Friday, November 27, 2009

Angels Among Us

While the metaphor of Jacob's ladder is well known and I've spoken about it on many occasions, what are we to make of the angels who are going up and down that ladder?

What exactly is an angel anyway? And what does Judaism have to say about angels?

Now I could use the metaphor of the angels in Jacob's dream to just say that the angels going up and down the ladder symbolize our ups and downs of life. But that would be too easy and too simplistic because Judaism sees angels as much more than just that.

Jewish mysticism tells us that there resides in each of us a good angel and an evil angel. Our every step is therefore guided and accompanied by both good and bad angels. It also teaches that even in the next world, angels accompany man where, depending upon our life on earth, we are received either by the angels of peace or by the angels of destruction.

I think that there are two ways to see the true angels that Judaism offers us today. Although they are related, they both involve seeing something angelic in others.

One has to do with elevating ourselves in holiness, to become more godlike. And the other involves seeing angels in others, who exist in our lives to help us through difficult times and enlighten us and brighten our lives.

To explain this a bit further I want to return to Jacob's dream of angels climbing up and down a ladder.

The rabbinic commentator Joseph B’khor Shor (I love that name) argues that it is very significant that the angels are first climbing up the ladder and only then coming down because it signifies that the angels were first coming up from earth in order to get to heaven. And that is the way in which we human beings, people, typically climb ladders.

Shor then tells us that if the angels are truly going up to heaven from earth, that might just mean that the angels' origin is in the earth below rather than in the heavens above.

Think about that. This idea suggests that angels, divine messengers, are of possible earthly origin, and therefore are truly in our midst. To put it another way, Shor suggests that angels are human. That angels are truly among us. That our neighbor could be an angel. Or perhaps a family member. Or a friend.

Too often we tend to believe that godly acts are sent from one direction only - from heaven down to us on earth. But Shor's theory makes us think of the possibility that the word of God or Godly acts originate here on earth and not in heaven. That goodness and godliness just might originate from each one of us.

Which is why we must always act like earthly angels of God, inspiring others to holiness, bringing others closer to God and helping others with the ups and downs of life.

But using this definition, we must also open our eyes to the possibility that God does send us angels, even today. But today they appear in human form, in the form of those who we encounter in our lives. Sometimes these angels in our lives serve to bring us closer to God. And sometimes these angels appear at just the right time, when we need them the most.

And sometimes these angels are just there for comfort and support, to help us out of difficult situations, to provide encouragement and joy, to brighten our days, and to offer unconditional love. Sometimes they inspire us in so many ways, to be and to do our best.

We never know when these angels come into our lives. But when they do come in, hold on to them, for they are special people. And don't ever let them go.

And if we do see angels in others, when we do truly appreciate how they have helped us, then we should take some of that inspiration, some of that angel dust, and use it to be angels for others. Because that is how we can make earth a little more like heaven. By being angels and climbing that ladder.

May we all be a little more angelic in our lives, and in the process help others to fulfill their potential to be more angel-like as well. In other words, may we all be touched by an angel.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

A Serious Man - A Serious Thought

I want to bring up one aspect of the new Coen Brothers movie "A Serious Man."

I personally liked it. The friends I saw it with liked it. My wife hated it. I know many rabbis who loved it and many who also hated it.

It was that kind of movie that evoked such visceral reactions and emotions.

I don't want to give away anything about the movie for those of you who haven't seen it yet, but I want to highlight one particular aspect of the movie.

You see in this movie, when the protagonist, a Jewish man named Larry, has problems with his life, he turns to his Jewish faith and he seeks out spiritual guidance from his rabbi.

And what does his rabbi say?

"These questions that are bothering you, Larry, maybe they're like a toothache. We feel them for a while, then they go away."

Larry responds, "I don't want it to just go away! I want an answer!"

To which the rabbi responds - "The answer! Sure! We all want the answer! But Hashem doesn't owe us the answer, Larry. Hashem doesn't owe us anything. The obligation runs the other way.

Larry - "Why does he make us feel the questions if he's not gonna give us any answers?"

The rabbi smiles at Larry and says "He hasn't told me."

Now in the context of the entire movie, this bit of dialogue might not get noticed. But I believe that this dialogue might really just be the whole point in our seeking God and seeking answers to our questions.

And that answer sometimes is, we just don't know. God hasn't told us. And besides, who are we to think that God owes us any answers in the first place.

We don't know what life has in store for us and we don't know what God's master plan for us is.

