June 17th, 2014
Rabbi Simon Jacobson: Good evening and welcome to Toward a Meaningful Life. Being as this is Super Bowl Sunday, I was thinking about the subject of sports. Nowadays we have the leisure to sit back and relax and watch a game on television. But in the past, sports was much more serious—a preparation for war or some other thing.
But there is one thing that did strike me. Whenever you hear about religion, you always hear the expression “religious fanatics.” Yet you say sports “fan.” I don’t know how many of you know that the word “fan” is actually short for the word “fanatic.” But you never hear anyone say “sports fanatics” and “religious fans.” Just a comment.
So since everything is by Divine Providence, and though the Super Bowl doesn’t necessarily have any significance in our lives besides the fact that it’s entertainment for millions of people, there’s a message in the fact that so many people are consumed with it, so I think this show should be dubbed the “super meaningful” show and we’ll try to find deeper meaning in life as we always do.
I decided to do a topic that has some connection to today’s event, as you’ll see. I recall once hearing a talk that the Lubavitcher Rebbe delivered in 1980, and he was talking about a sports game (he was discussing soccer, which is called football in Europe) and he discussed the message and metaphor it has for our lives.
Essentially, we all have two teams in our lives. One team is called the Divine side of the person—the holy, transcendental side—and the other side is the more narcissistic, indulgent and selfish part of ourselves. The selfless and the selfish. And they’re in constant battle. The battle is who’s going to bring the ball to the goalline of the other side. In other words, each is trying to conquer the other person’s territory.
This is a fundamental concept in Jewish mysticism and Chassidic thought: the perpetual battle between good and evil, between dark and light, and between these two forces in our lives, which is what life is about.
The Divine side in us employs many strategies in order to conquer the other side, for the goal is not only to annihilate but to transform the other territory into something that becomes a channel for the Divine. On the other hand, the other side or team is interested in conquering the Divine. And each of us has that battle.
So we have our little Super Bowl going on in microcosm in our personal lives, and it takes on many different manifestations.
I want to dedicate this show to one of those manifestations, which is the issue of developing emotional intimacy, building trust after there’s been loss and pain. Because when it comes to any battle in our lives, one of the biggest battles that we’re fighting is not necessarily with enemies outside of ourselves, but it’s with the enemy within.
The enemy within takes on many different shapes: the shape of fear, the shape of depression, the shape of lack of trust, both in yourself and others, and it manifests itself in many different ways.
In my own years of teaching and traveling and meeting people, I learn more and more how emotionally hurt so many of us, I would say all of us, are today, in some way.
It’s not a surprise because we live in an existentially lonely world where we essentially are on our own. If we’re blessed with healthy parents, there’s some form of nurturing, comfort and confidence that’s built that gives us the tools to be able to go out there and fight the battle, to fight our Super Bowl.
However, many of us were not given that gift; it was taken away from us. Because we live in a world where careers and money and the various distractions always create some type of insecurity, even for those who had healthy parents. We live in a very insecure world, and this causes a deep erosion of our inner security.
So we don’t have to look far and hard to discover our own battle that we have to deal with, and that battle manifests itself particularly in relationships with others, because when we don’t trust ourselves we definitely do not trust other people. Or to compensate for that lack of trust, we overtrust people to the extreme—we idolize others, we create illusions of absolute trust.
There is an interesting parallel of this in the Torah in that many of its metaphors compare G-d to a relationship, such as to a spouse or a parent. Now, of course, you can’t apply any anthropomorphic principles and descriptions to G-d, yet we have these metaphors, and one of the reasons for that is essentially that we can learn much about our relationship with G-d from our relationship with other people and vice versa.
From our relationship with G-d we can learn how to project that onto our relationship with others. For many people, when you hear concepts like faith in G-d, trust in G-d, those are very religious terms. But in truth, if you really think about it, it’s really about the issue of faith and trust in general, because if you can develop a faith and trust in a higher reality and in G-d, it helps a person develop faith and trust in the people around them. Even though humans are flawed, whereas G-d is not, nevertheless trust is not based purely on perfection. I once read an appropriate line: “Trust is based not on perfection but on accountability.” That is critical in the building of trust and the way we develop emotional intimacy with others and even with ourselves.
So in that context, I want to discuss for a moment, on a more conceptual and more scholarly level, the concept of trust and faith in G-d, and love of G-d. You hear those expressions quite often in religious texts. What does that mean exactly? G-d clearly is invisible. Can you love or stand in awe of something that’s invisible? How do you have a relationship with something that’s invisible?
It’s not on our terms. Yet in the Torah there is clearly an oft-mentioned fundamental mitzvah to love G-d. Emunah b’Hashem (faith in G-d), and bitochen b’Hashem (trust in G-d), are all different elements that when applied properly help actualize the human being created in the Divine image, which is the foundation of Kabbalistic thought, that we are not separated from the cosmic order. Our structure, our infrastructure, our psyches, are shaped and formed in the image of the Divine.
The Divine, essentially, is beyond any image obviously, but as the Kabbalah explains, the Divine manifested itself in an image that allows us to access it. So though you can’t say G-d is wise, what you can say is “G-d is not not wise.” So we have a relationship with the Divine because G-d manifested Himself in an image that relates to us and we can relate to.
That image teaches us how to bridge the two – the human and the Divine. You find in the Torah the concepts of trust and love, and when you create the parallel to our personal lives what you find is this: that the development of trust or faith in G-d essentially is confidence and security that we’re not completely on our own. That’s the basis of what trust is all about.
But one could ask the question, who needs trust anyway? Why don’t we just take care of ourselves—i.e., survival of the fittest. Why do we need trust? Because from childhood on, and even as adults, we are drawn to people we can trust. It gives us a sense of strength, a sense of confidence, a sense of security, knowing that even when we’re weak at times there’s someone to lean on, knowing that there are people who care for us, knowing that we won’t be used, knowing that we can be vulnerable.
So, in essence, love, trust and faith in G-d are three different elements. Love, of course, is a close, intimate relationship. Faith is more of an acceptance of something beyond ourselves, and trust is a manifestation of that faith in the sense that you trust that G-d will actually help you in a particular situation, whether it’s a crisis or not.
In our own personal relationships, we also need those three elements. We need love, we need faith and confidence in the other person, and the trust that they’ll be there for us. Faith is more of a passive state, whereas bitachon, trust, is more of an active one, where you actually know that you can depend and rely on G-d, even in circumstances that seem completely dire.
So looking at our relationship with G-d ultimately teaches us if we have that confidence. I would make the argument that if someone does not have confidence, trust, faith, in other people, they probably don’t have it in G-d either, and vice versa. As Reb Shneur Zalman of Liadi says, “Love of other people is an extension of love of G-d” because if you love G-d then you also love what G-d loves, and those are His creatures, His children, human beings, men and woman that live with us.
