Is There A Jewish Way to Make a New Year's Resolution?

Though we were living in NYC at the time, my wife and I got married in Georgia. We both have family here, and it was a lot easier to get married in Atlanta than Manhattan. When we came down a couple of weeks before the wedding to get our license, we went to the county probate court and filled out the appropriate form. At the desk, as we handed in our completed form to the clerk who asked us to raise our hands and swear that the answers and information we had given were true. As a rabbi, I was intrigued. The Talmud discusses vows and oaths at length, and in general discourages people from making them. Our words have power and meaning, and it's best not to take oaths if they can be avoided. 

I was also fascinated by the fact that someone might lie on the official government form, but when asked to swear that they had told the truth in front of a government bureaucrat would suddenly get a conscience and be forced to tell the truth. I asked the clerk if anyone ever got to the desk and when confronted by the oath went back and changed their answer. Her response surprised me to say the least. She said: “Every day.”

Every day!

Now maybe she was exaggerating, but still. It wasn’t so surprising that someone would lie every day, but that the oath administered at the desk would deter them from lying. What is it about such a declaration that kept them so honest?

This morning in shul, we read the final chapter of the book of Genesis. In the final days of his life, Jacob makes arrangements for his burial, and asks Joseph, his son, to make sure that he is not buried in Egypt, but instead in the Machpelah cave that his grandfather Abraham bought as a family burial ground. Jacob, like many still today, wants to be buried close to his family. Joseph agrees, but Jacob, needing assurance insists that Joseph swear to him. Joseph’s word is not good enough. His father insists on a formally spoken oath, and without hesitation, Joseph swears.

In just a couple of days, millions of Americans will take a kind of oath. They will make New Years resolutions, and if past experience tells us anything, most of them will not be kept. We all know the typical oaths we make – lose weight, go to the gym, eat less chocolate, stay in touch with friends more. We never vow to do the unchallenging or the easy things. (I doubt anyone has to make a resolution to eat more chocolate, or go to the gym less often.) And perhaps just the making of a vow at New Years helps us to identify the things we want to do better.

I certainly believe that being reflective is important, and if you want to make improvements in the coming year, I think there is value to making a resolution. I have made a few in my time, but I must admit, they have not been my most successful commitments, and there is also a serious down-side to making an oath we are pretty sure we will break. Each time we promise or resolve to do something and then do not keep that promise we erode our self confidence and create an image of ourselves that is unable and too weak to keep our own word. And we get the bad kind of debilitating guilt that keeps us yo-yoing through our desired commitments.

At the beginning of the Jewish new year, on Kol Nidre night, instead of making promises for the year ahead, Jews practice an ancient and controversial ritual called hatarat nedarim – the annulment of vows. Recognizing the peril of hasty vows, the rabbis invented a way to formally “un-declare” your vow, and through words in a formal process, in public, you could undo the other formal public declaration you had made.

It seems to me that Kol Nidre specifically reminds us how bad it is to make formal, spoken vows, and how seriously we should consider the consequences of breaking these oral contracts. This underlying notion, that promises are too easily broken, also accounts for another Jewish tradition, the ketubah.

I am often asked by non-Jews whether Jewish weddings include vows like many Christian traditions. You know the scene in the movie when the minister says; “for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.” Jews do not really have vows in our marriage ceremonies. Instead we insist on a much more stringent kind of promise – a contract, a ketubah. This is a written document, signed and witnessed. It has real teeth; real consequences and specific terms, not simply a spoken promise. After all, if promises guaranteed results, there would be far fewer divorces in times of worse/poorer/sickness. Do you think your bank would accept a spoken promise to pay back the mortgage, or even a vow with your right hand raised. No way. They insist on a contract, and give it as much explicit consequences for violation as they can.

So what does all this have to do with my New Year’s resolutions?

I want to offer two suggestions about how to make better resolutions this year. First, if it is something you are not sure you will really be able to keep, then do not speak it out loud. Instead make a silent intention not a voiced resolution. Keep the idea to yourself and share it only with the One who knows all of our intentions. Create a set of pathways in your mind and spirit, but don’t fill out any public forms, or make a big deal about joining a gym. These kinds of internal intentions can be tremendously powerful, they can grow and gain strength in the protected atmosphere of our spirit, and they change us from the inside out without pomp or fanfare.

