Tag: psychology

high holy days · story

How the ancestors tamed their shadows

levtaylor

Some stories only make sense in the light of day. When the morning lights shine on your tent and the campfire no longer illuminates the storyteller in orange, the ghost stories from the night before lose their shimmer. When the puppets have been put away and no longer parade before backlights, the characters that once seemed so real disappear to wherever fictions go when they are finished.

Such is the story of how our ancestors tamed their shadows. 

If you can trust your shadow to do as you do and move as you move, you can thank your ancestors for taming it. Today, you know that when you turn out the light, your shadow will disappear, but that was not always the case.

Once, a shadow was a feral thing that strutted and fretted after every human step until it walked no more, then stapled itself to some other form.

If you tried to write by candlelight, the shadows flew across the pages and distorted every word. If you wanted to read the time from a sundial, the shadows danced in circles to disrupt what you could see. So, when the shadows were unruly, there was no recorded time.

Since the first rays of light beamed down millions of miles and crashed into the first mountains, the shadows had lived on earth. They were older than life – and just as frightening. 

When a tree stood perfectly still on a summer’s day, its shadow performed the forest’s rotting, decaying destruction. If a bush sat contentedly in a field, its shadow depicted it expanding outwards and throttling every other plant.

Shadows followed people. They lurked behind every being, showing human beings their dark side. 

A woman could happily walk through an orchard without touching a thing, but her shadow snatched the apple shadows from every branch, gobbled them up, snapped the branches, chopped down the trunks, and threw salt on the soil. 

When you looked back at the solid world, nothing had really changed. The shadows were just animations of people’s worst fears about themselves.

When human beings created the earliest civilisations, the shadows mocked up their own. The shadows of towns were burnt out ruins turned into snake pits with buzzards circling overhead. From atop a hill overlooking a community like this one, you would see the shadows of smoke and ash rising from a destroyed city.

If you were bold enough to listen, you could even hear the screams.

Yes, the shadows had voices.

When Cain committed the first murder, his shadow crouched, waiting for him in the doorway, like a bailiff to collect debts. The shadow walked behind his every step, reminding him of who he was and what he had done.

When two friends reached out to hug each other, the shadows made a puppet show of them attacking one another with fists and weapons. They hissed insults, dredging up every past slight, and insisted on each other’s worst traits.

The darkness was a terrifying thing and the shadows were a menace. So our ancestors worshipped the light. They praised the sun and hated the moon. They saw goodness in all that shone, and feared anything that cast a shadow. 

They called the god of light Adonai: the Commander; the Sovereign. They prayed: 

ברוך אתה יהוה עשה את האור

Blessed is the Sovereign, creator of light.

They called the god of darkness El: the Spirit; the Power. They prayed:

ארור את אל בורא את החושך

Cursed is the Spirit, maker of darkness.

A black silhouette sculpture depicting an angel with large, feathery wings embracing a man in a hat, showcasing intricate patterns and a dynamic pose.
The Wrestle in Steel, Grisha Bruskin

After Jacob betrayed his brother, Esau, and stole everything from him, Jacob’s shadow trailed behind him. Everywhere he went, Jacob’s shadow re-enacted his deception. It whispered to him that he was cruel, callous, untrustworthy; and, because of this, that he was unworthy, unlovable, unsalvageable. 

One night, exhausted by his shadow’s relentless attacks on his character, Jacob leapt at his own dark form and tried to strangle it. 

But the shadow fought back. The man and his shadow wrestled until morning came, when the shadow dislocated his hip from its socket. As the sun rose, the shadow gave Jacob a new name: Yisra-El; the spirit-wrestler; the one who fights with dark powers.

From then on, the ancestors knew that they could fight with the shadows. They also knew that they could not win. They called themselves the people of Yisrael: the nation that struggles with shadow-spirits.

The shadow is the closest thing to a human being at every moment. It dogs you, even when you think there is scarcely a source of light. So, what can you do when your shadow chases you, accuses you, and torments you? What can you do with something that attacks you when you cannot hope to gain victory over it?

You ignore it. 

Our ancestors pretended their shadows were not there. However grotesquely violent they made their shapes or malevolently cruel they made their whispers, they took no notice.

In the time of the untamed shadows, people were polite and kind and spoke with quiet voices and rarely displayed anything that looked like anger, pain, or fear. Meanwhile, their shadows acted out the most tumultuous scenes and displayed every possible hostility. This was how our ancestors lived for generations.

Until they could no longer.

One morning, the children poured out into the central square of their town to play, in the way that children so often do, while their parents made breakfast.

Already there in the plaza was a quiet girl who rarely joined the others’ games and often wasn’t invited. She was doing something with her shadow that nobody had seen before. 

She was playing. 

She hopscotched along the cat’s cradle court, then her shadow did the dance on after her. 

And the shadow was doing something they’d never seen before either.

The shadow was laughing. 

No, giggling.

The girl and the shadow acted out the game like friends. 

For a while, the children stopped and stared at the strange unfolding game. 

Had a grown-up entertained such a risky activity, their peers would have quickly put a stop to the behaviour. But children are less aware of social rules, so don’t always enforce them. Nobody dragged her from the danger of her game. The kids just gawked. 

