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Rabbi Janet Marder Rosh Chodesh: October 14, 2007 Who Are You?--Beth Am Women Rosh Chodesh Gathering “Who Are You?” by Nora Ephron: “I know you. I know you well. It’s true I always have a little trouble with your name, but I do know your name. I just don’t know it at this moment. We’re at a big party. We’ve kissed hello. We’ve just had a delightful conversation about how we are the last two people on earth who don’t kiss on both cheeks. Now we’re having a conversation about how phony all the people are who kiss on both cheeks. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. You’re so charming. If only I could remember your name. It’s inexcusable that I don’t. You’ve been to my house for dinner….I’m becoming desperate. It’s something like Larry. Is it Larry? Not, it’s not. Jerry? No, it’s not. But it ends in a Y. Your last name: three syllables. Starts with a C. Starts with a G? I’m losing my mind. “….Have we met? I think we’ve met. But I can’t be sure. We were introduced, but I didn’t catch your name because it’s so noisy at this party. I’m going to assume we know each other, and I’m not going to say, “Nice to meet you.” If I say, “Nice to meet you,” I know what will happen. You’ll say, “We’ve met.” You’ll say, “We’ve met” in a sort of aggressive, irritable tone. And you won’t even tell me your name so I can recover in some way. So I’m not going to say, “Nice to meet you.” I’m going to say, “Nice to see you.” I’ll have a big smile on my face. I won’t look desperate. But what I’ll be thinking is, please throw me your name. Please, please, please. Give me a hint. My husband is likely to walk up, and I’ll have to introduce you, and I won’t be able to, and you’ll know that I have no idea who you are even though we probably spent an entire weekend together on a boat in 1984. And even though I have a secret signal with my husband that involves me pinching him very hard on the upper arm, a signal that means, “Throw your name at this person because I have no idea whom I’m talking to,” my husband always forgets the secret signal and can’t be counted on to respond to my pinching, even when it produces a bruise. I would like to chew my husband out about his forgetfulness on this point, but I’m not exactly in a position to do so since I myself have forgotten (if I ever knew it) the name of the person I’m talking to. “Old friends? We must be. You’re delighted to see me. I’m delighted to see you. But who are you? Oh, my God, you’re Jane. I can’t believe it, Jane. “Jane! How are you? It’s been – how long as it been?” I’d like to suggest that the reason I didn’t recognize you right off the bat is that you’ve done something to your hair, but you’ve done nothing to your hair, nothing that would excuse my not recognizing you. What you’ve actually done is gotten older. I don’t believe it. You used to be my age, and now you’re much, much, much older than I am. You could be my mother. Unless of course I look as old as you and I don’t know it. Which is not possible. Or is it? I’m looking around the room and I notice that everyone in it looks like someone – and when I try to figure out who that someone is, it turns out to be a former version of herself, a thinner version or a healthier version or a pre-plastic-surgery version or a taller version. If this is true of everyone, it must be true of me. Mustn’t it? But never mind: you are speaking. “Maggie,” you say, “it’s been so long.” “I’m not Maggie,” I say. “Oh, my God,” you say. “It’s you. I didn’t recognize you. You’ve done something to your hair” [NY Times, August 12, 2007] This article reminds me of why God created nametags, and why they pop up at so many Beth Am events. Not that I identify with any of what Nora Ephron says, you understand. But nametags do come in handy for all those other people with memory problems. Memory and identity are where I want to start tonight. Imagine now that you’re standing in front of a mirror. Just for a moment, look into the mirror. Don’t fix your hair or put on lipstick or wonder why you ended up with your mother’s nose. Just take a look at the face in the mirror. Who are you? I know you. I know you well. Don’t I? The face is familiar -- I used to know someone who looked a lot like you, but younger. Who are you, really? Forgetting other people’s names is a momentary failure of the hippocampus, the little gizmo in the brain that helps us make new memories. Forgetting yourself is a problem of a different order. It can be a perilous condition. And sooner or later, I’m sorry to say, it happens to most of us. I’m not talking about the tragedy of dementia now. Forgetting the self is what happens to women who are submerged in responsibilities and routines, who spend their days shuttling from one activity to another with no time in between to reflect; who expend their energies in caring for everyone but themselves. Forgetting the self means you can barely remember the dreams you used to have for