Once again Rosh Hashanah is upon us, 5767 begins, and it is time to think about our journey over the last year. One of the major themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is not written in the Torah but in the Talmud, in Rosh Hashanah 16b:
R. Kruspedai said in the name of R. Johanan: Three books are opened [in heaven] on New Year, one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of life. The thoroughly wicked are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of death. The doom of the intermediate is suspended from New Year till the Day of Atonement; if they deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of life; if they do not deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of death.
Yet, as I have mentioned in previous Rosh Hashanah columns, I think in terms of Aggadah. Just as we will in a few weeks begin the Story of Torah, so too do we begin the Story of our lives over again on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I believe that this is a time of Story, we read the story of one of the most difficult decisions a father and son have to make, we read the story of a man who has a choice of saving an Enemy city or letting it fall to its destruction. Some choices are good, we read, some bad. But in all of those choices God is there with us, sometime guiding our hand subtly sometimes not.
Instead of a book of life or death I like to think that we all have our own book, the book of fully living. We either get a full chapter next year or we do not. Much of the setting and the rest of the characters come from the Scribe and Author. We are the protagonist and sometimes contributing author. We get the choices of making it a rich and vibrant colorful story full of joy and holiness and living to our best selves, or gray, drab and boring as we plod on with our lives, just waiting for the end of the book. It is traditional to say “May you be inscribed in the Good Book” at this time of year. I like to say instead “May you have another chapter in your Book of Fully Living.”
And like some old Journal, it’s a good time too look at what we did over the year. Talmud and tradition is to look at the bad things we do to turn ourselves away from them in the future, and ask forgiveness. Yet we also should look at what we did right as well, and make sure we do those too. We need to look at the whole story.
5766 was quite the year for story. I can think about it in terms of a Midrash from the book of Numbers.
And the people that dwells therein whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many; and what the land is that they dwell in (Num 18:18). How can you tell their strength? If they dwell in camps, they are strong, for they rely on their own strength. If they dwell in strongholds they are feeble and their hearts are timid. [Numbers R. XVI: 12]
Moses in instructing the spies what to look for and how to interpret said something rather profound. Those who are strong do not need a fortress; they have the strength to deal with the outside world. But it is the fearful who need the walls of the fortress for protection, since they really cannot defend themselves. So too with human beings. Fear is our defense, our fortification against a hostile world. Yet, like stone walls, it does other things as well. It substitutes for our own inner strength. The walls don’t just keep the bad guys out, but keeps us imprisoned within. We cannot see the good stuff out there in the world either; we stay in a siege mentality ever guarding the gates, and never growing and living.
We all have these walls and fortresses. This year however was my year for breaking down a lot of these walls. The isolation that I have suffered through had to go. A little over two years ago, on my 39th birthday, I realized that there was fear in me, and how much I was missing because of it. On a trip to Disney World, I realized that I really did fear many of the thrill rides. But in 5766, I got on many of them, whether I was afraid or not. And in almost every case, I found that it wasn’t as bad as I had expected, and indeed it was rather fun. The two water flumes and the one smaller rollercoaster I rode that trip was quite the revelation for me.
Then there was book I read on that same vacation. I’ve read it about four times now. Called The Game by Neil Strauss, it was the story of a New York Times and Rolling Stone reporter who infiltrates the world of the pick up artist. And reading this book I became fascinated by this world, not because I wanted to have a series of one night stands, but how Strauss, a geeky Jewish boy from Chicago, had some major walls protecting him, and still transformed into a pickup artist and charismatic personality. For most of the winter and spring, it was also fascinating to watch the world of shy and insecure men began to gravitate around this new guru as many in the on-line word begged and spent a ton of cash on getting all of his secrets and having his power and confidence around women. Given my own problems in getting dates, I, along with 2800 other men, even joined in Strauss' attempt to run a month long on-line workshop and get all of us date within a month.
I failed that challenge in July. Yet I failed for a rather interesting reason, one that I am rather proud of. While I learned a lot and improved many things about my self, including my grooming, confidence and dress, Strauss’ methodology was wrapped in Lashon Hara. Fundamental to the world of the pickup artist was the lie, sometime small but sometimes big. Often, it happens to merely get a laugh. The lies were to get past the defenses of the “target” the woman that a pickup artist wanted to sleep with for that night. As I wrote earlier this year, I entered this world, yet I found that it was a world too full of klippot for me. There were divine sparks there, but when the divine sparks were found, the world itself no longer held interest, it was all dark stuff. I still cannot do pickup routines, nor do I ever think I will be able to. They are also the ultimate lie, the lie to oneself. The lie that one is special and should be paid attention to because of learend scripts, not because of one’s unique Neshama. I went into this world, yet I walked out the other side a better person.