And, after a while, they realised something. The shadows were gawking, too.

Eventually, a couple of kids ventured over and asked if they could join in playing. The little girl cheerfully assented. As did her shadow.

The children’s shadows whispered: “Let us play too.”

So the young and their shadows played together.

This is not to say it was all smiles. The shadows pushed each other, cheated, cut queues, and grabbed each other’s hair. But they kept playing. The children blurred the lines between body and shadow; between fun and fight; between propriety and play.

By the time that grown-ups came out to call the children in for breakfast, it was already too late. Everyone under a certain age was engaged in hopscotch or jump-rope or chase, and their shadows were playing too. 

Upon the sight, the adults’ shadows flew into murderous rages. The dark forms of parents grew into monsters with gnashing teeth and scythe-like claws and hissed at the infants. 

In their solid forms, the parents crouched gently beside their young ones, doing all they could to keep their eyes from the violent puppetry being played out on the ground. They whispered: “what are you doing? Why are you playing with these monsters?”

The children’s shadows recoiled into small balls like startled hedgehogs and cowered from their raging carers.

But in the visible world, the children stood firm. They placed their hands on their hips and spoke with indignation. They described to their parents exactly what had happened. 

And the girl who had initiated this entire transgression asked: “why have you never played with your shadows before?”

A table with various objects illuminated by lights casting playful shadows on a wall, showcasing a whimsical scene.
Hans-Peter Feldman, Shadowplay

“You can’t ignore your shadow,” she insisted. “You have to ask it questions. When she’s angry, you need to ask her what she’s feeling. When she’s frightened, you need to ask her what she needs.”

When they came to tell of this day many years later, it was a final and outright undoing of years of suspicion, after which everything fell into order. In reality, everything took more time, and included many setbacks. After all, they were undoing conventions that went back to the dawn of civilisation. 

But let us tell the story in its truncated folklore form. On that day, every ancestor turned to every shadow and started a conversation. From that moment on, they stopped ignoring the dark alter-egos that haunted them.

They saw that when these apparitions enacted violence, they were acting out their anger. They came to understand that when their shadows cowered, they were showing they were afraid. And that, when they snatched and grabbed from others, they were just exhibiting jealousy. 

They learned that shadows could offer them shelter, protection, and shade. They learned that anger, fear, and envy could help them live better lives. They learned that they could not run from their shadows.

They were their partners. They were their playmates.

The shadows could not be separated from their bodies. The ancestors themselves were their shadows, and their shadows were them. 

How wrong the ancestors had been about their God! There were not two powers in Heaven. The Sovereign and the Spirit were not separate deities: they were the same divinity in different guises. 

Just as the shadow was an answer to the body and the moon was a mirror of the sun, the god of daytime and the god of night were one. 

They ceased to talk about יהוה the Sovereign and אל the Spirit. Now they called their God by one name: יהוה אלהינו – our Spirit the Sovereign.

How wrong the ancestors had been to shun shade and revile darkness! Now they recited a new prayer:

ברוך אתה יהוה אלוהינו מלך העולם עשה האור ובורא את החושך

Blessed is the Sovereign, our Spirit, who rules the world, creator of light, and maker of darkness. 

Yes, Blessed is God, who brings on all.

You would imagine that it was the shadows who changed and became the static fixtures we recognise today. But, no, it was our ancestors who changed first. 

They became more curious about their own needs. They became more open about their desires. 

And, as it turns out, they didn’t kill each other or rob each other or hurt each other when they engaged with their shadows. In fact, all those things happened far less often. 

They were, however, more coarse and more abrupt. They were far more honest and far less polite. They had more conflict. They cried more, blushed more, and told each other they were angry more.

And they got on better with each other, and with themselves.

And then… well, the shadows did not need to come up with their aggressive dramatisations any more. And they started to look just like the bodies they were following. The shadows and the bodies merged to share the same borders, side-by-side.

Never again would they be deceived into dismissing any part of themselves. Never again would they imagine that anything did not come from the same single God.

So they taught themselves a new mantra, which they passed on to their children, and they to theirs, until many generations had passed. They told their descendants to say it three times every day and recite it whenever we prayed. They were to repeat it on waking and lying down; at home and on the way; at every moment of the day.

This was what we had to say:

שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד

Remember, O nation who struggles with shadow-spirits, the Sovereign is the Spirit. All aspects of God are One.

Such is the story of how the ancestors tamed their shadows. 

Now, hear this, all you who have come to synagogue on Kol Nidrei. You are the spirit-wrestlers. You are the descendants of those ancient people who used to fight with shadows. 

Know that you still have a shadow. We all still have dark parts of ourselves: those silhouettes shaped just like us that follow us around feeling angry and scared; greedy and sinful; violent and cruel. There are, perhaps, still high-pitched whispers dogging us, that tell us the worst versions of ourselves and everyone else are true. 

You cannot ignore your shadow all the time. And Yom Kippur is a pretty good time to face it.

Your shadow is not a foreign enemy to be destroyed. It is a part of you. It generates the feelings you would rather ignore, like jealousy, rage, lust, and fear. But all those feelings are part of you. You can’t fight them away.

