Ki Tavo reflections, hearkening, spiritually mature covenant,

on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of my bar mitzvah, some thoughts:

והיה אם שמוע תשמע בקול יקוק אליקוך לשמור לעשתו את כל מצותיו אשר אנוכי מצוך היום––ונתנך יקוק אלוקיך עליון

על כל גויי הארץ
we have to listen to the voice of Hashem, not just do things as is so easy to get caught up in our world, we have to obey in the classic sense of the word, of listening, of ‘hearkening in the direction of.’ It’s not enough to just follow something else, but we’re supposed to be in relation to El Chai v’kayyam, to a living God, and if we tune in, we can on a moment-to-moment basis, ie this day, not that bygone day, also experience something of the Divine, we can pull back the curtain from our existence, where the reality of the Divine is usually camouflaged by the dullness of the ordinary and the voice of the Divine is drowned out by the busyness of life and the constant distractions and entertainment and pursuit, the marathon on the hedonic treadmill. And so we have to take care first to hearken and to listen, and then also to do, not just to profess belief as so many ‘religious’ people or ‘believers’ do, but to see our action rather than thoughts as what our belief really is, getting down to the real beliefs, the ones in our subconscious that actually set our agenda/drive our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I think this is one reason I’m so interested in pursuing contemplative practice. In the path of meditation, we open and tune in to this domain so we can really examine what’s there.
Rebbe Nachman, the 18th century Hasidic master, talks in one of his Torahs (teachings) about teshuva, the theme of Elul and our current time in the Jewish year. He begins by comparing two dialectical motivations that drive our behavior, goals, actions, and ways of relating. The first he calls ‘kavod melachim,’ or the honor of kings. Kavod melachim, Rebbe Nachman explains, is the pursuit of social regard, to be seen in a certain way by others for the sake of one’s own gain, advance, or aggrandizement, to have status and be thought of as______ (fill in the blank for your most coveted way of being seen). R’ Nachman points out that when we pursue kavod melachim we often encounter a path full of obstacles, with others quick to question us and investigate our motives and be in general rather uncooperative, I believe because they sense, perhaps in an unconscious way, that there is an implicit competitiveness and threat in the vying for a scarcity of social capital, not unlike opposing kings who sense that ‘there ain’t room enough for the both of us.’
The second motivation, in stark contrast to the first, is called ‘kavod Elokim,’ the honor of God. One who pursues kavod Elokim is moved by a mission and a force greater than herself. She isn’t out to ‘win shamayim (heaven) points’ or be promoted to partner or garner awards or go down in history as a somebody, but rather senses that there is something she’s being called for, something calling her which in its fullest manifestation is a whole way of being absent of ego, of thoughts or acts of hate, jealousy, greed, arrogance. One who is (or when one is) pursuing kavod Elokim, Rebbe Nachman asserts--and you’re free to reflect on your own experience--finds that people are very willing and happy to help her, that they are cooperative rather than suspicious, perhaps touched by the invisible grace of sincerity, integrity, authenticity, of the conviction and dedication of ovdei Hashem, servants of God.
Our ability to do this full teshuva, R’ Nachman explains, is confounded by our emotional imbalance. When we get angry or live/respond reactively (as opposed to deliberately), even when we’re ‘quite justified’ by most standards, the effect is the obscuring of the Divine in front of us, the crippling of our ability to feel and act towards ourselves and others graciously and with kindness, compassion, and openness. So he explains that our challenge is to cultivate a stillness, so that when our buttons are pushed, the ones that normally cause us to explode (or implode), to lose it, in the face of those very frustrations and wrong treatment we have to be still, hold the openness of perspective and not let those stimuli overtake our entire awareness. We can notice but hold our ground(edness). Ironically perhaps, in the case of our mental reckoning with these events, it is the path of attentiveness and minimal engagement which best keeps us free and tuned in.

We sing in our liturgy from Psalms that בתוך ענן ידבר אליהם, that God speaks to us from within a cloud. When we learn to cultivate stillness and peace, then we allow ourselves the possibility of getting in touch with that really deep impulse available to each of us, the force which is the Divine attempting to insinuate Its way into our consciousness and flood our lives, as our parsha says in great detail, with abundant blessings, that God will open the treasure of the heavens before us.

