Both "good" and "bad" are impermanent states

How can we do permanent "good" in a dynamic environment? Yesterdays "good" turns into tomorrows "bad" - perhaps better to question the notion of do-ership and agency all together - not in a way that leaves us believing we are powerless, but rather in a way that we acknowledge that what Reality needs to happen will happen, through us or through another...its a very delicate dance and perhaps getting our small "i" out of the way will make for a more elegant and suffering-less performance....

Rav Kook, of blessed memory, wrote a lot about how the seeming individual will (ratzon prati) works within and merges with, the general will, the Divine will.

The Rambam (Maimonides) the great Medieval Jewish philosopher and physician described the fluidity and context dependence of "good" and "bad" a 1000 years ago, and advised it best to adopt a stoic "wait and see" attitude of reserving judgement.

פירוש הרמב"ם על המשנה בברכות, ט, ה

[ה.] חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שמברך על הטובה כו' – מה שאמר: כשם שהוא מברך על הטובה – רוצה לומר, לקבל אותו בשמחה ולב טוב ולכבוש כעסו, וייטיב נפשו כשיברך "דיין האמת", כמו שיעשה בשעה שיברך "הטוב והמטיב". וכמו שהיו אומרים החכמים ברוב דבריהם: "כל מה דעביד מן שמיא – לטב". וזה דבר שכלי אצל בעלי השכל, ואפילו לא הורה הכתוב עליו, לפי שיש דברים רבים, נראים [שתחילתם רעה, ויהיה אחריתם טובה רבה, ויש דברים, נראין] בתחילתם טובים, ויהיה אחריתם רעה רבה. ועל כן אין ראוי למשכיל להשתומם כשתבוא עליו צרה גדולה, מפני שאינו יודע סופה; [וכמו כן אל יפתה לבבו וישמח שמחה שלימה כשתבואהו טובה לפי מחשבתו, מפני שאינו יודע סופה].

Four Pesach: The Seder as group therapy, as truth telling, as Satsang

The number "four" plays a big role in pesach. Four cups of wine. Four languages of liberation. Four fore mothers. Four questions.

Four was an important number for Apache Indians as well.

And Jung saw the number four as important too.

For Pesach to be relevant to me, it has to be about individual as well as collective liberation. Indeed, it is worth asking a chicken and egg question: Does individual liberation necessarily preceed collective? Or the other way round? Or do they happen simultaneously? Or is the distinction between the two artificial, and as Sri Nisarghadhatta Maharaj says: "I AM the people." (i.e He is not concerened with helping or saving "them" as he does not see His Self as apart from or separate to "them")

Given the thrust towards individual liberation (and what a virile word "thrust" can be) it would be great to continue the four tradition by inviting each seder participant to proffer a deeply clung to belief that people have begun to suspect may no longer be serving them, and then question it with four questions, courtesy of Byron Katie:

1)Is it true?
2)Can you absolutely know that its true?
3) How do you react, what happens when you believe that thought?
4)Who (What) would you be without that thought?

I often cling to the belief that I am inadequate, that I am not up for the task (and what is the task? Imake that up too, as I go along...)

1)Is it true that I am inadequate? No, in most contexts in my life I seem to be abundantly adequate
2)Could I ever know if I am absolutely adequate or inadequate?No, seeing as I will never know what I'm supposed to be adequate at - all my roles - father, brother, son, lover, provider, dependant, redeemer, destroyer - i have made up, and have made up their content, often by making up what "society" expects of me.
3) How do I react to the thought? I get sad and heavy? I loose contact with "now". with myself, and with the people around me.
4)Who would I be without the thought? Lighter, easier, freer, probably more effective. More generous, more available, more energised.

Nahafoch hu - (Hebrew = "the opposite is true) or in Yiddish: Punkt verkeerd

Turn the thought around

a) to the self ( Its not you who finds me inadequate, I find myself inadequate)
b) to the other (I find you to be inadequate, I judge you and dispense with you in the same way as I judge and dispense with My Self)
c)to the opposite (You find me adequate, I am adequate)

and find three specific, genuine examples of how each turnaround is true for you in the particular situation.

This pesach may we be freed from excessive eating, meaningless ceremony and sterile and platitudinous thought. The invitation to leave the psychic Egypt (in Hebrew etymologically Mitzrayim comes from the root tzar = narrow, place of constriction) requires a pathless exodus along a trail we have never been before. But en-couragement is vital to take the first step, and that we can do for each other, like Penguins on the lip of the Antarctic ice.

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For thousands of years, at various times, there have been Jewish communities in Egypt, many of whom were able to live with a fair degree of freedom from persecution, and in prosperity. I wonder what it would be like as an Egyptian Jew to read the lines in the Hagadah about being brought out of Egypt. I suppose the same as it is for Israeli Jews living in Jerusalem to read the lines about "next year in Jerusalem." These texts and narratives occur in meta landscapes which don't necessarily connect to the physical landscapes in which we move and live.
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faith traditions continue for as long as people cling to the metaphors they provide, or for as long as people find those metaphors more useful or comforting or powerful or better fitting or more accessible than personal metaphors they may be able to develop or that suggest themselves to them. See also being-about-our-business
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Jewdaism and the reduction of suffering

The strange thing about Judaism is that, despite Jewish experince through the ages being so associated with suffering (in the eyes of so many) suffering and the reduction of suffering do not seem to be at the core of its theology. Suffering is a non-issue. What is central is the requirement to perform the creator's commandments, and to believe in a redemptive creator (less central than the former) who acts in history and both creates the conditions for people's bondage and then the conditions for them to become liberated.

While many of the mitzvot (commandments) may have the effect of reducing suffering [and some may have the effect of increasing it] this is never proffered as their primary function. Mitzvot are performed becuase the eternal suposedly commanded them, and if they have some benefit in terms of increasing soial cohesion or individual self esteem, or more profoundly, assisst each individual to express more profoundly what is at the core of their being as created reflections of the divine, than those are added benefits, but not the reason. There is no utilitarian ethos which underpins the mitzvot, and what could be more useful than reducing the ubiquitous suffering which seems to characterize our experience as embodied - read limited -beings?

Interesting to compare and contrast some "mission statements" of Judaism with those of Bhuddism:

"To be a light unto the nations" (Bereishit - genesis)
"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does Yud-Kay-Vav-Kay require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your G-d." (Mikah)
"Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man." (Kohelet - Ecclesiastes)
"What you yourself hate, don't do to your neighbor. This is the whole law; the rest is commentary. Go and study." - Rabbi Hillel

Bhuddism
To reduce the suffering of all sentient beings


As for these mission statements, for them to make any kind of sense, what kind of context must be assumed?

That there is a world
That we have bodies
That embodid units - called people - are organised into discreet nations.

Pirkei Banim; Ethics of the Sons

Immanuel used to say: the more thought, the more anxiety, the more pleasure, the more pain, the more pretence, the more tiredness, the more yoga, the more flexibility, the more laughter the more tears, the more laughter and tears, the more better years