morning, as it was too dark to travel on this particular night. At midnight, with everything prepped to go, R. Dov Ber was summoned to meet with the Baal Shem Tov.
The Baal Shem Tov asked him, “Do you know how to learn?”
He responded, “Yes.”
The Baal Shem Tov then continued saying, “I have heard that you know how to learn. Tell me, do you have knowledge of the wisdom of the Kabbalah?”
He responded, “Yes.”
The Baal Shem Tov then asked his attendant to bring him a copy of the Etz Chaim (Kabbalat HaAri) and showed R. Dov Ber an essay, which the Baal Shem Tov asked him to explain. R. Dov Ber took the text, reviewed it and returned to the Baal Shem Tov and explained the text to him.
The Baal Shem Tov said, “You don’t know anything.” So R. Dov Ber went back, looked it over again and told the Baal Shem Tov, “The correct interpretation is like I already stated, so if you think you know a better explanation, please tell it to me for I will hear truth from whomever shares truth.”
The Baal Shem Tov responded, “Stand up, for this passage contains names of angels.”
As soon as he said this, the text illuminated the entire house and a fire surrounded them. They sensed the presence of the angels mentioned in the text.
The Baal Shem Tov then said to R. Dov Ber, “In truth, the interpretation is as you said, however your learning lacks soul (ed. Note – emphasis mine).”
At this moment, R. Dov Ber told his servant to return home and he would be staying with the Baal Shem Tov to learn from his great wisdom.
Many of us struggle with the greater goals of Torah study. Throughout Jewish tradition, we have many philosophies and motives for study, including:
Studying the works of our tradition is an act that is to be done lishma, for its own sake.
Studying the Torah is a process that helps maintain the world, as we learn in Pirkei Avot 1:2, that one of the world’s pillars is the Torah.
Studying the Torah is for the sake of action, Lilmod al Minat L’Maaseh, study in order to do.
Yet, even with these goals and ideas, I would presume that we all struggle at times to see the soulful depth of what we are learning. We struggle to keep these ideals in mind.
If we reflect on the above story, perhaps we can garner a new appreciation for the centrality of Torah in our lives, something we reinvest in over Shavuot. R. Dov Ber did not recognize the Torah of storytelling, of the seemingly mundane. For him, Torah was merely the fixed “text” of Talmud, halacha, kabbalah. Anything outside of that was seen as mundane, unimportant. He couldn’t grasp the value in the experiential aspects of Torah study. That is, until the Baal Shem Tov opened his eyes to the deeper Torah that comes from experiencing it, integrating it beyond the words on paper. The Baal Shem Tov showed R. Dov Ber the soul of learning.
Today, we are blessed to be able to learn anytime, anywhere, almost anything we want. This is a blessing and a challenge. Many partake in daily set study, whether Daf Yomi, Mishna Yomi, Nach Yomi, or some other Yomi. Others have set learning based on certain desired quotas and measures that one takes upon oneself. We can connect to great scholars around the world. We are fortunate to be able to have access to both the texts and teachers who can help guide us through. Yet, how many times do we despair because the study moves too fast, or because we don’t recall the material from one day to the next.
We shouldn’t give up. As we can see from the story of R. Dov Ber, it isn’t just the ability to read a text that speaks to our growth in Torah study. It is about how we are engaged in the study. R. Dov Ber stayed with the Baal Shem Tov to learn what being engaged in the text meant. For us, it is how we approach our learning. If we are consistent, if we are mindful and engaged with mind, body and soul, then we will find true success. Not just in what we know, but in how Torah guides us in our lives.
This is the message of Shavuot as we celebrate it today. Shavuot, as Zman Matan Torateinu, the time of receiving our Torah, is a time to reinvest in our learning. Many do this through staying up and learning/being engaged in learning on the first night. Others through the communal focus on study activities throughout Shavuot. In all of these moments, we are tasked with both the study and also the experience of study so as to inspire us to strive towards deeper and more meaningful study. May each of us experience a soulful learning this Shavuot.
