ASKBIGQUESTIONS · speaking, to making love, caring for children, and aging. Learning happens in the mind, body, and soul. Poet Julia Kasdorf shares some of what she has learned in,

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UNDERSTAND OTHERS. UNDERSTAND YOURSELF.

Of all the big questions of life, Where is home? is one of the biggest. Home could be a physical place, like

the home we grew up in. It could be defined by relationships we have—as in, “I feel at home with the

people I love.” It could denote experiences, as in “I feel at home when I’m playing football,” or “I feel at

home when I’m reading my favorite author.” Home is many things.

The American poet Robert Frost is known to have defined home as “the place where, when you have to

go there, they have to take you in.” Or as another poet, Maya Angelou put it, “The ache for home lives in

all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” Home is a place where we

can be ourselves, according to these poets.

But perhaps we don’t want to be ourselves, or at least the selves we are at the place we call home. “Say

there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home,” the rapper Eminem said in a 2000 interview. “He goes to an

all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter. For him to pick up a rap

tape is incredible to me, because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.”

Sometimes we feel a need to leave home in order to discern where and what our home really is.

The next page has several images of or about home.

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Which of these images resonates most strongly with you? Why?

Which of these images makes you most uncomfortable? Why?

When was a time when you were surprised to feel at home?

When was a time when you expected to feel at home, and didn’t?

How do you know when you’re home?

PERSPECTIVE FROM JEWISH TRADITION Home is a powerful idea. In many ways it is fundamental to who we are.

The Talmud recounts that the second-century Rabbis Akiva and Eliezer disagreed about how to understand the

Biblical verse, “You shall dwell in booths (sukkot)… so that your descendants may know that the Lord made the

people of Israel live in sukkot when he led them out of Egypt,” (Leviticus 23:42-43). Rabbi Akiva interpreted the

sukkah referred to in the verse as a literal sukkah: a hut like the ones we build today. Rabbi Eliezer believed the

sukkot in the verse were the “clouds of God’s glory”—and thus the sukkot we build are metaphors or symbols, not a

literal re-enactment of the past. We could say that for Rabbi Akiva, the sukkah—home—is a physical structure; for

Rabbi Eliezer, it is a state of mind.

Like the sukkah, home is an idea animated by paradoxes: it is secure and vulnerable, real and metaphorical, at

the same time. For some, home is a place of security. For others it is a place where we can make ourselves

vulnerable—by inviting guests, by going to sleep. Home can be a physical location, and it can be a state of

mind. We can be at home in a house, but we can also be at home in a language or while performing an activity.

Probably for many of us, it is all of these things.

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What is learning? Often times we talk about learning in terms of skills: we study to pass a test, to earn a degree, to get a job, so that we can make money to buy the things we need and want. Political leaders frequently invoke this idea of learning as a means to economic competitiveness. Learning means mastering knowledge, remembering facts. It means putting stuff into our heads.

But there are other ideas about learning. “The capacity of knowledge is present in everyone’s soul,” Plato writes in the Republic. “That’s what Education should be, the art of turning the soul.” For Plato, as for many philosophers, theologians, and great teachers, learning is not something we do so we can simply translate what we’ve learned into dollars and cents. Learning is something we do innately, because we are human beings. Learning leads us deeper into life. Learning is its own reward.

Learning can take place with our minds. It can take place through our bodies. We learn, not only with our brains, but with our hands and hearts. In this sense, learning involves discipline—the way an athlete or a musician learns to play, or how all of us learn to do all the things we do with our bodies, from eating, walking and speaking, to making love, caring for children, and aging. Learning happens in the mind, body, and soul. Poet Julia Kasdorf shares some of what she has learned in, “What I Learned From My Mother.” I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point. I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then. I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came.

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I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel. Like a doctor, I learned to create from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse. To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

From Sleeping Preacher, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. Copyright © 1992 by Julia Kasdorf

What people or events have been your greatest teachers? What form did the teaching take?

How do you know when you’ve really learned something?

What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned? How did you learn them?

What do you hope to learn in the future?