But I also believe that the rabbi did share an important piece of wisdom with Larry. He said "the obligation runs the other way."

In other words, instead of blaming God for not getting back to us, we should rather focus on our own lives and figure out what we owe God.

Because if we take the attitude that we owe so much to God, that we should be grateful to God and yet not expect anything from him, then maybe, as I've said a few times this week in my classes, then maybe, by just being good and moral and ethical, God will answer us, he will give us that new bicycle for Christmas!!

But the bottom line here is that everyone has trouble in life. Not just Larry. Not just bad people. Not just people who don't believe in God. But good people, God-fearing people, observant people, all people, have troubles in their lives.

Even Rebecca had trouble with her children and family, as did Abraham, Jacob, and yes, even Moses and King David.

So who are we to say that we shouldn't have any trouble in our lives?

The question is how do we react when we face those troubles. How do we deal with these problems?

Do we turn to God and to our faith, or do we run away from it?

Hopefully, it's the former.

But this is what I believe to be true. We must always continue to seek God. We must always continue to seek his hand in the solutions to life's problem. But whether you seek these solutions from a rabbi or from some other source, remember that even if you don't get the answer you want, or even if you don't get any answer for that matter, by seeking, by continuing to search, you are saying, loud and clear, that you still want the answer, that you are still willing to look for it, and that you are still open to the possibility that there is an answer out there.

It means that you haven't lost faith. It means that despite everything, you still have faith in God.

And that is why we must always keep searching for these answers. That is why we must always keep searching for God, even if God or his earthly representatives aren't able to give us the definitive answer, or any answer for that matter.

But I will leave you with this one piece of advice, a starting point on your own search, if you will.

As I quoted earlier, during the movie Larry asks what is perhaps the most important question of all, "why does God make us feel the questions, if he isn't going to give us the answers?"

One answer from the movie is a quote from Rashi, which just might be the best advice we can have in life.

And that is "receive with simplicity everything that happens to you."

May everything that happens to us be for good and for a blessing. But if not, then let us learn to receive the bad not only with simplicity, but with faith in God that it will ultimately turn out for the best.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Good!

I have a friend who is an actuary for a large insurance company. She was working on a 63 page memo for work and needed information from another actuary. So she asked this other actuary how the company had done on a specific mortality assumption.

His answer was straightforward. "Good."

Now we might understand that word and need no further elaboration. But in a world of statistics, risk ratios and probabilities, "good" needs to be quantified. How much is good? 10% better than we expected, 25%; 50%, 75%? We don't know.

In life too, we often use the term good. And we think we know what it means. But if you say you are having a "good" day or someone has a "good" life, what does that really mean?

Take Abraham for example, who along with his wife Sarah dies this in this week's parasha. Did Abraham have a "good" life?

The Torah tells us that Abraham was old, advanced in years and God had blessed him with everything. And later on it tells us that Abraham lived to a "good" old age. But the point the Torah is trying to make is that unlike in the actuarial field, we don't really have to quantify what a good life is. We know it not by math, but by our actions and what we leave to others.

That is why the Torah tells us that Abraham lived a good life only after he made sure that his affairs were taken care of. It means that Abraham made sure that Isaac had found a wife, that he had given the children of his pilegeshes, his concubines, some gifts before sending them away, and that he had prepared a Will which left everything he had to Isaac, his long awaited and beloved son. Having done all that, Abraham can say "mission accomplished," and that indeed life had been "good."

That is certainly one way to define "good." It's not mathematically or statistically quantifiable. But it's something we know and feel, and something we may not even realize until we're gone.

That is why you should read the story entitled "Saga of a Muslim Soldier, which is quite interesting on so many levels and can be found here in the Fall edition of Reform Judaism magazine http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1508.

After reading Mr. Hill's story, tell me. Who has led a "good" life?

Can we say that the old rabbi led a "good" life? Can we say that Mr. Al Amin has led a "good" life? He certainly has led an interesting life.

But I can tell you this.

Abraham is said to have led a "good" life because of the influence he has had on others, because his son Isaac followed in his footsteps and kept up the family tradition.

So again I ask you, can we really quantify what we mean when we say "good."

Being "good," doing "good," having a "good life," and living to a "good" old age are not things that we can mathematically or statistically quantify or describe. But remember that "good" is something we know and feel and something we may not even realize until we're gone.

To paraphrase the words in The Prayer for Our Country, "may we all be an influence for good throughout the world."