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

It’s just a few weeks until Rosh Hashanah.  The Jewish season of teshuvah (repentance, repair, return) is upon us. And of course, what we repent, repair and return (to) depends exquisitely on what we remember.

Truth be told, there are some things I’d rather not remember. I’d rather not remember who hurt me, or whom I hurt, or every time I said or did what I shouldn’t, or every time I didn’t say or do what I should. I’d rather not remember most of the news these days.

A little escapism (even selective amnesia) is a tried and true anti-hurt mechanism. (How often were you on social media today?) But escapism and amnesia aren’t long-term resilience strategies because ultimately, they don’t work. Consciously or not, we remember more than we may want.  And ultimately, that’s for the good: the Jewish High Holy Day season is transformative only in proportion to what we let ourselves remember and feel.

This week’s Torah portion (Ki Teitzei) is all about memory, though not on the surface. On the surface, it’s all about stuff gone wrong, as if ripped from today’s headlines – war, social plunder, wayward children, mistreatment of women, dishonest business practices, corruption, a fraying social safety net, environmental degradation and more. Only near the end do we read about memory: “Always remember that you were slaves in Egypt” (Deuteronomy 24:22); “always remember what Amalek [Torah’s euphemistic others] did to you” (Deuteronomy 25:17): “do not forget” (Deuteronomy 25:19).

Are we condemned always to rehash stuff gone wrong? Must we always carry past bondage around like badges of honor? Must we always remember every time we were wronged? Reading these verses, Torah seems to answer yes.

I understand this call to remember a bit differently. The spiritual intention, I like to think, is that we remember precisely not to repeat and not to re-live. The best we can hope of life’s hurts is that they both strengthen us and soften us – strengthen us to carry the memory, and soften us so that we’re more empathetic to others’ hurts and so we don’t lash our hurts on others.  So one measure of our spiritual (and collective social) resilience is the extent to which we harness those lessons for real, without being steeled by them.

But this hope goes only so far.

Last week, when a Pennsylvania grand jury issued a 900-page report about sexual abuse and official cover-ups in the Catholic Church, one victim’s response was heart rending.  CNN quoted her as saying, “When I hear the word ‘God,’ I get flashbacks of abuse.”  She remembers, and she re-lives – and she’s hardly alone.  How many women re-live sexual abuse?  How many soldiers relive traumas of war?  How many adults flash back to child abuse?  How many of us experienced religion and spirituality in ways that we wish we didn’t remember but do, driving us to steel ourselves to disappointments we experienced and thus also future possibilities?

Maybe Torah recounts stuff gone wrong in society (and still going wrong in society), before delving into the importance of memory, precisely to remind us that we keep reacting to memories unless and until we do the deep work of healing all that can be healed. Whether it’s our individual hurts and resentments, our societal stuff gone wrong, the journey to healing comes not in amnesia but through the straits of memory.

Resilience, it turns out, is the power to undertake this journey of memory and ultimately remember compassionately without re-living hurtfully.  Some will need professional support over a lifetime; for others healing might begin with just a phone call. This time of year is when we re-commit to the path of memory with the purpose to repair, to heal, to forgive, to do wise justice in the world – and thereby to better the world in every way that hearts and hands can.

– Rabbi David Evan Markus

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

If art and beauty are in the eye of the beholder, then what about spirituality and especially communal spirituality?  And when we feel disconnected – as everyone sometimes does – then what? This week’s Torah portion (Re’eh) invites us to see that seeing our eye as our primary spiritual connector might be part of our problem. Among the most potent paths of spirituality is not our eyes but our hands.

At least three times each year – at Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot – our spiritual ancestors brought to the Temple in Jerusalem their offering gifts, mainly in the form of agricultural goods. That journey to Jerusalem and assembly there was a unique act of making community, coming together as a collective, and suffusing one’s individuality to serve the whole and the holy in their midst.

Of their presence before the Presence, Torah records that each would bring “one’s own gift according to the blessing that YHVH your God bestowed” on that person (Deut. 16:17).  In economic terms it was a “progressive” amount (based on ability to pay), and a radically “democratic” calling (everyone paid something). That itself is a big deal: a healthy community enfolds everyone without exception everyone participates by giving what they can without exception; and those blessed with more offer more willingly. So far, so good.

In spiritual terms, Torah doubles down on this democratic calling with a curious phrase: ולא יראה את פני יהו׳׳ה ריקם (Deut. 16:16). How we translate this key phrase makes a tremendous difference to what we imagine spirituality (and democracy) to mean in communal terms. This phrase’s most common English rendering is, “And none will be seen before God’s face empty-handed” – in ancient parlance, just a repetition that everyone will bring something. But peel back the layers, and other meanings arise.