On life’s journey, there are many times we reach an exit, taking us off one road and beginning us on another part of our life’s superhighway. Sometimes, we feel like we have arrived and have no need to go further. While it is important to pause at these junctures, reflect and take stock, these moments cannot be an ending.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski (o.b.m.) presented a spiritual reflection on those moments of “arrival” in yesterday’s piece from his work Smiling Each Day:
“You shall seek G-d and you shall follow Him but you must search for Him wholeheartedly” (Deuteronomy 4:29). Even after you have found G-d, you must continue to search for Him wholeheartedly. G-d is infinite, and you should not be so complacent as to think that you have already found Him. Keep searching, because there is so much more (Rabbi of Kotzk)
p. 240
May today and every day be a day in which you continue to search and step forward.
The difference between listening to the inner critic vs. seeing the inner critic for what it really is.
I came across an interesting vignette in The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully that really struck home for me (see here for a previous post from The Five Invitations). In this story, Frank Ostaseski illustrates a principle in his discussion regarding how we are all stymied by what he refers to as our inner critic:
Once, when I was teaching about the inner critic, a woman raised her hand and asked to speak. Her frustration was palpable, her face turning red and her whole body trembling. “I can never defeat the inner critic!” she said. “It always gets the best of me. Why am I so weak?”
I pulled a chair right up next to her and stood on top of it so that I was a good four feet taller than she was. Then I pointed my finger down at her and said in a firm, loud tone, “You are bad!”
She burst into laughter. “Oh yeah, look at that!” she said. “That is what the critic is like when it has the best of me. No wonder I feel weak. I couldn’t fight back against that adult voice when I was a small child. It was too big, too powerful.”
Then I asked the woman to stand up on the chair so that she was a head taller than I was. I guided her to breathe deeply, feel her way into her body, center he awareness, and think about her innate goodness. “Now how would you respond to the inner critic when it tells you that you’re bad, you’re week?” I asked.
“Don’t speak to me that way,” she said, her voice strong and confident. “It hurts me when you talk to me like that. And it doesn’t help me do any better.”
p.144-145
This story is all too familiar. We have an idea, a gut reaction. We then start to hear all the reasons not to do something. Yes, it is important for those voices to be heard, to help us reflect on the decisions we are to make. Yet, if we always heed the inner critic, we will never find new opportunities, new growth, new adventures in life.
Similarly, there is a rabbinic vignette that offers a similar imagery, using the term evil inclination instead of inner critic. Both are the wily ones who try through various means to lead us from a path of growth and spirituality. In the Talmudic text below, from Tractate Sukkah 52a, we are shown a scene in which the evil inclination for those who have been able to overcome it, “the righteous,” is imagined as a mountain, symbolizing the hard work of quieting the voice of the critic, while for the “wicked”, the same critic is a like a tiny strand of hair, symbolizing that we really are in control of it if we should so choose:
The Gemara answers: This can be understood as Rabbi Yehuda taught: In the future, at the end of days, God will bring the evil inclination and slaughter it in the presence of the righteous and in the presence of the wicked. For the righteous the evil inclination appears to them as a high mountain, and for the wicked it appears to them as a mere strand of hair. These weep and those weep. The righteous weep and say: How were we able to overcome so high a mountain? And the wicked weep and say: How were we unable to overcome this strand of hair? And even the Holy One, Blessed be He, will wonder with them, as it is stated with regard to the eulogy: “So says the Lord of hosts: If it be wondrous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, it should also be wondrous in My eyes” (Zechariah 8:6).
text and translation from Sefaria
Both stories offer perspective on achieving growth and change throughout life. Too often we take small challenges, the molehills, and turn them into mountains, presuming them to be harder to overcome than they really are. And in a way, they are, because we have to work hard to rise above the naysayers, the excuses, etc. At other times, we give up way to easily because we think it is so hard, and yet, if we are really able to stand above the critic or see the inclination as a mere hair to push aside, we could continue to journey forward.
May we all find the ability to recognize what our inner critic says and find ways to take the criticisms we build in a constructive manner so as to be able to overcome the stagnation of allowing the critic to succeed.
This is the title page from my friend and colleague and current NAJC President Rabbi Dr. Joseph S. Ozarowski BCC’s important work on Jewish Pastoral Care. The following quote and essay immediately had me thinking about his book.