יפתח ה’ לך את אוצרו הטוב את השמים לתת מטר ארצך בעתו ולברך את כל מעשה ידך והלוית גוים רבים
ואתה לא תלוה.
Finally I’ll add, these are not ideas which you have to accept from me as such. I find it fascinating that at the end of our parsha, the most conspicuously Godly part of our narrative- that of the signs and wonders that God wrought with Pharaoh in Mitzrayim, are actually downplayed. Moshe says, you saw all those great wonders, and yet, not until today
ולא נתן יקוק לכם לב לדעת ועינים לראות ואזנים לשמוע עד היום הזה,
did God give you the heart to know, the eyes to see, and the ears to hear, until this day, a time only after
ואולך אתכם ארבעים שנה במדבר לא בלו שלמותיכם מעליכם ונעלך לבלתה מעל רגלך
Moshe had led the people forty years in the desert and yet their clothes had not worn out, nor their shoes gone hard on them. He points out also that this is a different covenant than that of Horev (Sinai). I think the point here is that of a different covenantal and relational paradigm for a mature spirituality. This is not just ‘take me at my word,’ but rather, see now, pay attention to your experience and see with your very own eyes what is of lasting value and virtue, and what provides only ephemeral or illusory benefit. See, now that you have lived a little bit, perhaps that those popular and successful types who were running about after kavod melachim some years down the road don’t usually end up so happy or fulfilled, lives and relationships falling apart; often we can get so alienated and distant from our essential selves and God that, though we sense something lacking, we try even harder for the only thing we know, kavod melachim, yet like drinking salt water, we find ourselves even further lost. And see now the alternative, the humble ones, or the times we acted for kavod Elokim, purely for a greater Goodness or Godliness. In the covenant of the spiritually mature we can see for ourselves the glory and blessing of hearkening to the call of the Divine. Teshuva, R’ Nachman says, means being ready to become. In this season of teshuva, let us all be open, let us grow and return from our ego trips and self-righteousness and come back eagerly and wholeheartedly to the more subtle and more fulfilling pursuit of kevod Elokim.

Esther, how revealing...

As I was sitting in megillah reading this evening, one line really jumped out at me (like off the page and into my face). For those familiar with the Lauffers' tune, pleease sing it loud enough so the rest can hear. We're at the point where Haman (louder) has just been invited to an exclusive party with the king and queen. Quite pleased with himself he's heading home when he sees Mordechai sitting by the gate of the king's palace, and he (Haman) fills with rage, because Mordechai won't acknowledge him in submission. So he goes home and summons his family to tell them how great, rich, and powerful he is, and then this line,
וְכָל-זֶה, אֵינֶנּוּ שֹׁוֶה לִי: בְּכָל-עֵת, אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי רֹאֶה אֶת-מָרְדֳּכַי הַיְּהוּדִי--יוֹשֵׁב, בְּשַׁעַר הַמֶּלֶךְ.
And all this, it's all worthless to me so long as I see the Jew, Mordechai, sitting at the gate of the king!
This is the part that fascinates me. You were just bragging about all the stuff that you had, right? you can do practically whatever you want, you have the king's signet, you have all the power and money and a big family, and you're upset because some Jew is sitting by the gate???

Haman's vitriol, I think, is unfortunately all too familiar. Anyone who has been angry or irritable, or by the same token, happy or joyful, knows that our mood affects the way we interpret and experience our environment and our interactions, which is why somebody who's upset may very readily violently kick or lash out at whatever object is in his path. Haman, filled with vitriol, takes this to the extreme. But what is the origin of this deep-seated hatred?

The sages of the Talmud ask a helpful question. They inquire: 'Haman min haTorah minayin?' (Where can Haman be found in the Torah?) and answer 'ha'min ha'etz achalta?' (quoting the verse (whose first word is spelled the same way in Hebrew as 'Haman') in which God asks Adam, did you eat from the tree? Of course, Adam ate from the tree, which event marks the fracture of paradisiacal reality and relation and the beginning of dualistic, judgmental consciousness (separating between me and you, between mind and body, between us/world and God) and self-centered orientation (this is useful for me, that I don't want, etc). In Hasidut this theme is elaborated upon where Haman is understood as representing ego, or small-mindedness, or identity derived from external factors.