Nor can you let your shadow conquer you. You can’t let your anger or envy control you. You must engage with the parts of yourself you most despise in order that the version of you you like best can thrive.

Instead, when you meet your shadow, as you are likely to do during today’s solemn fast, be gentle with it, and kind. Ask it questions, and see what it can teach you. Play with it, and see if it can bring something to your life. Tame it, like a friendly pet.

In Judaism, there is only one Source. God has no opposite, no partner, and no comparative. All that exists comes from the same God, and all is balanced towards the good. Everything that exists in you – your greatest virtues and your darkest impulses – come from God. All of it needs to be seen for what it truly is.

If this story has offended, remember that you can shake off these shadows as soon as you leave here, and it will disappear to wherever fictions go when they are finished. 

But if this parable is useful to you, tomorrow morning, when we return to our prayers, let us try to make friends with our shadows. 

After all, some stories only make sense in the light of day. 

The Shadow, Omer Davidov

judaism · sermon

Have you considered therapy?

levtaylor

Isaiah stood up on his soap box and preached to the people:

‘Listen to this, you wasters who sit in a drunken stupor, though not from drinking wine. This is what the Sovereign, your God and Defender, says: “See, I have taken the terrible cup from your hands. You will drink no more of my fury. Instead, I will hand that cup to your tormentors, those who trampled you into the dust and walked all over your backs!”’

The people stood and watched his prophecy, then replied: “Isaiah, have you considered therapy?”

Isaiah, you should go to therapy.

Isaiah, beloved prophet, seer of justice, speaker of truth, visionary of God, I do think you would have benefited from a bit of counselling. I read your words, so filled with passion, as you swing between abject rage against all humanity’s follies and then salivating at the possibility of God’s vengeance against your enemies. And I love your words, these are such beautiful Torah, but I also just want to give you a hug.

Isaiah, my friend, my favourite prophet of them all, do you need someone to talk to? Are you going through something just now? When was the last time you were able to open up and be vulnerable? Because this… these speeches… they’re beautiful, they really are, and I think you might need some help processing all of this.

There are tools available. There are ways you can access your feelings and address some of the root causes of your pain. 

I’d like to introduce you to a nice Jewish boy who lives in Hampstead. He doesn’t care much for shul, but he likes studying some of our texts, and he’s had some good ideas. His name is Sigmund Freud. 

He had this fantastic idea that, if a person spoke freely about all that was worrying them, they might feel a little better. 

He found trends that showed that some of what makes us angry or sad or anxious can be connected to our childhood. Now, being honest, some of his theories have lost their appeal. He put a lot of stock in a couple of Greek myths. But, in general, he understood that by re-telling our internal narratives, we can live in ways that are calmer and more fulfilling. 

During his lifetime, Freud had to deny that his techniques were a “Jewish science,” but later his daughter Anna was able to reclaim the label as a “badge of honour.” 

I think it probably is something of a Jewish science, and I wish more Jews would try it.

I look at some of the characters in our Torah and think how much they might have benefited from a trip to a therapist’s couch. 

Would Isaac have pitted his sons Jacob and Esau against each other so callously if he’d been able to cope with the betrayal he felt when his father Abraham tried to kill him?

Could Moses have kept his temper in check a little if he’d had space to talk through the displacement of discovering he had been adopted?

Maybe Rachel and Leah could have done with some family therapy to process their jealousy and build better relationships.

Of course, they wouldn’t have given us such compelling stories if they’d been better adjusted, and we wouldn’t have the Torah we do. 

It’s too late now for the biblical protagonists, but it’s not too late for us. We actually can go to therapy, and learn to like others and ourselves a little better.

As a community, one of our great highlights is Sandra Webber’s Shabbat Island Discs, where members share their life stories alongside their favourite tunes.

Believe it or not, the idea didn’t begin at KLS, but originated on BBC Radio 4, where it is called Desert Island Discs. On 4 August 1989, the show welcomed on a castaway by the name of Rabbi Lionel Blue. You can still listen now on iPlayer, as he speaks with such gentle warmth, and offers up a song about his Yiddishe Momme. 

But there is a really profound moment when Rabbi Lionel describes the benefits of therapy to us all. He had learnt about himself through a self-taught psychotherapist who took him on for free. His first session took 10 hours! 

He says his reason for promoting the benefits of therapy is that “you can only love God as much as you love yourself.”

This approach, that we ought to get to like ourselves better through therapy, positively impacted on how rabbis were trained at Leo Baeck College. For several decades, it has been actively encouraged as part of rabbinic training.

On and off, in various forms, I’ve been going to therapy for about 15 years. And I swear by it. It has helped me know myself better and love myself more. It has made me a better pastor, partner, and friend. 

And I think Lionel was right: it has made me love God more.

With the lengthy commute between Essex and Surrey, I wasn’t able to go so often. But now, with space and time for it, I find myself back on the couch. It’s doing me a world of good.

As Jews, we don’t evangelise, but if I were asked to give a rabbinic endorsement to anything, it would be psychotherapy. If you’re not already bought in, I encourage you to give it a try. 

Spend just under an hour talking to a trained listener, and see how much better you feel.

