Your soul and my soul,
How often do you sit
with someone you love
in the next room
in the next chair
and what is it
that prevents your soul
from leaping up
leaping up to say
Your soul and my soul,
aren’t they one?
aren’t we one?
that’s how I feel.
What is it that prevents you?
Instead you sit
in your own room
in your own chair
filled with longing and loneliness
and the moment passes.
From A Spiritual Life, by Merle Feld (SUNY Press) 1999, pg. 97.
Loneliness. I came across this quote by John Corry, which I think is all too true. He said that:
Loneliness seems to have become the great American disease.
I think that it is indeed. It is far too easy for us to isolate ourselves these days though we can pretend that having a thousand friends on Facebook is the equivalent of having them where we live in our daily lives. Where once we at least had to go to the local video rental place to rent a movie, already a step removed from actually attending a movie, and where we might actually run into people whom we know in the process, now we can visit sites such as Netflix through our televisions and with a simple press of a button have many more movies than were once available at any movie rental store streamed live to our television sets without ever having to leave the couch. And because many families have multiple television sets, we need not necessarily bother to agree on which movie to choose. The disagreeing party could just go into a different room and watch a different movie. Same house, separate lives.
Where once conversations were had in person or at least over the phone, now young adults simply send text messages, interacting with each other speedily for certain, but in a medium that is less personal than the now seemingly lost form of communication known as the letter. The bigger problem, and what I would like to talk about today, is that this search for ease, for things to come to us without effort and without sacrifice of any kind on our part, is rampant, not only in our use of technology, but in our personal interactions as well.
Longing for connection, it is too easy to take the easy way out. While the easy way may be to text instead of call, it can also be to sit and wait for the other to act as well. I know that I too often ask others to contact me, to email me first. Yes, I am busy and yes it is far easier to respond to an email than to remember an email address. However, being passive, not acting, may mean that I miss out on interaction with someone with whom I would love to interact, because they do not take their time to contact me. Ultimately, while we may keep this discussion at an abstract level, talking about reaching out or waiting to be reached by another, the issue is really one that is much simpler.
It is a matter of giving and receiving and our society has become one in which we expect everything to be given to us. Not only do we expect more for less expense of time, money, or effort, we may even expect that others will provide it for us entirely. We like to receive, but giving? What may not be readily apparent is that we may well like giving even more!
Which actually feels better to us? Which is more satisfying?
I think that the answer to this question is directly related to the loneliness that we feel in our lives and I am going to show you how.
Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser asked the following question in a sermon he shared with me and with other colleagues about giving:
Think about the best gift you ever got—the one you had to wait a long time to get. The one that you had really craved, and then you got it. What was it for you?
Take a moment and remember.
When I was a child, I’m sure it was some sort of action figure, perhaps a Star Wars figurine. I remember being very excited to receive an X-wing fighter and a Tie fighter from the Star Wars set for my birthday. My best friend had the Millennium Falcon and I really wanted the X-wing and Tie fighter so that we could re-enact the battle scenes from the movie. Yes, it is collectable, but a bit more than well used. A year or two later, I had moved beyond that stuff and it went into storage.
I remember, in 1984, a bit older, having a Members Only jacket and some awful pants with zippers all over them because I wanted to be cool like Michael Jackson. Have you ever seen those clothes? They had fake zippers. Fake. They were not cargo pants with useful pockets. Fake zippers. I can’t even imagine wearing those clothes today and no, not just because they would be way too small on me! Even at the time, I probably only wore them a handful of times. Why did I even want them?
A couple of years ago, I was excited to receive the Get Smart DVD set as a present from my wife, something that I had wanted for a long time. Growing up, I loved that show. One weekend soon after I got the set, I watched the first couple of DVDs full of shows, not all of them. Since then, the DVDs have pretty much been sitting on a shelf. Someday, I will have time to watch them.
Most of us can probably relate to this. There are things that we want so badly that our hearts ache. We crave them. We go out of our way to get them. And then, we lose interest or perhaps realize that we should not have wanted what we desired in the first place. Receiving something we wanted often does not feel as good as we thought that it would feel. Sometimes, as Rabbi Goldwasser notes, it may actually make us feel badly when we realize how foolish our desire had been.
