Tuesday, September 11, 2018

It's not about you. Rosh Hashana 5779


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It’s not about you.
Rosh Hashana 5779
September 9, 2018
Temple Beth Jacob of Newburgh
Rabbi Larry Freedman

Once again we gather to begin this journey of ten days.  This is a process we begin, a journey we start that includes celebration and reflection, repentance for the past, goals for the future.  A new year is upon us and that is always an exciting time.  Rosh Hashana begins that journey as we share our excitement of being together as we take the first steps towards reflection and self-awareness so that we can finish in ten days committed to being ever more ethical and upright people.  We begin – once again.
I think one of the reasons we need to go through this annual exercise of reflection is simply because we don’t understand how we are perceived by others.  What I mean is, we don’t get in trouble for the big things.  We aren’t murderers and bank robbers, after all.  We get judged on things smaller, more intimate, more personal.  The challenge is that it’s very hard to recognize those small things.  It’s difficult to be objective for a very simple reason:  we are the center of our world.  The Earth may revolve around the sun but the world revolves around us.  So it seems.  And that is just natural.  Life is a never-ending experience with the world and how we respond.  Alas, because the world revolves around us, and by that I mean when we indulge the idea that the world revolves around us, we run into problems.  So many problems can be traced down to our feelings of hurt, our taking umbrage or just lashing out because the world doesn’t recognize the righteous position of me as the center of the world.  Everything would be better if people would just understand how hurt I am, how unfair everything is to me!  It is easy to see how we can get caught thinking that everything is about you.  But it’s not about you.
Each week in the New York Times, there is a column called Social Q’s by Philip Galanes.  It’s a cross between an advice column and an etiquette lesson.  It seems to me that almost every week there is a pithy answer to a question that could be answered more simply in this way:  it’s not about you.  It’s not about you!
Let me offer an example.  Here’s one from May 3, 2018.
My son is dating a wonderful woman: kind, hard-working, self-made. My husband and I would be thrilled if they married. She grew up in a country where people lick their knives during meals. Although she’s lived here for a decade, she still does this regularly. I’ve never raised the issue with our son; I want to be supportive. But if they marry and have children, their kids will likely pick up this habit from Mom. Our extended families might find fault, as would their children’s friends. How may I broach the subject with this lovely person?
ANNE
Answer:  So, this is about the imaginary friends of children yet to be conceived? (Color me skeptical!) The best-mannered people (somehow) manage to observe differences among us without judgment or comment.  This woman is not your child or mate, to whom you bear some responsibility. Nor do you seem to be her mentor, in which case, we might grapple with whether this knife licking is holding her back. She has simply kept a custom from home. Melting pots are like that: better for chunky stews than silky purées.  If she and your son marry and produce offspring, you will be entitled to express grandparental concern about sharp objects in tiny mouths. But that’s a problem for a far-off day. You’ve done very well to keep quiet about cutlery to date, and I encourage you to keep it up. A supportive mother-in-law trumps a Westernizing etiquette coach every day of the week.

If I were unkind, I would suggest she is really saying, “despite the fact that my son’s girlfriend comes from barbarian stock, it’s astonishing to see how she has civilized herself ; she even is hardworking.  My husband and I would deign to allow her to be part of our ever-civilized family.  It’s just that her barbarity has not completely left her…”
The potential grandmother is worried how this might affect the children’s reputation.  And yet I just can’t get past the need to set my Sunday morning coffee down and shout, “It’s not about you!”  I don’t think she’s concerned for the children’s reputation.  One knife lick in the first grade cafeteria will either get a dressing down from a nervous teacher or friends will be so flabbergasted that the child will stop.  Either way, I think the child’s assimilation into American culture will go forward.  It is the grandmother who has not made her peace.  She plays it like it’s about future children but it’s really about her standing among her family and friends.  She is loathe to have a knife licking barbarian as a grandchild.  Whatever will people think of her?
But it’s not about you.  The answer here is good but further work would require this good woman to be challenged to really consider what is bothering her. No one wants to imagine a child banished to a lonely lunch due to some unusual habit.  But that reasonable concern is blocking the real problem.  She is shifting her discomfort onto someone else instead of being honest and acknowledging what is truly concerning her. More on that to come.
Another one from this past July 19, 2018.
Plus-Ones for Singletons
My housemate and I are single and attending separate weddings where the brides have limited plus-one invitations to guests in serious, long-term relationships. This bothers us. We are close friends with these brides. (Is that why they think they can disregard our feelings?) And the friends we wanted to bring are closer to us than many people in serious relationships. Clearly, it’s the bride’s day. But how many free passes on social gaffes do we give them?
ANONYMOUS
Answer:  You can’t say, “It’s the bride’s day,” then quibble with her rules. In addition to curbing the spiraling costs of letting every guest bring a guest, limiting plus-one invites can increase the intimacy of their wedding. I mean, who wants to get married in front of a bunch of strangers?
Protesting the bride’s plus-one policy to accommodate a close friend suggests that the day is about your happiness, not the couple’s. (And didn’t we agree that it’s the bride’s day?) I realize that long-term partners are imperfect proxies for familiarity with the people getting married. But it’s simple and tends to work. So, I’m ruling: no gaffe here!

