This week we reflect on how the stories we tell about ourselves can change over time. The additional reading is a powerful one by Vaclav Havel on journeying and the song is a nigun for the journey.
Michael (michaelstrassfeld.com)
A word of Torah:
Each of our stories is composed of a written Torah and an Oral Torah. The written Torah is made up of what happened in our lives—the failures and successes of life. The job I quit and the job I got. The facts of my life. We each also have an Oral Torah that explains why each of the events happened and their significance. It is useful to think of them as Oral Torah not just because how we interpret these events has a subjective element, but because anything that is oral is more easily modified over time. It is not as fixed as something written down. Over our lifetime we can get new understandings of the facts of our stories. Perhaps that is a particular gift of getting older. You have a longer perspective to look back over your life. The passing of time may allow you to feel less engaged in the emotions of that moment.
We find an interesting example of this in the biblical text. In the book of Numbers, God tells Moses to send out people to spy out the land of Israel. The spies return with mostly negative reports. In response, the people despair of being able to defeat the “giants” living in the land. A disappointed God then decrees forty years of wandering for the Israelites so that this untrusting generation all will die in the desert.
Strangely, when Moses retells this story in Deuteronomy as part of his final words to the Israelites, the spies are sent not at God’s request but rather at the people’s demand! One way to understand this is that when Moses tells the story in Numbers, he is embarrassed by what happened and so places the blame on God. But now in Deuteronomy, protecting the people and the leadership’s (including Moses’) reputation does not seem critical and so Moses tells the true story-- that it was the people, not God, who wanted the spies.
Sometimes, we too can look back and be more ready to acknowledge our responsibility in the events of our lives. Maybe I had some part in the job that ended badly. It wasn’t just my unreasonable boss. Sometimes we can look back and say taking that job was a mistake but I was young and inexperienced. Looking back now, it was an obvious mistake but at the time given who I was I did the best I could.
Perspective can allow us to be more forgiving of others and even of ourselves. Retelling our story gives us a chance to see it more fully. Our understanding can be more nuanced and complex. That understanding can more easily allow us to move forward not by burying the “old” story. Rather we use the new understanding to compose new notes in the still unfolding melody of our lives.
(adapted from Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century)
Kavvanah/intention
All that is gold does not glitter,Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither. Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
- J R R Tolkien
Song
a nigun of the Munkatcher hasidim that I have used for walking meditations
