Reflection is Not a Luxury

My colleague and friend, Rabbi Jonathan Spira Savett, got wide and well-deserved recognition for asking a question of one of the presidential candidates at a town hall meeting before the primary in New Hampshire. 

He asked Hillary Clinton how she balances confidence and humility as a leader.

Without getting into the substance of Clinton’s response, it is clear that she used the question as an opportunity for reflection.  She shared insights into the dynamics of leadership that she probably would not have shared, had she not been asked the question.

I want to discuss possibilities and ultimate value of being reflective about ourselves – not just in professional settings, but personally as well.  Without opportunities to reflect, we are far more likely to feel depleted and to suffer burnout.

I'd like to look at Moses’s life for insight into the dynamics of reflection and to suggest ways that a community ought to encourage helpful reflection for people of all ages with special emphasis on teenagers, who desperately need healthy opportunities to reflect.

Following several years of leading the people, Moses spends 40 days and nights on the mountain to receive God’s word.

He is not, however, merely the passive recipient of God’s revelation – he also asks questions.  He implores God, Show me your ways – הודיעני נא א דרכיך hodi'eini na et derakhekha.  Show me your essence.  הראיני נא את כבודיך Har'eini na et k'vodecha.  The Torah records a back and forth between Moses and God as Moses tries to understand God's character and purpose and, by extension, his own.

If we take a step back and look at Moses’s life, we see that he alternates between interaction with the people and separation from the people, for the purpose or revelation, reflection or both.

He grows up in Pharoah’s palace and then he goes out to his brothers and sisters, ויצא אל אחיו vayetzei el echav.  He experiences God’s presence while alone at the burning bush and then heads down to Egypt.  He leads the people out of Egypt and then he spends an extended period up on a mountain trying to understand God’s mystery.  He wanders with the people for 40 years and then climbs to the top of a different mountain to look out at the land he will never enter and to prepare for his death.

Moses’s life is a dance of engagement and reflection.  You could say that some of his reflection time removed him a bit too much from the people – in this morning’s reading, the Israelites say זה משה האיש אשר העלנו מארץ מצרים לא ידענו מה היה לו ze moshe ha’ish asher he’elanu me’eretz miztrayim lo yadanu meh haya lo – we don’t know what happen to this guy Moses who led us out of Egypt!  Perhaps 40 days was too long, perhaps the people perceived him to be distant even before he ascended the mountain.

But the model – of engagement and reflection – or, of what one of my teachers referred to as modulating between the dance floor and the balcony – is a helpful one – and I want to explore it in a few realms.

Much has been written and filmed about the extraordinary stresses that teenagers are under.  Recently, the community of Palo Alto, California, experienced a spate of several teen suicides.  ABC News aired a segment with interviews of several students from that community who described the profound pressure that students are under to succeed in every way.

The segment included an interview with Dr. Maddy Gould, Temple Israel member and officer, who serves as Professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.  Maddy’s research into youth suicide risk and preventive interventions has helped to lay the groundwork for the development of numerous state and national suicide prevention programs.

Maddy spoke in the segment about why teens are especially vulnerable in a variety of ways – vulnerable to life’s stresses and vulnerable to being influenced by the tragic actions of their peers.  She pointed out that teen vulnerability cuts across ethnic and socio-economic lines.

It’s very hard for teens to find time on the balcony – time to assess, time to reflect, time to consider the possible consequences of their actions.

But the extent of the pressure that teens confront and the extent of the vulnerability that results demand that adults collaborate with teens to create multiple opportunities for teen reflection to occur individually and in groups.

Our Youth House program, under the direction of Danny Mishkin, deliberately and thoughtfully offers several opportunities for teens to reflect on their lives in a safe space infused with Jewish values.

These include our monthly Rosh Hodesh programs that allow boys and girls to discuss goals, pressures and relationships with reference to relevant Jewish wisdom.

An innovative and deeply effective opportunity is the Sababa Surf Camp program that enables teens to learn new skills like surfing and meditation all in a Jewish context, all with the intention of helping them discover their true value and potential that can’t be measured by grades and scores.

The great thing about these programs and others is that they don’t isolate our teens.  Whatever they do, they are doing with their peers.  They are growing in multiple ways and learning about themselves in connection with one another. 

Adults need this too.  We can’t just produce and produce without having opportunities to reflect and renew.  The first step – which is not so easy - is to understand when we are being depleted at work or at home. 

I sat with a group of rabbis a few months ago to discuss the danger of burnout.  The person leading the group gave us a survey to fill out, rating from 1 to 5 the pleasure we derive from certain professional and personal activities.

He asked one question which I initially thought was odd but realized is extremely insightful.  He asked us to look at our sense of humor and to rate it on a scale from 1 to 5, cynical to joyful.  Is our humor mostly sarcastic, focusing on putdowns or others’ misfortunes, or is it mostly upbeat, embracing life’s kookiness with a certain pleasure?   The lower the number, the greater the likelihood of burnout.

Whether all alone or in small groups, we benefit from having a place to reflect and renew.  We may find it in guided meditation, a sports game, a religious service, individual or group therapy or other settings or some combination.  But failure to reflect and renew altogether will cost us in some way, at some point.

Use that little litmus test.  If your humor is mostly bitter, if you find it hard to laugh joyously at life’s beauty as well as craziness – then take that as a symptom and try to find a cure.

A few weeks ago I referred to a Kabbalistic teaching, a teaching from the Zohar promulgated by Jewish mystics.

A few of them were gathered together and one mentioned the first verse of a well-known psalm – ממעמקים קראתיך ה׳ mima’amakim keraticha adonai.  Out of the depths I call upon you,  God.

Traditionally “the depths” are understood as a place of torment and suffering.  But a colleague of the one who brought the verse suggested that maybe we can think of the depths as a source of nourishment, the thoughts, experiences, feelings that animate us and make our lives more worth living.

I want to say to all of us, whatever our age, that whether we climb up or dig down, we should try to find the ma’amakim – the sources of nourishment that give us energy and purpose.  We may already know some of them and others may be waiting to be discovered. 

Like Moses, we will not find the answers to all of our questions.  Like Moses, we will continue to be stressed out and to lose our cool.  Like Moses, we will have times when we feel more connected and times when we feel less connected.  But imagine if we would experience, even for a moment, what Moses did when he came down from the mountain – כי קרן אור פניו ki karan or panav.  There was a ray of light shining from his face.  The people noticed it.  It was unmistakable.

אני מאמין באמונה שלמה Ani ma’amin be’emuna shleima – I fully believe that each of us has such a ray of light  - it just gets dimmed or diverted by all of life’s stuff.  What would it take to get that ray of light to shine brightly?  Through the renewal and reflection that we need and deserve, let us each begin to answer that question for ourselves.  

Originally shared at Temple Israel of Great Neck on February 27, 2016