Shabbat shalom.

sermon · social justice · torah

Such giants we will slay together

levtaylor1 Comment



Why do giants feature so prominently in our stories for children?

I recently had the joy of reading some chapters from Roald Dahl’s BFG to my six-year-old godson. Reading to him as he got ready to sleep gave me such warm nostalgia. I remembered my own childhood, hearing this story for the first time; feeling at once so safe, and like anything was possible.

To children, the whole world feels populated by giants. Grown-ups are so much larger and, just like in Giant Country, have built everything to their size. Some adults, like the BFG, are kind and fun. But some, like Fleshlumpeater and Bonecruncher, are decidedly nasty and cruel.

So we give children stories where they defeat giants, and help them process these menacing creatures so much larger than themselves.

The Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim explored fairy tales as one of the ways that children gain their sense of self and develop confidence. In The Uses of Enchantment, Bettelheim writes that “although adults can be experienced as frightening giants, a little boy with cunning can get the better of them.”

Such is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. I remember so gleefully participating in the school pantomime of this story. (I played Jack’s mother, of course.) Through play, we children could act out a world where we saw those bigger than us for the lumbering oafs they were and used our wits to bring them down.

Giant stories have probably existed as long as we have had the words to tell them. In our Torah portion, Shlach Lecha, Caleb, Joshua, and their intrepid band of boys set out on an adventure to see the Promised Land.

Upon arrival, they spot frightening giants, the children of Anak. “We looked like grasshoppers compared to them, and they must have seen us the same way.”

To show the other Israelites back in the wilderness how enormous their foes were, they brought back the ogres’ food. A bunch bearing a single cluster of grapes required two of them to carry it on a pole. They rolled a pomegranate the size of themselves back out of the land of Canaan.

Throughout the camp, everyone burst into terror. Only Joshua and Caleb had faith that the giants could be beaten. We, of course, identify ourselves with those fearless leaders.

“Fairytales,” says Bettelheim, “intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity – but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity.”

“Do not be afraid,” say Caleb and Joshua. “Have faith. Trust in each other. Trust in God.”

Here our Torah gives us the same gift of instruction as a fairytale. It reminds us to be brave and use our cunning, because the giants can surely be defeated.

In Torah, grammar is always important. Joshua and Caleb insist: “we can defeat them.” This is not an instruction to others or a profession of their own greatness. It is an invitation to collective power: together, we are going to conquer the giants.

Later, Joshua and Caleb are proven exactly right. They destroy the children of Anak and drive them out, cowering, into Philistine towns. Later still, King David will slay the last of the remaining giants, a monster called Goliath. No wonder this is one of the best stories to tell at cheder.

These fairytales continue to serve us long after we have outgrown them. Now that we are grown-ups, the world may not still feel so magical, but we still have giants to slay.

The problems facing us are manifold in this world dominated by racial injustice. The oppressions of our age are many-headed monsters, far bigger than the enormous ogres of our stories.

I look at the children in our synagogues and feel pained that, perhaps, they will be less protected from the horrors of the world than we were. I wish we could insulate them a little longer from harsh realities.

As an adult, I discovered that my beloved Roald Dahl actually didn’t much like Jews, but, by then, I was secure enough not to be bothered by it. I see that our young people are far less protected from the nasty views others hold. They are already having to learn the skills to deal with antisemitism in their schools and in the material they see online. I feel blessed not to have had to confront such evils until much later.

I do not envy the challenges our young people face, but I feel deeply proud of how they have risen to the task.

On Sunday 10 May, members of RSY and LJY joined the rallies against antisemitism in central London. Holding true to our Progressive values, one of the movement workers’ placards denounced Islamophobia, racism, and anti-immigrant hatred, alongside their condemnation of antisemitism.

They held their heads high, and refused to back down on the prophetic call for unity. Racism are enormous giants to conquer, but these are the battles that have animated the Jewish religion since its inception. The earliest prophets promised “vindication and justice for all who are oppressed” (Psalm 103:6).

For the supposed infraction of drawing connections with other oppressed groups, our young people were harassed as they marched. They were completely unobtrusive, but drew great ire from the Christian fundamentalist sect, Stop the Hate.

Yet, according to the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, the UK’s only academic thinktank on anti-Jewish hatred, drawing connections with others’ struggles is precisely what we need to do.

In their report last year for the Runnymede Trust, these scholars showed that, by pitting the fight against antisemitism against the struggles of other minorities, the problem was only getting worse. Jews were becoming more isolated, and finding their battles harder.

What we needed, the Institute said, was to build alliances with other racialised minorities, so we could take on the mammoth system of racism together.

Here, the wisdom of established academics meets the optimism and zeal of youth. Just as in the earliest days of Judaism “the old dream dreams and the youth see visions” (Joel 2:28).

Young people – as you go out to fight antisemitism; as you lock arms in the struggle against all forms of racism; as you protest for a more equal world – please know that you are never alone. We are with you, and struggling alongside you.

However small you may feel, come stand on our shoulders. Don’t worry: we are standing on shoulders too. Shoulders of generations before us who battled poverty, war, pogroms, and genocide.

