PESACH: Waking Up

Coasting...


Taking things for granted is perhaps one of the most fundamental psychological phenomenon in the human experience.  


It is often pointed out that the human being can get used to just about anything -- Eskimos seem to not mind the cold; Venezuelans are apparently un-phased by obscene crime rates and widespread Chavismo; and smokers can eat comfortably inside of a cloud (in the now-extinct "smoking section").  


Eventually, what once started as a jolting noise soon becomes background music, and not long after, muted silence.  "Life must go on," we say unconsciously, and we push forward.  


Acclimatization is, of course, both a blessing and a curse.  Without this mechanism, we would never be able to transcend our "hang-ups" and pet peeves, live with other people, and pull ourselves out of life's traumas.  However, there is a dark side to all this that is quietly sinister.  Negative patterns can sew themselves into our personalities and day-to-day lives, and even if we noticed them once or twice at first, they are very quickly masked by the human mind under the table cloth of habit.


Every person that looks skywards and strives to grow wants to know how to keep growing -- how to not fall back into the monotones of habituated stagnation.  The individual who  managed to make strong, life-changing decisions in his youth, wants to know how to continue to live on that cutting edge.  It seems like every time we go through a growth spurt, and push ourselves to a new spiritual level, we soon after find ourselves coasting in complacency.


This is exactly what Pesach is all about.  Waking up.


Hakarat haTov - Recognizing the Good


If you've ever peaked into a yeshiva, you've probably been mildly surprised to find hundreds of young men rocking back and forth -- some standing, some sitting -- singing to themselves in Aramaic, waving their thumbs and/or fists in the air, and firing back-and-forth questions to answer questions.


To anyone who has studied in a university, this is certainly not the "library etiquette" we're accustomed to.  It's actually the exact opposite: in most libraries, the books occupy center stage in the middle of any given floor of the building, and around the books are people quietly studying alone, shushed for sneezing too loud.  In a beit midrash, the bulk of its floor-space is dedicated to students who study in pairs, out loud, with the books lining the walls along the perimeter.  (It could be suggested that the name of each is telling of the outlook from which they emerge: "library" comes from "libros," which means "books;" בית מדרש, on the other hand, literally means "house of seeking," in which the emphasis is on "the seeker.")


Why all the commotion?


               ...we're trying to wake up!  


I'm sure you've noticed this pattern already, but all Torah learning, even our weekly blog posts, take the form of taking in information until one arrives at some paradox -- some absurdity based on the "facts" as one understands them.  First, we try to bring out that absurdity into high-contrast so that it screams "explain me!," and then, we set out to demonstrate that there is a deeper paradigm that we were missing when we asked our questions.  


We were asleep until we asked the question.  It's usually the type of thing where you smack your forehead for not having seen it before.  In a nutshell, this is what's going on in a beit midrash.  Through the singing, and rocking, and questioning, and thumb-waving, we are seeking an awakening to see the Torah and our world in a deeper, more complete way.  It is this aspect of Torah study that makes it the undisputed heart of mitzvah "observance."  We can "observe" or "keep" or "practice" or "perform" mitzvahs our whole lives, but without Torah pumping new life and understanding in an and out them, we remain just that: "observers" and "performers."


Torah is thus our training ground for fighting complacency.  The worst thing would be to be like the spoiled child born into wealth who cannot appreciate any of it.  And because, as we mentioned, the human mind is capable of getting used to just about anything, this is a battle we try to fight around the clock, 365 days of the year (almost*).  Feeling gratitude takes hard work!  Appreciation requires constant awakening.    


As soon as we wake up to the this "chiddush" (the Torah terminology for a "breakthrough idea"), we will start to see it everywhere...

When we literally wake up in the morning, the first words that come out of our mouths is "...מודה אני" "I am grateful..."

Mussar, the Jewish discipline of self-development, is entirely founded upon this principle because all of life is dependent on our awareness of those fundamental truths and personal obligations that are "so obvious to us" that they escape us constantly (Mesilat Yesharim beginning of Intro. & ch. 1).  

During the month of Elul, leading up to Rosh Hashana, Ashkenazim sound the shofar to wake us up to renewed growth, and Sefardim literally wake up in the middle of the night to say Selichot (that start off with, "בן אדם מה לך נרדם קום קרא בתחנונים" "Son of Adam!  What [good] is it for you to be sleeping?  Wake up and read [words] of requests [for opportunities for growth]!!!).

It is no surprise that the mitzvah of our New Year is to sound the shofar, the pure cry of the soul to awaken to a new year. 

...keep your eyes open for it...you'll see it everywhere.

The Soul's Awakening


We may have noticed this before, but we now have the perspective to see this in technicolor: The Pesach Hagaddah opens with questions and ends with song...  The whole night is designed to be a crash course to wake up to waking up -- learning how to appreciate the riches that we have been given.  Without delving too much into detail, let's take a fly-through together to see the landscape of the Handbook to Waking Up, the Hagaddah:

1) Asking Questions - We mentioned above that the process of asking a question is the process of becoming aware to that which one was previously asleep to.  However, the Hagaddah teaches us that it runs even deeper: what we've been calling "waking up" throughout this article is actually the "discovery of self" (Alei Shor II p. 394).   