So the issue of trust is really the ability to reach deeper inside ourselves and not feel embattled or afraid to be able to look at and say, as Hillel said, “Im ain ani li, mi li,” “If I’m not for myself, who will be for me” (that’s one half of it) but to also have the strength to say the second statement, “If I am only for myself, what am I?”
Due to losses, fears, disappointments, and vulnerabilities in our lives (being exploited, relationships that didn’t work, etc.) we have created a certain type of island to protect ourselves which erodes our sense of trust.
People who grew up in homes where they could trust those who loved them and were not disappointed by them on a consistent basis, are people who have the confidence that they can trust others as well, because they learned to trust themselves.
It really comes down to trusting a force inside of us that is deeper and more than just your survival tools. So in that context you see that G-d and humans have very many parallels, because in this area, it comes down to the same type of fears, and on the other hand, the same type of courage and strengths that are required.
I’m laying the groundwork here for the topic, but tonight’s subject is how you actually develop emotional intimacy with another person, particularly after you’ve been hurt or in your mind you feel that you could potentially be hurt. Vulnerability is something that most people are not comfortable with, and you see that every creature is created with defensive mechanisms, protective tools. They say that the porcupine, with its sharp needles, has the softest underbelly of all creatures. So G-d, in a sense, gave it those needles to protect its softness and delicateness.
Each of us does need defense mechanisms but the question is, have we become trapped and are we victims of our defense mechanisms? Is there a time or place, or a person with whom we can allow our vulnerabilities to emerge, where we acknowledge ourselves to be truly intimate and trusting?
In some way I think that’s the ultimate, the epitome of the Super Bowl in our lives, the battle of overcoming fears and learning how to trust. It doesn’t mean trusting the other team, obviously, because they’re adversarial, but rather to learn to trust yourself and have the confidence to be able to go out and fight.
You see that in sports as well as in real life, that when you go with confidence, it boosts your morale. Any good coach does this. There was a custom in the old days, when they would go to war, the soldiers would sing a song of victory when they went into battle, even before they began the first battle. People would ask, how could they sing victory songs; they haven’t even begun fighting? But it was a sense of confidence that needed to be infused at the outset.
In the Vietnam War, for example, the soldiers, the armies, did not know what they were fighting for and definitely were not confident that they could win, so it became a demoralized battle.
So battle requires some type of boost and therefore a confidence and trust in yourself, in your teammates, in the people around you, your family, and those who can help you fight the battles of life. G-d should help us that we should have minimal battles, but each of us has our battles, our territory, our turf to conquer.
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Jacobson: I think to put things in context, it’s wise to begin by discussing what trust is exactly. We described earlier that it’s a form of accepting something beyond yourself and recognizing the need for your own growth and self-actualization, to be able to have more in your life than your own little survival space.
Now the question is, are we born innately with trust? If you look at children, they have a natural trust for their parents, adults and those around them that love them. They don’t have to acquire that trust. After nine months of pregnancy where it was completely dependent on its mother, a newborn child doesn’t even have a choice. It cries, it expects to be fed, nurtured, and taken care of.
We don’t really even know what a child is thinking in the newborn stage, and it may not be consciously thinking about trust, but it’s accustomed to receiving its needs. So trust is developed and established right at the outset.
As the child grows, and there is a conscious sense of parent, at whatever age this occurs, where a child knows that it can run to its mother or father, trust is continuously developed and cultivated further, consistent with what the child experienced in the womb and what the child experienced in the early stages outside of the womb.
So trust is really something that we are all entitled to and should inherently have in a healthy environment. As long as parents in the early stages continue to provide for their child in a healthy way, the trust continues to be fed. When trust is contaminated, when the first disappointment comes (now none of us remember that first disappointment because it may have been very subtle and we may have been too young), we only remember when the disappointments begin to accumulate and they begin to become a factor, an issue, in our lives.
The first disappointment is when a parent does not provide something or an expectation is not met. Again, I don’t mean an expectation that’s unhealthy, I mean the natural expectation that a child has from its parents.
Then, of course, the child grows older and begins to go out into the world, but in the world it doesn’t expect the same type of provisions it expects at home. Nevertheless, if the child has good friends, family, community, school, and schoolmates, if they’re healthy, they can continue to feed that trust.
Trust is something that needs to be fed and reinforced throughout our early stages in life. The longer that lasts, the healthier that child will grow, because as they grow older, they have an arsenal of trust built up which gives them trust in themselves. They can begin to pick and choose whom to trust, because they’ve seen what real trust is. By contrast, they see whom they cannot trust.
And once you grow into an adult, you have the tools that are essentially fundamental and critical in determining a spouse, or someone you can trust in business. Obviously mistakes can be made, but you have the confidence and the fear is not there to the same extent.
This perfect picture that I’m depicting may not be realistic for most of us, but, as I often say, when you study art you need to have a backdrop that is as perfect as it gets, so you can then juxtapose a the actual situation and compare the two.
So it’s valuable to look at the situation at the optimum level and then compare it to your own life. Now we’ll go to the other extreme where that reinforcement did not take place, where after leaving its mother’s womb, the child did not feel wanted, or the reinforcement stopped or never began.
Most of us fall in between these two extremes.
So what happens is, the child, who had a natural sense of trust and expectation, suddenly deep inside begins to stop trusting—not trusting others, not trusting itself because the message became quite clear. All this is happening on a very unconscious level which makes it so profound; if it happened consciously then you could always correct it and say, okay, you can’t trust this person but you can trust that person.
But once the scar is embedded in the child’s psyche, it becomes a very profound scar because it’s something that can’t even be talked about. The child begins to create its own way of trusting, or better put, its own way of survival.
A child like that may move around a lot and not be comfortable in one place for too long. A child like that may not develop healthy friendships because he or she always has to be fearful that it won’t work. And, of course, a child like that who grows into an adult is always going to find it increasingly difficult to trust another person in its life and have real emotional intimacy.
Now of course this is a deep therapeutic analysis that’s required case by case, but the fact is, understanding the deeper causes helps us then to look at what the remedy is, because everything has a remedy.
As a matter of fact, the Talmud says that preceding any illness is a cure. And that’s why doctors and researchers are completely confident that a cure will be found for any newly discovered illness. How are they sure? Perhaps some illnesses won’t have a cure? But humans have a certain confidence that there will be, and that confidence comes because G-d built it into the system, an immune system, the ability to heal.