When we live from a place of ego, we are necessarily anxious, insecure, we feel separate from others and from the Divine, and most of our actions are unconsciously directed by the need either for approval or for the assertion of power over others, for when we are not aware enough to experience our inherent value and self-worth, we try and compensate by controlling others. We try and fill the inner void by amassing wealth or power, trying to increase our status in the eyes of others, as if we can make up for our own lack of confidence by commanding the respect of others. Haman's vitriolic antagonism towards Mordechai shows how well that works. It is the quintessential example of the Baal Shem Tov's mashal hamarah* (parable of the mirror), the idea that the way we see others is actually a reflection of ourselves, or of our perspective. After all, Mordechai is just sitting. In fact, he has been doing good, saving the king's life and whatnot. What kind of an orientation leads us to be jealous of those who are doing good?

The revelation of Purim (Megillat Esther can also be translated as 'the revelation of the hidden') is not exogenous. It is the illumination that happens when we let go of ego, when we move from mochin d'katnut to mochin d'gadlut, from the small-minded, constricted egocentrism to the expanded consciousness where compassion and connectedness characterize our lives. The sages said that there are only two things that keep us from tikkun olam b'malchut Sha-ddai (the Kingdom of God), the overcoming of one of which- shiabud l'malchut (or enslavement to a foreign power), we celebrate on Purim. If the case is as above, then the only thing keeping Us/Divine from paradise is, well, us. and the shift that must occur, the shift from Haman to Mordechai, is the shift from me to We.
Who knows, maybe it is for this that we are here?




*I dressed up this year as a mirror, so I was 'you'.

existential statistics/the statistics of wisdom

the statistics of wisdom
we're working on simple regressions in stat class, trying to fit a function to the data of a population. of course, often we can speak only theoretically about a perfect fit line- in reality, we deal with paramaters concluded from limited data, and a certain amount of 'disturbance' or 'noise' or 'randomness' which accounts for/causes the deviation of our data points from those that would occur/that our model would predict.

(to see a picture, go to http://rchsbowman.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/042809-2355-1.png)

It strikes me that this is a good metaphor for the way we mature and develop wisdom, defined as an understanding of how life works.
The two simple paramaters that we endeavor to determine are slope and intercept (in linear regression). Starting from the y-intercept the best slope attempts to run the closest path to the data points. I think as we go along life's path we make little adjustments in trying to navigate that best fit line; sometimes, however, perhaps after considering a new outlying data sample, we make radical changes, as if to change the intercept, change our whole point of departure. As we grow wiser, we decrease the significance of disturbance factors and internalize more parameters, ie determining factors. The result is gradual improvements and an occasional paradigm shift that models the data much more lucidly. Perhaps moments of greatest enlightenment represent a perfect understanding of all data points.

Getting past the authority vs autonomy dichotomy

i realized that i can post things which are short, instead of just keeping them on my 'blog ideas' page, so here's a thought:

"Our generation has a hard time with authority. In some ways it’s a healthy response to religious authoritarianism, but now we find ourselves in a postmodern age where autonomy is the highest value, and we’re struggling to articulate what could possibly be the nature of an obligation. What could possibly ground a Jewish life?"-R' David Ingber

P.eople and authority both emanate from God. I think that the apprehension towards authority is the feeling of imposition. Who is someone else to eclipse me in the authorship of my own life? It is a feeling of imposition, a compromise of our authenticity. Until we have an experience when the 'I' that's been feeling imposed upon gives way and experiences its groundedness in something deeper and more authentic; then the 'I' (ego) that was feeling compromised becomes the one that is imposing, distracting, inauthentic, and we subscribe to (ie 'write under') the deeper Source in which we're grounded, allowing it, as any inspired writer will tell you, to write through us. Some of us know this to be God, the Divine Whence. What was grounded has been revealed to be illusion, groundless, giving way to a rootedness in and beyond the Ground of All Being, which we permit to flow freely through us; Which commands in a way that, far from being imposing, is the very wellspring of authenticity. This is the ohl malchut shamayim, the Divine yoke- not a yoke of oppression, but like its root meaning 'to join,' or in modern terms, 'to plug in.'
לייחד שמך באהבה,
יחוד קודש–א בריך הוא ושכינתיה

some thoughts on education

As most people who know me know, I care deeply and passionately about education and believe deeply in the far-reaching power and potential of great educational experiences. You may also know that I have a dream and a vision for a new kind of school that I would like us to create one day in Israel, a school which does things right. Well that sounds nice, but what does 'right' mean? I'm copying below the letter I wrote to the new headmaster at Charlotte Country Day School, where I spent 14 years, and while the geographical, cultural, and religious contexts of Charlotte and Israel are very different and have some specific demands, there are some common fundamentals. Thoughts, feedback, disagreements are welcome.