If you are resolving something more serious and you really need it to stick, consider putting it in writing. Make a contract with yourself. Actually write it out. Ask a friend or loved one to witness it, and give it some teeth to insure that you follow through in the moments of weakness that beset us all from time to time. Be as specific as you can be, and don’t let yourself off the hook too easily.

Mostly, be generous with yourself, and don’t set yourself up for failure. Quiet intentions, and contractual obligations can help us become what we really want to be. May this be your blessing in the year to come. 

8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1+8* = ?

8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1+8* = ?

The answer is 44. It takes 44 candles to fully share in the ritual of the Chanukah menorah. 44 times we light a distinct flame to make known the miracle of Jewish survival against all odds. I always try to get really nice candles – bees wax or hand dipped – to make the mitzvah more beautiful and to spread the joy more deeply. Sure the standard box has some tradition, but I really like the way special candles make me feel.

But this year, I am going to do something different, something to connect me with Israel and their celebration of Chanukah.

In the dark days of Hellenistic rule over the land of Israel, when the centers of Jewish life had been desecrated and turned into licentious and idolatrous symbols of Greek domination, a small group of young people stood up against the tide and brought about a victory and a resurgent pride in Jewishness. I often think of how different the outcome would have been without the heartfelt devotion of those brave few. If the bright and illuminating spirit of life and freedom had not burned in their young minds, and led them to face hardship and enemies with courage. If they had given in to the forgetfulness that the Greeks hoped would lead to the end of Judaism, and an assimilation of the Jews into “pop” culture. I think of the dedicated Zionists and Israeli soldiers and citizens who have struggled for more than half a century against hostile enemies set on our destruction, and how different it would have been had they not had the spirit of Chanukah in them as they stood like Macabees in modern times.

We still struggle to maintain our distinct and beautiful tradition against the tide of culture, and we still struggle in the land of Israel for our very survival. There are still destructive and immoral forces in our own nation, and resilient enemies on our borders in Eretz Yisrael. Perhaps our struggles are not so dissimilar? Perhaps the distance between us and our brothers and sisters in Israel is not so insurmountable? We are both struggling. And in the dark of this winter, we will each light 44 candles on the same nights to build a stairway of inspiration, resistance, dedication, self-improvement, and community renewal.

This year whatever candles you might be using, consider using special blue and white candles for at least one night, to acknowledge the continuing struggle for survival, and the need to remain victorious against the tide of forgetfulness.

* this last 8 is for the shammash candle used each night to light the others.

Understanding Abraham’s Decisions, Understanding Our Own

When we read the stories of Genesis it is often difficult to relate to the circumstances that our ancestors encountered. As a rabbi I tell people to try and relate to the characters, but this is really just another way of posing the same difficulty. The stories are not relevant to the kind of life we live.  Last week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, is a great example. In it Avraham faces numerous challenges, crises really, and not one of them is something any of us are likely to face today.

The first crisis, caused by a famine that sweeps him down to Egypt, sees Avraham faced with a terrible choice. He tells Sarah, his wife, to pretend to be his sister so that he will not be killed when Pharaoh sees how beautiful she is and desires her for his own. I don’t know about you, but this sort of thing never happens to me. I have never had to decide between pawning off my wife to a foreign ruler and the equally distasteful choice of the gun to the head. As moderns, we may be quick to criticize Avraham for such a callous act. It strikes us as horrible that he actually benefits from the encounter and becomes wealthy after subjecting Sarah to what must have been a forcible degradation at Pharaoh’s hand. How could he do such a thing? And how can I ever really relate?

Though never in such a position, most of us will, in time, find ourselves in a crisis that is defined by two equally terrible choices – lose/lose. Lie and give up your wife to another, brutal man, or die and have her taken anyway. What kind of choice is that? Seen this way, as a choice between the proverbial rock and hard place, perhaps we can relate to such a crisis even thought the particular details of our own dilemma will be more historically real for us. Have you ever faced a crisis where you had to choose between two terrible options? Would you not be compelled by such circumstances to choose the lesser of two evils?

