December 10, 2022
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Vayishlach
The Self-Absorption Paradox
December 10, 2022 — 16 Kislev 5783
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
This week a Peter K. Newman of Dayton, Ohio wrote a letter to the editors of the Wall Street Journal in which he tells the following joke:
A departing CEO met with his successor, presented him with three
numbered envelopes and advised him to open these if he ran into trouble.
After sales and profits dropped during the next quarter, the new CEO opened
the first envelope. It contained the message: “Blame your predecessor.”
The company continued to struggle during the next two quarters, so the
new CEO opened the second envelope. It contained the message: “Distract
your critics by reorganizing.”
Finally, because the company’s year-end results were still disappointing,
the new CEO rushed to his office and opened the third envelope. It contained
the message: “Prepare three envelopes.”
This joke is about the danger of repeating unfortunate patterns that we inherit; and the flip side of the joke is that it invites us to think about how we might transcend the unfortunate patterns that we inherit. Because the new CEO could not transcend the troubled trends of the old CEO he shared the same fate as the old CEO. When we realize that we have inherited a pattern that is not healthy, how do we transcend it?
All of us here now face our own version of this problem. There is a pattern in culture that is troubled, a pattern that we do not want to repeat, a pattern that we need to transcend. That pattern is best summed up by the fact that the Oxford Dictionary every year has a new word of the year that captures the essence of that year. In 2016 the word of the year was post-truth. In 2018, toxic. In 2020, Covid-19 Pandemic. In 2021, vax. The Oxford word of the year for 2022 is “Goblin mode” defined as follows:
The slang term describes “a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.
What does it say about our world that 93% of people voted for a word that means unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, greedy. Who would do that? Who would? I would. You would. We would. We have all done it. We all do it.
Goblin mode is a report card on the new habits we all cultivated during the long hard years of the pandemic. The pandemic fostered an inwardness, a retreat, a focus on our own home and on our own self that started as a necessity and became a habit, and perhaps an unhelpful habit. We have all heard versions of this, or lived versions of this. I have lost my social muscle. I have lost my desire to shower and put on my social face and get out into the world. I am now most comfortable in my pajamas, making sour dough bread. We used to binge Net Flix because what else could we do. Now we binge Net Flix not because we have to, but because we like it. Now we stay home weekends because we like it. Now we don’t see people as much because we like it.
What’s wrong with it? If we want to spend our weekend binging on Net Flix, what is the problem? The problem comes in the form of what I call the self-absorption paradox: Namely, the more self-absorbed we are, the less consequential our life, and the less happy we are. The less self-absorbed we are, the more consequential our life, and the happier we are.
This moment is ripe for a turning: from the self-absorption that was a pandemic necessity that became a bad habit; from the Net Flix binge we used to do because we had no choice to the Net Flix binge we still do because our social muscles have atrophied, and we have not done the work to restore them.
To come back to the joke about the new CEO fated to repeat the mistakes of the old CEO, how do we resist this cultural moment of Goblin mode? What is a different paradigm that can help us find a different and better way?
We can access a better paradigm by channeling the wisdom of a major 20th century Jewish thinker whose biography and writings remain utterly inspiring, and whose 50th yahrtzeit we mark this month: Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel was born in Poland in 1907 and died in New York on December 23, 1972.
Heschel knew from the Shoah quite personally. His mother and three sisters perished in the flames, as did 90% of Polish Jewry, his people.
In response to this unimaginable loss and grief, his response was to say: don’t ask where is God? Rather, God is asking, where are we? Where is human decency? Thus the title of his iconic book: God in Search of Man. God needs us. God is searching for us.
Heschel urged us to take what he called a “leap of action,”–doing something concrete that helps somebody else. Heschel was the very opposite of Goblin mode. He could have stayed in his apartment safe and sound writing books. He could have stayed in the classrooms at the Seminary safe and sound delivering lectures. But he lived out his own words about taking a leap of action. Heschel advocated passionately for the civil rights movement, importuning presidents, marching with Dr. King, being exposed to extreme hostility in the south. Heschel embodies the self-absorption paradox: the less self-absorbed, the more consequential and worthy our life. People are still talking about Heschel 50 years later, schools are named for Abraham Joshua Heschel, precisely because he was not self-absorbed, because when God was in search of us, he answered the call.
That was Heschel. We are not Heschel. But we can certainly answer God’s call, each in our own way.
Starting about ten years ago, I would start to get a call from one of our beloved members, Harriet Binder, asking me if I wanted to buy a Mother’s Day Card, on which she would paint a flower and calligraphy a Happy Mother’s Day message, for the women in my life. Back in those good old days, I was able to buy three Mother’s Day cards, for my mother, my mother in love, and for Shira, who technically is not my mother, but I felt it prudent to include her in this acquisition. All the proceeds went to Hadassah. Harriet has done this every year for 10 or 11 years, and business is booming. She has sold more than 7,000 Mother’s Day cards, each one created by hand, addressed by hand, mailed by hand, all done with love, all proceeds going to Hadassah. Harriet is 96 years old, and she is still at it, selling and producing Mother’s Day cards for Hadassah. I asked her why she did it. And she said two things. She said she wanted to give a lot to Hadassah, but she was not in the position to give lots of cash, but she could give a sustained labor of love that over the years has raised over $70,000. Why Hadassah, I asked. She has memories as a little girl raising money in blue and white pushkes. She still remembers the phrase she used as a little girl, 90 years ago. She would ask people for their money to “redeem the land of Israel.” Redeeming the land of Israel has been a throughline of her life. From pushkes as a girl, to Mother’s Day cards in her 80s and 90s, she is doing her part to redeem the land of Israel.
How do we get back to our version of that?
Goblin mode as word of the year is a wakeup call. We need a new word. We need to get rid of the bad habits that no longer serve us. We need to be back with people, making a difference.
Let’s make that the Oxford word of the year in 2023 an old word that we can make new again when God is searching for us: hineni, here I am. Shabbat shalom.