your life, or when you stopped dreaming at all. You feel like you’re on autopilot a lot. You’re often exhausted and sleep-deprived. You’re taking care of young kids, coping with teenagers who have challenges, trying to help adult children who have challenges of their own. Or maybe you don’t have kids, and work has taken over your life. You’re carrying around multiple schedules in your mind. You’re caring for your parents or other aging family members, sometimes from a long distance away. You’re trying to be supportive to someone who is ill, or dealing with an illness of your own. You’re managing a demanding career, running a home, doing your best to be a good spouse or daughter or sister, looking for a good relationship, trying to keep up with the news, volunteering in the community, managing a million projects at once. You lie down at night but your brain refuses to shut down; it continues to generate endless “to do” lists and remind you of what you didn’t accomplish that day. Your own self, your own authentic being, is buried somewhere at the bottom of a pile of unfolded laundry, or stuffed into the corner of a dark closet crammed with unsorted papers, or out in the garage amidst a jumble of boxes and other assorted junk that you’re hoping to straighten out, someday. The quiet, hesitant voice of your self is lost in the clamor of other calls on your time and attention. Who are you? What are you feeling? What do you want? What do you need? These are questions women have been taught not to ask, starting from an early age. We’re raised to please others – to be attractive, to charm, to entertain, to support, to make peace, to nurture and nourish and comfort. We learn that our destiny is to take good care of other people, and the better we are at that, the more we are valued. Religion, it seems, only intensifies the message, preaching a relentlessly other-directed philosophy: love your neighbor – treat others with dignity, kindness and respect. Welcome the stranger, reach out to those in need, visit the sick, do acts of social justice, give generously of your time, your resources, your talents. Selfishness is bad, religion says; focusing inward is narcissistic; self-indulgence is shallow and insensitive. That’s the religious message that most of us hear, coming unrelentingly from the pulpit and from all our sacred texts. But it’s actually a distortion of Judaism, as I understand it. So tonight I want to focus on an important Jewish teaching that we too often ignore. From the book of Leviticus: “V’ahavta l’reicha kamocha – love your neighbor as yourself.” You’ve heard a lot about the first part of the verse over the years. But we don’t talk nearly enough about the second part. Love your neighbor kamocha – as yourself. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. I want to talk about the mitzvah of self-love. To understand this mitzvah, let’s first discuss what Jewish self-love is not. I referred a moment ago to narcissism. The word comes from a famous myth about a beautiful nymph named Echo. She fell in love with a beautiful young man named Narcissus and pursued him relentlessly. But he paid her no attention, because women were always falling for him and he was surrounded by admirers. So Narcissus rejected her coldly. Echo fled into the forest, weeping, and she said a prayer: “May he who loves no one, someday fall in love and meet no return of affection.” One day Narcissus, hot and thirsty from hunting, wandered into the forest seeking a cool drink. He found his way to a clear pool of water. When he bent down to drink, and saw his own image in the water; he thought it was a beautiful water-spirit. He stood gazing with admiration at those bright eyes, those curly locks, those rosy cheeks, and he fell helplessly in love. He brought his lips close to the water for a kiss; he plunged his arms into the water to embrace his beloved, but each time his love object disappeared. Narcissus spent hours bending over the water, gazing in fascination at the beautiful face before him. He could not tear himself away. He lost all thought of food and drink. Little by little, he wasted away; his beauty left him and at last he died alone by the water. It’s a myth, of course, about how relentless focus on oneself isolates us from others and deprives us of the possibility of loving, intimate relationships. Literary scholars point to a classic image of narcissism in “The Red and the Black,” a 19th century novel by Stendhal. The young hero, Julien, falls in love with a woman named Mathilde. An older, wiser man tries to warn him away from Mathilde, saying, “She looks at herself instead of looking at you, and so she doesn’t know you. During the two or three little outbursts of passion she has allowed herself in your favor, she has, by a great effort of imagination, seen in you the hero of her dreams, and not yourself as you really are [Page 401, 1953 Penguin Edition, trans. Margaret R.B. Shaw]. Some of the characteristics of a