Let’s take an average situation where a child has not been completely abandoned but subtle disappointments have taken place, so you grow into an adult where there’s a certain amount of trust because you had some experiences that reinforced it, but you also had experiences that undermined it.
In that type of situation there’s at least some type of rationale that’s working, where the person says, okay now I have to pick and choose. Some of us may be extremely careful to find the right person to trust because we are not totally sure of ourselves and others, but there isn’t the same compelling powerful force that, for instance, a child who has been abandoned has, G-d forbid, where they don’t have any trust at all.
I will try to address both of these issues, but here’s where the key element to this entire picture comes into play, and that’s what I mentioned earlier about G-d.
If we lost complete trust in people around us, then the question is, what alternative do we have? Do we just continue living a life of survival and basic distrust, trusting minimally just for particular needs, for a livelihood, a boss, for very quick instant gratification, not sticking around for too long, no long-term commitment? That’s one option, but I’m not going to accept that option here, because that’s resignation and fatalism, where you’re a victim of circumstances.
Option two is creating some type of alternative way of accessing trust. Here there is no choice but to turn to G-d or what we’ll call the Divine soul. It’s recognizing that beneath or beyond transcending all the experiences you had at home, transcending all the disappointment, the fact that you’re alive means that there’s a purpose, a design. You have a soul. You may not trust it because your environment didn’t allow you to access that soul, but it is critical that you recognize your soul as your foundation, your anchor. Without it you will remain a victim.
Here’s where the faith, trust and love in G-d is so critical in learning how to have faith, trust and love in other people. Because ultimately anything that is temporary—including our parents, friends, and community, even when they are trustworthy and they have nurtured us—it’s still temporary quantitatively and qualitatively – relative to what they are able to do. They are human beings. And if one day they turn against you, does that mean that suddenly the rug is pulled out from under you? No, because parents don’t give you your soul. What they do is help create an environment in which you can trust yourself.
So the idea of having a soul in this context is not even a religious issue. It’s not religious fanaticism, it’s a religious “fan” because it’s about having the confidence that you can do it.
There are football players now playing a game (the Super Bowl). The fact that they excel at what they do is because they’ve learned through their training, through their experience and through their raw talent, that they can do it. There’s an element of experience.
Any trust we have in ourselves is based on two things: a talent that you recognize and the confidence that you can access it. There are many people who have talents but they’re afraid to access them. They don’t know whether they can do it well.
That’s why you need the experience. Both together create a powerful force that allows anybody to really have confidence and trust. So what is it in us that we have to look for to gain confidence? Is it a talent? Those are not bad, but they’re fundamentally not necessarily going to create confidence because you see people who are extremely talented and don’t have any confidence. Somebody had to be there for the person—a mentor, a parent, a teacher—that had to say, you’re good at this. Do it.
Ultimately it comes down to the fact that not only do you have a talent, but you have a soul. You have a purpose. That purpose manifests itself in your talents and your skills, and that’s yours and yours alone. Without the awareness of your own power and the experience of actualizing it (using your soul, to influence or inspire others for instance), those two things develop the type of confidence that creates trust. That spills over to how we trust other people as well. So the element of creating emotional intimacy and trust is very much connected to our spiritual side.
Now, in a strange way, people who do have trust in parents, family, and community, may in some ways be more insecure than those who don’t, and I’ll show you how the tables turn after the break.
(Announcement break for Rabbi Jacobson’s weekly Wednesday Night class at 346 W. 89th St., corner Riverside Drive in Manhattan at 8pm. Listeners are also invited to visit the website of the Meaningful Life Center at www.meaningfullife.com, call 1-800-3MEANING, or email at wisdomreb@meaningfullife.com for all the activities of the Meaningful Life Center, transcripts of the radio show, seminars, and other important information.)
Jacobson: Unfortunately, the eclipse of the sun often teaches us more about sunlight than sunlight does. The fact that some of us grew up in secure homes may give us a healthy sense of security, but ultimately the bottom line fear is that it was given to you by other humans, which means in a way, that they can take it away.
In a strange, ironic twist, people who did not have security from the home, or who had it minimally and were hurt by those who were supposed to love them (which creates even more distrust than being hurt by a stranger), have a unique opportunity because for them, the only thing they can turn to is their soul. They don’t have the illusion of depending on humans—humans who are mercurial, temperamental, and so on.
In a strange way, it may be harder for them to do so, but when they do, they reach into a much purer place of trust. That trust comes from the ultimate, absolute confidence that we’re here on this earth and that G-d put us here and that you have a soul.
I’m going to discuss more about exactly how we access that soul, but since I invited phone calls, let me take one. We have Jeff on the air.
Caller: Hello Rabbi. I was fascinated with your show, driving home from flying for a few days (I fly for a living). I’m in New Hampshire, and I found your topic to be basically the story of my life and found myself… you used the word “island,” and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that. Though I have a lot of friends, intimate relationships have been elusive for the reason you’re describing: a lack of trust and a lack of confidence in myself. Both of those things have been extremely difficult for me to overcome, and I have felt stuck for many, many years.
When you said you had some ideas on how to get out of being stuck, that made me stop and pull over to the side of the road and give you a call.
Jacobson: I appreciate that. Is this the first time you’re listening to the show?
Caller: Yes sir. I just found you on the radio.
Jacobson: Let me ask you this. How did you get into flying? Do you think that’s connected to your experience?
Caller: I don’t know. I have loved airplanes since I was eight or nine years old and I don’t know where that came from other than I found a real freedom and peace while I’m in the air and it’s almost…
Jacobson: Maybe it’s flying away from all the problems down on earth.
Caller: Possibly. It’s also a place where I’m in control and I feel like I know what I’m doing.
Jacobson: Where in New Hampshire are you?
Caller: A place called Lake Winnipesaukee. Are you familiar with it?
Jacobson: Not exactly. I’m familiar with a lake, but not that particular lake.
Caller: Did you ever see the movie On Golden Pond? Part of that was filmed on this lake.
Jacobson: Okay, I’m going to answer the question. It’s a great question and of course a key question for a person who is stuck in a place like that. Of course I want to say to you Jeff, that each of us has our own particular situation that is unique and difficult to speak about case by case on the radio, but you could say this. I think it’s critical to use exercises that help a person access the deepest and innermost self which is the soul. Whether you’re a religious person or not, everybody has a certain purpose of existence and it’s critical to access that center of your life. Without it, there’s no way that trust will be built based on humans, particularly once people have disappointed us. Then we’ve given up on people.
So where are we suddenly going to find trust? Some people do find trust perhaps in a reckless way where they just give up their entire independence and they just trust someone absolutely, which is also unhealthy at times.
