Living Now
by Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah
The second Tuesday of every
month I travel up to London to attend the meeting of the Rabbinic
Conference of Liberal Judaism, which is held at the Montagu
Centre. When I was on my way home from the July meeting, I bought
an Evening Standard to catch the day’s news, and the newsvendor
handed me an A5 magazine. It was called, Great Days Out, and
was sub-titled, ‘How to keep your family entertained all
summer.’ The magazine seemed innocuous enough at first
glance, and with the summer holidays looming, I could see that
since it offered – and I quote: ‘discount vouchers
to top shows and attractions’ – ‘in association
with Nectar’ – it might be just the ticket for people
with families. And yet, even after I put it to one side, it
disturbed me – annoyed me, even. The word ‘entertained’
grated, and the very notion of readers being enticed by the
prospect of keeping their ‘families entertained all summer’,
made me squirm.
At this point you may be thinking that my reaction was a little
bit extreme – at least, bizarre – and that it’s
easy for me to respond like this: After all, I don’t have
children, so am not confronted with the challenge of keeping
them occupied during the long school holidays. Perhaps, you
even feel that I’m being rather trivial – what a
topic for an Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah sermon!
But that’s just the issue I want to raise: The contemporary
preoccupation with being ‘entertained’ is triviality
gone mad. Young people going to school each day, week in, week
out, live a regimented existence. Holiday times should be about
exploring, creating, celebrating – about engaging actively
in the world and interacting with others, not simply about passively
‘being entertained’ – amused, diverted, stimulated.
I recall an older relative saying, in response to hearing about
children sitting for hours in front of the television, ‘when
I was young, we used to make our own entertainment.’ How
many times have you heard someone over the age of seventy say
that?
There’s a world of difference between ‘being entertained’
and ‘making our own entertainment.’ The difference
is imagination, ingenuity, creativity, adventure. But ‘being
entertained’ is not just an issue for young people –
and it’s not just a matter of ‘entertainment’
– either of the passive or active variety. There is a
deeper malaise infecting contemporary life – and the preoccupation
with ‘entertainment’ is simply one of the most prevalent
symptoms.
Here we are, in the midst of the Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah service.
Why are we here? What are the main triggers that have brought
us to the synagogue this evening? Habit? Guilt? Nostalgia? Fear?
Regret? Hope? Perhaps it’s the longing for companionship
and connection. Each person’s reasons will be different.
One thing is clear: We haven’t come here to be ‘entertained’;
we’re not even ‘making our own entertainment’;
coming to synagogue on Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah can hardly be classed
as ‘recreation’, after all. So, again, why are we
here?
The standard response to this question is that we are ‘welcoming
in the New Year’. But this simple answer belies the more
profound dimension of this moment. Here we are – Hineinu:
Here – in this moment between the old year that has now
become the past, and the new year that lies ahead of us. Most
of the time the present moment passes us by unnoticed –
but on Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah, even while time moves on, inexorably,
still the moment between the old year and the new year; marked
by this service, is long enough for us, not only to reflect
on the past and look to the future, but also to experience the
present.
Most of the time, most of us are so preoccupied with what has
happened and what might happen that we forget to live now. But
actually, I think the problem is worse, even, than this. Most
of the time, most of us don’t just forget to live now;
we avoid being in the present moment. In place of living now,
‘being entertained’ offers us the option of ‘passing
the time’, of ‘filling’ the space between
the past and the future, in which we could be living, with entertainment.
Of course, there are moments – when we are ill, for example
– when, perhaps, we need something diverting to fill the
space and help the time to pass. Being entertained has its place
– but it cannot be a substitute for living.
So, why do we find it so hard to live now? Being Jewish doesn’t
help. We spend so much time looking back, and reciting our familiar
litanies about what happened to our ancestors, and what previous
generations experienced, there is little time left to focus
on the present. Living in a complex, frightening world, beset
by violence and conflict, and threatened by ecological disaster
doesn’t help, either. Feeling so overwhelmed and helpless
in the face of the enormity of the problems, which seem to multiply
daily, it’s not surprising that we retreat, not only into
the past, which is known and contained, but into the comforting
realms of diversionary entertainment.