Avraham’s second crisis is similarly distant from my experience, but also reveals a paradigm for decision making. When Avraham and Sarah emerge from the lose/lose of Egypt, they return to Canaan with renewed and new-found wealth. There, Avraham is confronted by another crisis when his herdsmen and the herdsmen of his nephew Lot get into a dispute over grazing rights. As a rabbi, I have a flock, but not THAT kind of flock, and I must admit that very few congregants I counsel are struggling with such a conflict. But, just as we will likely face a lose/lose moment, we will also likely face a conflict that can be resolved with a win/win choice. Avraham does not get into a fight with Lot, instead he recognizes that the best choice here is to give the choice to Lot, and to be happy when everyone prospers. He tells Lot there is enough for everyone and “if you go left, I will go right, and if you go right, I will go left.” Problem solved. Everyone is  happy.

Crisis number three comes when, again compelled by circumstances beyond his control, Avraham joins an alliance in a battle between Canaanite kings. As a tribal leader and clan chieftain, Avraham can’t easily sit on the sidelines and not take a side. But as a result of his alliance, his nephew Lot is taken captive and held prisoner far to the north. (That Lot sure does cause a lot of problems.) Again Avraham must make a choice, and this one is different from each of the previous two. Now the choice is not lose/lose, or even win/win, but rather whether or not. There is really only one choice, will Avraham rescue his nephew or not. It is the choice between action and inaction, and Avraham rightly chooses action. He forms a private militia of men, journeys rapidly into the conflict, and decisively acts to rescue Lot. Even at great risk to himself and his people, Avraham knows that he really has no choice. Lot is his family and must be rescued.

I’ve never been threatened by Pharaoh, or challenged to grazing rights, or had my nephew kidnapped, but like you, I have faced all three of these kinds of choices. There have been times when I had to choose between the lesser of two losing positions, times when I could humbly accept winning positions for everyone involved, and times when all that was really required was swift and decisive action. Avraham’s example helps us to understand our own choices and hopefully, whatever the situation, to make the right ones.

Marathons, Marksmanship, and Speed Davening

One measure of mastery in almost every creative human discipline is speed. Speed measures our progress in athletics, in music and performing arts, in martial arts, and in most traditional and contemporary spiritual practices. One of the areas we work to improve, whether we are athletes or rabbis, is how fast we can do something. Consider athletics. Nearly anyone who possesses even the most rudimentary basketball technique can dribble the ball a few paces, look at the basket, and shoot a lay-up. As you learn to play basketball at a higher and more advanced level, the pace at which you practice and regularly play increases accordingly. In practice, when you are running drills to pass, shoot, or dribble, one measure of your progress is how much faster you can successfully run the drill. The same is true in marksmanship. Consider the archer in an Olympic target contest. The contest is not untimed. Nearly anyone with the basic equipment and sufficient eyesight can deliver one arrow to a nearby target given enough time. The training undergone by most marksmen is designed to increase the speed at which the athlete can deliver the ballistic package to the target.

There is a steady and relentless effort to break speed records. There is always social pressure in religious communities among the regulars, to speed up the service. Ironically, these same people, who check their watches during prayer, to try and shave some time off the record, would be among the strongest resisters to any significant change that reduced the regularly practiced liturgy in favor of a shorter liturgy that was prayed more slowly and methodically. These people would not be distance runners or distance target shooters. Instead they are always running sprints and shooting contact distance targets.

All of this being true, speed is not always the best measure of mastery. This is because though speed can measure accomplishment and demonstrate ability, speed also blurs and hides the imperfections of our technique.

Speed works best for short-term goals. A sprinter has to be fast throughout the entire race, but a marathoner, whose goal is further away, must consciously slow down and set a more disciplined pace in order to succeed.

When the target is close, it is significantly easier to draw, aim, and deliver the arrow to the target. Here is the perfect example of how speed blurs a flawed technique and forgives our more fundamental errors in training. To deliver five shots to the target at five yards does indeed require a lot of practice, but it is relative easy compared to delivering those same shots at a great distance. Even the most accomplished marksman needs to go much slower when the target is far away. When the goal is close, or easy, or short term, our mistakes matter less. For the marksman this is a matter of simple physics and geometry. At 5 yards a small error in aiming or intention, a small change of heart rate or breathing, a rush of nerves or adrenaline, none of these translate to a significant difference in where the arrow hits. If you are just a little off, the distance of the target is more forgiving when the goal is close and short term.