Yes, we Jews stand on the shoulders of ancestors going back centuries, who fought against the same giants you tackle now.

And when you realise that you are standing on top of this human pyramid, you will see that the ogres are much smaller than they first appeared. We may feel like grasshoppers in their eyes, but we stand together on a foundation they cannot even imagine, and that makes us enormous.

Just as Caleb and Joshua once cohorted the Israelites in the desert, we know we need not fear.

Have faith. In your traditions. In each other. In our God.

Together, we are going to slay these giants.

high holy days · judaism · sermon

It is time to tell a different story about ourselves

levtaylor

It is time to tell a different story about ourselves.

We are writing a story about our lives right now.

On Rosh Hashanah, our story is written. On Yom Kippur, the story is sealed.

What, then, are we doing today? 

This morning, we are editing. We are looking over our story and choosing what to keep and what to discard. What to highlight and what to relegate to the footnotes.

Of course, we cannot change the events of our past, but we can decide what they mean. In writing our story today, we choose what role we played in the narrative of our own lives. 

When you tell this story, are you a victim, or a villain? A saviour or a sinner? 

Look at your mistakes. The way you tell your story will help you decide whether they were a defining part of your personality, or whether they were opportunities you took to learn and grow. 

Look at your suffering. Others have hurt you. You need to tell your own story of what that pain means. You need to decide if your suffering is the sum of your life, or if it is something you overcome. 

You are writing the story of your life right now. Be careful how you tell it.

In our Mishnah, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi teaches: “Apply your mind to three things and you will not come into the clutches of sin: Know that there is above you: an eye that sees, an ear that hears, and all your deeds are written in a book.”

But here is what the Mishnah does not tell us:

The eye that sees can see more perspectives than we can.

The ear that listens knows all hearts in ways we do not.

And, most importantly, the book is constantly being edited and re-written.

We are always re-writing the Book of Life with our God, and that means we have the power to shape our story.

We cannot imagine that God’s eyes and ears are anything like ours, or that God writes a book the way we would. The story that an Infinite Being has to tell about you must be incomprehensible from your perspective. 

When we tell ourselves our story, we are biased, seeing only our perspective. Our narrative is partial, not knowing what others really feel.  Our account is unreliable, because we tell it to fit the character we have already made of ourselves. 

God, on the other hand, sees not just what we did, but what we hoped to do. God says to the prophet Samuel: “I do not see as human beings see; human beings see only what is visible, but I see into the heart.”

God instructs the Prophet Isaiah: “Whenever anyone turns back to Me for pardon, I freely forgive, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways high above your ways, and My plans above your plans.” 

God is able to see errors in ways we cannot. And God can understand our pain in a context that is beyond us.

This is because God is telling a different story about you to your own.

In God’s plan, you are the main character. Of course, so is everyone else. 

But that is because God has written a great novel where every creature has a vital role to play. No character could be introduced if they did not have a role in the great unfolding tale that progresses towards goodness’s triumph over evil.

So, today, look at the manuscript of your life. Decide what you want to focus on. Tell yourself stories of gratitude and joy. Consider the events that have given you pride and a sense of accomplishment. 

Look, too, at the stories in your life that are hard. Re-tell the stories of where you have been hurt, and decide for yourself what meaning you take from them.

Re-examine the stories of when you have hurt others, and decide what changes these will bring for you when you enter your next chapter.

In this way, you can take control over the story of your life. 

You cannot change what happened, but you can decide what it means. 

Only you can decide how your story ends.

Treat God as your co-editor, rather than as the author of your destiny.

For some of you, the story I have told so far is too wrapped up in religious language. You cannot get on board with all this God-talk, and the quotations from Scripture prove nothing. 

Let us turn, then, to the science of psychology. 

Over many decades, psychologists have experimented with what makes for a good life. We now have more data than ever about how people forgive. We understand a great deal more about how to overcome trauma. And we know what motivates people to live better lives.

I am going to assume that, if you are here on Yom Kippur, you came because you want to let go of some past hurt, to repent of things you have done wrong, and to live a more fulfilling life.

The Scriptures tell us how to do this, but the language they use may feel too alien to the modern mind. The sciences, however, can corroborate the same claims.

Dr Fred Luskin runs the Stamford University forgiveness project. His team has researched the best methods to help people overcome their grudges and live more fulfilling lives. 

He has tried out his techniques for helping hundreds of people forgive, including in the most extreme cases, like mothers whose children were killed in sectarian violence.

His book, Forgive for Good, is an accessible version of his research.

Dr Luskin teaches that our inability to forgive comes when we tell ourselves a “grievance narrative.” 

You may have such a story yourself. If you keep coming back to an event in your life where you were wronged and replaying it, you may be stuck on recalling a past hurt. If, in this story, there is a clear villain, and you are a helpless victim, the chances are you have a grievance narrative.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many people do. 

I began reading Dr Luskin’s book out of academic curiosity, but soon found I was noticing my own grievance narratives. Some of them went right back to old hurts in school. I looked over some of the stories I had about my own life, and found they did not serve me.

Dr Luskin says that the key to getting out of the trap of these painful stories is to consider how you tell them.

