A few years ago, Rabbi
Adelson and I led a series of discussions in the home of members of our congregation
having to do with parenting.
We had over forty people
there who had children ranging in age from infancy to adulthood.
During the first discussion, we asked the question, what
qualities do you want to encourage in your children?
And we made a list.
The qualities included: Compassion. Honesty.
And one that I want to focus on because it sounds great,
but it’s complicated.
Everyone agreed that they
want to raise children who are resilient.
This morning, on the holiday in which we celebrate the centrality of the
Torah in our lives and moments before we recall our loved ones who are no
longer with us, I want to talk about resilience.
The popular magazine
Psychology Today offers the following definition of resilience:
"Resilience is that
ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come
back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain
their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes. Psychologists have
identified some of the factors that make someone resilient, among them a
positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability
to see failure as a form of helpful feedback. Even after a misfortune, blessed
with such an outlook, resilient people are able to change course and soldier
on."
I want to speak about us as
individuals, I want to regard us in the context of our tradition, which exemplifies resilience, and then I want to challenge us to encourage resilience
in ourselves and in those we love.
I think if we observe people
we know, we will find that some people are naturally more resilient than
others.
Perhaps we don’t often stop
to identify it as such, but our congregation is actually a remarkable showcase
of resilience. In our midst are
people who survived the devastation of Europe during the Shoah and rebuilt
their lives right here in this community. In our midst are people who left Iran
as a regime change made it clear that the future for Jews in Iran would be
severely compromised and established vibrant lives for themselves and their
families. In our midst are people who have buried loved ones – parents,
spouses, siblings and even children – and continued to live lives of meaning
with moments of actual joy. In our
midst are people who live with physical, emotional and financial challenges and
somehow manage, not just to face each day, but to have a positive impact on
others.
The resilience that we see here
as ample precedent in our tradition.
The children of Israel, and later the Jewish people, were generally
pretty adept at responding when things didn’t go quite according to plan.
There are multiple examples, but
I’ll cite two that are related to the day.
In the Book of Ruth, it is Ruth
herself who is distinguished by resilience. In distinction to her sister, Orpah, she returns to Judah
with her mother-in-law following the death of her husband.
She brings this resilience to the
Israelites when she connects her fate with theirs, saying, עמך עמי ואלוהיך אלוהי amech ami velohayich
elohai – your people are my people, your God, my God – and she is the progenitor
of King David who exemplified resilience, sometimes to a fault.
Fast forward to the time of the
rabbis, it was Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai who, facing the destruction of
Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, requested a place on the coast where the
tradition of Torah study could continue and grow, Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai
who comforted his student while the Temple was burning by saying that what God
really wants is our chesed, our lovingkindness, rather than our animal
sacrifices.
Our heroes, in Biblical and
rabbinic times, are not the ones who get everything right. They are the ones who know how to
regroup when things are going spectacularly wrong.
I’m a little bit afraid that the
legacy of resilience that we bear, as a people and as individuals, a legacy
strengthened by those like Ruth who have joined our people throughout the Millennia,
is in danger of becoming diluted.
I’m afraid that we are in danger
of providing the next generation with so much hovering support that we’re
depriving them of the hard-won lesson and legacy of resilience.
Perhaps there’s a fine line
between guiding and hovering, between supporting and engulfing, but sometimes
I’ve crossed that line with my own family and I know I’m not alone.
Many will say, life throws us
enough curve balls, we don’t need to throw additional ones. To which I say, sure. But if we are overprotective, then the
slightest curve ball will wreak havoc.
The right balance, the point
before guidance becomes control, is the balance we need to seek.
Above all, we need to acknowledge
the value of resilience. It helps
us navigate the circumstances we are given, to align the details of our reality
with our larger aspirations.
More important than praying for a
life without pain or disappointment, we should learn, from one another, and
from those who have lived before us, what to do with life’s inevitable pain and
disappointment.
In Biblical Israel, in rabbinic
Judea, in Vilna, in Baghdad, in Kashan, in Great Neck, we’ve shown resilience
and we continue to show resilience.
In addition to connecting us with
a broad religious tradition, our resilience also connects us with humanity.
Last Shabbat, I mentioned a
speech given by the poet Maya Angelou on the occasion of the birthday of her
friend, Andrew Young.
Maya Angelou wrote movingly about
the power of resilience. We may be
able to relate to some of her experiences and not to others, but the power of
resilience as she invokes it is, I believe, universally inspirational. I want to share one of her most
well-known poems which I hope will have some resonance with each of us.
Still I Rise - Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise I rise I rise.
In
these moments before yizkor, we remember loved ones who experienced a full
range of achievement and disappointment, pleasure and pain.
I
ask us right now to consider the moments when they charted a new course in
response to disappointment.
I
ask us to think about times in our own lives when we, in keeping with their example, fielded the
situations we were actually handed, rather than the situations we wished we had been
handed.
I
ask us to try to trace, if we can, a legacy of resilience – maybe strong at
times, maybe feint at times.
This
is our legacy as Jews and as human beings. We bring our own ancestors’ gifts. From disappointments and pain large and small, directly
experienced and borne through our people, we rise again and again.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on Shavuot, prior to Yizkor, June 5, 2014.
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