At 25 yards, or at 100 yards, such a fractional miscalculation grows as the distance between the two lines of the angle gets wider and wider apart. Now, when targeting a distant goal, a small error of technique becomes a significant miss.

So too in any spiritual exercise. If our goal is short term, then our practice can be more forgiving of fundamental errors. In tefillah, a fundamental error is one that affects the level of meaning and self-discovery which are the vital goals beyond the level of simple recitation. If your goal is a short one, to master the recitation of the Hebrew, it certainly takes a lot of practice, repetition, focus and attention to accomplish this goal. But it can be done relatively quickly, and within 6 months the average person could, if they came to a traditional minyan everyday for shacharit services, become a capable short distance davener. They would become able to lead a morning service – to hit the target – at a speed that the regular daily daveners would consider slow, but which would, with time, continue to develop up to the standard pace for that community. Within a year such a person could become a capable tefillah “marksman” at 5 yds. I do not mean to say that this, all by itself, is not a worthy goal. Developing techniques in nearly any creative endeavor is incredibly valuable, and in a very real way contributes to the development and deepening of every endeavor we have.

But this cannot remain our only, or long-term goal. To become great daveners, we must see our practice as a marathon more than a sprint, as a life-long journey of self-discovery, not as a one-off obligation for today. We must take aim at a longer-range target – meaning and significance beyond our words – and we must work through our flaws and rudimentary techniques to refine and center our focus on deeper aspirations.

All Prayer is Inadequate

If the purpose of prayer is to accurately and adequately praise God, or even describe God, then we must admit that it will always fail. There is a paradox to all spiritual practice and to all prayer practice. we try to describe God - infinite and pervasive - in words made for our own finite and limited human experience. Just as an artist must paint an image from the three dimensional world in a two dimensional frame, so too the spiritual seeker must try to describe something profoundly true in an artificial frame. Even sculpture, though it has the benefit of three dimensions, can only capture a moment, frozen in isolation amidst the ever-unfolding reality that we inhabit.

Perhaps then, the goal of prayer is not to describe God, but to discover ourselves. What we explore is not the vastness of God Out There, but the intimacy of God Inside. As we become more adept, we are able to more convincingly approach and realize what is truly real in our life.

Every word of prayer is inadequate to describe the experience of God. Every painting and sculpture is inadequate to describe and communicate the reality around us. "Praised are You...", "Merciful One....", "God is good...". None of these are True with a capital T. But ironically they can, with practice allow us to begin to understand the nature of mercy, praise, and goodness.

The more we know, the more we realize that each word, meant to symbolize an aspect of our experiences, and each ritual act and each quiet meditation pales in comparison with the emotions and imaginations that they seek to reveal, provoke or describe.

Our recitations, repetitions, and exercises all reveal our limits even as they invite us deeper. The process of refinement and investment in these brush strokes liberates them from the shortcomings of habit and routine. We can invest each move and each word with meaning so that these inadequate words trigger the neurological jump to Davenology/Prayercraft, and in that they become powerful ways to enhance and expand our capacity for creativity.

It is in that creativity that we truly experience and encounter what we call . . . God.

A Dairy Free and Gluten Free New Year

A Dairy Free and Gluten Free New Year

I am not trying to brag, but I put together a pretty good menu for Rosh Hashanah this year. With a lot of help from Johanna, We are hosting 16 guests and serving a feast fit for a sweet and healthy new year.

In our home we have a lot of food rules - Kosher, Vegan, Vegetarian, food allergies, and picky eaters. Still, we manage without a lot of fuss, and little bit of old fashioned, grandma's special elbow grease and love, to serve the following gluten free and dairy free meal:

Apples and Honey
Vegetarian Matzah ball soup
Seitan Burgundy (home made wheat gluten, but you can buy it if you want)
Potato Kugel
Mac and Cheeze (for the kids)
Broccolini with garlic
Black lentils
Apple Cake

(For Shabbat, we still have cholent, and a mushroom lasagna. Both gluten/dairy free also)

No suffering or harm came to any of God's creatures for the blessings and good nourishment which this meal will bring us. We are so joyful to share the meal, the Holy Days, and the coming year with friends, family, and loved ones near and far. Let all God's creation sing to God a new song. This coming year, why not learn a bit more about vegan and vegetarian eating and how it can help give you health and peace of mind.