PERSPECTIVE FROM JEWISH TRADITION

I start shiur (class). I don’t know what the conclusion will be. Whenever I start the shiur, the door opens, another old man walks in and sits down. He is the grandfather of the Rav [that is to say, of Rabbi Soloveitchik himself], his name is Rav Hayyim Brisker, without whom you cannot learn nowadays. The door opens quietly again and another old man walks in. He is older than Rav Hayyim. He lived in the 17th century.... More visitors show up, some from 11th, 12th, 13th centuries, some from antiquity: Rabbi Akiva, Rashi, Rabbenu Tam, the Ra’avad, the Rashba, more and more come in. What do I do? I introduce them to my pupils and the dialogue commences. The Rambam says something and the Ra’avad disagrees: sometimes it’s very nasty; the Ra’avad uses very sharp language. A [student] jumps up to defend the Rambam against the Ra’avad and the [student] is fresh. You know how young [students] are. He uses improper language so I correct him… I try to analyze what the young [student] meant... another [student] intervenes... we call upon Rabbenu Tam to express his opinion and suddenly a symposium of generations comes into existence. Generations, young boys—22 or 23— and my generation, the generation of Rav Hayyim Brisker... of Rabbenu Tam, Rav Hai Ga’on, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Elazar, and Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky... We all speak one language... We all chat. We all laugh. We all enjoy the company. We all pursue one goal.... This unity of generations, this march of centuries, this conversation of generations this dialogue between antiquity and present will finally bring the redemption of the Jew.

--Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “The First Jewish Grandfather.”

How does Rabbi Soloveitchik describe Jewish learning?

How is this different from—or similar to—other kinds of learning in your life?

Does this description resonate with your own experience of studying Judaism? What have you learned so far? The last two words, so far, remind us that learning is never done. The traditional Jewish concept of heaven extends learning beyond this life, as the ultimate reward in the afterlife is to study Torah with God. We never finish learning, and thus this conversation continues. As Yogi Berra said, “Life is a learning experience, only if you learn.”

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A dictionary definition of ‘legacy’ generally refers to something transmitted from an ancestor or predecessor—something that we have received from those who have come before us. But as we go about the business of crafting our lives today, we can ask ourselves what we want our own legacy to be—what do we want to bring forth into the future? What do we want to have left behind? What kind of impact do we want to have had? What kind of person do we want to have been? How do we want to have touched people? How do we want to be remembered? Ray Bradbury wrote, in his classic novel Fahrenheit 451,

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies . . . Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die…It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.”

But legacies aren’t crafted after the fact. They’re built, day by day, as we make choices about where we choose to invest our time, our energy, our talents and our attention. So part of the work of thinking about the legacy we’d like to leave behind involves making decisions about who we want to be, and how we go about becoming that person, starting today. Bill Watterson, the creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, gave a graduation speech at Kenyon College, in 1990, that included the text below. Using his blog, Zen Pencils (zenpencils.com), Gavin Aung adapted Watterson’s inspirational speech into a comic, which he illustrated in Watterson’s style.

WHAT WILL YOUR LEGACY BE?

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What do you think he means by “inventing your life’s meaning”?

In what ways have you made choices that help you invent your life’s purpose?

What choices do you need to make to create a life that “reflects your values and satisfies your soul”?

How do you come to determine what has meaning in your life? Are there people, experiences, values or traditions that are particularly important for you?

What do you want your legacy to be?

PERSPECTIVE FROM JEWISH TRADITION

In what ways does this text build upon or expand upon Watterson’s?

In what ways does it give us a new way of thinking about our legacy?

To what degree is our legacy dependent on what we leave for the next generation?

Does our legacy to the next generation depend on whether or not we have children? In the Jewish tradition, there is a beautiful custom of writing an Ethical Will. Parents write letters to children summing up what they have learned in life, what values are important to them, and what they hope to have instilled in the family. It is believed these sentiments are just as valuable as material family heirlooms. In writing an ethical will, one confronts oneself—forcing a reflection on time spent living. Dr. William Joseph Adelson’s ethical will is part of an anthology (So That Your Values Live On, by Jack Riemer and Nathaniel Stampfer). In it, Adelson writes to his children, “More than material possessions, I hope I will have left each of you an optimistic spirit, a fervor and enthusiasm for life, a sensitivity to nature and esthetics, a closeness and regard for one another, a sense of responsibility and concern for others, and a sense of worthwhileness about yourselves.” When you reflect upon your own life, and upon the legacy you hope to leave, what do you envision? And how can you live into tomorrow’s legacy today?