First of all, decide how much space in your mind you want this story to occupy. Yes, you have been hurt, but do you want to keep letting those same people hurt you by giving them unlimited air play in your head? 

One way forward is just to change how much you think about them. Rather than letting them be the main character in your story, focus your internal account on your own successes and joys.

Secondly, consider how you are telling your story. If you have a grievance narrative, the hurt you experienced may determine everything that comes after. 

You were wronged, and that may have a lasting impact. But is it not also true that you survived, overcame, and learnt from the experience? You have the power to tell the story so that you are not a victim, but a hero.

None of this means pretending that pain doesn’t hurt, or that the wrongs others did were not wrong. Quite on the contrary: in order to move on with anything, you have to be able to say how wrong it was, and what it made you feel. 

The difference is that you get to decide what it means. You can decide whether someone else has written your story for you, or whether you are your own author. You can choose to focus your attention on your own pride and resilience.

Just as our faith tells you to pay attention to how you tell your story, so, too, do the psychologists. The story you tell can help shape how able you are to move on from past pain and be a better person.

This is true, not just on the individual level, but also at the collective level. The stories we tell about Jews are the stories we tell about ourselves. What is the story we tell about ourselves as Jews?

There are plenty of stories out there about us. There are stories where we are perfect victims, forever blameless for the suffering we endured. There are stories where we are bloodthirsty brutes, responsible for the worst evils in the world. 

Both of these stories deny us agency. These stories turn us into history’s stock character, whether as martyr or as monster. They deny Jews the ability to do what everyone else does: to hurt others, to learn from our mistakes, and to become better people. They strip us of the opportunity to grow and change.

We need, therefore, to think hard about what the narrative is that we are writing about Jews.

Rabbi Dr Tirzah Firestone sits at the intersection of spirituality and psychiatry. Firestone began her career as a psychoanalyst, then came back to the religion of her birth, embraced Renewal Judaism, and became one of its leading rabbis.

Firestone grew up with Holocaust-surviving parents. She felt that she and her siblings inherited great trauma from her family, and from the stories they told. Or rather, did not tell. Much of their former life escaping genocide was clouded by secrecy. The stories her father did tell were of persecution: that the non-Jews inherently hated Jews and would destroy them at every opportunity.

As a therapist and rabbi, Firestone urgently felt the need to tell different stories about Jews. She insists: “Identifying ourselves as victims freezes our focus on the past, and therefore forecloses our future.”

This does not mean pretending that Jews have never been victims. We need to face up to the traumas of Jewish history, including Shoah, pogroms, and persecution. Ignoring them, and refusing to tell the stories, can actually exacerbate the transmission of trauma.

What we need to do, says Rabbi Firestone, is honour Jewish history without internalising the harmful aspects of Jewish trauma. 

We need to remember that, as Jews, we have collective power. We are able to influence the world, and not just subject to the vicissitudes of history. We must claim our agency, and take ownership over what happens to our future. 

Most importantly, says Firestone, we should draw connections with others suffering from persecuting systems. By making these links, we strengthen ourselves, support our neighbours, and find positive meaning out of difficult circumstances.

We must, therefore, tell a new story about Jews. A story where we are survivors, who have been hurt and used creativity and resilience to overcome our pain. A story where we are complete human beings, who can hurt others, and who can repent and change. A story where our story connects to all of humanity for the sake of a shared future.

The story we are writing does not have to be one where we are always victims, nor incomparable monsters. We can create a narrative that acknowledges our past, honours it, and uses it to direct us towards a more positive future.

On Rosh Hashanah, our story is written. On Yom Kippur, the story is sealed.

We are writing a story about our lives right now.

Today, with the help of God and this sacred time, write your story.

Write a story you can be proud of. Write a story where you have the power to do better. Write a story where you overcome your challenges.

The events of your life so far have already been written. What they mean is up to you.

Gmar chatimah tovah – may you be written in the Book of Life for good.

Yom Kippur Shacharit 5786

judaism · sermon · theology

What’s so bad about idolatry?

levtaylor



In the distant past, people made small gods. They carved out wooden statuettes to represent fertility, or hewed rocks into the shapes of animals that would bring them good luck. They made depictions of stars and planets, which would help them in their daily struggles. The ancients looked after the gods – giving them food, drink, rest, and clothes. In return, their little talismans looked after them.

When Abraham was born, he lived among the idol worshippers of Ur. He had no teacher nor guide, but came to understand, through his own reasoning, that God was the only Creator of all things, and that the world was governed by an invisible Force that could not be depicted. The totems people served were not gods at all, and could have no impact on the world.

As a result, he went around smashing up and destroying every idol and household God he could find. He went around telling everyone that the worship of idols was a great lie, and that the One True God would destroy anyone who bowed down to them. He enjoined his followers, the descendants of Abraham, that they, too, must destroy all idols.

This poses a question: what is so bad about idol worship?

If these are just empty vessels, why fear them? If they are not really gods, what harm can they do? Why should idols be so concerning that we must smash them up everywhere we find them?

By the time we get to the end of Moses’s life, here in the Book of Deuteronomy, the aversion to idol worship is even more intense.