Monday afternoon, during the joint NJHSA-NAJC conference, PowerNet2022, someone made the following comment:
Rabbis bring people to God.
Chaplains bring God to people.
I shared this quote via social media (h/t from friend and colleague Rabbi Daniel Braune-Friedman BCC who first posted this on Facebook) and find myself reflecting on this powerful statement. I am particularly focused on the second half of this quote as it pertains to the role of chaplain.
For me, when I hear “bring God to people,” it is the image of how the chaplain entering a room is being accompanied by something beyond the self, regardless of whether we say God, divine, spirit, etc. A chaplain is walking along a path with God when entering another individual’s sacred space. If you think about it as defining the goal upon entering the space, the Chaplain enters without “agenda,” rather just bringing the self to the support of the person, not trying to bring the person along a path. As another friend and colleague of mine Rabbi Dr. Shira Stern, BCC (at who’s lecture our quote was originally heard) shares in lectures she gives on disaster and crisis care, spiritual care could be as “simple” as providing the traumatized a water bottle (she tells it better than I could describe).
In crafting and designing my spiritual coaching business paradigm, the same point is a key component to what I provide. My method in how to best foster growth and change begins by being able to enter the space of someone by bringing my human commonality, my self and spirit into the space. By this I mean bringing a sense of being present to the moment, to the conversation. With that as a driver, I am then able to walk alongside the person, assess their goals and needs, and guide that person along a path that I believe they are already walking (even if the person doesn’t really believe they are already on a path to growth). This joining in the journey allows the individual to take further steps along a path. From this place, we then can work towards the more concrete needs of the moment, which can be anything to just continuing to be present to deep theological, spiritual reflection. Each situation is unique and needs one to be able to be broad and open in coming into a space of support and care.
One of my personal tools for growth and reflection is journaling. The ability to free flow write on paper thoughts, feelings, ideas, worries, etc. has a calming effect (see here for a short piece describing journaling as a coping tool). Journaling allows me to organize my mind when it finds itself moving in many directions at once. It is a place to free-flow ideas or just record something interesting that I came across in my readings and explorations. For those who know me, part of my journaling ritual is that, for the most part, I specifically try to only write using a fountain pen (fountain pen collecting is a bit of a hobby of mine!).
Recently, I have started to reflect on old blog posts and it got me wondering; should I venture back into my old journals and read about the person that was? What is the value of looking back? My internal debate is as such: On the one hand, I believe that as we journey forward we must be willing to shed the parts of ourselves that weigh us down and don’t allow progress. We have to work to declutter. On the other hand, I have also learned the importance of sitting with random past memories that will arise at the strangest times because within those memories we can find nuggets for where we are heading.
And so, I ask all of you: For those who journal, do you ever look back or just leave the thoughts on paper and close the book on the past?
Recently I decided to reflect on some of my older blog posts as part of my journey into discovering new beginnings. Part of my process has been discovering things from past experiences as a means of fostering new avenues of growth. Through this deliberate work I have gained insights that are helping to guide me as I continue along my path forward.
I believe the work of reflection, of reviewing the steps that have led us to a particular moment is invaluable to growth. At the same time, I do not believe this reflective work should be a means of relying on past experiences as a security blanket to calm us in those times of not knowing. Rather, it is a strengthening and revealing of tools for us to carry along while we search for new horizons.
The beginning of the work, “The Celebration of Life,” by Norman Cousins, provides a stirring definition of how we are able to gain and clarify our understanding of an idea. Each individual approaches an idea with a different, unique perspective. I believe hearing and listening to everyone’s individual story and perspective is fundamental to our lives and our growth. As an aside, this would also be the basic premise behind much of analytical philosophy as well, namely the idea that word usage is subjective to the individual using that particular word.
Cousins writes (p. 1-2):
One grows into one’s philosophy. Year by year an individual is shaped by the sights, the sounds, the ideas around him. Consciously or not, he is forever adding to or subtracting from the sum total of his beliefs or attitudes or responses, or whatever it is we mean when we say that a person has a certain outlook on life. I do not mean to say that clearly defined truths of religions and philosophies are inevitably subject to the interpretation of an individual according to his or her experience. But I would like to suggest that one of the prime glories of the human mind is that the same idea or occurrence is never absorbed in precisely the same way by any two individuals who may be exposed to it. Each of us views a sunset, reads a book, or participates in a conversation in a different way from another, and each will take from these experiences a different meaning and memory, which will enrich the common human experience.