It also startled me how many would fall into this world, and how many are still very willing to do anything to get that knowledge. It also startled me how many failed, and their failure was given an interesting name: approach anxiety. Many of these men were no more than keyboard jockeys, unable to do anything but read e-books, type e-mails and e-messages on their keyboard. When it came to real action they did nothing, counter to one of the best pieces of advice I got on the art of the pickup from a rather ironic source, not The Game but the Perkei Avot:
Shammai used to say: Make your Torah established [regularity]; speak little, but do much; and receive all men with a pleasant countenance. [M. Avot 1:15]
Neither did these men they study Torah nor ethics of any other kind. All they could do was type Lashon Hara about everyone and everything. While lying made up a large part of the world of the Pickup artist the approach anxious couldn't even do that, but could only talk endlessly about what was wrong with everyone else, or gossip and slander those who were successful or succeeding.
This is not true of Just this little world of course. Anyone who has ever been on an Internet bulletin board is familiar with the type. Yet now I understand them better. I understand, since I started in the same place as them, isolated from much of the world by my own fear. They were hidden in fortresses of their own devising, with a mere archer’s window to look out into the world. The ones with approach anxiety are so scared of the real world they live behind a keyboard ever cut off from human connection, always afraid of it. Their protection is their prison. I was willing to do exercises to improve myself, such as opening conversations with five women I met at a shopping mall. Actually I did talk to a lot of people. Because of those exercises I would do, I can now do things like dance at a friend’s wedding, something that I was terrified to do only a year before. And like Shammai, I smiled at everyone. I even made it a practice to smile at a hundred people a week, until it was a habit. For me that exercise has had a benefit of a glow about me that now I notice women smile at me now even before I smile at them. My smile makes me attractive. Yet, for many, such an exercise is terrifying, as I found out when I proposed to a few of these men that they smile at ten women over the course of a week. The panic that ensued was both terrifying and quite sad to me. These poor men were totally imprisoned.
There is a wonderful story about story itself in the Talmud
R. Abbahu and R. Hiyya b. Abba once came to a place; R. Abbahu expounded Aggadah and R. Hiyya b. Abba expounded legal lore. All the people left R. Hiyya b. Abba and went to hear R. Abbahu, so that the former was upset. [R. Abbahu] said to him: ‘I will give you a parable. To what is the matter like? To two men, one of whom was selling precious stones and the other various kinds of small ware. To whom will the people hurry? Is it not to the seller of various kinds of small ware?’ [Sotah 40a]
People go the place where they get the small useful things first the luxury of gems they cannot afford tend to come second. Some went to Strauss’ story to find a way to not be lonely any more. But they are so caught in their fortress all they can do is read and complain. My adventure here is Aggadah, the small useful things, not the diamonds and rubies of the Halakah. It is a parable of isolation we have from our own fear. Too many of us live in darkness, in fortress prisons built of fear. Firing the weapons of Lashon Hara, both men and women combat each other from these fortresses, never getting together, always being alone, and somehow believing this safer. Breaking down the barriers brings light, and love and joy into an otherwise dark world. Torah repeatedly teaches us that the only fear we should have is the fear of HASHEM, which is far different in character than the fear of anything in this world. Fear in this word is the beginning of isolation, but as Proverbs states “the fear of HASHEM is the beginning of wisdom” (Prv. 9:10) and of wisdom it is written:
13. Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding. 14. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and its gain than fine gold. 15. (K) She is more precious than rubies; and all the things you can desire are not to be compared to her. 16. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honor. 17. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. 18. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold on her; and happy is every one who holds her fast. (Proverbs 3:13-18)
During Rosh Hashanah we make the fear of God a little more real with the metaphor of the Books of life and death. That fear of God however is for us to search our own stories of the year past, to see where we went wrong and where we went right. It is for us to break down the bricks of our isolation through telling our stories, to exchange the small ware of our lives with others. When we do, we find strength, and there is another chapter in our book of fully living.
So may you have a wonderful and awesome chapter in your book of fully living in the next year.
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