I did not find the world desolate when I entered it. And as my parents planted for me before I was born, so do I plant for those who will come after me. --Babylonian Talmud Taanit 23a

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We live in hectic times. Our culture has shifted towards increased technological connection and, often with it, an expectation that people will respond to any kind of request even late at night and early in the morning. Between 1970 and 1990, the average worker put in an estimated 164 extra hours of paid labor a year, and it has since gone up. One study suggests that 40% of American adults get less than 7 hours of sleep on weekdays, and another claims that about 60% are sometimes or often rushed at mealtimes. As a result of all this busyness, we don’t often have a chance to rest or recharge—to stop doing so much and just be.

Jewish tradition has had a designated rest time since the very beginning. In the Torah, the story of the creation of the world ends with a day of rest. Later descriptions of Shabbat, the Sabbath day, make it clear that everyone in the community is meant to rest—not only those with privilege, but workers, the stranger passing through, and even the animals! Judaism considers it an important activity; elsewhere, the Torah talks about the act of shabbat v’yinafash, resting and restoring oneself. Nefesh means “soul” in Hebrew, so this kind of resting is a sort of a recharging of one’s soul, or spirit. Many believe that doing so is indispensible; the secular Zionist essayist Ahad Ha-Am wrote, “More than the Jewish people have preserved Shabbat, Shabbat has preserved the Jewish people.”

An organization called Reboot put together a “Sabbath Manifesto” with ten key principles designed to help people slow down and bring the spirit of Shabbat into their lives. The ten principles are:

1. Avoid technology 2. Connect with loved ones 3. Nurture your health 4. Get outside 5. Avoid commerce 6. Light candles 7. Drink wine 8. Eat bread 9. Find silence 10. Give back

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Twentieth century theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in his book, The Sabbath:

What sort of experience do these actions seem to encourage?

What does Heschel’s description of the Sabbath add to or change in your reading of the Reboot list?

Which of the principles from the list or described by Heschel are you most drawn to? Why?

Which ones challenge you or make you feel uncomfortable? Why?

Is there something missing from the list that you think should be there?

When do you feel that you need to recharge? We all need time to pause and to recharge. Reflective time allows us to restore our energy, to gestate on questions rather than to react immediately to them, to see the bigger picture, to give our creativity a little bit of breathing room. Then when we move forward into our regular lives, we do so with a renewed sense of vigor, excitement, perspective, and insight. But, especially these days, it’s rare that reflective time just lands in our laps. We have to make the decision to give it to ourselves. We have to choose to recharge.

To set apart one day a week for freedom, a day on which we would not use the instruments which have been so easily turned into weapons of destruction, a day for being with ourselves, a day of detachment from the vulgar, of independence from external obligations, a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization, a day on which we use no money, a day of armistice in the economic struggle with our fellow men and the forces of nature—is there any institution that holds out a greater hope for man’s progress than the Sabbath?

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When you hear the word “responsibility,” is there a person or story that comes to mind? In a 1959 address at Morehouse College, Martin Luther King, Jr. articulated a broad vision of universal responsibility: “An individual has not started living,” he said, “until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” For King, as for many of us, the ideal is to feel responsible for all human beings, regardless of their background. But consider this quote from 20th century author Anais Nin: “How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?” For Nin, first and foremost our responsibility begins with ourselves. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? When I am for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” Hillel, the first-century rabbinic sage, was famous for asking these questions. At the heart of them is the question: For whom are we responsible? Can we expect anyone else to be responsible for us? If we are only responsible for ourselves, what does that make us? In the poem “Okay,” by Lowell Jaeger, the main character deals with these questions. There’s a man in the road, waving. We’re driving home from Hot Springs, my wife and I, and our three kids. He’s holding something bundled in his arms. Don’t stop, my wife telegraphs to me with a sideways glance. I’m okay with that. It’s a dog! the kids shout, He’s carrying a dog! So, okay, I stop, roll down the window. Please help, the man says, tears leaking down his stubbled chin. The dog is bleeding. He’s rolled up in an old rug, eyes open, miserable. I just run over my dog, the man blubbers, He’s drunk. And stinks. Okay, I’m thinking, I’m stuck

