Post by Rabbi Neil on Jan 6, 2023 21:16:20 GMT
In the past, I had very little time for books of fiction. If I could get most of the story in two hours on a cinema screen, with much greater special effects than I could create in my head, I always thought it was much better than sitting down and reading fiction for an extended period. The one exception to that during childhood was Biggles, the story of an English World War I pilot, possibly because there isn’t much that you need to imagine with one man having dogfights in a Sopwith Camel over enemy territory.
That changed when Rabbi Jenny suggested that I read Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. For those who don’t know, Northern Lights is the first in a trilogy of books about a world that is similar but slightly different to ours. They turned the first book, Northern Lights, into a movie which was so bad that they never finished the trilogy of movies. Now, having learned their lesson, it’s apparently an entire series on Netflix.
Northern Lights is about a girl called Lyra in a world very similar, but slightly different, to ours. For example, everyone in the world is accompanied by a daemon. Not demon, as in a big, red creature with horns, but d-a-e-m-o-n. I remember that for the first fifty or sixty pages, I was quite unmoved by the story. I found it childish and not very engaging, but then something interesting happened. I can’t tell you what, of course, because then it’ll ruin the surprise for Asher if he reads it before we watch the TV show, but there was such a plot twist that I was simply drawn in.
Along with the excitement that came with the plot twist, something else was happening at that point in the book. We were beginning to understand a little bit more about the relationship between individuals and their daemons. The daemon changes shape depending on the mood or thoughts of the child. So, for example, Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon takes the shape of a panther when she is angry, or a moth when she wants to hide. The daemon is, in some sense, the outer expression of the individual, but there is more than that - the daemon can express something that the individual can’t. For example, when Lyra feels rather trapped on a boat, her daemon Pantalaimon turns into a seagull, leaping into the air with a loud caw of delight, wheeling, skimming and darting ahead of the boat, and Lyra exults in it, feeling with him as he flies.
The idea of the daemon who externally expresses the self is fascinating to me. If everyone had their own daemon as Pullman envisages, then everyone could be a good judge of character, since you could simply see who the person facing you truly is. You see, when someone grows up, the daemon settles into one shape, in much the same way as when we grow up our character stays fairly similar. Lyra asks a very interesting question to one sailor, whose daemon is a seagull – “Suppose your daemon settles in a shape you don’t like?” The answer is simple, although I’m not going to do the accent that the text suggests: “You’re disconnected, en’t you? There’s plenty of folk as’d like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they’re going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is.”
There is one final part of the relationship between a person and their daemon, which is that they can never be too far away. In one instance, Pantalaimon tests the distance which they can be apart. With Lyra stationary, he pulls and pulls, and Lyra screams in intense longing and despair.
Now, this week’s sidrah 35 years ago was my bar mitzvah sidrah, and Jacob’s deathbed scene was somewhat of a mystery to me for over many years. As a teenager, I found myself wondering, how can Jacob summarise each of his children in such short sentences? How does he reduce their character to so little? But thanks to Lyra and Pantalaimon, I found an answer. A person cannot be long separated from their true identity. We cannot run from who we are, and while we can improve ourselves, our nature and nurture instinctively lean us toward certain behaviour. To continue to run away from our true selves causes only pain and longing.
But so many people walk around disconnected from their true selves that they might indeed think they are lions rather than poodles. It’s an interesting question to ask yourself which animal might best represent you, and then ask someone else whom you believe knows you well which animal they think best represents you. Do the two answers match up? If not, why not?
In this week’s Torah portion, Jacob does what Pullman imagines. He knows his children so well that he can see the very essence of their being. Some of them he literally describes as creatures, some as geographical features – Judah is a lion’s puppy, Zebulun is a shore for ships, Issachar is a large-boned ass, Dan is a serpent, Naphtali is a released hind, Joseph a fruitful vine, and my bar mitzvah sidrah started with the description that Benjamin is a ravenous wolf.
So, how do we come to know what we are or who we are? There are two possible answers, I think, both of which involve differing but similar modes of self-reflection. In Hebrew, l’hitpalel means to judge oneself, but it also means to pray. Jewish prayer is theoretically the quintessential act of coming to know oneself because we judge ourselves kindly and change ourselves accordingly through prayer. One wonderful prayer that doesn’t appear in Mishkan Tefillah’s morning service, and I honestly don’t know why not, asks the following questions:
What are we?
What is our life?
What is our love?
What is our justice?
What is our success?
What is our endurance?
What is our power?
Our God, and God of our ancestors, what can we say before You?
This is prayer… not just reciting liturgy, but true self-reflection in the eyes of God. Asking the deepest question of ourselves – What am I? What is my life? What is my love? What is my justice? What is my success? What is my endurance? What is my power? That is perhaps the hardest group of questions we can ask ourselves but seems to be something Jacob has mastered of himself and of his children.
