A Year of Sacred Moments

Where Are You? Good Question. (Bereishit/Genesis 1:1—6:8) “Questions are powerful tools. They can ignite hope and lead to new insights. They can also destroy hope and keep us stuck in bad assumptions.” - Michael Hyatt In the face of questionable or annoying behavior, we often make the mistake of asking, “Why?” For the most part, asking someone “why” questions, such as, “Why are you so disorganized? Why did you leave your wet towel on the floor? Why did you forget to take your lunch to school? Why did you leave on all the lights? Why did you blah blah blah…” are bad questions. How so? “Why” questions are often less of a genuine inquiry into the truth of the matter and more of a veiled accusation and criticism. When your spouse comes into the kitchen in the middle of the night craving that last bit of beef with broccoli, for example, and finds the empty Chinese food container surreptitiously buried in the trash, there are no really “good” answers to the interrogation that is sure to follow. Killer Communication Relationship expert, John Gottman, famously uses the phrase, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” to refer to the four communication styles that kill relationships with Horseman Number Three being “Defensiveness.” When we feel unjustly accused of something, we defend ourselves by denying, fishing for excuses, blaming, and turning the tables on the accuser to make it his or her fault. Sometimes, however, we can get triggered, and process an innocent or good question as being a verbal attack – when it wasn’t. We’re all familiar with the story of Adam eating the forbidden fruit and then hiding from God. God never asked Adam why he ate the forbidden fruit; God simply asked, “Where are you?” The Existential Inquiry Obviously, this wasn’t a literal question, with God playing Hide & Go Seek, peering at the bushes saying, “Come out, come out wherever you are.” It was an existential inquiry. In asking, “Where are you?” God was probing the internal mechanism whereby Adam made it OK to disobey God. No matter how destructive the behavior, there is always an inner voice that convinces us that it’s OK, justifiable, or even a moral imperative. No one, I dare say, eats chocolate frosted donuts, or is unfaithful to a partner by accident. Multiple choices have to be made and multiple permissions granted for the mind to distort reality and excuse any behavior. God wanted Adam to contemplate the grave consequences of his behavior, because if Adam was hiding from God, and thus, disconnected from his very Creator, where then could he possibly be? Response - Ability The antidote for defensiveness is simple - own your stuff. Take responsibility for your part, however big or small, in creating the issue. God was hoping that the first man would “man up,” learn from his mistake and reconnect. Adam’s disobedience, however, had created in him such a deep sense of shame, that he processed God’s inquiry as a “why” question; a verbal attack. Consequently, Adam engaged in typical defensive behaviors. Adam blamed his wife for giving him the fruit which he ate, and then he doubled down by blaming God for giving him a wife to begin with. Even worse, Adam failed to show remorse. The Sages point out that in the Hebrew text, the verb “ate” is in the future tense. Incredibly, Adam was in effect admitting that even if he had the chance for a do-over, he would commit the same sin again, that for all time, Adam will eat that apple, because he is not capable of or interested in changing. He’s just that apple-eating guy. Having rejected God’s overture and bid to repair the relationship, is it any wonder that at that point, God responded, “You’re outta here!” Who Are You? Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, (the famous Chassidic rabbi known as the Alter Rebbe) explains that “Where are you?” really means, “Who are you - at this moment of your life?” For as we go through the trials and tribulations of life, as well as its joys and delights, we can imagine that embedded in each situation is God’s implied question to us: “Where/who are you now... and now... and here... and here... with this ordeal….or even that triumph?” And ask yourself, “Are you in relationship with God? Are you connected?” The Hebrew word for “sin” is “cheit.” It means, “to miss the mark,” and so we are to understand that it is the very nature of transgressions to take us off course. As anyone who uses GPS knows, we often miss a turn, but the first thing that happens when the system re-routes is to pinpoint our location. Unlike the first man, we must be willing to recalibrate our assumptions, to take responsibility for our actions and respond appropriately. As Viktor E. Frankl, author of “Man’s Search for Meaning,” said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” “Where are you?” is a very powerful question. May our answers be powerful in turn, may our way be clear, and let’s not ever be “that guy,” unable to come out from behind the bush, hiding from God, bitter at life and who doesn’t know where he’s going. Internalize & Actualize: 1. Think about your life right now from an emotional, spiritual and physical perspective. Write down how you would define “where are you” in these three categories. Then, with each one, write down if where you are is where you want to be. If so, why and what can you do to keep it that way? If not, what will you need to change or work on in order to get to where you want to be? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Bereishit is the very first word in the Torah and begins with the Hebrew letter “Beit.” “Beit” is numerically equivalent to two and one of the explanations is a reminder that we are not intended to get through life alone. We all need others to connect to, and others need us as well. Think through where you have been vs. where you are now (and where you are going), and who in your life has helped you get there. This week, reach out to those people if possible, and let them know how they have helped you. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Likewise, we all have people that we feel have gotten in the way of our being able to reach where we want to be. And yet, when we remove our defensiveness, sometimes we find that the very people that created obstacles actually forced us (intentionally or not) to become stronger, more resilient and work that much harder. Think about people or situations to which you have ascribed blame. Imagine removing your defenses, and now write down how they may have helped you - more than you may have wanted to admit. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________