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Judaism is the religion of my family. It connects me, through blood and family
tradition, to a community that goes back 5,000 years. And the narrative of that community, passed
down ‘dorot v’dorot’, generation to generation, has themes that resonate with
and formed my values: remember that we were the outsider, the down trodden and
thus, be kind and helpful to those who are the outsiders and the
downtrodden. In fact, more than just
being kind, it is an obligation to show justice and mercy and, in the words of
the prophet Isaiah:
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to
loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the
oppressed free and break every yoke? Is
it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into
your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from
your own flesh?? (Isaiah, 58.6-10)
Another major theme in Judaism that speaks to me is the idea
of being in relationship to ‘The Other,’ traditionally called G-d. I may not believe in the traditional Jewish
idea of a G-d that intervenes in human history, but like the Reconstructionist
branch of Judaism, I believe there is an energy that is the source of life,
love, spirit. When we recognize that this energy force, while inside us, is
also beyond us we are forced to step outside of our ego-centered view and be in
an I-Thou relationship with the world and beyond. We need to listen with love to ‘The Other’
who is both transcendent and also in the person next to us. “Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord your G-d, the Lord
is one.”
There are also the holidays that literally bring home –
because most of them are done in the home – the messages of the tradition. Friday nights, when we light the candles and
say the prayers over the wine and the bread before we have a special Shabbat
meal reminds us to appreciate the gifts of the earth that sustain us as food. And the symbols represent the power of
transformation. Because it’s not just
grapes or wheat that we eat, or the waning light of the day that we use. It is things that have been transformed from
what they were to something new and beautiful: wine, bread and
candlelight. And, with a day of rest we
too will be transformed into something new and beautiful, ready to deal with
the rest of the week as transformed beings.
Rosh Ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur and the 10 days in between remind us of the
swiftness of life from birth to death and the need to make meaning and
forgiveness important parts of the journey between.
Passover is a way to remember all of the themes in Judaism. We bring the family together, giving the
children a part to play so that they will be part of the stories continuum and
pass it down to yet another generation.
We say in the seder: “You shall
not oppress the stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, seeing that you
were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23.9). We thank a force far greater than us for
transforming us – like the matzah and wine we use – from slaves into a free
nation. And we recognize both the
importance of the past and the hope of the future as we sit in our homes and
recount the tale dorot v dorot, from generation to generation.
The Dalai Lama, head of a form of Tibetan Buddhism, once
asked a group of Jews how they managed to keep their religion and culture alive
over so many years of living in diaspora, a problem that he and the Tibetans
are facing now. The answer was that the
religion had become home-centered and child-centered rather than a hierarchal,
top down synagogue centered religion.
So what wisdom and strength do I get from Buddhism?
The historical Buddha was a human being, not a god, who went
from one extreme of pampered wealth to the other extreme of aesthetic
punishment until he heard a musician tell his student “If you make the strings
too tight they will snap. But if you
make the strings too loose, they won’t make a sound. It was then that the Buddha, the Awakened
one, realized the importance of balance and moderation. From his experience of meditation, sitting,
breathing and emptying his mind of the distracting chatter, that he came to articulate four ideas for living that
appeal to me greatly. They are: the
importance of compassion, the acceptance of change, the awareness of things as
they are, and the interconnectedness of all life.
The Metta Sutra, believed to be a saying of the historical
Buddha, says to treat every living creature “with a boundless heart” as if they
were your child, your only child.
Practicing that unconditional love is hard. And yet, I have found that when I pretend that
someone who really bothers me is my child, my only child, something shifts in
the way I see and act toward them. They
may be like a child who needs to be corrected or disciplines, but there is a
concern and love for them that makes my approach toward them different and more
positive. This also changes how they
respond to me, and our relationship invariably improves.
The idea that
everything changes, that nothing is permanent, allows me to stop clinging to my
desire – or fear – that things are going to stay as they are. Buddhism teaches us what quantum physics is
beginning to teach us: that what seems tangible is really more like clouds,
amorphous, moving, and nonsubstantial.
This material and personality which is me has come together for a period
of time and, like a cloud, it will dissipate and become part of something else
when I die. This recognition helps me to
understand and accept my death – or change – into some other form of
energy. My children, who were such cute
little baby boys, have become adult men.
And no amount of my wishing they were still toddlers kept them from
becoming who they are and eventually the old men they will be. Nor can I stop
summer from becoming fall which becomes winter and turns to spring. I cannot
control life. It is alive because it
changes. So I need to breathe in and out
– without even holding on to the breath -- and let change, and thus life, happen.
With the acceptance of change comes awareness: seeing things
as they really are, not my preconceived notion of things as I wish they
were. Instead of forcing a relationship
(say with a friend, a daughter, or my spouse) to fit into my expectations or
desires, I see them and the relationship as it really is. Furthermore, I become aware of the feelings
and responses that I and others have rather than deny or ignore them. As a result, I can see more clearly and
respond more genuinely. There’s a great
deal of freedom and honesty in that view (when I can really live up to it!)
In Buddhism the focus is how to live a compassionate life in
the here and now. By treating all
creatures as if they are your child, recognizing that everything is change,
becoming aware of things as they are, one begins to see how all life is
interconnected. The words that I use,
the actions that I do have an impact on others around me, and they have an
impact on others, and that’s how we get the butterfly effect. Further, if the material and energy that is
me now becomes something else later, then all energy and matter is kin.
This last idea, that everything is one in the universe, is
the opposite of Judaism which separates sacred time from everyday time, sacred
space from everyday space, and the Holy one, God, from the rest of us. And yet, I like the paradox. It’s sort of like Schrodinger’s cat or the
wave/particle duality. We are both
everything AND there is a higher power beyond us.
Judaism then gives me the responsibility and obligation to
act with justice and mercy, to help others, and to be part of a community that
is in conversation with others and the transcendent. Buddhism gives me a way to live calmly, act
with compassion, and breathe more easily.
Both are important. Both help me
to be a better person. That’s why I am a
Ju-Bu.