Obviously, not everything in this menu is gluten free, but the whole thing is dairy free and vegetarian and a lot of items are gluten free, and some are vegan. There is something for everyone when it comes to eating better.

Shanah Tovah Umetukah

Learning To Pray

 “I have the conviction that a few weeks in a well-organized summer camp may be of more value educationally than a whole year of formal school work.”

-Charles Eliot, Former President, Harvard University.

Each Sunday morning I get to shul early to prepare for the Machaneh Shai kids and their parents. The teachers start to arrive around 8:30 and the early folks who come to our regular morning shacharit begin to come at quarter to nine. So I have a few minutes to tune up the guitar and warm up in the sanctuary. It’s the perfect time; the building is quiet, the peak sound of the full size room gives my voice and acoustic guitar a resonance that I feel makes me sound better than I actually am.

Machaneh Shai is the Shearith Israel Family Learning Program, and it means Camp Shearith Israel. “Shai” is a Hebrew play on words that means gift and is also the initials for our synagogue’s name – Shin for Shearith and Yod for Yisrael together spells shai. The name reflects the dual ideas that motivate me as a Rabbi and a Jewish educator. First, that learning is a gift. Torah is a gift. Tefillah and Jewish customs for holy days and every days are gifts. These gifts have been protected and transmitted with love and sacrifice from ancient generations, and is to be cherished through use and development. These gifts are to be shared joyfully lest they tarnish and lie unused in the dining room breakfront. That is the second idea – that Jewish learning should be immersive and experiential like summer camp (machaneh means camp), and that it should be fun and engaging through many senses and experiences. That adults and young students should live these Jewish experiences together, learning together, sharing them outside of the synagogue as much as inside, and that all of our educational program should help develop the transportable Jewish spiritual skills and resources that last as we take them with us.

At Machaneh Shai, one of the ways we practice this approach to learning our spiritual heritage, is in our Sunday morning learners service – called z’man ruchani – spiritual time. Machaneh Shai begins every week with a half hour spiritual practice that I lead in the sanctuary. Children and parents together sing an abbreviated prayer service, and I teach a short d’var tefillah – meditation lesson.

The points that I emphasize are important. We sing every prayer. This is not a session to learn how to daven the whispering style of the weekday morning minyanaires. At Machaneh Shai, we are engaging the senses and the prayers are learned with our ears, in much the same way as we originally learned how to speak before we could read. The guitar and the musical nature of tefillah are a big part of the message.

We say the same prayers almost every time. The goal is to establish a prayer discipline and ritual practice over time, and to provide positive experience in an age appropriate setting. After only a few weeks of singing together, students of all ages and of all Hebrew reading levels can participate and pray together and experience that sense of confidence that comes from a service that fits and gently pushes you forward. We pray together. Every age student and parents and sometimes grandparents all share the experience together. This is not meant to be a place to drop off your kid for a private lesson. They learn from every other kid, and from their parents when they stay. Older kids set an example and provide for the younger students a vision of what success in the effort looks like.

When I speak to the families each week, I don’t speak a lot about the history or the structure of the prayer service. I usually try to emphasize how tefillah helps us grow in awareness and spiritual focus. I do not think this topic is beyond the comprehension of even the youngest Machaneh Shai learner. Machaneh Shai teaches that tefillah and singing God’s praise are a natural practice. Together students learn a love of the music and rhythms, and enjoy the great feeling of community that cannot be taught in a classroom or a lecture.

If you add up all of the time we spend each program year in this well-organized tefillah camp, it equals about ten or twelve hours. I do not consider this to be a lot of time, but I do believe that more substantive tefillah is taught in this setting than a hundred hours in the classroom. In each session, I provide a few quiet moments of silent, awareness meditation. After singing a rousing Mi Chamocha, we have our own quiet amidah prayer consciously breathing and practicing the silent reflection that is the heart of nearly every spiritual tradition. Still, mostly, the tefillah is sung, and though I like a little variety in my own tefillot, we sing the same upbeat memorable melodies each time. I watch pretty carefully, and I see the children and their parents singing along. Often they are not even looking at the words. They have surpassed the surface reading level and are voicing the ancient phrases with a memorized comfort and familiarity.

