Part of an ongoing series about resilience

Listening seems to be a skill few ever really master. Psychologists spend years learning how to listen.  Spiritual seekers can spend decades in silence listening for messages internal and external. Yet, the skill of listening is critically important to how we improve the quality of our lives.

The weekly Torah reading, Vaera, starts off with God telling Moses, I’m the God that appeared (vaera) to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The God that appeared then has been forgotten to those enslaved in Egypt.  How best for God to make a lasting mark in the enduring consciousness of the Jewish people?  God has to teach us all how to listen.

God continues God’s colloquy.  God has heard the cries of the enslaved Israelite people.  Hearing becomes listening as God responds by compelling Moses to confront Pharaoh.  And by the way, God tells Moses, don’t expect much from Pharaoh because he won’t really be listening.  Plague after plague will occur to get Pharaoh’s attention.  He will hear but he won’t listen.

Moses goes to the people to announce the good news that redemption is at hand! But the people are so degraded and enfeebled, they hear the words but they reject because they are not able to believe in change.  Eventually, with the presentation of plagues as a demonstration of God’s power, seeing becomes believing and hearing becomes listening.

Listening involves much more than the auditory canal.  Listening is even more than comprehension. Listening is connecting the information received with the spark within each of us that compels us to act.

If we listen deeply to one who is suffering, we respond with empathy.  If we really listen to one who would help us, we respond with hope. Listening may be key to resilience.

The upside of listening is that we form connections with other people that send caring and assistance in a loop.  If you are plugged in, and you switch on the light, you will benefit.  If we can really listen to the people in our lives, with comprehension and empathy, then we energize the God-field of relationships.

Start your listening training with this advice. When someone is speaking and you feel yourself rebuffing or tuning out, try instead to understand the underlying emotions behind their words. Perhaps they insecure, or confused or in pain. Find the person behind the words. This is a demonstration of active listening that will allow you to reengage in the conversation, and even learn something about yourself, because we often listen through the sound system of our own psyche.

If you notice a further resistance within you to my urging deep listening, it might be your sense of self-protection.  If you give too much of yourself, would you have less energy for your own needs?  Be assured, listening isn’t an absolute status.  Be skilled in your listening to engage and disengage as appropriate.  But remember, that listening may bring redemption, and it only takes one person, one Moses, to be the leader to change the world.

Rabbi Evan Krame

Part of a year long exploration of resilience in Jewish life.

“You’ll always be mine” has been an expression of endearment between parents and children for generations. Yet, children do not actually belong to their parents. Children quickly become adults and are empowered to seek careers, establish new homes, and plant their own roots. Such independence may also govern their spiritual journeys. Parents can suffer when their children opt for a different religious path. Parents may have to find the resilience to embrace an augmented theology, one that finds the Divine in respecting the autonomy of the children they once thought they owned.

In this week’s Torah reading there is a discussion about ownership of children, which has a theological implication. Jacob, the grandfather, advises Joseph, father to Ephraim and Manasseh, that these grandchildren are now to be considered as if they were Jacob’s own children. The young boys are silent and seemingly compliant as their father and grandfather determine their status. Ultimately, the progeny of Ephraim and Manasseh will enter the ranks of the twelve tribes as children of Jacob, which is part of the spiritual formation of the early Jewish people. Unlike biblical times, the ownership of children today is not negotiatable and membership in the tribe is not guaranteed.

I recently came upon a blog post offered by a traditional Jewish man challenged by the divergent paths of his sons as they matured. His sons were choosing a religious life different from his own traditional observance of Judaism. Their independent thought conflicts with a Judaism that requires subservience to parents and deference to tradition.

The writers’ boys are not as compliant as Ephraim and Manasseh. They have asserted their spiritual identity in ways distinct from the conviction of their father. This parent’s resilience is on display as he confronts the fact that his children are autonomous and notices his disappointment that their self-determination may actually be spiritually perilous. And the unspoken fear is that perhaps their progeny will not even be part of the tribe.

The author addresses the factors that contributed to his sons’ dissension; in particular, how the course of modern history has empowered the next generation to make their own choices. He even displays faith that God has a plan for the future of Judaism. The author professes understanding only one thing in this regard, saying: “that my children only have one father and my role is to make sure they feel and know they are loved unconditionally.”