Dear Mr. Reed,
Firstly, welcome to Country Day! By all accounts of your past achievements and recent first impressions, we are incredibly luck to have you at our helm. I'm sorry to have tarried in responding to your email seeking alumni feedback, though the time has given me opportunity for some considered reflection. I want to answer the questions you asked in brief, and the ones you didn't ask in greater length. A brief word about myself so you have some personal context:

My name is Danny Cohen. After moving to Charlotte from Philadelphia when I was one year old with my South African parents, my older brother and twin brother, I began at Country Day in JK when I was 4. Fourteen years later I graduated in 2005, meaning I've probably spent more waking hours there than any other place. I now have 4 siblings, 3 (boys) of whom have graduated from Country Day and the littlest sweet girl now beginning ninth grade (hard to believe for her older brothers). I took a gap year to study and volunteer in Israel and am now entering my senior year at the University of Pennsylvania, where my twin brother recently graduated and my younger brother is starting his sophomore year. I owe more than I know to my parents, Andy and Tammy, who are as amazing as they come, and have long been very committed and involved in Country Day life.

I am most passionate about connecting to people, understanding the human experience, and helping young people grow and develop meaningful and socially-sensitive and responsible identity. My dream job is to be a teacher and hopefully to innovate new approaches to school, ideally in Israel.

One of the things I cherished most in high school was the relationships with my teachers- in fact, I am in touch with more teachers than students. Among the gems are Win Robinson, Darrell Bach, Molly Williams Pugh (no longer at CCDS, but worth contacting), Peter Floyd, Marsha Newton-Graham.

I was most touched and inspired at Country Day by Tom Anderson, my 11th grade AP US History teacher, and 12th grade 'Perspectives on War and Peace' teacher. I would look to him, and to Dr. Waples, for creative, dynamic, important vision about what a Country Day educational experience would look like. It was Mr. Anderson who first really introduced me to educational as a dynamic, organic discourse and the notion of the classroom as a forum for the development of, in Parker Palmer's terms, a community of truth, or, a community of knowers gathered in discourse around a subject, interweaving the grand story of the particular discipline and the particular stories of our individual lives. He helped deconstruct outdated models of knowledge and education and planted the seeds which have grown for me into a deep and abiding conviction about the transformative place and process that a school could be for individuals and communities.Of course, the view from the heights offers new perspectives and insights on the ordinary lowlands, and my experience with Mr. Anderson as well as many educational experiences hence, in Israel, at Penn, and in my own pursuits, I find that if Country Day truly strives to be the benchmark of excellence, as our mission statement proclaimed for many years, there is much room for improvement. With great appreciation for the superior education and training, love for knowledge, sports achievements and camaraderie, and humility for the commitment of so many teachers over so many years, I'll turn to some shortcomings that bear remark.

Insofar as Country Day is a college prep school, I think the following introductory paragraph about a school where a friend of mine is teaching in New York bears relevance:

"One of the goals of schooling is to socialize children to be participants in their culture. This is, without question, an important goal, but schools can meet this goal too well if they educate children only to succeed in society as it is rather than to help envision a society that expresses their highest values and to help build such a society. " (Devora Steinmetz, article attached)

Country Day does an admirable job of preparing students to 'succeed' in college and beyond. I think, however, the standards of success bear critical consideration in light of the above quote. Of late I have become particularly interested in Critical Pedagogy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy) and believe deeply in the mission, espoused by Paulo Freire and his successors, to cultivate critical consciousness, or

"Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse." (Empowering Education, 129)"

While the book I was most recently studying, The Art of Critical Pedagogy, focuses specifically on the relevance, importance, and implementation of critical pedagogy in urban schools, usually constituted of students of lower socioeconomic classes and minority backgrounds, I think the approach is at least as important, and perhaps more so, in communities of privilege and power. No doubt a significant percentage of Country Day alumni go on to a great variety of positions of influence, and therefore, as Mrs. Otey said in my sister's 4th grade moving up ceremony some years ago, "From those to whom much is given, much is expected." I believe that there is significant room for improvement in bringing this mentality to the Country Day community and creating a school that is a training ground not just for college, but for working and personal lives of transformative impact.