Is it the same with giving? How do we feel when we give to another something that they have wanted or needed? I can tell you that as a Rabbi, I have the opportunity to offer prayers and blessings and that while it certainly feels good to receive them from others, there is nothing like seeing the impact that a little bit of caring, a few words, a hug, holding a hand, can have on someone in need of such a gift.
But I agree with my friend, Rabbi Goldwasser, who talked about giving his daughter the brand new American Girl doll she had been talking about for weeks.
He noted that, “for a parent, it’s a great feeling. It’s almost intoxicating.” Even going back to when I was little, I remember gifts and remember how I felt.
Giving really can feel better than receiving. The experience is deeper, longer, and much more satisfying. Receiving just reminds us how banal most of our desires really are. Giving lifts us up and opens our hearts. It makes us feel connected to others and connected to the best that is within us.
Waiting and hoping that the other will give and that we will receive is a problem, my friends. Not only will our receiving be less fulfilling than our giving, but we have to wait. Why wait for something upon which you may improve with a little effort?
Not only does the joy of giving most often supersede the joy of receiving, but through giving gifts, we are more likely to receive them as well. Show that you care about others and most of the time they will show they care about you. Offer love and you are more likely to receive love. It is too easy for someone who is aching for love and affection from the one she or he seeks it from to say, “If he loved me”, “If she loved me,” “she would reach out to me,” “he would give of himself to me,” “she or he would come to be with me.” So we wait to receive.
Your soul and my soul,
How often do you sit
with someone you love
in the next room
in the next chair
and what is it
that prevents your soul
from leaping up
leaping up to say
Your soul and my soul,
aren’t they one?
aren’t we one?
that’s how I feel.
What is it that prevents you?
Instead you sit
in your own room
in your own chair
filled with longing and loneliness
and the moment passes.
If we give instead of waiting to first receive, life will be better.
This Merle Feld poem was included among the texts that I studied as part of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality’s rabbinical cohort. It was not offered as advice for building relationships, nor as an argument for why we should give, though I think that it can make us think about both. It was instead offered as a way to help us think about our connection to the divine.
Many of us would like to feel a stronger connection to God, to the Jewish community, to the Jewish tradition. We, to use the symbolism of the prayer, sit in our own room, in our own chair, filled with longing and loneliness. We could, if we wished, reach out, give of ourselves, and perhaps would then receive.
Our Tradition tells us that God is waiting. In fact, we read it every year in the Yom Kippur liturgy.
On this Yom Kippur day, we read:
This is Your Glory: You are slow to anger, ready to forgive…Until the last day, You wait for them, welcoming them as soon as they turn to you.
Tradition tells us that on this day especially, we have an opportunity, that God is waiting. It would certainly be wonderful if God reached out and said “Hi,” first. Maybe, even gave us a big hug. It would probably be a bit startling. But we don’t need to take this analogy literally. The simple fact is that you get out of your spiritual life in proportion to what you invest of yourself in it. If we turn, God will turn. We reach out, God will reach out. That is what our text is saying.
If you want to feel that spiritual connection, seek it, don’t wait for it. If you want to feel a part of the community, seek that connection. If you want to connect to the divine, to reach out to God, do it. Don’t wait. Don’t just sit there in your chair letting loneliness engulf you.
Sometimes we wish for connection but we feel that a barrier exists. Perhaps our feelings were hurt in the past when we reached out, our giving was not received as we would have liked. Perhaps, we have felt that we were even pushed away, rejected. Perhaps, we felt misunderstood when we approached and the response was not what we wanted. There are many more things that could follow the word “perhaps” all of which could be our justification for why we do not now try to connect, try to give, try to care, try to love. Many reasons. But the result is that longing and loneliness are with us.
Whether we are talking about personal relationships, about our spiritual journey and connections to our religious Traditions, or about our own happiness, waiting to receive is not as much fun as receiving and receiving is not as good as giving.
This lesson is not a new one. In fact, is based upon two very ancient Jewish directives, “love your neighbor as yourself” and “do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you.” We should give to others because we want others to give to us, not to wait to receive. To use the words of Hillel, “All the rest is commentary. Go and learn.”
But there are no words better than those in today’s Torah portion:
“It is not across the sea.”
We can reach it. We can do it. We can combat the loneliness in our lives by reaching out our hands, our voice, our prayers, our souls—and giving of ourselves.
Shanah Tovah.
May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a happy and healthy year.
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