Absent a “medieval” model of child as chattel (owned by the parent), each person now has the opportunity to choose their religious identity and those ritual practices that suit them. Parents may be called to acknowledge that those we love pursue their own spiritual paths, which may test the limits of affection. Yet, I sense Godliness is in the respectful relationship between parent and child, even as the two differ in their spiritual journeys.

The best parents can do may be to recite the blessing Jacob offers at the end of his life: “may the angel who blessed me, bless the young ones who come after.”

Rabbi Evan J. Krame

Part of a year long series about resilience in Jewish spiritual life.

Joseph is an exemplar of hope and resilience. After years of suffering — estrangement from family, sale into slavery, and false imprisonment — a seemingly chance encounter propelled Joseph from the pit of a prison to the apex of power.  The lesson for us on resilience is how Joseph manages to maintain hope and succeed even in a place that reminds him of his suffering.

Joseph, known to his fellow prison inmates to be an interpreter of dreams, was summoned to Pharaoh’s court. Joseph is able to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams as representing seven years of plentiful food supply followed by seven years of famine.  In turn, Pharaoh names Joseph as his vizier and gives him a wife. On the eve of the famine, Joseph has two sons named Manasseh and Ephraim. Manasseh’s name was described as meaning “God made me forget completely my hardship and my parental home.”  Ephraim’s name means “God has made me fertile in the land of my affliction.”

Within the choice of names, lies the key to Joseph’s resilience. Despite being elevated to prominence in Pharaoh’s government, Joseph still bears the scars of years of degradation and deprivation. The first phase of his recovery is to move past the hardships he has endured. Accordingly Manasseh’s name serves testament to the respite of forgetting. The gifts of forgetting, even if impermanent, are the valuable breaks from emotional pain. Forgetting comes to Joseph when focusing on the promise of the future and the possibility of joy as is embodied in the delivery of a newborn.  In turn, we are reminded we can give birth to those opportunities of forgetting by having faith in the future and planning new endeavors.

The second name, Ephraim, is an appreciation for the recovery from loss. By this name, Joseph acknowledges the fruitfulness of his life, even in the place where he endured great suffering. Joseph may have felt himself as lost, cast into the pit and then thrown into prison. His consciousness might even have become conditioned to living in the lowest places.  Yet, even in that geographic place where he was entrapped, and even among people who caused his enslavement, he transcends the pain. Joseph can succeed even in this place that reminds him of his alienation from family and his treatment as prisoner. And his ability to transcend is by his ability to find gratitude for the goodness that has accrued to him in his life. Joseph will not remain imprisoned by his own anger and disappointment, unlocking the door to a better future with appreciation of what is good in his life.

Joseph’s story gives each of us hope to survive until we thrive. We learn that unexpected outcomes may come and dreams may be fulfilled. And when changes occur in the world in which we live, we need to adjust our own expectations and attitudes to free ourselves from feelings of anguish and suffering. Whatever your challenges may be, secure some time for appreciation of what gifts life has brought and allow that gratitude sustain you along your way.

R’ Evan J. Krame

Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life.

Even an over-anxious cad like the Bible’s Jacob can teach a lesson about resilience.  In this week’s Torah portion (Vayishlach), he teaches six.

It turns out that anxiety – seemingly a mainstay of modern life – can have spiritual purpose by cuing us to build our capacity to face dissatisfaction, uncertainty and fear.  Anxiety that paralyzes us asks professional support, but other anxiety can catalyze growth and teach life lessons if we pay the right kind of attention.  Here are Jacob’s six resilience lessons:

1.  Rethink how you think.  Jacob’s anxiety was that his brother Esau, whom Jacob duped by swindling his birthright, would exact fatal retribution.  Jacob was wrong – Esau would greet Jacob lovingly and the brothers would weep in each other’s arms (Genesis 33:4) – but Jacob’s anxiety saw only a worst-case scenario.  Our worst fears often aren’t reality: rather, our worst fears depict how our vision and thinking are clouded.  Thus, our fears invite us to look deeply at how we see and how we think, and this capacity is key to resilience (Meir Leibush / Malbim Gen. 32:8).

2.  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  As head of a growing tribe, Jacob was both family man and political leader.  Fearing Esau’s war against him, Jacob divided his clan in hopes that half would survive any attack (Genesis 32:8-9).  As the modern State of Israel (named for Jacob – we’ll get to that) taught so often in her early decades, pragmatism is a vital resilience tool.