Often, I will use familiar analogies as part of my lesson, comparing tefillah and Jewish spiritual practice with other disciplines that might be more a part of my students every day cultures and norms. I use athletics, art, music, and martial arts as parallel experiences that can focus the techniques that are required to grow more masterful in our tefillah discipline. One thing that all of these disciplines teach in common regarding how we learn and then develop our skill is that the best learning happens when we learn by doing.

It is very Jewish to praise book learning, and I have many “how-to” books about tefillah on my bookshelf. I also have a growing shelf of books on how to play music, books on how to master Tae Kwon Do, books on art and craftsmanship, but none of these can teach me mastery of their respective domains unless I actually strum the strings, throw the punch, and thread the needle. Machaneh Shai, when it works best, is effective at teaching tefillah because it is taught by actually davening together. This must, of course be reinforced, ever anew, with sources and resources and even more formal learning.

I know that after singing together for nine months, as our students and families go their own summer ways, that when we return in the fall, and I strum the first few lines, that the memories will return easily. I know that the tefillot we learned together will not be lost to the typical summer slip backwards that undermines so much school-style learning. The melodies will continue to resonate, even outside the sanctuary where we gather. In their homes, travels, and summer camps, these familiar memories will be whistled and supplemented with new ones that only serve to deepen the connections and associations that reinforce our learning. 

A Shabbat Deficiency

When I was in middle school, I learned about the various explorers and adventurers who crossed the oceans to discover what they considered the new world. Like most students, I was shocked by the hardships and difficulties they endured and encountered as they set off beyond the horizon and made their way into uncharted territory. That was when I learned about scurvy. The terrible disease that results from a dietary deficiency of vitamin C. We all grimaced as the teacher explained that the historic sailors would bring lemons and other citrus to prevent the lethargy, gum disease, jaundice and fever that were the devastating symptoms of this deficiency. You don’t hear a lot about scurvy these days. I do not know anyone personally who has ever suffered from it, though I am sure there are cases among the population who suffers from malnourishment. You don’t hear a lot about it, because even on the high seas of old the vitamin deficiency was easily alleviated by simply adding more vitamin C. When the sailors ate lemons, their teeth did not fall out any more.

This got me thinking. There are other deficiencies with which we are all familiar. There are moral deficiencies also. Not only might we be deficient in a particular nutrient, we might also be deficient in a particular moral or ethical dimension. Certainly you have met someone who you would describe as suffering from a deficiency of generosity, a person whose moral compass does not allow for self-sacrifice and giving until it hurts. There are people who hold on to compliments like they were silver dollars, and who give to tzedakah grudgingly and insufficiently if they give at all. They withhold love and affection from those closest to them and never give the benefit of the doubt to anyone.

What interests me here is not WHY they became that way. Just as I am not interested in what caused the scurvy, but much more interested in the simple solution brought to counter it. How do you counter a vitamin deficiency? It’s simple - you take more of that vitamin. If you don’t have enough, get more. How do you counter an exercise deficiency? Exercise more.

How do you counter a generosity deficiency? I believe it is the same as with exercise or nutrients. If a person is morally deficient, they can be “cured” of this condition only by the simple palliative measure of consciously adding more of that moral dimension to their life and actions. If you are not generous, then to address that imbalance, you must simply be more generous. If you suffer from a scurvy of giving, you have to give more. More affection, more money, more time, more kindness, more assumption of innocence.

I don’t know a lot of people who are malnourished, and I don’t know a lot of people who are generosity deficient. Maybe it’s the kind of people with whom I work and socialize, but most people I encounter are well fed and inclined to generosity. But I believe there is a third kind of deficiency from which almost everyone I know suffers. I call it a Shabbat deficiency, and it is practically universal.

In our culture, obsessed as it is with work and achievement, I rarely meet anyone who has enough rest and quiet appreciation. Just the opposite is true. When given an opportunity to stay home from work and enjoy a restful and meditative holiday or Sabbath, it seems that most people feel guilty, or worse, lazy for simply taking enough time to slow down, turn off, and enjoy things as they are without having to make it better or go to the mall. We work, shop, volunteer, study, pursue, invest, prepare, and travel. When do we rest?