Intimately tied up with developing such a critical consciousness is personal exposure to the variety of societal challenges and the processes of their amelioration. Academically Based Community Service, or service-based learning, a pedagogical approach offered in some 160 classes at Penn and growing in popularity and the realization of its importance around the world, this is a process that connects the classroom to the world around us and turns it into a place for considered reflection on the way things are, the way they could be, and learning how to bridge the gap, using the lens of the particular discipline. The social consciousness of students and commitment to community service of students while I was at Country Day left something to be desired. While events like hosting Special Olympics are very important and looked-forward to by all involved, they don't created the kind of sustained commitment and awareness of systemic issues cultivated by more regular involvement and facilitated critical reflection. I was thinking earlier today of an article I read by Kate Throneberg ('06 or 7) in the Perspectives magazine a couple years ago about an experience she had in the developing world, while still in high school or perhaps recently graduated, that upended her schema, sensitizing her to the suffering and challenges of people elsewhere and changing her life course. I acknowledge the difficulty of creating such sensitivity in the well to do surroundings of south Charlottte, but I wonder how we might help more students have such experiences

As so many have said, if you want to change the world, start with yourself. This lesson points me to a deep conviction of the importance of education addressing the whole person. As one of my favorite thinkers, the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, outstanding spiritual and civic luminary said,

"It’s true, the schools give plenty of information, food for the mind, but do nothing about training of emotions, do nothing about the training of the will. -AJH

Here is the place of character education, learning to listen, and room for contemplative pedagogy, a new field spreading around the country. I think we must reconsider the role of the right brain and the sensitivities, the frameworks within which we assimilate the information we take in and which determine how that will be put to use. For some articles on contemplative pedagogy, you can look to:
http://www.naropa.edu/cace/pre_read.cfm, articles connected to a seminar run by Naropa University on contemplative education. I read and enjoyed 'The Question is the Answer'.

Also, considering how much schooling affects creativity, an insightful and amusing video from expert Ken Robinson on ted.com:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Finally, I think psychology should be taught as a regular and important course in high school, with an emphasis on positive psychology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology) and resilience training.

With that all said, I do not want to give the impression that I am not grateful for my time at Country Day. I learned so much, was usually happy, grew, had opportunities for leadership, expression, and growth, and learned a tremendous amount which serves me well today. I hope it is clear that my thoughts are borne of hope and inspiration, the kind I saw in many of my CCDS teachers, and a deep belief in their importance if our school is to continue its part in creating fulfilled, informed, and responsible citizens and leaders.

I wish you all the very best as you begin in Charlotte and at Country Day and will look forward to meeting you some time in the future. A final thought,

"A man should always be gentle* as the reed and never unyielding as the cedar." -Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ta'anit 20a, *alternatively translated 'flexible'

Yours,
Danny Cohen



Also, I would love for all teachers to read 'The Courage to Teach' by Parker Palmer.

לֹך לך spiritual journey

לך לך מארצך ממלדתך ומבית אביך אל הארץ אשר אראך –בראשית יב:א
(Go, go* forth from your land, from your homeland, from your father's house, to the land which I shall show you. -Genesis 12:1
*the second "go" (forth) is also the word for "to yourself")


Indeed, the journey toward oneself- that is, the whole enterprise of לך לך (Lech lecha), of Avraham's archetypal religious journey, which leads to the ברית (covenant), also leads to tzedaka u'mishpat (justice and righteousness). Rav Hutner casts some light onto the notion of ברית, explaining that we might conceive of all the מצוות עשה (positive commandments) as expressions of ahavat Hashem (love of Gd) and all מצוות לא תעשה (negative commandments) as expressions of yirat Hashem (awe/respect/fear of Gd). He compares our relationship with Hashem to our relationship with a bat-zug (partner in a romantic relationship), noting how one performs certain acts to foster the sanctity of the relationship (ahava) and likewise one refrains from certain acts out of concern for its well-being and fear of what would result were it disregarded (yirah). The kesher (connection) with one's partner nourishes and graces one's life even when he leaves the immediacy of his partner. (Happier, Tal ben Shachar, p. 111?) Likewise do we aspire to live with the grace that comes from the constant awareness of relationship with the Other, affecting everything we do, which affects our becoming, and therefore, our relating. In order to feel a sense of togetherness with Hashem, we must first find Him in our lives. This is not so different from a man's relationship with a woman- he must first find the appropriate bat-zug before he can cultivate a zugiut (loving partnership) with her, as it says in the Gemara (Kiddushin ג:א),