At the start of Re’eh, Moses instructs the Israelites to find every idol, tear down the pillars, smash up the altars, cut down their gods, and destroy any memory that these false gods ever lived there.

If a seer comes to you, says Moses, and they say they have had a vision that you should worship idols, you must kill them instantly. You must purge them and their evil words.

If your own brother, sister, mother, father, or friend wants you to worship idols, Moses says, show them no pity. Don’t try to stop anyone from killing them. In fact, make sure it is your own hand that strikes them down.

And if you find out that there is a town where people worship idols, go and kill everyone in it. Bring everyone from the town together and slaughter them. Bring everything from that town into the square and burn it to the ground. Destroy that city in its entirety and never let anybody rebuild it.

This feels like something of an over-reaction.

How can idol worship be so bad that it is worse than murder, worse than cutting off your own kin, worse even than razing a city to the ground? Why should this practice of building little statues be so intimidating that it requires such destruction?

This feels completely out of place with our moral sensibilities. That’s not just a modern thing.

Even in the 13th Century, rabbis were worried about this injunction. Rambam, the great rabbinic decisor who codified all of the Torah’s laws, was also concerned.

Rambam lived among Muslims and Christians in medieval Egypt. He admired and appreciated them. He read the works of the great Greeks who had never known monotheism, like Plato and Aristotle. He found them wise and inspiring. He was deeply opposed to fundamentalism and chauvinism. Rambam, like us, was not really up for burning cities to the ground just because they did not follow our God.

Rambam says: don’t worry. The world for which these laws were written no longer exists. People don’t worship idols any more. Whatever perverse practices the Pagans once did, they are not doing them now.

Even if they did exist, we would not have the authority to burn a city to the ground like that. You would need a Sanhedrin – a court of 71 learned judges who could recite the laws in their entirety – and we have not had one of those for many centuries.

Even if the idol worshippers did still exist, and we did still have a Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin would necessarily make sure to do everything possible to educate the idolaters away from their ill-conceived practices, help them to repent, and find ways to make sure they can live in the true religion of monotheism.

So, don’t worry, says Rambam, we can forget about all that.

But the trouble is we can’t.

It’s there in the Torah. We read it every year. Rambam still has to go and codify all these bloody edicts, that make such monsters of people who pray to fetishes.

And Rambam does not answer my fundamental question. The people who bow down to wood and stone might be wrong; their beliefs might be misplaced; but what is so bad about giving a drop of wine to a brick?

The most compelling answer I have found comes from a 20th Century psychoanalyst. Erich Fromm was born in Frankfurt, Germany, at the start of the last century. He studied psychiatry and philosophy among the greats of his generation, then moved, in 1934 to America, where he became a leading writer and critic of modern society. Needless to say, he was Jewish.

In 1976, Erich Fromm wrote a landmark book called “To Have or To Be.” This text became the cornerstone of the anti-consumerist movement.

Fromm engaged seriously with our religious texts. He saw them as inspiring people with a serious psychological message about how to live.

The difference between real worship and idolatry, says Fromm, is not what you worship, but how you do it. He calls it the “being mode” and the “having mode”.

The problem with idolatry, says Fromm, is that it makes you think God is something you can own.

Hebrew monotheism is a rejection of the entire enterprise of having a god:

“The God of the Old Testament is, first of all, a negation of idols, of gods whom one can have… The concept of God transcends itself from the very beginning. God must not have a name; no image must be made of God.”

Fromm writes:

“God, originally a symbol for the highest value that we can experience within us, becomes, in the having mode, an idol. In the prophetic concept, an idol is a thing that we ourselves make and project our own powers into, thus impoverishing ourselves. We then submit to our creation and by our submission are in touch with ourselves in an alienated form. While I can have the idol because it is a thing, by my submission to it, it, simultaneously, has me.”

So, for Fromm, idol worship isn’t over at all. In fact, it is a pitfall any of us can stumble into. If you think that faith is something you can have, rather than a way of living, you are guilty of idolatry. Fromm says:

“Faith, in the having mode, is a crutch for those who want to be certain, those who want an answer to life without daring to search for it themselves.”

Fromm goes further. It’s not just about God. It’s about everything. Do you want to be in this world, or do you want to have it? If you think you can have it, you will never be satisfied. But if you can truly be in it, you will find no need to have any desires met. Fromm says:

“The attitude inherent in consumerism is that of swallowing the whole world.”

Fromm even extends his philosophy to how we love. Do not try to have love, he warns, but try to be in love.

“To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing.”

If we take Fromm seriously, we have a whole new way of looking at the world. Inspired by the prophets, everything we do can be about existing and loving and being. We can reject the whole ideology of possessing.

That is what is wrong with idolatry. The artefacts of the Pagans aren’t just wooden blocks. They tell us a way of living. The wrong way of living. They direct us to control and own.

Rambam may be right. The idolaters do not exist in cities any more.

Instead, today, they live in our own minds. And we must burn them down, if we are to be truly free.

Shabbat shalom.

sermon · theology · torah

Purity or justice

levtaylor

Let’s start with a question.

An adult couple accidentally runs over their pet dog. Instead of burying their dog in the garden, they take it home, cook it in the oven, and eat it. 