I think the answer here is simply, “It’s not about you!”  To me, the most interesting sentence is this:  And the friends we wanted to bring are closer to us than many people in serious relationships.”  I mean, really?  Says who?  Not only is this person getting irritated at the bride not organizing her guest list to the guest’s preference, our guest has the gall to divine the nature of other people’s long term relationships.  Not only does the guest feel the right to bring a date, the guest looks down upon other relationships.  Oy vey.  Let’s say this together:  It’s not about you.
Let me offer a secret to having an easier life.  Don’t invent drama for yourself.  And the corollary to that is, let other people live their life as they see fit.  The bride has a vision of the guest list.  You are a guest and you have one job:  be joyful.  It’s not to question the food or be disappointed by the flowers or redefine her guest list or be snarky about anything at all.  You have one job: get dressed up, be pleasant and cheer on your friend.  That’s it.  Anything else is just drama that you invent.  Honestly.  It’s not about you!
A final one. My favorite.
I am a 36-year-old guy. For the last 10 years, my mom has invited me to Passover Seder. I never go. Religion is not my thing. But this year she didn’t invite me. We had a good talk the day before the dinner, so I don’t think she’s upset. But I heard from a cousin that the Seder went on as usual. I can’t help feeling insulted. What should I do?
NATHANIEL

Answer:  Insulted? If you weren’t 36 (and I didn’t object to corporal punishment), I would recommend a brisk spanking for you, Nathaniel. You haven’t once, apparently, in 10 years, given much thought to your mother’s hurt feelings at your declined Seder invitations. Still, you take offense the one time she forgets to invite you. Let’s acknowledge the sad truth: Your mother, like many, is probably a glutton for filial punishment. You would have been as welcome this year as any.
My suspicion is that the formality of inviting you slipped her mind in the rush of putting together a complex meal for many guests. (It’s not as if you were going to accept the 11th invitation, correct?) But let’s test my hypothesis: Mark your calendar now for next year; make a big show of telling Mom how much you want to attend; then go. Be sure to report back, O.K.?

His mother invites him.  He declines in a rather high-handed manner alerting us all to his clearly superior intellectualism that precludes him from getting involved in something as archaic as religion.  Forgetting the part about family gathering or the food or the family gathering or the nice opportunity for warm relations amongst the family or the food he just declines such things.  For ten years.  For ten years his mother sees all the family gathered round the table except one who refuses to participate.  I don’t think mom forgot to invite him.  I think she got tired of the charade of offering an invitation just to be insulted.  She wized up.  Look, she says, Nathaniel is not coming.  Why invite?  Why prepare?  Why bother to worry if maybe this year he’ll attend?  It’s not his thing.  We’ll see him Memorial Day. 
And yet, he has the chutzpah to be insulted that he didn’t get the chance to blow off the family!  He’s hurt because he couldn’t cavalierly dismiss what others enjoy!  And he heard from a cousin that the seder went off as planned.  Did he think that it wouldn’t?
It’s not about you.  The seder and your mother don’t revolve around you.  Now, it may very well be true that Nathaniel’s mother has done whatever she could to make it seem that her life revolves around him.  She might just be a terrific and loving mother who sets aside her needs for him and isn’t that wonderful.  But Nathaniel is not age 8 or 13 or even a young adult at 21.  He’s 36 years old.  Dude, you’re an actual adult now.  Your mother has other family and friends to worry about.  It’s not about you.  You’re in or you’re out, bro.  That is entirely up to you.  Leave your mother alone.
Back in July my friend Rabbi Rachel Van Thyn was our guest speaker for Tisha b’Av.  We met a few years ago in a class for Clinical Pastoral Education.  I learned a lot.  She became expert.  She now teaches and supervises others in the field.
One of the biggest things she taught me and teaches everyone is that it’s okay to feel our feelings.  In fact, more than okay it’s obligatory.  Feeling our feelings helps us understand what is happening to us and why we react the way we do.  Feeling our feelings and then identifying them is really important if we want to reduce the drama in our own life and behave better and more helpfully to others.
If something is bothering you it’s fine to feel hurt or irritated but it’s not enough to only feel hurt or irritated.  We have to consider what exactly is irritating us and think about why it is irritating us.  It may feel odd or uncomfortable to do this “inner work” as it is called but it does reduce the drama and helps us better amble through the world.  It helps us understand others and helps us resist thinking the world revolves around “me.”
So it’s not about you but still and all, it upsets you.  Why?  What are you feeling?  Dig down, be specific.  Identify the hurt.  Name it.  Say it out loud.  And then, once you wrangle that feeling, you’ll know it’s not about you.  It’s about this other thing.  And most of the time, releasing that other thing helps you move on and deal with it better.
Dig deep and be really honest about why your imaginary grandchildren licking that knife really bothers you.  Maybe you just really worry that in a tough world you don’t want a grandchild to be picked on for something unusual.  Or maybe you do have a little snobbery inside you.
Maybe you wanted to show off a new boyfriend at that wedding or maybe you are anxious about going there alone.  Maybe it’s something else that is making you a little anxious.  If you can figure that out, you can deal with it and not make the bride’s day all about you.
Maybe you really hate religious ceremony or maybe you really enjoy being the center of attention.  Maybe you’re a kill-joy who loves to turn his nose up at other people’s fun.  Maybe you have deep theological problems with gefilte fish.  I don’t know.  I suspect our 36 year-old man cannot abide not being in the thoughts of his family as they eat some matzah and this is what bothers him.
All these people need a therapist or just a really honest friend to hold up a mirror and remind them, it’s not about you.
Off we go into Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  No doubt as we remember slights and mistakes we have made, we will recall the slights and insults and hurt other people have done to us.  So much hurt others have done to us.  So, so very much…  You have no idea how horrible people have been to me…
And then stop and remember the world does not actually revolve around “me” and that “it’s not about me.”  The hurt done to us could be real and personal or it could be a whole lot of other things.  If we can remember that, if we can open ourselves up to the possibility that things are more complicated than how we usually imagine, the source of our hurt is more complicated than we might think, we just might come out of Yom Kippur in ten days with some real insight, some real healing.  Let’s see how we do.

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