דרכו של איש לחזר על אשה...משל לאדם שאבדה לו אבידה...(ו)בעל אבידה מחזר על אבידתו
(It is the way of man to court woman...as a man who lost something...he goes out in search of that which he is missing.)
for as we learn in בראשית
’לזאת יקרא אשה כי מאיש לקחה–זאת.' (בראשית ב:כג
(This one will be called woman, for from man was she taken.)
Adam, the archetypal human, begins thus and moves toward his purpose, completeness,
described in the very next pasuk,
"על כן יעזב איש את אביב ואת אמו ודבק באשתו והיו לבשר אחד.''
(Therefore will man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they will become one flesh.)

Note the parallel between Avraham leaving home (לך לך...מבית אביך...Go...leave your father's house) in order to heed the call of Hashem, and Adam leaving his father and mother in order to unite with that which completes him. Analogous and in addition to the human companionship and completion, the fullness of life requires also relationship with Hashem/the Divine, which we attain in the process of responding to His call.

Paul Tillich adds, "the first duty of love is to listen." (Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, 18) If we, like Avraham, are to hear the call, we must listen with the sensitivity and keenness of a lover, for Hashem calls to us in a still, small voice (1 Kings, 19:12) discernible only via the cultivation of emunah, as Abraham Joshua Heschel describes it, "not assent to a proposition but an attitude of the whole person, of sensitivity, understanding, engagement, and attachment." (Between God and Man, p. 17) For as Rav Soloveitchik has explained to us, Avraham did not comprehend God (i.e. cerebrally), but rather he apprehended God (i.e. through his refined sensitivity to the Divine suffused throughout the world).

How fascinating the suggestion that the journey towards oneself, emanating from לך לך, seems to lead to togetherness with the Divine; likewise, how fascinating that the journey of becoming oneself is connected to achieving tzedaka u'mishpat (as suggested in the association of Avraham's journey with his covenant with Hashem, for which this is the express purpose). This means that if we earnestly desire and aspire to a society of tzedaka u'mishpat, then we ought just as earnestly foster the individual's spiritual journey. Of course, when we understand that לך לך is actually a matter of personal spiritual journey and self-discovery/actualization, the absence of detail regarding the journey's destination, "הארץ אשר אראך,'' makes sense in that one cannot be told how one is to turn out before the fact, because this identity evolves davka from the process.

We have a need for a personal encounter with the Divine, a personal experience of the spark within us, a personal experience powerful enough to warrant the investment and risk of embarking on a spiritual journey. Undertaking such must come as a response, for all the kindling in the world serves naught without a spark to light it. We must be aware, however, that it will be just a spark and our refined sensitivity and loyalty, our emunah, is the conductor which connects the spark to kindling and also the tenant who nourishes the flame. For many of us, in order to apprehend the Divine, we have to embark on that path of personal exploration, for as explains theologian Frederic Beuchner, "The atheisms within us...are not so much denials of whatever is godly in the world, but denials of people telling us what to believe, what to do, what to think." (Callings, p. ?) Abraham Joshua Heschel elaborates similarly, "Responsiveness to God cannot be copied; it must be original with every soul. Even the meaning of the divine is not grasped when imposed by a doctrine, when accepted by hearsay. It only enters our vision when leaping like a spark from the anvil of the mind, hammered and beaten upon by trembling awe." (Man is Not Alone, p. 91)

Though we ought imitate Avraham, we should not fall into the trap of confusing leaving "בית אביך,'' (my parents' house) with a necessity to reject or disregard one's parents' way of life. I need not disdain my parents in order to recognize that my spiritual fulfillment, and accordingly, the best realization of my potential to contribute to tzedaka u'mishpat necessitates a journey beyond the boundaries of my childhood. I will always be nourished by the roots my parents gave me and I include in this even the awareness that I needed to grow beyond the household and community in which I grew up. In nature, it is davka breaking into the above ground world which marks the healthy maturation of a plant, growing away from its roots (and toward the light), yet nourished by them at the same time– why should it be any different with people? Only with such a combination of courage and respect will we actually be able to "stand on the shoulders of giants" without falling down.