Normally, we look at education as the process of assimilating and recalling information.  Even the Socratic method through which a student is guided by the teacher towards the right answer through a series of questions, does not arrive at the central point as the Torah sees it.  The Hagaddah teaches us that even more fundamental is igniting the person's ability to ask questions himself.  This is the engine of a lifetime of self-education, as well as the engine of appreciation -- learning to continually wake oneself up to deeper and deeper aspects of the world around him.   

While a statement of fact can fall flat even as I recite it, a question necessarily tugs at my core -- why?  what?  how?  I want to know...and if I don't, I at least want to know why don't I care.

We may have thought that the Ma Nishtana, that the children usually ask at the seder is merely to keep them involved.  However, the Talmud states, and the halacha codifies that even if a seder table consists of two scholars who know the answers to these questions they must ask eachother.  Moreover, if a person is alone, he must ask himself! (Pesachim 116a; Shu"A 473:7)  Questioning is intrinsic to the seder.  All of these weird things we do: washing without a bracha, dipping the celery, removing the seder plate from the table before we've eaten from it, spinning it on top of everyone's heads** -- all of it is to awaken the questions that awaken the "I" inside of us (ibid 114b).   

It is well-known that the mission of the seder is to see oneself as if he left Egypt -- to get in touch with that reality.  Because its true!  As surely as a the son and grandson of a Holocaust survivor has the unspoken obligation to appreciate that had his mother or grandmother not survived, he would not have the gift of life today.  This requires a profound inner awakening.  The way we stir the innermost parts of ourselves is at first through questions and at the end of the seder through song, which according to the Talmud, are two sides of the same coin (Sanhedrin 93b).  This awakening is prerequisite to the redemption of the night -- without an inner redemption, what good is redemption from Egypt? (Alei Shor ibid)   

2) Keep it Simple - Throughout the year, our lives can tend to become inflated with a lot of...stuff.  That clutter, and our feeling of "need" towards it, can ironically block us from appreciating anything.  It is for this reason that the seder centers around the "un-inflated" matzah, called לחם עוני "poor man's bread."  Like the backpacker who has run out of food in the forest -- oh, how he would savor a handful of unsalted peanuts like a five-star gourmet meal...    

3) Anti-Entitlement - Entitlement is the enemy of Appreciation.  On the seder, we sing "Dayeinu" "I would have been sufficient for us!"  In it, we say seemingly ridiculous things: "If you would have split the sea, but not brought us through it on dry land, Dayeinu!"  It would have been enough for us?!?  That's absurd!  The Egyptians would have slaughtered us then and there!  What would have been the point of taking us out in the first place!?!   

               ...But this is precisely it!  It is this sense of unentitlement -- of appreciating the splitting of the sea merely for itself, which sees everything as a gift to be appreciated.  Because really really we're not owed anything.  This outlook awakens a person to enjoy everything he has. 

4) Bring it into High-Contrast - It's funny -- we eat "poor man's bread," literally just flour with water, while reclining like kings, eating on our finest china ...it seems like we crossed our wires here!

Very often, our inability to appreciate what we have comes from a lack of contrast.  Even if the Alm!ghty has brought us a long way in our life, it's difficult to see it against the dulled sepia tones of the present.  If I weren't Jewish, I don't think I would ever sit down and appreciate that I'm not a slave.  It just would never occur to me -- as surely as I've never appreciated that G!d didn't make me a tree.  The Hagaddah therefore opens with our "humble" beginnings as idol worshipers and slaves, setting the backdrop for the foreground of freedom and lives of meaning to stand out.

Similarly, as we eat the matzah in the manner of royalty, we can literally feel the distance between them, and appreciate how far we've come. 

5) Break it Down - If you were to tell me, "the universe is big," I would not feel any differently about it.  However, if you tell me, "to fly around the planet would take about 2 days; from here to the sun in a 747 about a year's time; Earth is only the third planet from the sun of the eight in our solar system; there are 200 billion similar suns in the Milky Way, and, close to the same number of galaxies in the observable universe," the word "big" takes on a whole new meaning!

We need to break things down into smaller parts in order to appreciate them.  One thing is to say, "aren't we lucky to be Jewish!"  It is a whole different thing, כמה מעלות למקום עלינו "How many levels [of kindness] has the Omnipresent bestowed upon us!" and then proceed to break down the exodus from Egypt into fourteen distinct levels of love that the Alm!ghty has shown us (see "Dayeinu").  The Hagaddah is teaching us the art of appreciation!  

This is a taste of what's going on at the seder.  Hopefully, we can use this Pesach as an opportunity to wake up to the worlds of goodness that Hashem has given us in our lives and use it as fuel to continually wake up and grow for the entire year.




(The approach to seeing the Hagaddah as a Guide to Appreciation is taken from a well-known lecture given by Rav Noach Orlowek.)
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*There is room for metaphoric sleep within the Torah Weltanschauung as well...e-mail me if you're curious.


**You'll have to get invited to a Moroccan seder to experience this!