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September 2, 2023
Author(s): Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger,
Parshat Ki Tavo
Quit Sooner
September 2, 2023 — 16 Elul 5783
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
Recently I’ve become obsessed with the reality show Alone. The premise is that 10 survivalists are dropped in the wilds of Alaska or Patagonia or Mongolia with only the clothes on their back, 10 tools, and camera gear to document their experiences. It’s wild to watch. They build primitive shelters and hunt with bows and arrows. There is a lot of ingenuity, but there is also a lot of suffering. A lot of shivering through cold nights, a lot of hunger, a lot of loneliness. And what’s so interesting for me is that every season, there is this refrain that you hear from the contestants. They’ll say, “I’m miserable. I’m lonely; I’m hungry; I’m tired; I’m cold. I wish I could just go home and eat good food in a warm room with my family. But I’m not a quitter. I’m not going to quit.”
How do we understand this ethos? I am miserable. I am cold and tired and hungry. What I am doing is actively making me unhappy. And yet, because I committed to this thing, because I said I would, because our culture frowns upon quitting, I’m going to stick it out. No matter what.
Watching this show on maternity leave, I marveled at every miserable contestant who refused to give up. It was ironic, because I was watching them with incredulity and yet, I could relate on a deep level.
I also signed up for an experience I thought would be amazing. I always wanted to have a home birth, with quiet soothing music and a midwife or two in attendance. I grew up with stories about my mom’s transformational home births, read books and did my own research, and became so tied to this idea that when we attended a birth class taught by our midwives and they recommended we pack a hospital bag, I absolutely refused. There would be no hospital bag in our home, I told Solomon, I was no quitter.
In retrospect, I wish that not quitting wasn’t my highest priority. I spent eight days laboring at home. Eight days breathing into every contraction. Unlike the books I read and the stories I had heard, I did not feel at one with my body. It was not magical. It was not spiritual or fun or meaningful. It was just suffering. But even though I was miserable, even though it did not feel like what I had imagined, I was determined not to quit. My vitals are good? The baby’s vitals are good? Then I’m going to keep going. I’m not going to give up. I’m not a quitter.
It took me eight days to acknowledge that something was wrong. Eight days to finally go to the hospital. And after all those hours, when I finally quit, my one regret was that I didn’t go sooner.
It turns out that bodies aren’t meant to labor for eight days. It took a long time for me to recover, longer because instead of listening to my body, I was busy sticking to my vision at all costs.
I regretted not being more flexible.
Years ago, when I was living in Israel, I took a scribal arts class with Rabbi Dov Laimon at Pardes. He was such an amazing teacher. He grew up secular in Western Canada, studied English Literature at the University of Saskatchewan, and then at age 22 became a baal teshuva, super religious, moved to Israel, and became a rabbi and a sofer. Officially, Rabbi Dov is part of the Haredi community. When you see him, he looks the part. He dresses only in black and white, with a long gray beard and wispy peyis. And even though he is ultra-orthodox, he manages to stay flexible. His wife calls him a “bridge person.” Because unlike most everyone else in his haredi community, he stays connected to the secular world. He has a subscription to the New York Review of Books, he uses the internet and even has a website, and he teaches at Pardes—a pluralistic yeshiva where he instructs not only men of all Jewish backgrounds, but also and more significantly women, in the art of writing sacred texts.
I loved learning with him. He would bring mystical texts about the secrets of the letters and halakhic works to make sure we knew how to form the letters correctly. And I remember, in particular, being struck when he taught us about the requirement to write Torah and sacred texts by hand, using only a feather or a reed dipped in ink. Why? Feathers and reeds are both inherently flexible. They thrive at the borders, between polar opposites—between land and sky or between water and land. Feathers and reeds don’t demand that you choose one way or the other. That’s why we use them to write Torah. Our ancestors wanted to make sure we would always remember that true wisdom is never absolute, it is always flexible and expansive.
All too often, we forget that. We think that it’s best to move through the world decisively, that once we make a decision we should stick with it. All too often, we prioritize holding strong and never giving up over maintaining a flexible approach to the challenges life throws at us.
I hear these stories all the time.
I hate my job, but I’m not going to quit. I’m not a quitter.
This relationship is broken. We’ve tried therapy, we’ve tried to work it out, it’s just not getting better. But I made a commitment. I’m going to see it through no matter what.
Sometimes, that determination never to quit is essential. It helps us to finish what we need to accomplish; it enables us to persevere in the face of adversity. Tenacity can be good when there is a reason to stick it out.
But sometimes, the cost of not quitting is too high.
For the contestants on Alone, the insistence to never quit often results in serious and long-term medical consequences. For me, my determination to stay home caused trauma—to my body, to my baby, to my family. For so many people who are sticking with jobs they hate or relationships that are broken or patterns that are painful, not quitting just prolongs suffering.
How do we know when we should quit and when we should stick it out?
Economist Steven Levitt, who you likely know as one of the authors of Freakonomics, wanted to explore this very question. He and his team asked more than 20,000 people who were struggling to decide whether to quit something to flip a coin. The premise was simple. If you get heads, you make the change. You quit the job, sell the house, exit the relationship. But if you get tails, you stick it out. Six months later, they checked in with participants. Overwhelmingly those who quit were happier, more satisfied, and more at ease than those who maintained their status quo. What did Steven Levitt take from this? As he puts it, “admonitions such as “winners never quit and quitters never win,” while well-meaning, may actually be extremely poor advice.”
When we find ourselves struggling, when we are in a situation where what we are doing is actively making us unhappy, then we must ask ourselves three important questions:
- If I stick with this, does this have the potential to improve?
- Will I or my loved ones be better off for this experience?
- Why am I so committed?
If the answer to any of these questions is because I said I would, or because I’m not a quitter, it’s probably time for a change.
After eight days of labor, Solomon and our team of midwives helped me to see this wisdom. At that point, my biggest reason for staying home was that I had already invested so much time and didn’t want to quit. Once I realized that, we packed up and moved to the hospital.
I have to say, that may be the best choice I’ve ever made. The hospital was amazing. The epidural was heavenly. And when, hours later, Eder was born—nothing could have been better.
As we get ready for the High Holidays, it’s important that this season isn’t only about how we can optimize our life. Sometimes, the Season of Repentance invites us to consider whether we are better served by giving something up. Sometimes, the right answer isn’t to avoid being a quitter—sometimes the best answer is actually to quit sooner.