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with this. The kids squeeze together; the man and dog huff and groan, sniffle and slide themselves into our lives. My kids’ faces in the rearview are pinched, afraid to breathe – wet dog, blood, booze, rotting socks. The man whimpers, cradles his dog, I’m f-ing sorry, man. So f-ing, f-ing sorry. This is less than okay. We spit gravel behind us and speed back to Hot Springs to find a Vet. It’s a Sunday, my wife whispers, everything’s locked up. I’m thinking, Okay, what now? At the one payphone on Main, I pull over to let the man and dog out. You better call someone, I say. My voice sounds afraid. The man’s eyes are shut, not asleep, but almost. The dog’s eyes are shut, too. You better call someone, I say louder, Okay? Okay? The man stands at the payphone, his dog bundled on the sidewalk. He just stands there. My kids cry silently. My wife trusts me to be the man she hopes I am. I don’t know what’s okay and what’s not. The man is fumbling in his empty pockets for change. I feel a lot like that. Copyright © 2011 by Lowell Jaeger. Reprinted in Taking Action, ed. Adam Davis (Great Books Foundation, 2012)

What would get you to stop on the side of the road? What would keep you from stopping?

How do you decide for whom you are responsible?

PERSPECTIVE FROM JEWISH TRADITION How does responsibility look through a Jewish lens? Contemporary Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of England, writes in The Dignity of Difference: “David Hume noted that our sense of empathy diminishes as we move outward from the members of our family to our neighbors, our society and the world. Traditionally, our sense of involvement with the fate of others has been in inverse proportion to the distance separating us and them. What has changed is that television and the Internet have effectively abolished distance. They have brought images of suffering in far-off lands into our immediate experience. Our sense of compassion for the victims of poverty, war and famine runs ahead of our capacity to act. Our moral sense is simultaneously activated and frustrated. We feel that something should be done, but what, how, and by whom?”

Do you have particular places to which you feel a sense of ownership or obligation? What are they?

Do you think the globalization that Rabbi Sacks refers to affects our obligations? Are we primarily obligated to those of our own cities, or does greater knowledge of events far away change our sense of obligation?

The Talmud, tells us, “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh.” “All of Israel are responsible for one another.” The 20th century theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “In a democratic society, some are guilty, all are responsible.” How we understand for whom we are responsible is not simple, and intersects with our sense of obligation as Jews, as Americans, and as human beings.

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The dictionary definition of satisfaction is “fulfillment of one's wishes, expectations, or needs, or the pleasure derived from this.” So it’s difficult to talk about what makes us satisfied without spending time on the question of our wishes and desires. Although people have always had wishes, desires, longings, experience of desire is also connected to the culture in which we live. We live in a world that’s constantly manufacturing new desires, new ways that we might feel unfulfilled. We see exciting new technology that we realize could make our lives so much cooler. We see new fashions and the clothes we’re wearing suddenly feel outdated. A myriad of beauty products scream that they will make hair just a little glossier, skin just a little smoother. We walk past the bakery and the brownies call to us, seductively, taking over our attention and awareness for a time. Sex is referenced so pervasively in media, music, advertising, and elsewhere that we barely see it anymore, at least on the conscious level. The unconscious level is something else entirely. With all of these desires and longings being offered to us, how do we find satisfaction? What does having enough feel like? How do we know when we’re there? How can we feel more satisfied, more of the time? Author Geneen Roth has written a number of books on desire and satisfaction— particularly related to food, money and spirituality. Read her essay, “The Naked Truth.”

Back in the last century, I weighed almost twice as much as I do now—and I desperately wanted to be thin. So desperately that if a genie had appeared (and I'm not exactly proud of this fact) and offered me one wish, it would have been to wake up thin the next day. World peace could wait. Since I was convinced that being fat was the cause of my suffering, I was also convinced that if I was thin, my problems would disappear, and happiness would be mine.