Here’s the question: have they done something immoral? 

Most of us will have an instinctive reaction: what that couple did was disgusting. We will feel some revulsion.

But whether you think it was morally wrong will depend on how you see the world. It will depend on your moral palate. 

This was what was demonstrated by the Jewish-American psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, in his popular book, The Righteous Mind.

Haidt sought to find out why it was that caring, rational people could disagree so profoundly on moral issues. Why was it that America was so polarised? There, people fight furiously about issues like abortion, guns, and marriage, as if they have no common moral basis.

Haidt argues that we do have shared moral bases, but our morality is more like the palate on our tongue. “We humans all have the same five taste receptors, but we don’t all like the same foods,” he says. “It’s the same for moral judgments.”

We have, he says, five main taste receptors: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. 

If you are an educated person who lives in an urban area of a Western capitalist country, you are likely to feel that the couple who ate their dog did not do anything morally wrong. You’ll be disgusted, sure, but you might not think that they violated any kind of moral rule.

That’s because, in these cultures, people have a moral palate that puts a big emphasis on ethics of care and harm. If nobody was hurt, then there’s nothing immoral.

If, however, you live in a close-knit community of farmers, you are far more likely to say that the couple who ate their dog did do something morally wrong. That’s because those cultures have a strong sense of sanctity and taboo.

Both of these systems are ways to help people get on with each other. In a busy metropolis like London, you need to be able to live and let live, because if you can’t tolerate diversity, society will fall apart. In a tribal farming community, like ancient Israel, you need to have strong social norms to protect people.

Both these impulses – care and sanctity – come from a deep, ancient social need. 

Since humanity’s beginning, our survival has depended on our ability to care for our most vulnerable members. How would we have lasted a single generation if not for looking after the young, the old, and the vulnerable?

From the start of civilisation, we have also needed to be able to express disgust. It comes down to the most basic distinction between excrement and edibles. We need to tell each other: “this food is poisonous; this disease is contagious; this behaviour is dangerous…” Without clearly agreed boundaries and taboos, we would quickly perish.

It is worth holding these two tendencies in mind – care and sanctity; purity and justice – as we approach our readings for this week.

Our Torah portion goes into minute detail about how to do proper sacrifices, how to lay out the Temple, and who is supposed to do what in religious services. To us, the attention to detail might seem absurd.

But remember that this is part of a group of people’s moral palate. This is their sense of the sacred. Messing it up, from their point of view, would be ethically disastrous. It would be similar to eating the family pet. 

No wonder, then, that the prophet Ezekiel opens the haftarah by telling the Israelites “if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple.” Failure to get it right, says Ezekiel, is a serious sin.

There are two great moral impulses in Torah: justice and purity. This trend appears throughout the whole Scripture: contradictory, competing moral voices speak through our books.

The voice of justice tells us about care and compassion. It tells us about fairness and redistribution. The voice of justice charges us towards more equality and more freedom. Justice says that a society is only as strong as its weakest members.

The voice of purity tells us about how to keep holy things sacred. It tells us what the boundaries are on sex, so that we do not cross them. The voice of purity tells us not to eat octopus and not to mix linens. Purity makes sure everything is kept in its proper place, so that society can function, and people feel safe.

The voice of purity might feel less relevant to us today. We celebrate the prophets for their concern for the most vulnerable, because it fits so well with our ethics of care. We see ourselves in the narratives of the exodus because they chime with our moral intuitions about freedom from slavery. Laws on architecture… feel less like big moral issues.

That’s because what the big taboos and boundaries are can change a lot between time periods. 

When I was growing up, one of the big focuses of popular disgust was gay men. There was a long period when the media was seemingly obsessed over sex between men, especially in public toilets. This was the full gambit of taboos: waste and excrement; sex between the wrong sorts of people; and blurring the boundaries between public and private.

I think that is why some of the things that cause people moral disgust today just don’t bother me. I have had to push through a society telling me I was disgusting, and unlearn that contempt towards gay people. Now, the other sources of disgust just seem like passing fads. 

Knowing that has helped me understand where others are coming from.

I find Haidt’s ideas about moral palates really helpful for thinking through why sometimes it’s hard for people to agree. My ethical taste buds are highly attuned to care and fairness, but I don’t get much flavour from sanctity, and I can barely taste authority. 

Please do not think that one of these is left-wing and the other is right-wing. There are plenty of conservatives deeply motivated by wanting to make sure people are cared for and that distribution is just. There are just as many socialists who want to ensure the purity of the Marxist tradition, and to live in a world without contaminating ideas or contaminating people. 

What we morally feel is not just about ideology, but about all the factors in our cultures and upbringing that make us need to focus on certain values.

So, this is my advice. The next time you encounter someone that you really disagree with, try not to assume they are evil or weird. Think back, instead, to this Torah portion. Maybe what is just a building to you is somebody else’s Temple. Maybe what really triggers one person just doesn’t impact you.

Haidt’s goal, when he did this study, was to make it possible for people to talk to each other across divides. I don’t want us to become like America, where some issues cause massive wedges between neighbours. 

So let’s try listening to each other, and hearing each other’s worldviews.

Shabbat shalom.