Re’eh & Completely Unprepared (well…)

It’s my personality to always be prepared. To a fault. Annoyingly, to others.

It’s part of my perfectionism: the Virgo in me, which can be a real curse. It makes me judgmental and demanding. (My children have already told me how I’ve damaged them, and my husband suffers every day, with my high expectations.)

As part of my spiritual practice, I struggle to be more conscious and let things go. I do it always, but especially as we enter the Hebrew month of Elul, Jewish practice says this is a time of assessment, deep introspection and self-examination. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Of course, being prepared is a blessing in situations that require attention to detail and planning ahead—for the smallest thing, or the biggest disasters.

Towards the end of last week, there was a minor water issue in our building.

(My mother would have called it a minor disaster, of course. Like if you sprinkled water on the floor while washing dishes, she would cry out, “There’s a flood!” As a result, she had a very clean house—a blessing, but also a curse—if you didn’t live up to her expectations).

Anyway, this was a planned water shut-off that was supposed to begin at 9 in the morning and be restored by 6 in the evening.

But it did not turn out that way. Because you really never know what’s going to happen, as prepared as you try to be. By 10 O’clock that night, some of us were just beginning to get a trickle in the faucet while others still had no water at all by the next afternoon!

Many people were completely prepared. Like a neighbor who I shared water with (grateful for the Virgo—again!)

Yes, I was the one who woke up at the crack of dawn to fill buckets and pots with water, and again when there was barely a trickle the next morning, though my husband didn’t think it was necessary.

It probably would have been easier to just fill a bathtub, but I made a conscious decision not to. I don't like to waste any water, if possible. I try not to take for granted the water that flows so easily from my faucet, unaware of how much there may be left in the reservoirs. Water is the essence of life, and I am acutely aware these days that there are many people around the world who don’t have enough of it—clean or dirty—whether due to extreme heat or wars.

So I play this little game with myself that no one but me knows about (until now), preparing for a real disaster that may come at any moment so I have a sense that I am tough and will be able to survive it. For the sake of my family’s life, but also the life of others. After all, we are truly co-dependent, even if our American culture teaches rugged individualism.

The Torah reading this week, Re’eh, is about the choices we make. It starts us on a Journey of Transformation, as Rabbi Alan Lew writes in his book, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. It’s a book about preparing for the High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is a time of deep introspection. Yom Kippur, mostly known as the Day of Atonement, is really about rehearsing for our death so we may learn to walk in the world in a way that shows our appreciation for life itself, not taking anything for granted.

Re’eh is the first Torah reading during this month of preparation. It begins by giving the Israelites a choice as they cross the Jordan River to enter the Promised Land. They get to choose blessing or curse. They are encouraged to choose blessing, because choosing blessing means choosing life.

Half the people are to stand on one mountain, where they hear a series of blessings recited by the Levites who stand in the valley. The other half stand on another mountain where they will hear curses recited. And all the people say Amen.

What we learn from this, Lew writes, is that our lives literally depend on our choosing good over evil: “…And we learn that it is a matter of consciousness also. We have to come to see our life very clearly, clearly enough so that we can discern… so that we can tell the difference between the blessings and the curses, so that these things are arrayed before us as clearly as mountains, as we intone their names from the valley in between—that sliver of eternity on which we stand and that we call the present moment (p. 66-67).”

Lew continues: “We no longer perform the great pageant of the blessings and the curses [on the mountaintops]…[Instead of the physical mountains, this month of Elul], is a time to gaze upon the inner mountains, to devote serious attention to bringing our lives into focus,…to identify that which yearns for life and that which clings to death, that which seeks good and that which is fatally attracted to the perverse, to find out who we are and where we are going (p.67).”

Jewish practice makes it clear that we must engage in self-evaluation and self-judgment during this time, taking a serious spiritual accounting of our attitudes and actions. I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me—especially if I want to be prepared.

At the same time, I am living with an acute awareness that it’s probably impossible to be prepared—that the title of Alan Lew’s book is eerily accurate, especially in today’s world.

Though completely unprepared, we can still make choices that bring either blessings or curses into the world. They are choices we make moment by moment, in our attitudes, thoughts, and actions.

What is being asked of us in Re’eh is not to allow ourselves to become distracted—we must to stay focused, aware, conscious of our actions and our thoughts. It speaks of those who will secretly try to distract us, and turn us away from the Divine to which we are to cleave.

Lew asks us to examine the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we repeat and cling to, that we cleave to, the way we are told to cleave to God.

So I pass the question on: what distracts you, and what do you allow to distract you from the spiritual work that needs to be done to bring more blessing into the world?

Ahat stories do you cleave to—stories about yourself, about others and the world?

What stories do you retell because they make you feel safer and more whole in a world that feels utterly unpredictable, a world that feels like it’s falling apart?

What will you be working on during this month of Elul for the sake of life? And please share them with me as we all try to prepare ourselves.

As Lew says, our lives literally depend on our choosing good over evil, and we need to be conscious of where we are going and how our actions determine the direction we’re going in. Without consciousness, we can’t change course.

Please share your stories. (And say Amen.)