narcissistic personality disorder, an extreme preoccupation with oneself, are a grandiose sense of one’s own importance or “specialness”; a need for continual admiration; a strong sense of entitlement; a lack of empathy; a propensity to take advantage of others; and arrogant, insensitive behavior. If this sounds like someone you used to date, you’ve got a good acquaintance with narcissism. But none of this has anything to do with healthy self-love, as Jews understand it. So what is this mitzvah of loving the self all about? Some years ago Shelly gave me a book of postcards called “The Reading Woman.” He gave it to me because he knows that reading is one of the things I love best in the world. The book contains thirty reproductions of paintings by renowned artists, each depicting a woman deeply immersed in the pages of a book. The paintings are quite different, but they all have a beautiful tranquility. One woman sits by the window overlooking her garden on a sunny morning, her book resting on her lap, a cup of tea on the table at her side. Another leans back comfortably before a fire on a winter afternoon. One seems to be in an attic, sitting on the floor reading a book she’s pulled out of a old storage chest. Another reclines gracefully on a large pillow in the grass. Another is sprawled on her stomach in a cozy bed, a puppy keeping her feet warm. All of them look absorbed, contented, utterly caught up in the moment. They are not being looked at. They are not serving anyone else. In each case the artist is making a statement: this woman has the leisure to devote to her own imagination, her own learning, the cultivation of her own inner world. This morning, during Sunday school, when I saw a young mom sitting alone on a bench in our outdoor chapel with a book, I felt happy for her. I knew that down on the lower campus there were classes going on, and God knows I am very eager to see every member of Beth Am involved in some kind of Jewish study. But there’s something about the sight of a woman reading, quiet and undisturbed, lost in her own thoughts and her own world, that is very powerful to me. At that moment the woman is not an instrument of anyone else’s well-being. At that moment, she is an end in herself. Self love begins with the notion that the self is worthy of attention. Each dimension of our being – body, intellect, emotions, spirit – matters; each is important in itself; each needs and deserves sustained consideration and care. Our Jewish sages were overwhelmed by the amazing gift of life, and they begin by reminding us that we should never, ever take this gift for granted. To ignore the needs of the body – to deny it good food, rest, exercise, proper medical care, physical tenderness and pleasure – is to show disrespect for ourselves on the most fundamental level. The midrash recounts that once the great first century Rabbi Hillel set out on a walk. His students asked him where he was going. “I’m going to do a mitzvah,” he told them. “And what mitzvah is that?” they asked. “I’m going to the bath house.” “What – is that a mitzvah?” they wondered. “Of course,” he said. “To keep our body clean and healthy is a mitzvah. I will prove it to you. Look at the statues of the king in the public square – a caretaker gets a salary for keeping them clean. We, who are created in the image of the the Almighty, how much the more so is it a mitzvah to care for ourselves!” [Avot d’Rabbi Natan ch.30]. Remember that mitzvah the next time you don’t think you can afford to take time to go for a walk or go to the gym. I remember very clearly the moment I realized that no one else in the world was going to pay attention to my health and well-being if I didn’t do it. Caring for your own body is not, in the Jewish sense, a luxury, a nice indulgence, something you do with your discretionary time if you can find a spare moment. It’s a sacred obligation – a fulfillment of the mitzvah of loving and respecting the self. It’s the same with developing our mind, attending to our emotions, nurturing our spirit in the particular ways that are most nourishing to us. All of these acts are founded on the basic idea that you yourself deserve the same time and consideration you give to anyone else. This is true, first of all, because taking time for ourselves and taking care of ourselves makes us better able to give to others. That is why Leviticus phrases its teaching in the way it does: V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love of self is the very foundation of the ability to love another person. The Talmud makes this argument powerfully in a passage based on a verse in Deuteronomy, chapter 15: “There shall be no needy among you” [15:4]. On one level, of course, this refers to the mitzvah of tzedaka, opening our hands to the poor. But because the verb in this verse is in the singular form, the commentators also interpret its meaning in another way, referring to the individual: “there shall not be in you a destitute