These questions do not only have to be asked in prayer. Mussar is a way of Jewish self-reflection. The word mussar appears over fifty times in the Bible, at least half of which occur in the Book of Proverbs, such as the famous verse near the beginning of the book in which we are enjoined “to know wisdom and instruction and to discern the sayings of understanding.” (Prov. 1:2) Mussar developed into virtue-based ethics and the practice of refining our character to become a better person. Medieval scholar Bachya Ibn Pakudah called mussar “the science of the inner life.” It wasn’t until 700 years later that Rabbi Israel Salanter turned mussar from individual practice to its own section in Jewish literature. Salanter felt that concerned by the growth of Reform Judaism as a critique of how stale Judaism had become, and instead offered a different way to reform Judaism, by moving away from rote practices while still remaining in the Orthodox world. Salanter and his followers spoke of every individual having their own unique spiritual challenge, which personalized the struggle against the yetzer hara, the Evil Inclination, for every Jew in their own unique way. In mussar yeshivot, students studied Talmud much less than in other yeshivot and used the extra time to explore their own unique spiritual journeys. After its leaders were almost totally wiped out in the Shoah, mussar has seen an enormous resurgence in the world across all Jewish denominations because of its honest individualized religious journey. How can we use mussar to know ourselves? One mussar text – Cheshbon HaNefesh – suggests that we take an account of ourselves. It asks us to focus on a negative character trait and to count how many times in a day that trait surfaces. By being more mindful of when negative behaviors resurface, we can reduce their appearance. The same applies with positive traits as well, and paying attention to when they appear can help us promote them in the future.
Mussar and prayer are complex, where Jacob’s statements about his children are not. If I were asked to summarize my two children as Jacob does, at a push I probably could but it would be rather reductive. Prayer and mussar don’t seek to reduce us to one-liners – in fact, they seek to reveal to us our wondrous complexity and the unique spiritual and personal challenges that arise from that complexity. Jacob’s brief summaries of his sons can therefore be both admirable and problematic. Apart from the fact that he doesn’t even mention his daughter Dinah, one aspect that is problematic is that Jacob recites his summaries of his sons out loud, which by necessity must immediately influence the relationship that others have with them. But no-one exists in isolation – who we are to one person is often different to who we are with another person. That’s not because we are inauthentic but because relationships are dynamic and because each person brings differing assumptions and emotional history to every different relationship. Jacob speaks in absolutes and where we could see that as admirable because he has truly gained insight into the deepest aspects of his children’s souls, we could also see it as problematic not only in its reductiveness but also in his assumption that who his children are to him is the same as who they are to others.
In the end, all we can hope for is that the person we truly believe ourselves to be is the same as the person whom others experience. With that in mind, let us pray for the understanding to see who we really are, to search our souls and to ask “Who am I?” Let our prayers in this service help reveal who we are to ourselves. Let us pray that we might be honest with ourselves, develop ourselves, and never convince ourselves that we are anything other than our true selves. May such be God’s will, and let us say, Amen.
That changed when Rabbi Jenny suggested that I read Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. For those who don’t know, Northern Lights is the first in a trilogy of books about a world that is similar but slightly different to ours. They turned the first book, Northern Lights, into a movie which was so bad that they never finished the trilogy of movies. Now, having learned their lesson, it’s apparently an entire series on Netflix.
Northern Lights is about a girl called Lyra in a world very similar, but slightly different, to ours. For example, everyone in the world is accompanied by a daemon. Not demon, as in a big, red creature with horns, but d-a-e-m-o-n. I remember that for the first fifty or sixty pages, I was quite unmoved by the story. I found it childish and not very engaging, but then something interesting happened. I can’t tell you what, of course, because then it’ll ruin the surprise for Asher if he reads it before we watch the TV show, but there was such a plot twist that I was simply drawn in.
Along with the excitement that came with the plot twist, something else was happening at that point in the book. We were beginning to understand a little bit more about the relationship between individuals and their daemons. The daemon changes shape depending on the mood or thoughts of the child. So, for example, Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon takes the shape of a panther when she is angry, or a moth when she wants to hide. The daemon is, in some sense, the outer expression of the individual, but there is more than that - the daemon can express something that the individual can’t. For example, when Lyra feels rather trapped on a boat, her daemon Pantalaimon turns into a seagull, leaping into the air with a loud caw of delight, wheeling, skimming and darting ahead of the boat, and Lyra exults in it, feeling with him as he flies.
The idea of the daemon who externally expresses the self is fascinating to me. If everyone had their own daemon as Pullman envisages, then everyone could be a good judge of character, since you could simply see who the person facing you truly is. You see, when someone grows up, the daemon settles into one shape, in much the same way as when we grow up our character stays fairly similar. Lyra asks a very interesting question to one sailor, whose daemon is a seagull – “Suppose your daemon settles in a shape you don’t like?” The answer is simple, although I’m not going to do the accent that the text suggests: “You’re disconnected, en’t you? There’s plenty of folk as’d like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they’re going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is.”
There is one final part of the relationship between a person and their daemon, which is that they can never be too far away. In one instance, Pantalaimon tests the distance which they can be apart. With Lyra stationary, he pulls and pulls, and Lyra screams in intense longing and despair.
