Rabbi Sheryl Lewart |

Rabbi Sheryl Lewart

Rabbi Sheryl Lewart
ROSH HASHANNAH 5764 2003
You Need Less Than You Think, And What You Need is Not What You Thought

A very long time ago there was a traveler who was making a journey across the wild steppes when he suddenly heard the roar of a tiger. Terrified, he turned and saw the beast charging him. The traveler wasted no time. He ran for his life across the barren land but saw no refuge until a dried-up well loomed in the distance. He felt his blood surging as he gripped the edge of the well and leapt inside.

The traveler fell, and as he fell he noticed to his horror a fire-snorting dragon far below, its jaws snapping viciously. Desperately, the traveler reached out and grabbed hold of a long vine growing out of the bricks in the well. Miraculously, the vine held him and for a few precious moments he clung for his life against the cold brick walls of the well.

Above him, the tiger gnashed its teeth. Below him, the dragon licked its chops. The poor traveler’s arms grew weary. His thoughts knotted. Fate was very near. Still, he held on. Hope flickered in his heart.

While he pondered his strange dilemma he noticed two mice, one black, one white, nibbling at the branch to which he was clinging. The sight put him into a joyous rapture. Every molecule of bark on the branch glowed as if on fire. It was then he noticed a few drops of luscious honey glistening on the leaves at the root of the vine. Smiling, he stretched out his tongue and tasted the honey.

So many of us are running so fast, and pushing so hard we live as if the tiger and the dragon are almost upon us. Most of us take no notice of the honey. Our eyes are fixed on the prize, the next “win”. We are driven by the need to succeed, desperate to keep the tiger and dragon from devouring us.

The need to succeed fills and fuels us, pushes and urges us. The need to succeed controls and drives us.

Parents worry about your three-year-olds’ chances to be accepted to the best preschool, so that they’ll be approved for the best elementary school and high school and chosen by the right college! We look at our three year-olds with anxiety, spurred by the need to succeed.

Twenty-somethings struggle for the opportunity, wherein- when the opening presents itself — you will work harder and longer, sleep less, take work home, push limits, and ignore your social lives.

GenXers — eagerly conditioned to respond to fax and pager, instant e-mail and computer access in every town and village in the world — accept the reality of a seven-day work week and projects that accompany you on vacation.

Baby boomers defer retirement and feign invincibility, hoping to amass more and more to preserve life-style choices and culturally conditioned expectations.

We drive ourselves and are, in turn, driven by our drives. I’m not so sure we are clear about what success means, or how to measure it, or even if it really matters. But we are moving so fast that we rarely stop for thoughtful self-reflection. We rarely stretch out our tongues to taste the honey. And if we do, our society only reinforces the need for more and more and more, we are living in a culture of incredible consumption.

Last month, participating with a group of rabbis on a spiritual retreat, I had the opportunity to leave the world as we know it in southeastern Alaska, with no other people within 400 miles, no cell phone service, no electricity, no running water. I learned a lot.

I learned: You Need Less Than You Think, And What You Need is Not What You Thought

Here’s my discard list of what I don’t need:
Abandon computers and PDAs at home.
Leave watches back in the hotel room.
Discard clothing choices.
Turn my back on credit cards.
Unburden hair and skin.
Discard my doubts and skepticism.
Desert my fluffy familiar pillow.
Dump the old tapes and demanding voices that I hear inside my head.
Ditch the books, the brandy, the mp3 player
Walk away from my judging mind

Here’s my list of “what you need”:

Laughter.
Bring a sense of humor. As Yogi Berra said “ the future ain’t what it used to be.” Find humor in the unexpected, – a salmon doing a triple forward flip, a sea otter floating on her back using her stomach as a table. Let yourself go, surrendering to the soft gleeful call of my inner self, muscles and bones, pulse and breath. Encourage laughter, easy and light.
Simplicity.
Practice simplicity. After eating, I poured mint tea into my dinner bowl. Carefully rubbing the sides with my utensils to loosen all food remains, I drank the dishwater tea, wiped the bowls and rolled the utensils up with a bandana and placed the bundle in my dry-sack until the next meal. (And I thought I had learned so much from Martha Stewart!)
Try to travel lightly. I don’t need a mansion, a house, or a condominium, or even a tent. My scheduled departure from the island was delayed because of a gale blowing up and bearing down on our protected base camp. I took down my tent, gathered my two “dry-sacks” of gear, my water and some Cliff bars and moved up the steep rocky coast to the base of a huge Sitka Spruce that had served as our “kitchen.” Quickly we gathered as far from the stinging rain and wind as we could. Our guide deftly knocked away all the supporting poles that had kept the branches up and out of our way. Instantly, the tree branches reasserted their graceful outward curves, surrounding us, holding us within its evergreen embrace. We huddled ñ close to the huge trunk, completely enveloped by the tree, to wait out the storm. You don’t need a mansion, you need shelter.

You need Awareness.
Be aware and listen to:
Sounds of the seine boats harvesting halibut,
Lapping incoming triangles of tide.
Gentle calls of the great bald eagle,
Haunting cries of the loon.
Breath of humpback whales singing and whistling,
Splash of spawning salmon rising sparkling.
Silent still surrender of ancient Forests
Be awake and see:
Promise in the morning sky,
Subtle arch of pale pastel rainbow.
Phosphorescent fingers of northern lights
Manicuring the evening sky,
Sacred rising of a fiery moon,
Celebration in the night sky.
Practice Gratitude.
Find gratitude, pure, sudden, sharp, steep and painful. Feel it in sternum and gut, in the sharp intake of your breath.
Be grateful:
For your body’s strength, giving the best it can each day.
For the communities you live in, that shape and define you.
For those who walked lightly before you, leaving this earth as they found it.
For the creatures who fly, burrow, swim, slither,
Climb, run, creep, and crawl.
For the endurance of the trees, tides, rivers, rocks.
For the seamless spirit of the whole.

Melo Kol Haíaretz Kevodo, the world is filled with Divine Glory.

Sing for your supper, garnered from a world where the real separation between organic and inorganic, living and nonliving is fleeting and flexible. Speak a blessing, a word of gratitude, pause for a grateful moment. Gary Snyder, naturalist and poet, writes “A song for your supper: performance is currency in the deep world’s gift economy.”

The Hebrew term for gratitude is hikarat hatov, literally “recognizing the good.” Practicing gratitude means recognizing the good that is already yours. If you’ve lost your job, but you still have your family and health, you have something to be grateful for. If you can’t move around much, but your mind is as sharp as ever, you have something to be grateful for. Gratitude affirms. Most of us tend to focus on what is missing in our lives, we barely notice all the good that offsets it. Consumer marketing and advertising constantly attempt to convince us of just how inadequate we are, hoping we will race to fill the “hole in the soul” by needing more and more “measures of success“

Today begins a ten-day period of spiritual opportunity. Take some time for self-reflection and share s ome intimate serious conversation with loved ones about what is really important to you. Invite memories and notice moments that demonstrate what matters in your life. Notice when are you happiest, most fulfilled, satisfied. Ask yourselves: Are you living in a way that feels congruent “that fits” with your goals and dreams? If not, what is keeping you from that life? What does “success” really mean to you? How much do you really need?

Practice laughter, simplicity, awareness and gratitude as spiritual practices. Recognize the good, hakarat hatov, and resolve that the good is more than “good enough,” celebrate a life based on gratitude. Today, on Rosh Hashana, when you s lide golden drops of honey onto an apple slice and share the blessing for a sweet New Year, really taste the sweetness of the honey.

Shana Tova UíMetuka, A Good and a Sweet New Year.