It is striking that those of us who engage earnestly in spiritual seeking actually have a degree of "religious" authenticity lacking in those who just tow the line, for we are continuing the path of Avraham towards that hazy place of promise, faithful to Hashem's call as we each discern it and with the prerequisite faith that its/His promise will be worthwhile. This is the faith(fulness) required to realize the promise. It is simultaneously and perhaps even indistinguishably a faithfulness to Hashem and a faithfulness/integrity to oneself. Further, we have seen the undeniable beneficence and the corresponding danger inherent in following or neglecting one's spiritual calling. "Whence solace comes?" asked Thomas Hardy, answering himself, "In cleaving to the Dream." (Callings, 323) Gregg Levoy elaborates, "Our personal voice and the Larger Voice that wants to speak through us...also speak as one. Where the personal voice and the transpersonal voice coincide...life-giving energy pours through us into the world." (Callings, 324)
Levoy explains the danger of neglecting the call,
"Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, wrote, that "repression of the life-force" is the most common reason he sees people in therapy. By ignoring our passions, we dam up our energies and cut ourselves off from a vigorous source of calls, and rather than demonstrating our passions in the world, we put them in the position of having to demon-strate themselves to us. Passions become needs, and if those needs are not met, they become symptoms of one sort or another." (Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, 71)

In listening out for that calling, for that vocation which will sustain and nourish our souls, Frederick Buechner advises, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet." This is where you will find the missing part to complete you, this is where you will feel the presence of Hashem, where you can tune in to His soft, small voice, where as a lover you are acutely attuned to the needs of the other and as a faithful lover you are actively responsive to them.

The challenge for us is to understand that Heschel's claim that "life is a work of art," is not a description but an imperative to be always painting. Our task is to discover our unique hue and hone its application, for without it the spectrum, ie Hashem's painting, will be lacking. Just as we are seeking to acquire those as yet unactualized aspects of our personality, so Reb Tzadok suggests that Hashem too, קונה הכל, is, in the the Creating and noursing of the world, seeking the as yet unactualized aspects of His Divine personality. Each of us plays a role in elaborating this for .אם אתם עדיי, אני א–ל. ואם אתם לא עדיי, כביכול, אני לא א–ל (You are my witnesses and I am God, if you are not my witnesses, I am not God) (ישעיהו מג, יב). She who really lives leaves a trace of her paint on everything she touches- because she is really engaged with it, she touches it. The touch is in the involvement, the engagement, the investment. As Buber said, "All real life is meeting."

It takes significant courage to venture out on the journey of becoming oneself. In fact, one clue as to which direction to go is to consider that place or engagement where we are most afraid of failing, of being exposed, the place where we are most vulnerable. The fear comes because that place is nearest to our heart, where a challenge means a threat to our very legitimacy, yet at the same time, being so close to our heart it also provides the best channel to birth our inner selves into embodied living. The courage to make this push is tied up in the faith of the Divine promise that it will all be worthwhile. In a deep sense, we know that this is the only way we can be really alive, the only way we can hope to approach fulfillment, completion, wholeness, the only way we can really be faithful.

This vulnerable opening of oneself cultivates the sensitivity inherent in spirituality, which is needed to hear the voice calling you. Its development sensitizes you to the other- human, natural, Divine- around you and to your interdependence in hearing, honing, and painting, imbuing an understanding that the others around us are our canvas as we are theirs, and inhering in our highest self-actualization the realization of the interpersonal ethic of tzedaka u'mishpat promised to us as a result of the ברית and as a result of our personal spiritual journeys.
It is no surprise then, that as we put on tefillin in the morning we say,
וארשתיך לי לעולם, וארשתיך לי בצדק ובמשפט, ובחסד וברחמים. וארשתיך לי באמונה, וידעת את ה'.
(I will betroth you to Me forever, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in kindness, and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me faithfully, and you shall know Hashem.)
We see that the Divine approach towards man, which man is to imitate (imitatio dei), reflects a loving relationship manifested in ethical and loving relation, through which faithful relation Gd is made known and relationable to man.

the complimentary postive side of teshuva

With the progression of the period of Teshuva and recently begun slichot, we find ourselves in a period of Cheshbon haNefesh, literally an accounting of the soul, a period of introspection, reflection on how we have been compared to how we could have been and how we could be. As one friend advised me, "Imagine the perfect Danny coming to you, what would he tell you? How would he be different from the current you?"

