I have a friend on Facebook who is, shall we say, a bit of a curmudgeon. Maybe you have friends like this to, on social media, or in real life.
He often posts stuff about the futility of life — some of which is funny, some of which is depressing. But the other day he posted something that was downright intriguing.
It was a picture of a marquee type of sign — you know, the kind in front of a convenience store or a church, with plastic black letters against a white backdrop.
The sign contained all of five words, with no punctuation. Read from left to right, the words formed the sentence: “You don’t matter, give up.” But read from top to bottom and then left to right, the words can be read in a different order.
They now say, “You matter, don’t give up.” The point of the meme, like the point of the sign, is that they’re both plausible readings.
On one level, the sign is funny. It’s reminiscent of the joke about two yeshiva students, Yankel and Shmuel, who take a break from their Talmud study to go for a hike.
As they do so, they stumble onto a lake. There’s a sign in front of it. Yankel reads the sign. Private property, no swimming allowed, and he begins to move on.
But Shmuel starts taking off his clothes, as though he’s about to go swimming. “Shmuel,” cries Yankel, “What are you doing?” Shmuel, experienced Talmud student that he is, recognizes a page of text without punctuation when he sees it. “Yankel,” he says, “Just read the sign! It says, ‘Private property? No! Swimming allowed.’” Classic.
Back to my curmudgeonly friend’s sign: Yes, on one level, it’s cute. On another level, though, it’s profound.
As the caption to the photo he shared put it, “This is all of philosophy summarized in five words.” So much of life is about discerning which things really matter, and therefore deserve our sustained effort, and which things don’t, and should therefore be set aside.
And on the most existential level, we ourselves can oscillate between these poles. As the great Hasidic master Reb Simcha Bunim of Peshischa said, we should always walk around with a slip of paper in each pocket.
On one slip it says, “The world was created for me,” but on the other is written, “I am but dust and ashes.” Holding that paradox — embracing these two contradictory truths simultaneously — that’s the work of a life well-lived.
Easier said than done, of course. And I want to get real here for a minute. Or, as my rebbe, Rabbi Avi Weiss used to put it, “I’m going to speak to myself and let you listen.”
Right now I feel like there are a lot of folks who are really feeling like the more nihilistic reading of the sign, “You don’t matter, give up,” is the correct reading.
There’s a lot of despair — about war and suffering, about the crumbling of institutions, about the ability of democracy to function, about the climate and the future of the planet.
There are forces that feel so enormous — nations and armies, giant corporations, billion dollar political campaigns, not to mention literal forces of nature.
We, in comparison, feel so tiny. It feels like “You don’t matter,” so “give up.” The world is irredeemably lost. Screw it. Despair.
I’m not here to give a pep talk or to ask you to go out there and win one for the Gipper. That’s not how we roll on Soulful Jewish Living.
As always, my approach, our approach, is to acknowledge the reality of those feelings. That sadness, that frustration, that resignation — if you’re feeling those feelings, the feelings are real, and it would be the height of dishonesty to paper over them.
And if those feelings are so persistent and so debilitating that you feel like you have no control over them, then you may be suffering from a case of clinical depression. If that’s the case, then I really want to encourage you to find proper mental health support.
What I want to emphasize here, though, is that Jewish tradition explicitly makes room for these feelings–particularly through the holiday of Tisha b’Av, which is coming up in the next week.
Tisha b’Av, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, is the day on which Jewish tradition teaches that many of the most painful events of Jewish history occurred.
It’s a day when, traditionally, we mourn. We fast and sit low on the ground — not on chairs — and are, basically, sad.
We read the book of Lamentations, which in Hebrew is called Eicha, which literally means, “How?” We sit there and lament, “How is it possible that all this brokenness exists in the world? How could it be — that so many suffer? That so many have died? That we’re so miserable? That we feel so powerless?” The tradition invites, even demands of us, that we allow ourselves to feel crappy.
But the day doesn’t stay there. The last line that we read in the book of Lamentations starts us on a path forward: “Return us to you, divine one, and we will return; renew our days as of old.”
After we allow ourselves to feel the depths of our despair, we shift our focus to teshuva, to return and renewal.
Even in the midst of feeling helpless and powerless, feeling like we don’t matter and we should give up, we remind ourselves of the other reading: You matter, so don’t give up.
That road to renewal, to freedom, to liberation and goodness — it may be a long road. But it’s there, and we can travel it together.
I think this practice is so vitally important for the times we live in. Those forces I talked about — yeah, they’re huge.
Yes, there’s a lot to be anxious and worried and even despondent about. And: Jewish history is nothing if not story after story of the spiritual resilience and dedication of a small group of people over centuries and millennia.
We have such deep spiritual roots — and there is enormous strength in those roots. Our spiritual ancestors are calling to us: We’re here for you. We’ve got your back. Whatever you’re facing, we’re with you.
That’s all great, Josh, you say. But I need something practical to help me feel it. Cool. I got you. Here’s a simple meditation practice I hope can help.
Assume a meditation posture. Awake, but relaxed. Or, relaxed but awake. Dignified — because you are dignified.
However you’re positioned, allow yourself to be aware of how you’re supported right now — by your body, by a chair or a cushion, by the earth. See if you can be aware of your weight extending down into the earth, like strong tree roots tapping deep into the soil. You are a tree.
Bring your attention to your breath.
Be aware when you’re breathing in that you’re breathing in, and when you’re breathing out that you’re breathing out.
And make an intention, a kavvana, to remain aware of that–breathing in, breathing out.
What is liable to happen after a little while is that your mind will wander — to your to-do list, to something else on your mind.
And when that happens, you have a moment: You can decide, I’m a crappy meditator. Screw it, this doesn’t matter anyway.
And you can think about your to-do list. Or you can decide, you know what? I want to try again. It does matter. I want to come back to my kavvana, my intention.
It’s your choice: Give up, despair; or return and start again. You decide.
The opportunity in that moment is to choose to come back — with compassion for yourself (you aren’t a bad meditator; you already have an A+ in meditation).
And that coming back? That’s teshuva, returning to our intentions, getting back up and starting again.
It starts with the breath.
It starts with our intention and attention.
It starts with our compassion.
When you’re ready, if your eyes have been closed, I invite you to open them gently and look around. Notice how you feel. Hopefully a little bit better than you did a few minutes ago.
This practice — this return to the breaths of our spiritual ancestors — it’s always available to us. And at a time when there is a lot of despair, I think it can be so important and so helpful for many of us.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.