In this first paragraph, Cousins presents a beautiful description that we experience life through our own eyes. Even formal situations, education, religion, sports, are communal moments of a group of individuals experiencing different things in the same place. I think we need constant reminders of this first point.
In this sense, each human being is a process – a filtering process of retention or rejection, absorption or loss. This process gives each person individuality. It determines whether a human being justifies the gift of human life, or whether he or she lives and dies without having been affected by the beauty of wonder, and the wonder of beauty, without having had any real awareness of kinship or human fulfillment.
Can any individual recognize and define the essence of his own individuality? Can a camera photograph itself? It can in a mirror, but even the mirror sees only the outside of the camera. A mind that attempts to perceive itself can use the tools of language and logic. But the material with which it deals is beyond mere words or reason. The marrow of human thought or personality eludes its own product – human analysis – even with the most advanced scientific instrumentation.
At the same time, as growth and developing the self is a process, we can never even truly see everything about ourselves as well. At best, as Cousins implies, we see ourselves in a mirror, which would imply we experience ourselves less from the inside and more from how we reflect back into our minds eye. Part of how we do this is working with others to help us bring out areas of ourselves we aren’t able to completely see in ourselves. My love of what I do includes exploring with people the deeper person that the person is and can be through fostering this exploration and growth.
So, if we are to pursue our essential philosophical quest in the world – our search for integration – we need to bring together rational philosophy, spiritual belief, scientific knowledge, personal experience, and direct observation into an organic whole.
In pursuing this integration, we turn to a device worked out more than 2,300 years ago: the Socratic dialogue. The dialogue as a literary device goes back to Socrates. Its function is to provide a path for the systematic exploration of ideas. As used by the Greeks, the dialogue seemed uniquely suited to philosophical thought. The relationship of human beings not just to each other but to the universe, the ability of people to take command of historical experience, the importance attached to abstract ideas and the need to define values and to put them to work, the reach of human beings when confronted with great challenge, the contemplation of the connection between cause and effect – all these aspects of the human situation were central to the dialogue.
To me, these last two paragraphs bring us to the core. To grow as a person, we cannot do it alone. We must work with others to grow, to journey, to keep becoming the person we wish to be. This dialogue for the sake of growth is an underlying perspective on the rabbinic adage from Pirkei Avot (1:7):
Joshua ben Perahiah and Nittai the Arbelite received [the oral tradition] from them. Joshua ben Perahiah used to say: appoint for thyself a teacher, and acquire for thyself a companion and judge all men with the scale weighted in his favor.
Through appointing a rabbi/spiritual guide/therapist, connect to a companion/a confidante, one will be able to find growth both intrapersonally and interpersonally. This comes about from the conversations, the listening, reflecting and exploration we do with this person.
May each of us find growth through our individualism as members of a group.
Too often we fashion ourselves as experts in things we are quite unfamiliar with. This is a mechanism to protect the more vulnerable parts of our personality because we are afraid our not knowing is a sign of lacking when in reality no one knows everything. We feel scared when we are thrust into something we feel unprepared for and sometimes to protect ourselves we act like we know.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, in Growing Each Day, expounded on the following Talmudic passage from Berachot 4a:
articulated by the Master: Accustom your tongue to say: I do not know, lest you become entangled in a web of deceit.
Rabbi Dr. Twerski suggested:
“While no human being can know everything, some people cannot admit any ignorance about anything. For them, any admission of lack of knowledge threatens their fragile egos… Furthermore, the only way we can acquire knowledge is by accepting that we do not have it. People who claim to know everything cannot learn. Therefore, many opportunities to learn pass them by, and their denying their ignorance actually increases their ignorance… (p.216)”
Saying I don’t know is not strictly an admission of not knowing. Rather it is an opening and invitation to explore. It is through this exploration that we can know, and remove the desire to “fool” ourselves or others. Unfortunately, it is common that our fears of being “seen” actually further hinder our growth and ability to make forward strides. It is that fear that keeps us stagnant and yet leaves us feeling antsy, anxious, unsettled. We are unsettled because we close ourselves off from the value of listening to others and truly listening to ourselves.