So where’s a person going to find that type of trust? You have to discover something new that did not hurt them. And that new thing is your soul. And that may be through prayer or through study.
Jeff, if you’re still on the line, speak to the producer and leave your name and number and I can make some specific recommendations and suggestions in your case. And I’ll soon give more examples. But let me go to the next call. We have Douglas on the air.
Caller: Hello. How are you? Well, the subject of which you talk about. I want to ask you if you think trust emerges from your ability to die freely or to die and/or sacrifice your life via election, conscious choice with full knowledge? Is there a relationship between death and trust that cannot be erased?
Jacobson: Are you in a particular situation like that?
Caller: I am just thinking about many things. I’m thinking about the greatest act of trust I could think of offhand when Abraham went up to the mountain and Isaac was trusting too because he did not resist. So they were both very complicitous in this. There was tremendous trust and it was in the face of death, so that’s one thing. The other thing that’s on my mind is illness. There’s a member of my immediate family who is gravely ill. I don’t use the word lightly. Everyone’s listening and watching the clock. I think about trust and betrayal.
Jacobson: Thank you for the call. It’s a very good question. I think trust has very much to do with mortality and health, because one of the contributing factors to the insecurity of our lives is our mortality, our health, and all the unexpected elements that can always hit us and strike us in spontaneous ways. But particularly mortality—many thinkers have written that mortality is something that haunts people, even from a very young age, even though they may not be conscious of it. The fact is, as the Bechayei, a great medieval Torah scholar writes, that as soon as a child is born it begins to age.
So mortality begins at the beginning of life. For many, the fear of death, or better than saying the fear of conscious death (which doesn’t really come until later on in life or when you really brush a very dangerous situation or come out of a crisis), we could say the temporariness of life, where we see people coming and going and we see that life has an end and a beginning), is one of the biggest contributing factors to insecurity. That just underscores even more the inherent insecurity of life, one that that nobody can take away from you. Even your parents. Healthy, nurturing, trusting people cannot take away the inherent mortality that we have. And that’s why the immortality of the soul is such a powerful force in our lives because it creates an eternal anchor.
The fact is, if all of your actions, if every good deed you do, every price that you pay in your life, disappears and is eaten by the worms that will eat your body one day, then how invested can we really be in those actions?
I mean, we’re invested for the time being, but it doesn’t have eternal, cosmic value. However, when you recognize that you’re here for a purpose, a divine purpose, and your soul actualizes that and lives on forever and ever, whether we understand it or not (and our bodies are not who we are; our bodies are just vehicles for a spiritual experience), it changes the entire confidence and trust in what we do. So I think illness, health and death are very big factors.
Let’s go to Bernard on the air.
Caller: Hello. Glad to talk to you. This is a very timely subject for me. I’m just going through a trauma that is totally unbelievable. My wife was admitted to a hospital seven months ago for a urinary tract infection. You talk about trust? We’ve been betrayed by doctors, by the medical profession. I got her back. By the time it was all over, they gave her an aspirated pneumonia which I didn’t realize because the nurse pushed some liquid Tylenol down her throat. Then she was transferred to a nursing home.
To make a long story short, she was seven months on a respirator and she just died. My wife died because the medical profession did not take care of her. Now you’re telling me to trust? If we don’t trust our doctors, and I have very bad experiences with it, who can we really trust, because we live in an interdependent society. You tell me, I think this system is totally broken. I’m a victim of it. Not only that, at the end they give you a bill that I have to pay for their mistakes.
Jacobson: Bernard, I have no words to console you, obviously, and my feeling about your pain I’m sure I speak on behalf of all the listeners. It’s very painful to hear this. I’m not suggesting that you have to trust doctors who have betrayed you. That’s not the issue at all. At this point in the game where you are right now, your outrage is legitimate and I’m not suggesting that you swallow or in any way compromise it. Maybe you have to sue them for everything they’re worth, as I often suggest here.
Doctors are human beings and especially if they were negligent and caused you so much pain and anguish, you should not ignore or overlook that. My heart goes out to you. All I can say in the larger sense of it is that the key is not to remain bitter and broken from it, but in some way the memory of your wife is with you, and frankly, the trust that you need to have is not in doctors, it needs to be in the immortality of your wife’s soul.
Though she’s gone physically, and I’m not minimizing the loss, nevertheless her life was worth it. You don’t want to say that the years she was here with you were just temporary ones and you’re just going through temporary pain. She lives on forever, and how you dedicate your life and how you memorialize and commemorate her life is ultimately the greatest victory.
In no way is what the doctors did forgivable; nevertheless, you can’t continue living purely with anger, you must do something productive. But I think at this point, the fact that it just took place, my heart goes out and right now the shock and the anger is appropriate and I wouldn’t in any way swallow that. But I’m just describing in the bigger picture what it does for you, and I would pursue those doctors and the medical profession.
A doctor-patient relationship, whether a psychological or medical doctor, is a sacred trust, perhaps more sacred than anything, because we put our lives in their hands. Actually, G-d tells us, I give permission for doctors to heal. But doctors are human beings, and many of them are arrogant, I mean, there are many stories of where doctors abused and betrayed that sacred trust.
But in a broader sense, I must say to all the listeners, each of us is in some way a doctor because there are people who trust us in particular areas, and we have to be acutely sensitive not to betray that trust. Particularly when you’re trusted in a certain area, that’s where you have to be most careful. If you stay on the line, Bernard, I would like to get your name and number and talk to you perhaps off the air.
Let’s go to Baruch from Brooklyn.
Caller: I would like to say maybe you want to address the role of big cities? People living in big cities seem to have more of a problem with the topic you’ve mentioned as opposed to other areas, or at least that’s the stereotype.
Jacobson: Why do you think big cities? Because there are more people to distrust?
Caller: Well, I would say that in New York City you have the stereotype of people being ripped off. If you consider that a marriage is one type of trust, the rate of “singleness” is the highest in New York City and especially in Manhattan. What does that say? Maybe you want to address that.
I think also an important thing is when we’re talking about this topic, there’s a saying, “A trust given is a trust earned.” I think that’s a piece of wisdom that people say. I think also for example, let’s say somebody is working for the Department of Defense and they start off and have a certain level of security clearance. After a while, if they perform well, they get a higher level, and progressively they’re entrusted with access to more and more sensitive things.
Jacobson: I understand. That’s a very good point. Thank you for the call. Well, about big cities, there are many factors that contribute to fear and insecurity, lack of trust. I wouldn’t put cities on the top of the list although I’m sure it’s a factor as well, but one could argue the other way around. In a small town where you know all the people and their parents, and grandparents and great-grandparents, sometimes distrust is so deeply embedded that there’s no hope. There are no strangers, there’s no one new there. So it has its own internal politics. It’s almost like cross-breeding and there’s no relief. Whereas in a big city, there are more people, strangers, a certain turnover that allows for some breathing room. Sometimes when things are unhealthy in a small town, they remain unhealthy for generations and generations — you have many themes in novels and real life stories that demonstrate that. Whereas in the big city there’s a sort of recycling.