There are, indeed, good reasons why we avoid the present. But
actually, we all know that when we do manage to live in the
present moment for a while, we don’t only feel better,
more joyful – for a moment – but also, more able
to engage in life on an on-going basis. And we don’t have
to be doing anything particularly important or special. I remember
weeding the front garden and path one afternoon in late August.
It was such an absorbing task – but also, so satisfying;
even with the aching back; not just the satisfaction of tackling
and completing a simple task; but the awareness of doing it;
the crouching, and the pulling, and the moment by moment involvement
of my whole being. Of course, working in a garden is an obvious
– and rather easy example – but, believe it or not,
I’m aware of that being in the moment feeling when I’m
writing a sermon, too; struggling to find the words to express
what I want to say, trying things out, taping the keys, pausing
to think.
In my experience, everything we do – even washing up
or cleaning the bathroom – can be a moment lived or a
moment lost. Martin Buber spoke about the encounter between
people, either being about an ‘I’ meeting a ‘Thou’,
or an ‘I’ meeting an ‘It’ – depending
upon the insight and awareness we bring, and the extent to which
we genuinely reach out to the other. Just as each meeting between
two people has the potential to either be a real encounter between
two subjects, or not; so each moment of our lives has the potential
to be lived or to be lost.
Alternative practitioners and healers often talk about mindfulness.
Being in a state of mindfulness, which involves approaching
everything we do with intention and thoughtfulness, helps to
ensure that we don’t hurt ourselves – quite literally
– have accidents, and make mistakes. Being in a state
of mindfulness is also the perfect antidote to the mindlessness
that is induced by entertainment. But even when we are not being
entertained, we are often in a state of mindlessness –
so preoccupied with what we have just done, or are about to
do – or both – that we forget to be in the moment.
We could blame Judaism for keeping us focussed on the past,
but, Judaism also provides us with wonderful lessons in mindfulness.
One of the main benefits, for example, of pausing to recite
a blessing before we eat or experience something with our senses,
or perform a mitzvah, is so that we are able to fully inhabit
the moment and acknowledge it completely.
The Medieval Jewish scholar, Bachya, Joseph Ibn Pakuda, who
lived in Muslim Spain from 1050-1120, wrote, in his magnum opus,
Duties of the Heart, ‘Days are scrolls; write on them
what you wish to be remembered’. In true Jewish fashion,
Bachya seems to be thinking both forwards to the future time
beyond our lives, and backwards, to the time when the present
will become the past. But his words also convey something else:
Life is the sum total of the days we live; each and every day
we are called to act; to live; to write the on-going story of
our lives. I was very struck, when I picked up a copy of My
Life by the artist Marc Chagall, a few weeks ago, and realised
that he wrote his autobiography at the age of thirty-five! He
had lived so much life by then – and he was still very
much alive – and chose to write in the midst of life –
not to wait until he could feel the end approaching.
As I thought about this, my mind turned to another artist,
Vincent Van Gough, who died at the age of thirty-six, and remembered
the Van Gough Museum in the Netherlands crammed full of just
some of the paintings that Van Gough painted in the very few
years that he was an artist. Van Gough has left us the legacy
of his amazing work – but the point is that despite dying
so young – despite ending his own life – he lived
life every day, as a celebrated film talks of love – ‘truly,
madly, deeply’ – with all his being.
We are called to live life, if not madly, then truly and deeply,
each and every day. Today – this evening – as we
gather together to welcome in the New Year, and pause between
the old year that ended as the sun set, and the new year that
is about to dawn, we have the opportunity, not only to reflect
on the past and look forward to the future, but also to be in
the present. Time never stands still, but paradoxically, when
we focus on the present, we discover that time is also eternal.
Being wholly in the present liberates us from the incessant
pulse of time as it beats our lives away, second after second,
minute after minute, hour after hour, and transforms each moment
into eternity. We haven’t come here this evening to be
entertained. This is not what we do for recreation – but
it may be an opportunity for re-creation. It is up to us. May
this Erev Rosh Ha-Shanah service inspire each one of us, as
we enter the New Year, to live truly and deeply, with all our
being, in every moment. And let us say: Amen.
Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah
Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom
Verei’ut
Erev Rosh Hashanah, 22nd September 2006 – 1st Tishri 5767
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