One profound meaning is this: “And none will see God’s face if they are empty-handed.” Take this in. In Torah’s understanding, nobody is empty-handed – everyone has a gift to bring “according to the blessing that YHVH your God bestowed” – so how can it be that anyone could be empty-handed?

We learn not that the journey to see God requires an admission ticket, but that anyone who feels empty-handed, without a genuine and valuable gift to bring, won’t be able to see and experience the holiness we call God. We learn that our capacity to see and experience holiness in our lives and in our world depends at least partly on what we give and what we feel ourselves capable to give. And by Torah’s own words, this isn’t an economic question but rather a spiritual question. The eye is in the hand of the beholder.

Torah doubles down on this teaching in a second way. Torah’s word for “empty-handed” (ריקם / reikam) really means “vainly” or “emptily,” meaning without effect. There’s no mention of a hand at all. Rather, when we feel ourselves to have no effect, to live vainly or emptily, that’s when we tend not to give. Our hands might as well be empty, and of course we won’t see.

What we most can bring is our fullest selves – and yes, that means our love, our patience, our time, our volunteerism, our charity, our compassion and everything else we can invest in building sacred community. Let these be the works of our hands, according to the blessings in our lives.  The more we see our lives blessed, the more we’ll find ways to give, the fuller our hands will feel, the more we’ll give, and the more holiness we’ll see.

It’s a virtuous cycle, this cycle of virtue. The eye really is in the hand of the beholder. Let your own hands be your resilience teachers this week, and every week.

Rabbi David Evan Markus

Modern spirituality seems to echo advice of an old standard: “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.” Who doesn’t groove on light, love and can-do spirit? Each “yes” of affirmation and empowerment tends to feel good: a spirituality of “yes” energizes, validates and comforts. By comparison, negatives like restriction, redirection and disappointment can seem like lesser spirituality or even non-spirituality.

But every life encounters “no.” Every life needs “no.” Limits and redirection can re-inspire us and keep us healthy and safe. Disappointment can deepen awareness and build resilience. Life without “no” isn’t real life. A spirituality that hews mainly to “yes” and recoils from “no” will miss key parts of life. It’ll be calcified and brittle. It won’t be fully real.

How do we incubate real spirituality when life’s answer is “no”?

Moses faced this question. In this week’s Torah portion (Va’etchanan), Moses reached the Land of Promise after 40 years. His life goal before his eyes but already told he wouldn’t enter, Moses pleaded once more. God’s answer was blunt: no. “Enough! Don’t speak to Me of this again!” (Deut. 3:26). God then had Moses climb a hill to see a Land he’d never touch.

How could Moses go on? How can we? What is real spirituality when life’s answer is “no”?

These questions come at a time seemingly full of negatives. U.S. democracy is troubled, even dangerously so. Many feel too overwhelmed to look much less act. The world is less free, less safe, less fair and less just. And with Tisha b’Av now history, world Jewry turns to face Rosh Hashanah – and odds are that you’d rather not think about it.

Me neither. The constant drip (sometimes torrent) of shockingly bad news wears me down. I’d rather luxuriate in spring’s vibrant beauty than summer’s slow wane. I don’t want to notice the occasional yellowing leaf. I don’t want to see “back to school” commercials on TV.

Too bad. To my wish that democracy were healthier, to my craving for endless summer, to my inclination to turn away, life’s answer is “no.” And these negatives are trivial compared to illness and loss that we all must face, some more than others.

Rabbi David Ingber observed that God’s “no” to Moses hid deep meaning. Most traditional commentators describe Moses’ re-telling of God’s “no” as angry: vayit’aber YHVH bi – “God was angry with me” for asking to enter the Land. One, Bachya ben Asher ibn Halawa (1255-1340), translated vayit’aber bi to suggest that a new time was being incubated.

Turns out vayit’aber bi can be read as “made me pregnant” – yes, pregnant. Ingber put the pieces together: with this divine “no,” God impregnated Moses – not literally, but with a new spiritual vision that helped lift Moses to new heights. This holy “no” incubated in Moses new capacity, new vision and a healthy way to integrate this most disappointing “no” into his life.

As for Moses, so potentially for us if we allow it. We can’t always know why life’s “no” moments come, some so unfair and painful. But if we can summon the strength to hold just the possibility that each “no” somehow can incubate a capacity, vision or healthy way to move forward, then the “no” might well contain the seed of some future “yes.”

That kind of vision, pregnant with possibility even amidst life’s negative, is what Moses saw in the Land. It’s what God impregnated Moses to incubate, and what Torah now calls us to incubate in our lives. It’s the very seed of resilience itself.

– Rabbi David Evan Markus

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

I’ve heard it countless times, especially over the last few weeks: “Depending on where I look around me, I see either beauty or devastation, hope or despair.”

True that: it’s all there, all at the same time, especially nowadays. Some would say that where we choose to look, what we emphasize in our seeing and thinking, is our master key of resilience.