On the other hand, a big city has a depersonalization that does not always exist in a smaller town. I really think it comes down to not whether it’s a big city or a small city, but whether there is a healthy community that cultivates a sense of trust.
To use the Jewish community as a model, one of the most important things in the Jewish community, if you look at Jewish history, whenever Jews moved to a city or town, one of the first few things that they establish is besides the mikveh, (a ritual bath place, which is important for family structure), and a synagogue, but also a gmach, a gemillas chassidim, a freeloan society, where they make sure to provide for the people who are more needy in the community.
It’s part of the infrastructure of every Jewish community and I think the secular world can learn much from establishing similar responsibilities in every community. The United States, thank G-d, is a land of charity and graciousness. You find so many non-for-profit organizations that do just that. Sometimes an organization becomes depersonalized as well, but I’m talking about the personal touch, the attitude, of being able to cultivate trust in the community for those who may be in need, for orphans, for widows, people who are ill.
You find so many hospitals that are very much based on Jewish thinking. You find people who visit the sick every day or give them a gift. These are factors that definitely contribute to creating that trust.
Going back to the suggestions I was going to make, the real question is, how does one nourish their soul and develop trust?
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Jacobson: I think the first thing is to develop a trust within yourself and your soul. How do you do that? Well, there are no gimmicks and no shortcuts. It comes down to a commitment that’s consistent and absolute. You see, one of the traps of a distrusting person is that they always look for panaceas, quick or even long-term solutions that are going to solve all their problems. And they grab onto them like a straw in a stormy ocean for hope.
These desperate attempts usually do not result in long-term security. Perhaps it provides a bunch of short-term security blankets. Ultimately it comes down to a commitment to your soul that may be a blind commitment. But that’s exactly what a person with a blind spot in search of survival may need, a blind commitment to your soul. You have to designate time every day for study—not just mathematics or physics, study of the soul. There are books, tapes, classes that talk about who you are, what your soul is.
Saturating yourself with that information begins to cultivate a sense of trust in your soul. It’s like anything. With players in the Super Bowl or army soldiers, 90% of their time is training and some of them never even go to battle. What is training? You have to get accustomed to doing it. So with developing trust, you have to get accustomed to yourself. It’s like any research. There’s no way you can know about something unless you learn about it or read about it. So it’s critical that you learn what the soul looks like, how it functions, how it does not function, what signals it sends to you, how you nourish it. So study is the first thing.
The second thing is prayer. Prayer is more of an emotional experience. You literally make time, and if you need to cry as well, to ask, to turn to G-d and say, I need help, I need to be able to get out of this place. I’m not turning to human beings, I’m turning to a higher force. That type of surrender is a critical element as well.
And finally actions. I mentioned before graciousness and good deeds, whether it’s volunteer work with the ill, widows, orphans, or people who are in pain. Even if you’re in pain and you help another person, it says that G-d answers you first, so there’s a certain empathy that you bring to the table that someone who does not have that loss cannot.
So for people who have lost trust, perhaps a good way to work with it is to teach others, because we’re usually always good at giving advice to others even though we ourselves don’t always apply that advice. But by helping others in that situation, there’s always going to be an echo, a certain reciprocal force that will help you as well.
The key is consistency, that all this has to be done consistently whether you like it or not. If you’re trapped and there’s no way that you’re going to get away with comfort zones. It’s critical to be consistent and really do something, make a move.
On the currency of the United States, it says, “In G-d We Trust.” They chose the word “trust.” Not “In G-d We Believe,” not “In G-d We Depend.” Trust. And that word is key because I don’t know what was the inspiration of the founding fathers or whoever created the currency, but of all places to put that on money, which is the most temporary of things, can we trust money? Can we trust people with money? You know the answer to that. You can’t trust money because money is constantly being spent and earned. It’s not consistent. It’s not eternal.
People who have money can be bought and sold. You see what money does to almost everybody. So onto money, the epitome of temporariness, of selfishness, of materialism and greed, was etched the words “In G-d We Trust”—in our coins and printed onto our dollars, There is definitely very deep inspiration in this, because it’s saying that even while I’m spending this money, I recognize that there’s something greater that I can trust in.
In an interesting way, it also focuses on why you have this money. You have the money in order to do something great in this world with it. It’s not an end in itself. It’s not just to be collected and hoarded to have the security of knowing that you have a lot of money.
That’s a false security. Everyone remembers what happened to Howard Hughes, how he became a victim of his wealth. And who has not become a victim? We should all be blessed with wealth, but with the wisdom of how to use that wealth and how to recognize that wealth, material gain is only a means. It can never ever create and give you security.
So in this battle of the ultimate Super Bowl in our lives, our super meaningful lives, the message is quite clear, and that is, none of us have absolute trust, neither in G-d nor in other people, for all the reasons that we mentioned. Life is a very insecure place. This world is a very insecure dungeon in many ways, and it breaks us. It definitely demoralizes and weakens us; it disappoints us and betrays us.
The question is, what are you going to do with it ? Are you a victim and you’re going to remain there and bemoan the situation, or wallow in the pain of it? Or can you do something about it?
The masters that I have been privileged to study and learn with suggest that you have a power that transcends that. You do have the power to trust, if you access deeper resources. It’s like going to an athlete (or for that matter, a professional in any area) who’s lacking confidence but you know clearly as a friend or as a coach that he or she has the tools. First of all, you have to boost their ego and their morale. Secondly, you have to put them on the field and say, “Do it! I’ll show you that you can do it.” And they do it once, twice, three, four times and they begin to succeed. That infuses confidence.
The same thing is here. You have a soul. The only way you can know you have confidence is to use it, to use it in active consistent situations. If you’re desperate and looking for survival, then you must force yourself to commit in a consistent way.
May G-d bless us all that we should develop the type of emotional intimacy that is a direct consequence and result of true trust, not just in ourselves, but trust in G-d, in our souls, a trust that ultimately spills over and allows us to have the power to have very meaningful relationships.
This has been Toward a Meaningful Life with Simon Jacobson. We hope you’ll join us next week.