When I lost weight, my focus changed and I became a serial monogamist in the "If only I had" department. The belief that my suffering would end when I got thin was transferred to "when my book got published" which (after publication) was then transferred to "when I fell in love" which (after marriage) was transferred to "when I live in the right house." (There were, of course, a few articles of clothing thrown in the mix of I-will-be-happy-when: I get the perfect black boots, the sassy-but-not-too revealing dress, the earrings that were big but not gaudy). What I didn't realize was that I had become so entranced with the belief that happiness was in the future that I walked through my life as if I was jet-lagged and living in an airport shopping mall with the same stores, smells, sights as all the other airports I'd visited. Within a few days of arriving at the place or situation I thought was going to fix everything, the landscape of my mind felt exactly the same as it did before. Same thoughts. Same discontent. Even though I'd waited so long to get from "here" to "there," I always ended up in the same place-"here." The possibility of stopping the search, or that there was nothing to fix and nowhere to go didn't occur to me. (Okay, maybe it did occur to me once or twice during my thirty years of mediation practice, but the truth was that sweetness and quiet and stillness weren't as compelling as angst, drama and the chatter of discontent). I mean, seriously: "now" just wasn't sexy or appealing. It

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didn't hold promises of splashy parades with cymbals and drums and opera singers thrashing about. The naked now, the one without frills, the one that was always here, just wasn't as interesting as what could be. What should be. What I wanted to be. I was enthralled, as the Buddhist teacher Choygam Trungpa described it, with the process of "putting make-up on space."

Finally, and this is going to sound a bit more linear than it actually was or is, love pierced the trance. I realized I wanted something more than I wanted to keep walking through the airports of my mind. I wanted to be here. For the purpling of sunsets and the clanking of dishes. For the soft way my husband's hand feels in mine. I wanted to breathe when I breathed and eat when I ate. I wanted to live in and through my body, not my mind. And, not only did I realize I wanted that, I knew without a doubt that I already was that. Am that.

It's not a done deal over here, however. The pull of my thoughts is still strong, but the love for this moment is stronger. The pull of drama still compels me, but the love for showing up where I am is bigger. Nothing can compete with the love of this life blazing in and through me, which, along with the depth of night-sky stillness, also includes outrageous laughter, salted chocolate and occasional swoops of sadness.

Every time I find myself wandering away, I bring myself back to what I love: to this very moment, these exact sensations, this coolness on the surface of my right arm, the sound of a single bird cheeping, the low thrum of the heater. I take, as Eckhart says, one conscious breath and return to where the feast is: here. And when I do—when thoughts drop away and the one I refer to as "I" disappears—what remains is contentment itself. And it is enough.

If you relate to Roth’s description of the “airports of [her] mind” and living in the “if only,” how does it feel for you?

Does Roth’s way of finding satisfaction—by appreciating the present— work for you? Why or why not?

Are there certain aspects of your life in which it’s easier to come by than others?

Are there times when it’s good to not be satisfied? When can dissatisfaction with what currently is be beneficial?

What’s the difference between satisfaction and complacency or resignation?

When are you satisfied? And what can you do to create more satisfaction in your life?

PERSPECTIVE FROM JEWISH TRADITION Below is a text from the Mishnah (redacted in the 2nd century C.E.), that might offer some other possibilities for thinking about satisfaction, and the lack thereof, through a Jewish lens.

Do you experience this to be true?

How easy or difficult is it to obtain the “riches” suggested in this text? There are some very good reasons why people do not feel satisfied—because they lack important basic needs such as food, shelter, or human connection; because they see the work necessary to create a better world; because they’re in the process of creating something new; because one of their relationships isn’t meeting their needs; or one of many other reasons. But even if there are real reasons for longing in our lives, perhaps there are things in which we can find satisfaction—and maybe even delight—in our lives as well. The Book of Ecclesiastes exhorts us to “go, eat your bread in gladness, and drink your wine in joy; for your action was long ago approved by God…Enjoy happiness with a woman that you love all the fleeting days of life that have been granted to you under the sun—all your fleeting days….Whatever it is in your power to do, do with all your might.”

Who is rich? The one who is happy with their lot.

--Mishnah Pirke Avot, 4:1

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Think of a time when you said a genuine thank-you to someone. It could be as small as saying thank you for a cup of coffee, or something more profound.