To me, however, resilience is less selective vision than collective vision. Resilience is less about narrowing our focus to what most pleases or eases us, and more about expanding our focus to see it all, hold it all, and live well in it all. This week’s Torah double portion (Matot-Masei) proves the point.

Depending on where I look, I can see either spiritual audacity in keeping vows (Num. 30:3), or ancient society’s sexism in Torah treating male and female vows differently (Num. 30:4-16). I can see ancient Israelite violence and xenophobia (Num. 31:1-17), or attempted spiritualization of war booty (Num. 31:26-30). I can see selfish cowardice in peoples seeking to freeload on others, or wise practicality in treating differently situated peoples differently (Num. 32:1-9). I can see desert journeys delayed by repeated stops or made feasible by repeated stops (Num. 33:1-37). I can see in “refuge cities” either murderousness or wise compassion (Num. 35:9-34).

All of this and more in the same Torah portion. All of this and more in today’s news, today’s society, today’s lives. It’s a lot to see; sometimes, often, increasingly, it feels like too much.

When it’s too much, narrowing focus can be natural, wise, healthy and necessary. Capacity to narrowcast is a tried and true resilience tool. But if we all narrowcast, there’s no chance for seeing the whole, challenging our vision, or building our capacity. Often we’ll choose to see only the world we want to see: consider how you tend to choose your news sources based on what you want to see and hear. It’s a natural and comforting habit, but it’s not a long-term strategy for living well together (political sociologists call it homophily) much less bridging gaps and solving conflicts.

That’s why the highest calling of spiritual resilience isn’t to narrowcast but to broadcast. not to strategically see less but to courageously see more. We need to see it all – what pleases us and what displeases us, what comforts and what chides, what we can help heal and what we think we can’t (yet).

Only then can we cultivate the truest capacity not to shrink and shrivel from what we see. Only then can we truly help and heal. Only then can we truly be resilient – for ourselves, each other and a world that needs the widest possible vision of what the world still can be.

– Rabbi David Evan Markus

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

Ever feel like you’re pushing a boulder up a hill and soon will reach the top if you just keep going – but the top never comes? Mythical Greek king Sisyphus was condemned to this futility, and philosopher Albert Camus saw in it a metaphor for all human life. Camus wrote in 1942: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy [because] the struggle itself to the heights is enough to fill [the human] heart.”

Oh? Is the uphill climb all there is? When is it more resilient to catch a tailwind than defy gravity? When should we quit to get ahead?

All year, we’ve been blogging about resilience in Jewish spiritual life. We’ve met resilience teachers in Torah characters, personality traits, challenges and blunders. This week’s Torah portion (Balak) teaches that sometimes what we call resilience is just blind stubbornness.

Balak is a king aiming to curse the Israelites traversing his territory. His cleric is Bilam, whom Balak sent to curse them. Bilam pursued his master’s mission with zeal: to Bilam, perseverance probably felt like resilience.

But God wanted to bless Israel, not curse Israel, so God sent an angel to block Bilam’s way. Bilam, however, wouldn’t be deterred: he couldn’t or wouldn’t see what was in front of him. After hilarious plot twists that include Bilam’s donkey seeing the angel, crushing Bilam’s foot underneath and then talking to Bilam as if a talking donkey were ordinary, finally Bilam saw the angel and “saw the light.” From then on, Bilam said and did only as God instructed.

But Balak also wouldn’t be deterred. Even as Bilam blessed Israel, Balak kept trying to get Israel cursed. Balak hauled Bilam from one place to another, as if changing Bilam’s location would change his words. Like Bilam before him, Balak’s perseverance probably felt like resilience: he’d push until he prevailed. In the end, God prevailed: Israel received ever more blessings from Bilam’s own mouth.

Sometimes what we call perseverance and resilience are just our egoic willfulness. Yes, life asks determination and grit, but life also asks discernment. Sometimes we’re on the right train to the wrong station. As The New York Times put it recently, “winners are people who know when to quit“.

Resilience means seeing what’s in front of us and letting what we see change us when change is wise. Resilience means not letting ego keep us from needed redirection. Resilience means not letting the “sunk cost” of past effort keep us from cutting losses.

Had Bilam been paying the right kind of attention, maybe he would’ve seen signs that he was on the wrong path. Maybe he would’ve seen repeated obstacles as holy forces of redirection. Same for Balak: had he really listened to his otherwise loyal cleric, maybe Balak would’ve heard a deeper message.

In most life situations, we’re not Sisyphus: we have the power to choose and the duty to choose wisely. In many life situations, we might experience an impulse of holy re-direction. Real resilience is unafraid to ask if we’re still on the right path, and unafraid to be re-directed for the better – whatever the cost.

Just ask Balak, Bilam and his holy angel of re-direction – this week’s resilience teachers.

– Rabbi David Evan Markus