3.  Let yourself ask for help.  Though a self-reliant man of action, Jacob next asked for help: in his anxiety, he humbly prayed for guidance, support and protection (Genesis 32:10-13).  However self-reliant we are or think we should be, nobody is omnipotent.  Jacob’s resilience lesson is to twin claiming the agency to do all we can with the humility also to reach out (and up) for help.

4.  Lead from generosity.  Threat and scarcity often trigger our instinct to pull back and close up.  Jacob did the opposite: he sent gifts ahead to Esau (Genesis 32:14-19).  While Jacob’s ploy was more tactical than generous – Jacob hoped to blunt what he wrongly thought was Esau’s revenge impulse – it also reflected Jacob’s sense of agency and capacity.  It feels good to give, even and especially when we think we’re under threat.  Try it: you’re more resilient than you know.

5.  Let yourself wrestle.  Jacob famously wrestled a “man” overnight (Genesis 32:25-29), and stories abound about why.  Was it a dream?  Was it an angel?  Was it his fear of Esau?  Did it happen only because he was alone?  Was it to prepare Jacob for his encounter with Esau?  We’ll never know, but we do know that Jacob’s wrestle opened his eyes to see holiness in a new way (Genesis 32:31).  When we reimagine our life wrestles like some use resistance bands to tone muscles, suddenly our life wrestles can be tools to build resilience – and we suffer less for them.

6.  Let yourself change.  Jacob emerged from his overnight wrestle with a new name and a limp.  His wrestling companion renamed Jacob “Israel” for “wrestles with God” (Genesis 32:29), and wrenched Jacob’s hip (Genesis 32:26, 32:32)   Jacob was never the same, but that’s less the issue than what we make of these changes.  We can choose how we respond to the inevitability of change: we can clutch what is, or willingly receive new ways (even if our identity changes, even if we limp).  When unpleasantness and suffering seem inevitable, we can compound our suffering by clutching fixity.  (Buddhists call it “the suffering of suffering” and the “suffering of change.”  Like the willow, we become more more resilient when we let ourselves bend and change.

Israelites are named for this pivotal moment in Torah and its resilience lessons.  They’ve stood the test of time against incredibly long odds.  They’ve inspired millennia of wisdom, heroism, vibrancy and beauty.  We owe it all to resilient Jacob.

– Rabbi David Evan Markus

Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life.

Today’s shrill era in which some vocally try to silence others isn’t new. The only difference is that more of us – at long last – are calling it what it is.

It takes resilience to “persist” against the constant drumbeat of silencing and gaslighting, and more resilience to “persist” in calling these behaviors what they are. For some, this struggle can feel exhausting. For others, truth-telling resistance feels empowering and success fuels a virtuous cycle. “Nevertheless she persisted” has become a public campaign to mock the misogyny of silencing.

We’ve come a long way (though not far enough) since ancient days, when (according to a history probably recorded by men for men) a woman’s role was to bear children and tend home and hearth. Biblical women identified with this role: subjectively, some felt that they were their role.

So in this week’s Torah portion (Toldot), when long-barren Rebecca finally conceived, carried twins and experienced a tough pregnancy, she so identified with this role that she famously asked, “Why am I this? … and she went to inquire of God” (Genesis 25:22). Rebecca might have asked, “Why is this happening to me,” but instead her question conflated role and identity.

Can’t we moderns identify? How often do we imagine that we are our careers, family roles, abilities, disabilities, resumes or bank accounts? Granted, pregnancy is unique in putting one’s being in full service of growing another (and how could I, as a cis-gendered male, ever understand it intuitively?). That said, Rebecca’s experience also holds up a metaphorical mirror for every time we fall into the rut of believing that we are any one experience or role, however important.

What made Rebecca different, spiritually speaking, was that she dared to say it aloud. She was the first in Torah to ask God a “why” question and then summon the chutzpah to seek an answer.  In an era so dominated by men, it’s meaningful that Torah accords this special first to a woman.  It’s doubly meaningful that Rebecca would ask this particular “why” question, as if to challenge this conflation. And it’s triply meaningful that God – the Ultimate representation of Power – responded by answering Rebecca directly.

Rebecca stood up and wouldn’t let her supposedly inferior social position limit or silence her.  And her resilience paid off: Rebecca got an answer. Today, everyone who asks “why” does so in Rebecca’s spiritual legacy. Everyone who stands up against silencing and role conflation, and who speaks up and out to Power, does so in Rebecca’s spiritual legacy.

“Nevertheless she persisted.” Resilience pays off. Just ask Rebecca.

– Rabbi David Evan Markus