Self Help

We have a baby at home. Thank God, after some weeks in hospital, she is home. The last weeks have not been a steady ride and hoping upon hope that baby could come home soon, I promised myself I would not complain when she did finally arrive home.

Needless to say, the sleepless nights and extra level of care she needs at this moment, has stretched me and our small family.

Today and day to day I think a lot about coping. I spend a lot of time thinking about work-life balance, about exercise, diet, fresh air, down-time. These are all things I value. In general, I take pride in feeling like we get this balance right.

*Spoiler* I think often rabbis don’t get this balance right, alongside working long and unhealthy hours, as a profession we have a tendency to ‘care too much’ and not place any boundaries of protection between community and family, between ‘self’ and ‘other’.

Over the years I have nurtured my focus on coping and self-care, not for an overindulgence but out of necessity. I see this clearly when I am stretched, the edges of my capacity to cope and endure are frayed and I have to return to the nuts and bolts of what it is to cope. Baby steps alongside our baby – not in any particular order – less screen time, simple meals, less junk, more fresh food, drinking water, taking care to try to get enough hours of sleep, a little prayer time, a little study, exercise, time with friends. These are the small steps of return, of rejuvenation, of self-protection and self-preservation. If I know anything of myself, I can look at the insurmountable challenge of the hour and be unable to take the small steps of recovery, of care.

And then I find my way back to my Torah; I have a few go-to books, books in which I often find the answer. In our tradition, we read the weekly Torah portion like we might horoscopes; there is always a nugget that is meant for you, that lifts you up, that sets me back on my path. A go-to place is the Me’or Einayim (lit. the enlightened eyes) - Reb Menachem Nochum Twersky of Chernobyl, an 18th Century Hassidic, spiritualist rabbi, comments on this week’s Parsha, Tetzaveh, and notes the absence of the mention of our desert leader, Moses in the Parsha’s beginning. Secondly, he notes that in the intricate description of the building of the desert sanctuary, our Mishkan, we read of the High Priest’s wardrobe and his breast plate. Here two the twelve sons of Jacob are emblazoned and recalled on the breast plate, each by way of a precious stone but Moshe once again forgotten.

What is the Me’or Einayim’s response: ‘שכל אחד ואחד מישראל יש לו שורש נשמתו בתורה’, ‘that each and every Jew has an aspect of their soul in Torah’, the option in our Parsha is to emphasise the tribes as we build our communal infrastructure of worship and practice. This is a choice to democratise and welcome everyone to celebration of religious practice, rather than singling out leadership. Here we lift up community and communal connection and unity.

In this week’s Parsha we are invited in, reminded that this Torah is not just ours but we are in it. Our tribes and our ancestry are the building blocks of our tradition, the fabric of our community and even when we are far from it, it is us and we are it.

Who cares Rabbi Oliver? You may ask. I think in the world of coping and self-care, reading in a tradition that contains a part of who you are and has endured long before your time and will persist long after you leave this sacred world, is a part of seeing the long game, seeing the expanse of the universe, imagining the small and crucial part you have to play to make this world better but also humbling oneself before eternity, an eternal world we call God and Torah.

SHABBAT SHALOM