A few years ago I watched every episode of an excellent Israeli TV series about modern-Orthodox "30 - somethings" called S’rugim. S’rugim refers to the kippa s’ruga, the crocheted kippa that, for many, has grown to serve as a symbol for this community.
I thought it was a compelling show. The characters were appealing but also at times frustratingly self-absorbed.
Deanna stopped watching after season 2 and I continued. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I went downstairs and binge watched through to the end of the third and final season.
One of the main characters is named Hodaya.
She grew up in an observant home, daughter of a rabbi. Of all of the characters, she departs the most from her observant upbringing.
She is also probably the least satisfied of all of her friends. She is brilliant, creative - perhaps in some ways the most gifted of all of her friends - and yet she never seems to be satisfied.
It first occurred to me this past week - as I was preparing to speak - the irony of her character given her name.
Her name - Hodaya - means gratitude in Hebrew. Thanksgiving, actually.
And she appears almost constitutionally incapable of being thankful.
Many people will say that gratitude is a feeling.
To some degree it is. But I want to suggest - on this Shabbat immediately following the American holiday of Thanksgiving - that gratitude is primarily a choice. We choose to be grateful or not. We choose to what extent we focus on saying “thank you” for the good things in our lives and to what extent we focus on everything that is wrong or tense or problematic in our lives.
Last Tuesday night the Central Student Government at the University of Michigan voted in favor of a divestment resolution targeting Israel. The vote was 23 in favor, 17 opposed, 5 abstaining.
The vote has no bearing on the University’s policies. The University of Michigan in the past has roundly opposed divestment resolutions and in all likelihood will oppose this one. But it's quite disturbing nonetheless.
I want to affirm today what I’ve said all along. When it comes to how students relate to Israel, understand Israel, and advocate for fair treatment of Israel, the best thing we can do is educate them as deeply as possible about Israel, the Palestinians, the peace process and the larger Middle Eastern context.
That does not mean presenting Israel as completely virtuous and without flaw. To the contrary, efforts to educate high school students this way often backfire. The students get to college, realize it’s not so simple, and then feel that they have been misled by their teachers and rabbis.
What's called for is an approach that the educational institution Makor calls "high resolution." High resolution means knowing as much as possible in as deep a way as possible.
I want to take us to three places. The family drama of Esau and Jacob. The approach of an Israeli thought-leader who understands high resolution. And back to the college campus.
Rabbi Schweber and I attended an unusual performance last week at the Sid Jacobson JCC.
The performers are not professional actors but they all have two things in common. They are all recovering addicts. And they all participated in an unusual residential recovery program called Beit T'Shuvah. I say it’s unusual because Beit T'Shuvah, in addition to using psychotherapy, creative arts and 12-steps, also mines Jewish tradition as a source of therapeutic healing. Most recovery programs that have a religious bent are Christian, so this sets Beit T'Shuva apart.
Scene from Freedom Song
The performance we saw is called Freedom Song. It features a split stage. On one side of the stage, a family is having a passover seder. One of the children, a young adult whose addiction caused pain to her family and was estranged from them for several years, walks in during the middle of the Seder.
On the other side of the stage, a 12-step meeting is taking place and tension emerges between a woman and her husband, whose addiction has caused severe strain on their marriage.
The performance explores the causes and effects of addiction, not just on the addicts themselves, but on their family and friends.
At the end of the performance, Rabbi Mark Borovitz, co-founder of Beit Teshuva, spoke to the audience and answered questions. A recovering addict himself, he said that one thing which addicts have in common with one another is that they have what he calls a “hole in the soul.” Something missing, or wounded, deep in the soul.
Addictive behaviors and substance abuse are complicated, involving emotional, chemical and social components. One key element, Rabbi Borovitz emphasized repeatedly, is the “hole in the soul,” a hole that addicts will try, unsuccessfully, to fill with behaviors and substances that are harmful.