Thankfulness is a paradoxical thing: as simple as saying “thanks,” and as complicated as our relationships and our lives. Some people experience thankfulness as a debt. The 17th-century French thinker Jean- Jacques Rousseau wrote, “Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.” Thankfulness can come to feel like a burden, something that obligates us to others. That’s why cowboys in old westerns would say, “Much obliged, Ma’am”—they were obligated out of a sense of gratitude. And if gratitude is a debt, it can cause us to feel weighed down. Rousseau’s contemporary, Denis Diderot, said, “Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.” Thankfulness is more than a connection—it signifies a deep bond, to someone or something. For that reason, thankfulness can also be experienced as a rush, a thrill, something that evokes deep emotions that are hard to put into words. The English poet John Milton saw thankfulness along these lines: “Gratitude bestows reverence,” he wrote, “allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” In the Twentieth century, the Jewish thinker Abraham Joshua Heschel put it this way: “We are struck with an awareness of the immense preciousness of being; a preciousness which is not an object of analysis but a cause of wonder; it is inexplicable, nameless, and cannot be specified or put in one of our categories.” For both Milton and Heschel, a general sense of thankfulness for life is directed at God and leads to a more open, generous sensibility towards other people. Below is an essay from the program, “This I Believe,” by Robin Baudier. Robin lived in her family’s FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) trailer for 10 months in 2006. Before Hurricane Katrina, she worked on script development for an independent film producer in Los Angeles. Robin now has her own apartment but continues to help rebuild her parents’ house.

I believe in strange blessings. I have never been in such good shape. I have never spent so much time outside. I caught the last three sunsets in a row and unless I am mistaken, I will catch the one tonight. I have never felt so close to my family. I have never felt so sure that I was doing everything right.

I live in a FEMA trailer with my parents. I moved home from L.A. February before last, quitting the job it had taken me almost a year of miserable internships to get, to make sure first-hand that my family was okay. Now I work on my Dad’s house on the weekends and at his dental laboratory during the week. Shutting the curtain on the bunk bed area doesn’t always cut it for privacy, so I spend a lot of time outside exercising the dog and just trying to get away from people. I take her out on the levee and run to get rid of all my frustration with not being able to have a job that will allow me to afford rent. I run to get out, when I have been stuck inside, reading to escape from life, not even able to sit up straight in my tiny bunk. I run to feel like I am doing something when I am overwhelmed by all the things I can’t do anything about.

SH’MA EMANU-EL TABLE TOPICS

WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR?

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The reason I caught the sunset yesterday is that we have been waiting for two weeks for FEMA to come fix a leak in our plumbing. I was so frustrated with running out in a towel to turn the water off, then mopping up the floor with the rotating assortment of towels that we have hung outside the trailer that I decided to put on my bathing suit and shampoo under the hose. But God, that was a beautiful sunset last night. I know it might sound strange that I am indirectly describing Hurricane Katrina as a blessing, since it took my family’s home and recovering from it has taken over our lives. But I love my awful life so much right now, that I find it hilarious when I am unable to convince anyone else of it. I make less than the people working at Popeye’s. I repeatedly have to suffer the indignity of telling people that I live with my parents. But I have finally gotten rid of back pain that the doctors always told me was from stress. I occasionally have weekends when I realize that I am building a house with my Dad, which I used to dream about when I was six and watching Bob Vila with him. And I am back where I belong, no longer kidding myself that there is anywhere else I want to be. I believe in strange blessings, because taking away my house brought me home.

Have you ever been able to find gratitude in the middle of a difficult time?

What’s challenging about feeling thankful?

What enables you to experience gratitude?

PERSPECTIVES FROM JEWISH TRADITION How do these questions look through a Jewish lens?

What does this blessing tell you about gratitude?

What do the various ways this blessing is used tell you about the way Judaism understands thankfulness?

How can this blessing—or blessings in general—enable you to think about being thankful?

Artson links the word for “Jew” to its root. Do you agree this is “at the core of the Jewish way”?

Does Artson’s understanding of thankfulness relate to your own?

What are you thankful for? Our ability to express gratitude and thankfulness for what we have is, perhaps, one of the most eternal aspects of our humanity. It enables us to engage our lives with joy and humility, and to, perhaps, understand even more clearly than ever before what might be possible.

The term “Jew” comes from the Hebrew word Yehudah meaning thanks, joy and gratitude. At the core of the Jewish way is a resilient joy that directs our attention toward the blessings we already have, those we need to work toward to realize, and the need to share those blessings in community.