One of the core elements of my chaplaincy and now my coaching is to foster the dual listening in the space of care. By my listening to others and hopefully the individuals listening to the words they are saying, it allows us to cultivate the gaining of knowledge through exploration, questions and reflections. Together we open the gates to find new vistas to confront challenging and difficult situations.
May we be blessed to be comfortable in the uncomfortable space of not knowing.
If you are looking to explore and discover new approaches to the difficulties in your life, Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.
The world is a crazy place. I find myself often feeling this forlorn sense that everytime we think we have passed one hurdle there is another one coming our way. It can feel like a neverending barrage of bad news after bad news. And even if there is a feel good moment, such as when a Blue Jays Fan Gives Home Run Ball to Young Yankees Fan, it quickly gets lost in the bad.
How do we combat this sense of feeling forlorn, lost, depressed? How can we find ways to increase our positive thinking? First and foremost we need to accept that the negative feelings that do come and that we do feel. It is part of the human experience. Once we are able to name and acknowledge the negative, we remove the resistances we build to avoid challenging and difficult feelings, thus opening ourselves to the ability to experience the positive moments as well. One of the methods for embracing this more positive method is through gratitude practices. Months ago I discussed the value of beginning our day with thanks as exemplified by the Jewish practice of reciting the prayer Modeh Ani (I give thanks), Prayer: beginning with gratitude.
While we can get into the habit of starting our day with gratitude, it is easy to lose sight of the initial positive feelings of the day when we are going through the motions of the day. It is easy to feel lost in the depths of too much constant information and media. To cultivate gratitude through the day requires us to be as deliberate as we are in the first moments of our day. Do we take the time, even a focused moment, to thank someone when that person does good for us? By this I don’t mean throwing out a muffled thank you as we zip past someone. I am referring to intentionality, being mindful and focused on feeling grateful for receiving something from another. I have found that these small moments of focused appreciation can help us journey further away from the named frustrations of the day.
If we begin building a foundation of reframing our time and days with positive moments, perhaps when we look back, our mind will be filled with positivity instead of the negative we so easily find.
I am in the midst of reading The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski. In describing the second principle, Welcome Everything, Push Away Nothing, he discusses the value of leaning into suffering. I found the following anecdote meaningful and important for us to consider as we venture forth on any journey in life.
During a workshop in the rural Northwest, I was speaking on the possibilities that arise when we stop running away from what is difficult. One of the attendees, a burly middle-age man with broad shoulders and an even wider smile, spoke up. “That reminds me of telephone poles.”
I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “Telephone poles? What do you mean?” I asked.
He explained that he once had a job installing telephone poles. “They’re hard and heavy, standing up to forty feet high.” There was a critical moment after you placed a pole in the ground, he said, when a pole was unstable and might topple over. “If it hit you, it could break your back.”
His first day on the job, the man turned to his partner and said, “If this pole starts to fall, I’m running like hell.”
But the old-timer replied, “Nope, you don’t want to do that. If that pole starts to fall, you want to go right up to it. You want to get real close and put your hands on the pole. It’s the only safe place to be.
p. 86
Instinctually, we are programmed to run away from danger, from pain, from suffering. If we think about the telephone pole, it is likely we won’t outrun it and the further away we are, the harder it will hit and hurt. If we sit with the pain, “leaning-in,” experiencing and not running away from the suffering, we are more likely to find the path to absorb and move through the pain.
This message is also important for any new adventure. As we journey into the unknown, we often try to run back to our comfort zones when confronted with difficulties along the way. If we continue to push forward and not run backwards, pushing “the telephone pole up,” we will come out ahead instead of finding ourselves further away from our goals and hopes.
May we find the fortitude to remain with the suffering and carry forward what we experience and learn from those moments in life we find ourselves challenged with the difficulties of life.
New beginnings: A blog about spirituality, chaplaincy and renewal 