I want to talk this morning about the hole in the soul. It’s a difficult topic. It’s easier to avoid than to face head on, but avoiding it comes at a great cost. Many people sense holes in their souls - not just addicts. In fact, I venture to say that just about everyone feels it at some point. A pain so raw that you don’t quite know what to do with it.
My father’s retirement required him to reinvent himself. He no longer had a job that he needed to get to every weekday at 8 am. He had newfound time on his hands. I’ll say more about how he managed this later.
To reinvent is to re-create, to forge a new approach to something. Charles Darwin explored this in the natural world as something that is random, unintentional. As an example, a mutation causes certain animals, over millennia, to develop long necks and those long-necked animals who live in places with tall trees have an advantage which lets them survive. The mutation “reinvents” the animal and, given a felicitous set of circumstances, the animal is then poised for an increased chance at survival.
But we can also recognize intentional reinvention, especially among humans, reinvention of a religion tradition, reinvention of an institution, reinvention of a person. Without reinvention, things stop in their tracks. With reinvention, continuity is possible.
A few weeks ago I confessed that I missed the solar eclipse completely. Now there’s a bigger crowd so I’ll expand my confession. Unlike so many people, I didn’t arrange to be in the path of totality. I didn’t pay $1000 to rent a small room in Wyoming. Worse than that – even just staying here in Great Neck, I didn’t get my act together. I didn’t buy the right sunglasses. Many people ordered them in advance and I didn’t. I thought about it but in the end I didn’t order them.
So when the big day came, I realized I would miss the eclipse. During the brief moments when you could look up and see the eclipse if you had proper eyewear, I walked from my house to the synagogue. I was so afraid of damaging my eyesight that I looked down the whole time. So there was a major cosmic event going on and I was looking at my feet and hearing the voice of my mother saying, "Don't look up!" Feel free to interpret that however you wish.
Maybe it was important to see the eclipse, maybe not. I don’t need to spend any more time on that right now.
But I do want to share with you, to invite you into, an exploration of what significant things we might be missing in our own lives. And why.
Roughly 10 years ago I was sitting at our dining room table, opposite Deanna, working on some project, and the phone rang. It was one of our son’s high school teachers. He said, “Hi Mr. Stecker. It’s Mr. So-and-so, your son’s teacher.” I said, “Hi Mr. So-and-so. So nice to hear from you.”
He said, “I want you to know that your son is a really great guy, Mr. Stecker.” I said, “Thanks, Mr. So-and-so.” He went on, “But the thing is, Mr. Stecker…there are a bunch of assignments that he didn’t hand in. And if he doesn’t get them in, it’s definitely going to affect his final grade. So hopefully you and Mrs. Stecker can talk to him and encourage him. Remember I’m here to help.” We discussed some of the details and then he said, “It’s been great talking to you, Mr. Stecker. I’m so glad that we can partner with each other to ensure the best educational outcomes for your son.”
And I said, “Thanks, Mr. So-and-so. I too am glad that we can partner together.”
I got off the phone. I summarized the conversation to Deanna and I said, “You know, this is frustrating. But let’s look on the bright side. If our son keeps going in this direction, we’ll be able to save a whole lot of college tuition.” And then I said a few more things that of course I shouldn’t have said.
At that point I heard a voice from the kitchen, which is right next to the dining room. “Thanks a lot, Abba.”
It was our son. It seems he had heard what I said. I felt terrible. I walked into the kitchen and apologized. I told him how much I love him, how much I regret what I said, how much faith I have in him. But of course, I couldn’t take back the words.
At that moment I understood something that I want to reflect on this morning for all of us. I understood that I have more power than I realize. We all have more power than we realize. Power to do harm. And also to do good.
It’s reassuring to think that there’s rhyme and reason in the world.
We do the right thing and good things happen. You study and you do you well. You work hard and you make a good living. That’s reassuring.
Of course we know it doesn’t always work that way. It's not news that the world is often a mess. We’ve always struggled with – on the one hand, wanting there to be rhyme and reason and order and on the other hand, realizing that often there is not.
I'd like to reflect on what we need to do when we face the gap between life as it is and life as we expect it to be. How do we respond to this gap?
