Breaking up the Routine

This Shabbat marks my first full week back in my congregation since the end of my three month sabbatical.  I am grateful for the time that I had to study, reflect, rest and rejuvenate.  I took the three months to travel around the country visiting other congregations and communities, meeting with clergy, lay people and professional staff.  I observed some of the most innovative and forward thinking congregations not only in the Jewish community but amongst Mormon and Evangelical Christian congregations as well.  For those interested the lessons and observations from my sabbatical studies can be found further down in this blog.

As I return to the day to day life of serving my congregation I am struggling against the muscle memory of not wanting to just do things the way I have done them for the past 12 years in the rabbinate.  The text that keeps coming to mind is from Pirkei Avot Chapter 2, “Rabbi Shimon says: c’she’atah mitpalel, al ta’as tefilat’cha keva – Rabbi Shimon says, when you pray, don’t make your prayer keva, fixed (routine).  The alternative being Kavanah to perform your actions with a purposeful, considered intention.  I have tried throughout my spiritual life to be guided by this principle, and find it even more important now after sabbatical.

It is so easy for each of us (not just rabbis and not just with prayer) to slip in to the comfort zone of ‘that’s how I have always done it’.  The challenge of course is to continue to learn, grow and reinvent ourselves.  We are encouraged to do this by our tradition because to just rely on our old tired but true ways is to deny that thing makes us uniquely human and not machines.  A machine can perform the same repetitive task time and again, never tire, and never make a mistake.  In fact if you ask a machine to do something that is is not constructed or trained to do, that is often when the machine breaks down.  With people it is of course just the opposite – we are most alive when we push ourselves to try and do the unfamiliar.

In my brief week back at the congregation I have tried to make a conscious effort to do things differently and it has been both fun and a bit unsettling.  Its fun because I am trying out some of the new insights and techniques I discovered during my studies.  My conversations with b’nai mitzvah students are different, the format of my weekly Torah study is evolving, I’m trying some new things in worship, and trying very hard to use the phone and technology in a way that I don’t feel enslaved to it.  I’m even using some new jokes on the bimah – you must know its not easy for a rabbi to give up a tried and true good one liner.  Its only been seven days, but so far the intentionality of trying to be unpredictable to myself has been invigorating.

So lesson one, on my first week back is don’t go back to how it was, even if the old ways were pretty good.  Honor the change, the growth we experience as human beings when we make a routine out of not doing things routinely.

The Day You Become Redundant

Parenthood is ultimately about becoming redundant in your child’s life. It’s difficult to comprehend as you hold your newborn baby in your arms, but if you do your job as a parent correctly, your services will ultimately no longer be necessary.

The art and the joy of parenthood is how to raise a self-reliant child who grows to become a self-reliant adult. How do we pass on to our children the knowledge, skills, values and beliefs they will need so that the teaching will remain with them when we are no longer ever-present?

Toward this end, Jewish fathers have particular obligations. The Talmud instructs that a father is obligated to provide his son (child) with Torah, a trade and, some say, to teach him how to swim (Kiddushin 29:A). This formula is interesting, because when the Talmud makes a list, it is meant to be all-inclusive; if something else was needed, it would have been on the list. Thus, our tradition instructs that a father has three sacred obligations in raising a child.

Torah is perhaps the easiest to explain, even if it may seem the most remote to many a Jewish dad. The mindset of the rabbis of the Talmud was focused on Jewish education and the importance of Torah within that framework. Torah, in their view, was not merely knowledge and education, and it was much more than holidays, rituals and stories. Torah serves as the cornerstone of Jewish life — it is morals, ethics and values. Its focus is how to be a good person and, particularly, how to be a responsible Jew. This responsibility is not taken lightly at all; if a Jewish father could not teach his son, it was his responsibility to find his son a teacher to perform the task. What Torah will you teach your child, and how will you teach it?

Teach your child a trade? This may seem far more applicable to our lives today. The ability to support oneself, make a living, plan for the future and support your community has often been stressed in Jewish fathering. But this commandment is about more than finding a good job — it is about legacy and tradition, about knowing the value of things earned and their value in years to come. To teach a child a trade in our modern 24/7, 60-hour workweek world is to teach your child not only to work, but how to work. It is to model the importance of the work/life/family balance. The question then is not what will they do when they grow up, but rather how will they do it? What can you teach from your lifetime of working so they remember that we work in order to live, not live in order to work?

And last is swimming. This concept is perhaps the most important of all, because at its core swimming is about survival. One learns how to swim so he or she will not drown; how fitting that the rabbis entrust this small and somewhat minor task to the Jewish father. To swim, or survive, so to speak, means to have courage and perseverance to navigate the rough waters that lie ahead in life. To swim is to let go of the side of the pool and wade purposefully into the unknown and come out safely on the other side. How will you teach your child courage and perseverance?

In all the roles a Jewish father plays, there is an essential element that is constant: time. How can a father properly introduce his child to Torah, a trade, teach courage and perseverance if he is not around? All of the above seems daunting in the abstract, but when your life is the lesson, the teaching happens for good or for ill whether you are present or not. So the most important task commanded to a Jewish father is: Be present!

Even the simplest task, when done with child in tow, can reap invaluable experience. Leading by example, being a trainer for life, is not easily done in a world of busy schedules, but it can be done. The interaction between father and child during those times provides a lesson in living. It is during these moments when Torah can be passed along. It is also during these moments when a child can learn what it means to be a father and provider, who his/her father is and what priorities have been set in life. It is in all of these moments, as your child watches you live Torah and ply your trade, that they learn from your courage and perseverance, especially in the face of adversity.

If you can do these things, there will come a moment when your child will turn to you and say, “I got it, Dad,” and you will know that he/she truly does. At that time, maybe say the “Shehecheyanu,” the blessing for having survived and been given strength to bear witness to a joyous occasion — in this context being told you’re not needed truly is a time for blessing. Oh, and one more thing, you might cry (yes, men do cry). But know this: Those tears will be bittersweet, the day you become redundant.