5 years ago today I was commanded to “CHOOSE LIFE”.
It wasn't a pleasant moment.
I had discovered over my previous 4+ decades that the best life I could get and therefore the best life I should choose would be to live for the moment I was in. I was simply unable to reach anything I stretched out my hand for - except the enjoyment afforded by living freely for the sake of the moment I was then in.
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I once asked the Rosh Yeshiva, “How many שמח בחלקו'ס does it take to change a light bulb?” 1
I should explain that this is how serious students ask their spiritual masters, serious spiritual questions in the culture I come from.
“Isn't the answer None?” I asked. “We're completely happy here enjoying the dark!”
His response conveyed that he himself struggled with finding an ideal answer.
He explained that “People who enjoy what they already have, want more to enjoy”.
What bothered him, and still bothers me, is how hard he tried to get more, and how much (to his judgement) he failed.
He acknowledged that the joy of productive work is only joyous if you believe you'll actually get what you're going for. And he knew from long experience how much and how hard he labored for goals that he did not truly feel he would be able to reach.
And he wished it weren't so. He wished he could achieve everything and he knew that he was losing time he could have spent enjoying what he had (including simply basking in the happiness of those goals he did achieve) by running after messianic-level wins he was so unconfident of achieving that he wasn't even sure if he was running in the right direction.
He was brilliant and successful (by my judgement) so he managed to find a workable balance, but he knew that Ben Zoma's dictum was too pithy to be complete. And indeed, unlike Akiva, Ben Zoma did not emerge שלם (well).
Sometimes risks with uncertain rewards are necessary. As Rav Noach's hero, the aforementioned Akiva, found out when at the age of 40 he decided to try and learn the alphabet and ended up the number one Jewish leader of his day.
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I spent a long evening walking around downtown Manhattan considering from scratch every unpleasant argument for why I should again “try” to reach for what was so evidently either unattainable or simply non-existent.
After an unhappy hour of trying and trying to find a reason to CHOOSE more LIFE than I was enjoying via my zenish surrender to my reality I concluded that the command as I understood it was a bad one and I determined to immediately go and reach out for a bit more of the life I believed in.
It's obvious now that this particular “reach” (newly empowered as confident conscious rebellion against a command I considered wrong and evil) was my actually fulfilling the command.
One thing led to another and now, as the Sabbath of Sabbaths begins,2 I can't say anything conclusive regarding the instruction, and my eventual embrace of it, other than that I'm as pleased as Akiva Ben Yosef.
Rav Noach designed his Aish HaTorah (overlooking the Temple Mount no less) around this messiah-driven fearless man whose optimistic visions may have been historically responsible for 1900 difficult years for Jews in the wake of the Bar Kochba Revolt, and who may been the cause if his own gruesome death, but who, in both success and failure, presented the ideal Jew:
A risk-taking man, ambitious in choosing and chasing large wins with neither shame, fear, nor ego, whose entire Memetic Judaism was pondered, comprehended and ultimately taught to all of world Jewry after a genetic and memetic existence of 40 years as the Academy's outsider's outsider, descended from either Gentiles or Christians and a simple shepherd to boot.
A harbinger of the utopian messianic era whose risks cost him his life, but whose life gives us the courage to take risks for greater patches of paradise as we love THE ULTIMATE with all our hearts, all our souls and all our posessions.
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Happy Day 1 Tomorrow of World 120.
Happy Day 1 Tomorrow of Yovel.
Happy Day 1 Tomorrow of what may just be civilization's final true Chance For A Fresh Start.
Ben Zoma famously said in Avot 4:1 that the truly wealthy man isn't the man who has a lot of things, but the man who actually “takes pleasure in what he has” (Sam-e-ach Bih-khelko).
Ben Zoma is one of the 4 who “entered paradise”. Ben Azzai died. Elisha ceased practicing the religion of which he was already an honored Rabbi. Akiva emerged better than before while Ben Azzai's natural seriousness morphed into deadly obsessiveness.
The foil to this serious young man was an equally intelligent but calmer-minded Ben Azzai.
True, his exploration of the deepest, best truths (paradise) were too much for his trusting mental disposition to accept and he therefore suffered a heart attack and died, but still, the hallmark inspiration he left for coming generations over the following mishnaic paragraphs (Avot 4:2-3) are definitely more accessibly palatable to most people than are Ben Zoma's 4 strong counter-claims to common wisdom. Yet no one knows them and everyone knows Ben Zoma's.
As a young man I liked Ben Azzai, admired Elisha, was dubious about Akiva and totally bought into Ben Zoma (if you've watched my videos, look up Avot 4:1 for his other 3 dictums and you'll see what I mean).
I still like Ben Azzai (the sweet soul too naive to handle the pure truth), pity Elisha, love Akiva, and sigh for Ben Zoma who, had he lived happier and longer, might have chosen to temper each of his absolutisms with counter-arguments, as I, a less confident fellow, have been working on ever since I completed Ben Zoma's 4 step program in my early 20s.
Sabbath of Sabbaths: