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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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