We all know, deep down, that if you never rest then you will become slowly less and less efficient and successful and eventually will walk the line with serious burnout and illness. We seem incapable of recognizing the deficiency itself (another symptom of this insipid disorder) and actually scorn anyone who suggests that we slow down and stop. We seem afraid that the world can not go on if we are not at work, and instead of making up for the deficiency we redouble our efforts, put our nose to the grindstone and grind, grind, grind. We initiate our children into the cult of achievement by over scheduling them and demanding that they attend every practice, recital, and school day. And while we are at it, we insist that everyone around us share in our embrace of this horrible lack, or we ridicule them as lazy, uncommitted, or selfish.

There is only one cure for this universal distress, one prescription to alleviate the Shabbat deficiency. Just as a lack of vitamin C can only be cured by more vitamin C and just as too little generosity can only be cured by more generosity, so too our Shabbat deficiency can only be cured by more Shabbat.

Fortunately, for Jews especially, but certainly not exclusively, Shabbat comes every week. And while it takes a bit of preparation to enjoy Shabbat, it is not hard to do. Cook a luxurious meal (it need not be expensive, just extra yummy and a little indulgent), eat it slowly, stay home from work and keep your kids home from their many activities. Go to synagogue or church or to the park in the afternoon. Take a nap. Not a short 10 minute nap, but a long and revitalizing one. Make love, slowly. Take a stroll, not a run. Meditate, appreciate and contemplate the best and deepest things of life. Turn off your electronics and put them in the drawer. You do not need them, and the world will be okay even when you are unplugged for a day.

Suffering from the Shabbat deficiency? Doctor’s orders – more Shabbat.

Distilling the Essence of Judaism - The 5 Midot

A couple of years ago I began studying tae kwon do. This centuries old Korean martial arts tradition has become one of my routines, and I have become deeply engaged in the practice. Not surprisingly, I began immediately to see parallels with Judaism as well as distinct differences, and have enjoyed over the years talking with the Master of my tae kwon do studio about the lessons for my tradition that can be learned from tae kwon do and vise versa.

One of the things that has been most exciting for me is the pedagogy of this particular studio, and the important ways in which the master organizes and teaches the complicated and multi-level material necessary to advance through the belt stages and reach a level of mastery. This is of course exactly what we strive to do in Jewish education also, to teach a complex and ancient tradition to a new generation, and to encourage and empower their mastery of it.

One of the surprisingly simple yet effective techniques is to end each class with the students lined up according to belt level and to recite loudly the “Five Tenets of Tae Kwon Do”. The master calls out to the class to recite them, and on demand all of us, grown ups and kids together, shout out in a powerful voice – COURTESY, INTEGRITY, PERSEVERENCE, SELF CONTROL, INDOMITABLE SPIRIT.

Though simple, these five ideals guide everything we do in tae kwon do. Every kick, every punch, every stretch, every move and counter all teach these five personal qualities and traits. We are not just learning the content, or the information, we are learning to become a better person and to make the world a better place. Sounds a lot like Judaism and its teachings, no?

So I was inspired by this, both personally to integrate these wonderful qualities into my life and tae kwon do practice, and also to develop a set of distilled essential tenets of Judaism that I could teach in a similar manner in our religious education programs.

I am not the first to try and divine the core essence of Judaism and put it into a simple format. Of course the prophet Michah summarized it all in just three saying: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Michah 6:8), and Maimonides, centuries later, articulated 13 principals of faith that have been codified in song at the end of tefillot in the Adon Olam.

But I wanted something a bit different. Not necessarily beliefs, but Midot, personal character traits, qualities about which we could say: everything we teach in all of our many education programs actually goes to teach these core principles of character. I also wanted them to be Hebrew and rooted in tradition, though I wanted them to have understandable English language parallels that could be internalized by young and old, Hebrew speakers and non-Hebrew speakers alike.

Here’s what I came up with. They are all taken from traditional sources and each of these “pairs” of tenets can be found in the traditional tefillot. Tzedek U’Mishpat: Righteousness and Justice, Chayim V’Shalom: Life and Peace, Chesed V’Rachamim: Kindness and Mercy, Torah U’Mitzvot: Learning and Living, and Emet V’Emunah: Truth and Faith.

Shout them out. Commit them to memory. Teach them to others. And try, step by step, in a journey of “ten thousand kicks” to allow them to improve your character as we strive to repair our world.