Tags: intimacy, relationships, radio transcript, emotions, good and evil
Posted in Personal Life, Emotions & Psychology | No Comments »
June 17th, 2014
And Abraham grew old, and came along in days; and G-d blessed
Abraham in everything
Genesis 24:1
The Torah considers old age a virtue and a blessing. Throughout the Torah, “old” (zakein) is synonymous with “wise”; the Torah commands us to respect all elderly, regardless of their scholarship and piety, because the many trials and experiences that each additional year of life brings yield a wisdom which the most accomplished young prodigy cannot equal.[1] As the above-quoted verse emphasizes, when Abraham grew old he “came along in days”—his accumulated days, each replete with learning and achievement, meant that with each passing day his worth increased.[2] Thus, a ripe old age is regarded as one of the greatest blessings to be bestowed upon man.[3]
This is in marked contrast to the prevalent attitude in the “developed” countries of today’s world. In the 20th century western world, old age is a liability. Youth is seen as the highest credential in every field from business to government, where a younger generation insists on “learning from their own mistakes” rather than building upon the life experience of their elders. At 50, a person is considered “over the hill” and is already receiving hints that his position would be better filled by someone twenty-five years his junior; in many companies and institutions, retirement is mandatory by age 65 or earlier. Thus, society dictates that one’s later years be marked by inactivity and decline. The aged are made to feel that they are useless if not a burden, and had best confine themselves to retirement villages and nursing homes. After decades of achievement, their knowledge and talent are suddenly worthless; after decades of contributing to society, they are suddenly undeserving recipients, grateful for every time the younger generation takes off from work and play to drop by for a half-hour chat and the requisite Father’s Day necktie.
On the surface, the modern-day attitude seems at least partly justified. Is it not a fact that a person physically weakens as he advances in years? True, the inactivity of retirement has been shown to be a key factor in the deterioration of the elderly; but is it still not an inescapable fact of nature that the body of a 70-year-old is not the body of a 30-year-old?
But this, precisely, is the point: is a person’s worth to be measured by his physical prowess? By the number of man-hours and inter-continental flights that can be extracted from him per week? What is at issue here is more than the disenfranchisement of an entire segment of the population whose only crime is that they were born a decade or two earlier than the rest; our attitude toward the aged reflects our very conception of “value.” If a person’s physical strength has waned while his sagacity and insight have grown, do we view this as an improvement or a decline? If a person’s output has diminished in quantity but has increased in quality, has his net worth risen or fallen?
Indeed, a twenty-year-old can dance the night away while his grandmother tires after a few minutes. But man was not created to dance for hours on end. Man was created to make life on earth purer, brighter and holier than it was before he came on the scene. Seen in this light, the spiritual maturity of the aged more than compensates for their lessened physical strength; indeed, the diminution of one’s physical drives can be even utilized as a spiritual asset, as it allows a positive reordering of priorities that is much more difficult in one’s youth when the quest for material gains is at its height.[4]
Certainly, the physical health of the body affects one’s productivity. Life is a marriage between body and soul, and is at its most productive when nurtured by both a sound physique and a healthy spirit. But the effects of the aging process upon a person’s productivity are largely determined by the manner in which he regards this marriage and partnership. Which is the means and which is the end? If the soul is nothing more than an engine to drive the body’s procurement of its needs and aims, then the body’s physical weakening with age brings with it a spiritual deterioration as well—a descent into boredom, futility and despair. But when one regards the body as an accessory to the soul, the very opposite is true: the spiritual growth of old age invigorates the body, enabling one to lead a productive existence for as long as the Almighty grants one the gift of life.[5]
Life: A Definition
But there is more to it than that. There is more to the difference between the Torah’s perspective on old age and that of the modern world than the classic dichotomy between body and soul, more than the question of material versus spiritual priority.
At the basis of the institution of retirement is the notion that life is composed of productive and non-productive periods. The first 20-30 years of life are seen as a time of little or no achievement, as a person acquires knowledge and training in preparation for the productive period of life. The next 30-40 years are the time in which his or her creative energies are realized; he now returns what has been invested in him by his now passive elders, and invests, in turn, in the still passive younger generation. Finally, as he enters his “twilight years,” he puts his period of “real” achievement behind him; he has worked hard “all his life,” so he now ought to settle down and enjoy the fruits of his labors. If the creative urge still agitates his aging body, he is advised to find some harmless hobby with which to fill his time. Indeed, time is now something to be filled and gotten over with as he whiles away his days on life’s sidelines, his knowledge and abilities filed away in the attic of old age. He has now returned full circle to his childhood: once again he is a passive recipient in a world shaped and run by the initiative of others.
Torah, however, recognizes no such distinction between life’s phases, for it sees productivity as the very essence of life: the words “a non-productive life-period” are an oxymoron. There are marked differences between childhood, adulthood, etc., but these differ in the manner, not the fact, of a person’s productivity. Retirement and the passive enjoyment of the fruits of one’s labor also have their time and place—in the World To Come. In the words of the Talmud, “Today, is the time to do; tomorrow, to reap the reward.”[6] The very fact that G-d has granted a person a single additional day of bodily life means that he has not yet concluded his mission in life, that there is still something for him to achieve in this world.
Thus, the aphorism “Man is born to toil”[7] expresses a most basic fact of human nature. A person experiences true satisfaction only from something he has earned by his own effort and initiative; underserved gifts and handouts (“the bread of shame” in kabbalistic terminology) are unfulfilling and dehumanizing. As the Talmud observes, “A person would rather a single measure of his own grain than nine measures of his fellow’s.”[8]
A working adult, burdened by the demands of life, may nostalgically reminisce on his childhood “paradise” as a time of freedom from responsibility and toil.[9] As a child, however, he disdained such paradise, desiring only to do something real and creative. Challenge a child with responsibility, and he’ll flourish; cast him as a passive, unproductive recipient of “education,” and he’ll grow despondent and rebellious. For the child, too, is alive, and as such craves achievement; from the moment of birth he is already actively influencing his surroundings, if only by stimulating his parents with his thirst for knowledge and affection.
The same is true of adults of all ages. The promise of a “happy retirement” is a cruel myth: the very nature of human life is that man knows true happiness only when creatively contributing to the world he inhabits. The weakened physical state of old age (or illness, G-d forbid) is not a sentence of inactivity, but a challenge to find new–and superior–venues of achievement.
Why
Indeed, such is human nature: life has meaning only when it is productive. But why? Why was the human being so constructed?
Because G-d created man to be His partner in creation.