--Rabbi Brad Artson, “Expanding Circles of Thanks,” in The Huffington Post

The Shehechiyanu blessing is recited at the beginning of a holy day; at the first performance of certain annual mitzvot;

when eating a fruit for the first time in the year; when seeing a friend for the first time in a month; when acquiring a new

home or clothes; at the birth of a child; during a conversion; or when doing something that happens infrequently, or for

the first time, from which one derives pleasure or benefit.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this moment.

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What does the world need from you? Discerning our answer to this question is a key piece of developing our sense of purpose. American writer Frederick Buechner observed, “The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet," (Wishful Thinking, 1973). When we find the world’s deep hunger, we can answer it with what fuels our own passion. And when those two meet, we experience a sense of alignment, the deep gladness Buechner talks about. But maybe the world doesn’t need us to identify needs. Maybe, in the words of Oprah Winfrey, the world just needs us to be our best selves. This way of looking at things is epitomized in a quote attributed to Australian Aboriginal activist Lila Watson, “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together.” In this view, it is more important to understand how our own needs are bound up with the needs of other people than to see ourselves as saviors providing for the others’ needs. These two ways of approaching the question of what the world needs from us animates the work of poet Marge Piercy and Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz.

To Be of Use by Marge Piercy © 1973,1982. From Circles on the Water, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Middlemarsh, Inc.,1982.

The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who stand in the line and haul in their places, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.

WHAT DOES THE WORLD NEED FROM YOU?

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From “Power, Passion and Partnership" by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

We should emphasize methods of social action that effect the most change, while also promoting multiple approaches, in order to make use of the diverse talents and careers found within the Jewish community. Some people choose to serve as great philanthropists, some as community organizers and lobbyists, while others are social workers, or clergy activists. We must encourage all of these options to build our power base of partnership while adhering to the famous Jewish education principle of “chanoch la- na'ar al pi darko,” (Proverbs 22:6: "Educate the child in his way.") educating based on the path of the particular student. After identifying our core values and concerns, we must learn to actualize our spheres of influence and skills in the most effective way possible. If we are well- connected to power, to wealth, or armed with a particular kind of knowledge, these factors should be taken into account. “Power, Passion and Partnership,” Shmuly Yanklowitz. Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Social Justice, Edited by Elliot N. Dorff and Danya Ruttenberg. The Jewish Publication Society, 2010.

Do you identify with one of the pieces more than the other?

Have you ever clearly known what the world, or part of the world, needed from you?

What do you want to give the world?

PERSPECTIVES FROM JEWISH TRADITION This Hasidic story may deepen our understanding of what the world needs from each of us. The following is a Hasidic tale about Rabbi Meshulam Zusya of Annopol, in Poland (1718-1800). As the story goes, one day he did not arrive to the study house as usual, so his students went to his home to see what had happened.

The students entered Rabbi Zusya’s house. In the far corner of the room they saw the old rabbi lying huddled in bed, too ill to get up and greet them. “Rabbi Zusya!” his students cried. “What has happened? How can we help you?” “There is nothing you can do,” answered Zusya. “I’m dying and I am very frightened.” “Why are you afraid?” the youngest student asked. “Didn’t you teach us that all living things die?” “Of course, course, every living thing must die someday,” said the Rabbi. The young student tried to comfort Rabbi Zusya saying, “Then why are you afraid? You have led such a good life. You have believed in God with a faith as strong as Abraham’s and you have followed the commandments as carefully as Moses.” “Thank you. But this is not why I am afraid,” explained the rabbi. “For if God should ask me why I did not act like Abraham, I can say that I was not Abraham. And if God asks me why I did not act like Moses, I can also say that I was not Moses.” Then the rabbi said, “But if God should ask me to account for the times when I did not act like Zusya, what shall I say then?”

What does it mean to “act like Zusya”?

What does Zusya think the world—or God—requires of him? Does he think of those as the same thing, or different things? Do you?

The theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was once asked what message he had for young people. He replied, "Let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every deed counts, that every word has power, and that we all can do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments. And, above all, remember . . . to build a life as if it were a work of art."

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ASKBIGQUESTIONS · speaking, to making love, caring for children, and aging. Learning happens in the mind, body, and soul. Poet Julia Kasdorf shares some of what she has learned in,