Now, this week’s sidrah 35 years ago was my bar mitzvah sidrah, and Jacob’s deathbed scene was somewhat of a mystery to me for over many years. As a teenager, I found myself wondering, how can Jacob summarise each of his children in such short sentences? How does he reduce their character to so little? But thanks to Lyra and Pantalaimon, I found an answer. A person cannot be long separated from their true identity. We cannot run from who we are, and while we can improve ourselves, our nature and nurture instinctively lean us toward certain behaviour. To continue to run away from our true selves causes only pain and longing.
But so many people walk around disconnected from their true selves that they might indeed think they are lions rather than poodles. It’s an interesting question to ask yourself which animal might best represent you, and then ask someone else whom you believe knows you well which animal they think best represents you. Do the two answers match up? If not, why not?
In this week’s Torah portion, Jacob does what Pullman imagines. He knows his children so well that he can see the very essence of their being. Some of them he literally describes as creatures, some as geographical features – Judah is a lion’s puppy, Zebulun is a shore for ships, Issachar is a large-boned ass, Dan is a serpent, Naphtali is a released hind, Joseph a fruitful vine, and my bar mitzvah sidrah started with the description that Benjamin is a ravenous wolf.
So, how do we come to know what we are or who we are? There are two possible answers, I think, both of which involve differing but similar modes of self-reflection. In Hebrew, l’hitpalel means to judge oneself, but it also means to pray. Jewish prayer is theoretically the quintessential act of coming to know oneself because we judge ourselves kindly and change ourselves accordingly through prayer. One wonderful prayer that doesn’t appear in Mishkan Tefillah’s morning service, and I honestly don’t know why not, asks the following questions:
What are we?
What is our life?
What is our love?
What is our justice?
What is our success?
What is our endurance?
What is our power?
Our God, and God of our ancestors, what can we say before You?
This is prayer… not just reciting liturgy, but true self-reflection in the eyes of God. Asking the deepest question of ourselves – What am I? What is my life? What is my love? What is my justice? What is my success? What is my endurance? What is my power? That is perhaps the hardest group of questions we can ask ourselves but seems to be something Jacob has mastered of himself and of his children.
These questions do not only have to be asked in prayer. Mussar is a way of Jewish self-reflection. The word mussar appears over fifty times in the Bible, at least half of which occur in the Book of Proverbs, such as the famous verse near the beginning of the book in which we are enjoined “to know wisdom and instruction and to discern the sayings of understanding.” (Prov. 1:2) Mussar developed into virtue-based ethics and the practice of refining our character to become a better person. Medieval scholar Bachya Ibn Pakudah called mussar “the science of the inner life.” It wasn’t until 700 years later that Rabbi Israel Salanter turned mussar from individual practice to its own section in Jewish literature. Salanter felt that concerned by the growth of Reform Judaism as a critique of how stale Judaism had become, and instead offered a different way to reform Judaism, by moving away from rote practices while still remaining in the Orthodox world. Salanter and his followers spoke of every individual having their own unique spiritual challenge, which personalized the struggle against the yetzer hara, the Evil Inclination, for every Jew in their own unique way. In mussar yeshivot, students studied Talmud much less than in other yeshivot and used the extra time to explore their own unique spiritual journeys. After its leaders were almost totally wiped out in the Shoah, mussar has seen an enormous resurgence in the world across all Jewish denominations because of its honest individualized religious journey. How can we use mussar to know ourselves? One mussar text – Cheshbon HaNefesh – suggests that we take an account of ourselves. It asks us to focus on a negative character trait and to count how many times in a day that trait surfaces. By being more mindful of when negative behaviors resurface, we can reduce their appearance. The same applies with positive traits as well, and paying attention to when they appear can help us promote them in the future.
Mussar and prayer are complex, where Jacob’s statements about his children are not. If I were asked to summarize my two children as Jacob does, at a push I probably could but it would be rather reductive. Prayer and mussar don’t seek to reduce us to one-liners – in fact, they seek to reveal to us our wondrous complexity and the unique spiritual and personal challenges that arise from that complexity. Jacob’s brief summaries of his sons can therefore be both admirable and problematic. Apart from the fact that he doesn’t even mention his daughter Dinah, one aspect that is problematic is that Jacob recites his summaries of his sons out loud, which by necessity must immediately influence the relationship that others have with them. But no-one exists in isolation – who we are to one person is often different to who we are with another person. That’s not because we are inauthentic but because relationships are dynamic and because each person brings differing assumptions and emotional history to every different relationship. Jacob speaks in absolutes and where we could see that as admirable because he has truly gained insight into the deepest aspects of his children’s souls, we could also see it as problematic not only in its reductiveness but also in his assumption that who his children are to him is the same as who they are to others.
In the end, all we can hope for is that the person we truly believe ourselves to be is the same as the person whom others experience. With that in mind, let us pray for the understanding to see who we really are, to search our souls and to ask “Who am I?” Let our prayers in this service help reveal who we are to ourselves. Let us pray that we might be honest with ourselves, develop ourselves, and never convince ourselves that we are anything other than our true selves. May such be God’s will, and let us say, Amen.