person.” In other words, the Torah commands us to avoid becoming impoverished. This applies to financial matters – we are not supposed to give away so much that we lose our own financial security. But it applies to non-financial matters, as well. The Torah says “there shall not be in you a needy person” – using the Hebrew word “evyon.” Rashi derives this word from the Hebrew word “ta’avah,” longing or desire. According to Rashi, an evyon is “someone who longs for everything,” a person who lives with a deep sense of deprivation. Chronic stress and exhaustion – the marks of an impoverished self – do not motivate us to perform acts of tzedaka. When we feel deprived and depleted, when we’re longing for everything, we lose the ability to give effectively to others. If we run ourselves ragged and don’t safeguard our health, we lack the strength to uphold those who depend on us. A mom who doesn’t attend to her own intellectual and spiritual needs will be less able to offer her children patience and insight. A caregiving daughter who makes no time to find meaning in her own life will have diminished capacity to respond with understanding and compassion to a demanding parent. A person who feels resentful and shortchanged will be less inclined to be generous with others. Stinginess, callousness and unresponsiveness are boomerang qualities. Directed inward, in harsh denial of the self, they sooner or later turn around and poison our feelings towards others. Remember the takeoff announcement on airlines that reminds us to put on our own oxygen mask first, so that we’ll be prepared to take care of the children traveling with us. That’s not selfishness – putting on that mask is an altruistic act. Taking care of our own needs, addressing our own sense of impoverishment, is essential if we want to open our hearts to our loved ones and friends. We can remind ourselves of that great truth to keep from feeling guilty whenever we grab a few moments just for ourselves. But loving the self, caring for the self, is not something we do just for instrumental purposes – in order to be there for others. It is an absolute value. You, all by yourself, have value. You are precious in God’s eyes, says our tradition, and that means you are obligated to hold yourself precious in your own eyes as well. In some cases, practicing the mitzvah of self-love might mean looking in the mirror and learning not to focus on our flaws, wishing we were younger or thinner or had a different nose. It might mean training ourselves to recite positive affirmations as a way to counteract the continual stream of negative self-judgments some of us carry around in our heads. It should mean that we notice and attend carefully to our own sense of longing – for peace, for beauty, for creativity or play, for rest and relaxation, for friendship, intimacy or love, for time with people who replenish rather than drain us. Those urgent longings are important messages about the state of our soul. But too often we treat them like annoying background noise that distracts us from our work. We stuff these annoyances down somewhere inside, we turn our back on them and slam the door, we fill up our emptiness with food or shopping, we distract ourselves with more responsibilities and routines. But imagine that those longings are messages brought to us by a child standing at the threshold of our house. This is our younger, vulnerable self, full of dreams, full of powerful needs, the self who hasn’t yet learned that she isn’t important. We can ignore that child and push her away, or we can invite her in and make her at home. We can look at her with love, listen respectfully to what she has to say, embrace her and try to understand her. You wouldn’t feel guilty about loving and nurturing that child, would you? Then please: never again feel guilty about loving and nurturing yourself. How can we pay attention to the quiet, hesitant voice of the self? How can we get reacquainted with that familiar-looking stranger in the mirror? It all begins with the daring, radical act of taking control of our time. There is an important Jewish teaching on this subject addressed especially to women. It concerns the mitzvah we are gathered here tonight to celebrate: the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh. The Hebrew word “Chodesh” comes from the root chet-dalet-shin, which means “new” or “renewed.” The slender cresent of the new moon was originally called “Chodesh” because it is the first time the moon is seen anew after it has been hidden for a few days. At the end of the lunar cycle the moon passes between the earth and the sun. At that moment it becomes invisible from the earth, blotted out by the glaring light of the sun. In the next couple of days, as the moon moves past the sun, the barest hint of its light becomes visible once more, shortly after sunset, high in the western sky. Chodesh, the name given to the light of the new crescent moon, noted and celebrated by Jews at each lunar cycle, eventually became the term applied to each month of the lunar cycle. Rosh is the head, the beginning of the month. In biblical times, Rosh Chodesh was a festival, described in Numbers chapter 29, at which the kohanim, the priests, brought special sacrificial offerings. The Mishna records that in its time, witnesses would come to