The Midrash tells us that “G-d says to the righteous: ‘Just as I am a creator of worlds, you, too, should do so.’”[10] The Midrash also recounts an exchange between a Greek philosopher and talmudic sage Rabbi Hoshiah: “If circumcision is desirable to G-d,” asked the Western thinker, “why didn’t He create Adam circumcised?” Replied Rabbi Hoshiah: “Everything that was created in the six days of creation requires adjustment and improvement by man: the mustard seed must be sweetened, wheat must be milled…” G-d specifically created an unfinished world for man to develop and perfect.[11]
G-d is the ultimate initiator and giver, granting us existence and life and equipping us with faculties and resources. But G-d wanted more than passive recipients of His gifts. He wanted a partnership with us, a partnership in which we would create and give as He creates and gives, and He would receive from us as we receive from Him. So He made the drive for achievement the very essence of human life.
A Course of Action
Yet retirement, mandatory or otherwise, is a fact of modern living. Year after year, it destroys millions of lives and condemns invaluable human resources (indeed, the most valuable human resources we possess as a race) to complete or near-complete waste. What is one to do in face of this human and social tragedy? Should one embark on a campaign to change this practice and the value system that lies behind it? Should one look for the brighter side of retirement and seek to utilize its positive aspects?
Indeed, we must do both. We must change the attitudes of the leaders of the business and professional worlds, and of society as a whole. Most of all, we must change the self-perception of the aged (and the near-aged, and the near-near-aged) themselves. We must tell them: You are not useless; on the contrary, you are a greater asset to society then ever before, and with each passing day and experience your value increases. The life-changes you are experiencing as a result of your advancing years are not a cause for retirement from productive life, but the opportunity to discover new and more meaningful ways to develop yourself and your surroundings. Long life is a divine gift, and the Almighty has certainly supplied you with the tools to optimally realize it.
At the same time, we must exploit the opportunities that the institution of retirement presents us. If there are countless retired men and women desperately seeking ways to fill their time, let us establish for them centers of Torah study, where they can drop in for several hours a day and increase their knowledge and productivity. Let us open such centers in every community and set up classes and workshops in every nursing home. If the struggles of the workplace prevented many from acquiring the Torah’s illuminating perspective on life in their younger years, retirement provides a golden opportunity to learn and grow: education, like productivity, is a life-long endeavor. Torah will give them a new lease on life; it will enlighten them to their true worth and potential, and transform them from futile has-beens into beacons of light for their families and communities. Retirement, if utilized properly, can be directed as the most potent force toward its ultimate eradication from the mind and life of man.
Editor’s note: This essay is based on talks delivered by the Rebbe on his 70th birthday, Nissan 11, 5732 (March 26, 1972), and ten years later on his 80th birthday. On both these occasions, the Rebbe received tens of thousands of letters from well-wishers across the globe; among these were several that suggested that perhaps it is time he considered “slowing down” and “taking it easy” after his many fruitful decades as a leader and activist. The Rebbe’s response was the blistering attack on the very concept of “retirement” articulated here.
The Rebbe also addressed the issue on numerous other occasions, including a series of Shabbat gatherings in the summer of 1980. He then called for the establishment of Torah-study centers for the aged, as recounted above. Hundreds of such study centers–named, at the Rebbe’s suggestion, Tiferet Zkeinim (“the glory of the aged”)–have since been founded in every corner of the globe by the Rebbe’s emissaries. Elements of these talks, as well as several other talks in which the Rebbe discussed the concept of “life as productivity,” have also been incorporated in this essay.
The Rebbe himself was a chief exemplar of the Torah perspective on “retirement” he expounded. He celebrated his 70th birthday by initiating the establishment of 71 new educational and social institutions, virtually doubling the Chabad-Lubavitch worldwide outreach network. On his 80th birthday, he again called for a massive expansion of Chabad’s activities in a six-hour address that ended after 3:00 am., following which the Rebbe proceeded to personally distribute a gift–a special edition of the chassidic classic, the Tanya–to each of the 10,000 men, women and children present, the last participant receiving his Tanya at 6:15am. While the Rebbe had a most impressive list of achievements behind him when he was advised to begin to “enjoy the fruits of his labors” upon his attainment of age 70 in 1972, these pale in comparison with what he had achieved by age 80, which, in turn, is a fraction of the breath and scope of his activities at age 90. Each year brought the revelation of new dimensions to his philosophy and world-outlook, new campaigns and initiatives, new Chabad centers, schools and communities the world over. Also in the last two years of his life, while physically disabled by the massive stroke he suffered in March of 1992, he continued to lead the Chabad movement, issuing directives to his 3500 emissaries on six continents and the many thousands who turned to him for guidance and direction.
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1] Leviticus 19:32, as per Talmud, Kiddushin 33a; Job 32:7.
[2] See Zohar, part I, pg 224a. A chassidic saying goes: “Age is not measured by the date listed in one’s passport, but by the amount of productive days, hours and minutes one has accumulated.”
[3] E.g. Genesis 15:15, 24:1 and 35:29, Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 11:21 and 30:20, Isaiah 53:10, Psalms 91:16, Proverbs 3:2 and 16 and numerous other. See also Ethics of the Fathers 6:8.
[4] C.f. Zohar, part I, 180b.
[5] In the words of the Talmud: “The elderly among the material and ignorant, the more they age, the more confused their minds become; not so the Torah elderly: the more they age, the more settled their minds become” (Talmud, Kinim 3:6).
[6] Talmud, Eruvin 22a, derived from Deuteronomy 7:11.
[8] Talmud, Bava Metzia 38a.
[9] C.f. Israel’s fond memory of “the fish we ate in Egypt for free” (Numbers 11:5).
[10] Midrash T’hillim, Psalm 116. See also Talmud, Shabbat 10a and 119b.
[11] Midrash Rabba, Bereishit 11:7. “This is the meaning of the verse (Genesis 2:3) ‘…all His work, which G-d created to do’—i.e. everything was created to be improved upon” (Etz Yosef commentary, ibid.).
Tags: retirement, old age
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Bereishit, Personal Life, Chayei Sarah, Daily Life, Life Cycles, Torah | No Comments »
June 17th, 2014
And the living shall take to heart — Ecclesiastics, 7:2
The soul never dies — The Rebbe
In 1950, after the passing of his predecessor and father-in-law, the Rebbe emphasized that it was important not to eulogize the deceased, but to let their good deeds speak for them. Citing a letter that his father-in-law wrote in 1920, after the passing of his own father, the Rebbe explained that a true leader is like a shepherd who never abandons his flock, leaving behind a philosophy and a clear course of action. Indeed, he explained, “he is even more present than during his lifetime, since his soul is freed from the physical constraints of time and space.”
*****
What Does Death Really Mean?
Death: The very word strikes fear in people’s hearts. They consider death as unfathomable as it is inevitable. They are barely able to talk about it, to peer beyond the word itself and allow themselves to contemplate its true implications. This is an understandable reaction, given the fact that so many people think of life as nothing more than a state in which the human body is biologically active. But it is time to ask ourselves: What happens after death, if anything? What does death really mean? How should the surviving loved ones react?