And yet, the process of reflection and teshuva can be difficult. Without neglecting the sincerity and intensity of teshuva, of seeking direction and forgiveness, I've been reminded of the importance of thinking positively in this period, recognizing the good, the accomplishments, the strengths. To quote Farid Esack's insights,

"this opening of our bosoms and struggling to come to grips with who we are must be
accompanied by a loving and compassionate gentleness. We need to promise ourselves
kindness, irrespective of what is uncovered in our journey of self-discovery. I am like a gift
unto myself from someone whom I hold in high regard. This gift may have become dirtied
in a lot of muck and I shall struggle to cleanse it. I shall enjoy the struggle but I shall not be
impatient and destroy it with self-hatred. I am I, inadequate and with lots of hang-ups, but
there is only one me, and so I must be gentle with myself."*

Teshuva is really about orienting yourself and making forward progress on the journey of becoming the best person you can be. Beyond just remembering that as important as it is to be kind to others, and so also to be kind to yourself (after all, that sets the standard for "loving your fellow as yourself), I think that we have to balance the tendency to think of teshuva as a process considering what we did wrong with consideration of what we did right. Ask not only, "Who and how have I hurt in the past year? Where did I go astray?" but also, "Where did I manifest my Godly potential?" In your process of heshbon hanefesh, consider who you are in terms of what are your strengths, your positive qualities. Did you engage them for your own good and the greater good? When? When did you miss an opportunity to do so? What can you do in the coming year to make sure you make the most of yourself? Ideally, the process of teshuva helps us along the path to where we are growing and living out of our strengths and positive traits, and that they are shaping the development and interactions in our lives, not just the distancing from the negatives. This is the difference between just removing weeds vs cultivating a beautiful garden.

We did good
I want to share an acrostic affirming the good we might have achieved over the past year, not to replace, but rather to complement the review of our sins (אשמנו, בגדנו...). Try it yourself, think about the good things you did, and those you might have done, and resolve to continue such into the coming year.

Credit to my friend Zvi Friedlander for penning these words. Think about the positivity, and feel free to pat yourself on the back for each one.

"אהבנו, בטחנו, גידלנו, דיברנו טוב, התחדשנו, והסתקרנו, חידשנו, טעינו, ייעצנו, כיבדנו, למדנו, מרדנו, נתנו, סמכנו, עזרנו, פרצנו דרך. צירפנו, קירבנו, רצינו, שמרנו, שכחנו, תרמנו, תירצנו**, תיקנו."

**בשביל אחרים, במובן של לדון לכף זכות
We loved, we trusted, we helped people grow, we spoke words of goodness, we renewed ourselves, we were curious, we innovated, we erred, we shared advice, we respected, we learned, we rebelled, we gave, we supported, we helped, we explored new territory. We combined, we brought closer, we desired, we protected/did guard duty, we forgot, we contributed, we made excuses*, we fixed the broken.

*made excuses for others, in the sense of giving others the benefit of the doubt

and my own version
איחדנו, בירכנו, גדלנו, דיברנו בכנות, התפתחנו, וואונו, זכרנו, חייכנו, טיהרנו, התיחסנו, כללנו, למדנו, התמודדנו, נאבקנו, סמכנו, עזרנו, ועשינו חיים. התפשטנו***, צחקנו, הקשבנו, ריגשנו, שיתפנו תובנות.

***באופן מטאפורי

We united, we blessed, we grew, we spoke with sincerity, we developed ourselves, we wowed, we remembered, we smiled, we purified, we related to others, we included, we learned, we reckoned, we struggled, we supported, we helped, we enjoyed life. We stripped ourselves of encumbering layers, we laughed, we listened, we enthused, we shared insights.

and now your turn...

*p.54, On Being a Muslim