The Talmud and Jewish mystical tradition teach that Rosh Chodesh is a time to celebrate the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence that dwells with us and within us. As Shekhinah is a feminine Hebrew noun, in time it came to symbolize the feminine aspect of the Divine [Talmud Sanhedrin 42a]. This is one reason that, since the time of the Talmud, Jewish tradition has designated Rosh Chodesh as a special holiday for women. In medieval days, Jewish women performed no work on Rosh Chodesh. They gathered together instead to hold feasts, charitable benefits, and even ladies’ gambling parties (sometimes, apparently, they got together to do their laundry on Rosh Chodesh!). In our own time, women have reclaimed Rosh Chodesh as a special women’s celebration, forming Rosh Chodesh groups like the one we have at Beth Am for study, friendship and creative ritual. The traditional message of the Rosh Chodesh festival seems especially suited for women. The first distinctive feature of the festival is that it was determined, always, by human beings. Rabbinic judges relied on the testimony of witnesses to set the beginning of the month. In fact, tradition understands the very first mitzvah given to the Jewish people as the mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh, marking the beginning of the month. As it says in Exodus chapter 12: “And God said to Moses….in the
As the Israelites were about to leave
The first gift of freedom they received was the opportunity to create a new calendar. The determination of time was now placed in their hands. Slaves have no control over their time – they are always at the mercy of their masters. Now, God says to the Israelites, you are masters of your own time – you have the blessing and responsibility of determining how time will be measured, marked and used by your community. Rosh Chodesh, then, comes with an empowering message that has special significance for women: take control of your time! Never see yourself as a slave to the clock. Every day, every minute is given into your power. You cannot stop the ceaseless flow of the hours, but you can shape the flow of time, creating special moments, holy days and celebrations that sanctify and beautify your life. You can shape reality itself. Hachodesh hazeh lachem – this month is for you. The second message of Rosh Chodesh also speaks especially to women. Why were the Jews given a lunar calendar, rather than a solar calendar like the peoples around them? Because, the midrash says, the sun is a static body in the heavens, its radiance bright, constant and unchanging. But the moon, the smaller heavenly body, waxes and wanes in phases: it moves from total darkness to the gradual increase of light, achieves full brilliance and gradually diminishes once again into the dark.
The Kabbalists also understand this symbolism in a more personal sense. Every individual, they said, waxes and wanes, passing through phases and cycles of the body, mind and spirit. The moon draws the ocean into high and low tides, and so do we experience periodic expansions and diminutions of our vital energies. Each of us has times when we feel small or insignificant, times when we’re tired, bored, lacking in confidence, enthusiasm or faith. We all know dark periods when we’re consumed by worries and doubts. The moon is our personal symbol, our personal promise that we can come out of darkness and sorrow, re-emerging with courage and vigor, the light within us restored. Attuned by our own bodies' menstrual cycle to the death and rebirth of the moon, we can take comfort in the Jewish promise that persons, too, can be reborn and renewed. The self, lost somewhere at the bottom of a long, long to-do list, can be rediscovered, greeted with generosity and love. Neglected needs can be nourished. Forgotten dreams can be remembered and embraced. Time can be recaptured and reclaimed – a least a few minutes every single day, set apart for no one and nothing but yourself. The moon goes through its phases whether or not we’re watching the skies. But Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish festival of renewal, happens only when we pay attention, mark the calendar and create a celebration to commemorate this natural event. Our Sisterhood theme for this year is “celebrating women.” But celebration isn’t always about partying or standing up to applaud. Sometimes the most beautiful celebration is the quiet act of taking notice, lifting up and cherishing what the world has too long ignored. This day of Rosh Chodesh is for you; this sacred time is for us, the women of
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