The mystery of death is part of the enigma of the soul and of life itself; understanding death really means understanding life. During life as we know it, the body is vitalized by the soul; upon death, there is a separation between body and soul. But the soul continues to live on as it always has, now unfettered by the physical constraints of the body. And since a person’s true character — his goodness, virtue, and selflessness — lies in the soul, it is logical to assume that he will ascend to a higher state after fulfilling his responsibilities on Earth.
Modern physics has taught us that no substance truly disappears, that it only changes form. A tree, for instance, might be cut down and used to build a house, or a table, or a chair. Regardless of how the form changes, the wood remains wood. And when that same wood is burned in a furnace, it again changes form, becoming an energy that gives off heat and gas. The tree, the chair, and the fire are all merely different forms of the same substance.
If this is the case with a material substance, it is even more so with a spiritual substance. The spiritual life force in man, the soul, never disappears; upon death, it simply changes from one form to another, higher form. This may be difficult to comprehend at first, since we are so dependent on using our sensory tools to get through life. With wood, for example, it is easier to hold a chair in our hands than to hold fire; and yet, anyone who has ever seen or felt a fire cannot doubt for a moment that it exists.
No matter what physical ailments might befall a person, they are just that: physical ailments. Nothing that happens to the flesh and blood diminishes in any way the soul’s power, which is purely spiritual. It is inappropriate, therefore, to use the term “afterlife” to define what happens after death. “Afterlife” implies that we have entered another, separate place, whereas death is actually a continuation of life as we know it, only in a new, higher form. The chapter in Genesis discussing the death of Sarah, for instance, is called “The Life of Sarah.” The chapter discussing the death of Jacob is called “And Jacob Lived.” How odd it now seems to name death “Life”!
So before we can truly answer the question “What is death?” we must first ask, “What is life?” By medical definition, life takes place when one’s brain and heart are functioning. Yet a person can be biologically alive but not alive at all; breathing and walking and talking are only the manifestations of what we call life. The true source of life, the energy that allows the body to function, is the soul. And the soul, because it is connected to G-d, the giver of life, is immortal. While the manifestations of life may cease upon death, the soul lives on, only in a different form.
How can a mortal human being connect to eternal life? By living a material life that fuses body and soul, thereby connecting to G-d. A person who transforms his or her body into a vehicle for love and generosity is a person who nurtures his or her eternal soul. It is by giving life to others that one becomes truly alive.
To a person for whom life consists of material gains, death indeed represents the end. It is the time when fleeting achievements come to a halt. But to a person for whom life consists of spiritual gains, life never ends. The soul is fueled by the inexhaustible energy of the good deeds a person performed on Earth, and it lives on materially through his or her children and the others who perpetuate his or her spiritual vitality. As the sages say, “Just as his descendants are alive, he, too, is alive”
We often have a hard time distinguishing between biological life and spiritual life, or true life. We are distracted by the many material trappings of biological life. Once the soul leaves the body, though, we can clearly see how it lives on, how that soul inspires people to perform good deeds, to educate and help others, to live G-dly and spiritual lives. It is when a righteous person physically departs the Earth that he or she begins to exert the most profound influence.
A revered and aged rabbi, when he was very near death, asked that he be moved into the study hall where he delivered his discourses. “Soon I am going to Heaven,” he told his followers, “but I am leaving you all my writings, and along with them, my spirit.”
When his grandson heard these words, he began to weep. His grandfather, weak with illness, turned to him and said, “Emotions? Emotions? No. Intellect, intellect.” From that moment on, the boy thought only of the life of his grandfather’s soul, not the death of his body.
What Does Death Mean For The Survivors?
While death represents the soul’s elevation to a higher level, it nevertheless remains a painful experience for the survivors. At the same time, it must serve — as must all experiences in life — as a lesson. We must see death not as a negative force, but as an opportunity for growth.
Since death provokes such strong emotions, we must have a clear channel through which to express them, to go about healing in a constructive way. When a loved one dies, two powerful and conflicting emotions are aroused: sadness over the loss and confusion about the future. The sages teach us that it would be barbaric not to mourn at all, but that we should not mourn longer than necessary. A week of mourning is sufficient; otherwise, a person’s death becomes a presence unto itself, continuously saddening us and impeding our progress in life.
But why should we restrain our natural pain and sadness over a loved one’s death? Grief is a feeling, after all, and feelings cannot be controlled, can they? Isn’t it wrong to set limits on our grief, or to try to channel it in a certain direction?
True, feelings are feelings, but we can choose whether to experience them in a destructive or productive light. The key in this case is to understand death for what it is, to celebrate its positive element: A mourner must realize that the soul of his or her loved one has now reached an even greater place than it occupied during its time on Earth, and that it will continue to rise. It is the act of reconciling this positive realization against our grief that can turn death from a traumatic experience into a cathartic one.
To diminish our expression of grief is unhealthy and inappropriate, but to allow our grief to overwhelm us is to selfishly overlook the true meaning of death — the fact that a righteous person’s soul has found an even more righteous home.
Because the strongest bond between a mother and daughter or a husband and wife is a spiritual one, it remains strong after death. Mourning also helps us retain this bond, for the soul of a departed person, eternal and intact, watches over the people with whom she was close. Every gracious act gives her great pleasure and satisfaction, particularly when such acts are committed in a manner that she taught, whether by instruction or example.
Her soul is fully aware of what is happening to the friends and relatives she has left behind. The soul is distressed when they experience undue grief or depression, and it rejoices when they move beyond their initial pain and continue to build their lives and inspire those around them.
There is no way to replace a departed loved one, for each person is a complete world. But there is a way to help fill the void. When family and friends supplement their customary good deeds with further virtuous acts on behalf of the departed, they continue the work of his or her soul. By performing such acts in the memory of a loved one, we can truly build a living memorial.
But after all is said and done, death can be an incomprehensible, devastating experience to those who are left behind. After all the rationalizations, all the explanations, the heart still cries. And it should cry.
When a friend or relative is grieving for a loved one, do not try to explain; just be there with them. Soothe and console them, and weep with them. There is nothing you can really say, for no matter how we might try, we must accept that we often do not understand G-d’s mysterious ways.
Ask of G-d to finally bring the day when death shall be no more, when “death shall be swallowed up forever and G-d shall wipe the tears from every face” (Isaiah 25:8).
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Tags: death, grieving
Posted in Excerpts From Toward a Meaningful Life, Death, Grief, & Mourning, Personal Life, Life Cycles, The Book: Toward a Meaningful Life | 8 Comments »
