Learning to Ask for Help (ROSH HASHANAH SERMON 2017/5778)

Learning to Ask for Help

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2017/5778

Benjamin Franklin is one of America’s great heroes. He’s the one to make popular the idea “From Rags to Riches.” A child of extreme poverty, he quickly became a success by literally turning the rags he once used for newspapers into paper currency - riches. The self-made man, the hero with humble beginnings, achieved the impossible. Benjamin Franklin, the shining face of a currency that implies wealth and success is the model of American achievement. He embodies what we strive toward - fulfilling the American dream.

Our Jewish ancestors came to the shores of this country to pursue the American dream too. The Goldine Medina was the Promised Land for European Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Jews flooded in successive waves from all over the world since then. The Jewish community has since thrived, building vibrant networks of communal structure, playing essential roles in all fields of study, medicine, law, politics, religion. Prosperity has been a blessing to the Jewish people, and the tides of history, with its blinding darkness and brilliant light have brought the tempest tossed Jews to new homelands, here and in Israel.

Climbing the social ladder is a great American ethic we have fully embraced. We’ve accepted the mindset that when the going gets tough, ‘picking ourselves up by the bootstraps’ is how we can climb even higher. It’s a strange, even comical image, picking yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s not just a party trick to delight the comfortable. The abiding belief that going it alone, tackling the most challenging obstacles to tranquility and happiness on your own, is a deeply embedded value in our American way of life. We’ve made it a Jewish value too. It’s what motivates us to achieve.

Pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps is why there are tutors for 4 and 5 year old children to prepare for their Kindergarten entrance interviews. Pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps is why we push our children to the limit so we (I mean they) can secure admission to the most prestigious universities in the world. Pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is why we lean down, why we lean in, why we put in extra time for our jobs. We do all this, so that when the time comes to take a break, we can relax, even collapse, on the sunny beaches of Cabo, Tel Aviv, Cancun, or the French Riviera.  

Self-reliance and individual achievement are celebrated values of modernity. If we didn’t have pioneers, the Ben Franklins or the Henry Fords, the Jonas Salks or the Albert Einsteins, would we have developed this culture of freedom, revolutionized the way we move, brought healing to millions of people, or discovered the greatest truths of the universe?  We celebrate individual achievement, and our minds tend to erase the countless individuals who made our greatest intellectual, industrial, and social heroes succeed.

Isn’t the American dream for everyone? Shouldn’t everyone be able to succeed with just a little more hard work, or in the words of psychologist, Angela Duckworth, with a little more ‘grit?’

Think for a moment about the award winning movie, The Martian. The character is stranded on the planet Mars. Alone, this botanist survives in most extreme of circumstances, bringing life to desolate lands. All the while, there are thousands of people on Earth and his crew mates aboard a spaceship who calculate strategies and even place themselves in mortal danger to save this one man. The heroic efforts are stunningly inspiring.

The Hollywood fantasy is reality to us. When we’re alone, we need just enough ‘grit’ to make it through the challenge. At best, there are armies of support beside us when we need it. But, we secretly want to be the hero who can toughen up, straighten our backs, and take one monumental step after another toward a better place.  

Overcoming impossible challenges all alone is a myth. And it is a myth we cannot seem to break. It can’t be that we define our success before and after our fortunes. There are always moments when we don’t make it. To say the least, in those moments, we sure don’t feel like winners.

In another example of cinematic genius, consider Will Ferrell's character, Ricky Bobby, in the Hollywood movie Talledega Nights. His daddy always told him, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” Now, that’s a bit extreme. But, I’m sure more than a few people believe this to be true. The goal is to make it to the top of the heap first, in business and in life. And, if most of us can’t claw our way to the tops of industry, of public life, of social acceptance, where shall we be placed? The concept of winners and losers isn’t just a business proposition, or the subject of betting in Las Vegas sports books.

I’ve felt this myself. So many of you know that my father passed away last year. In the darkest moments of my father’s illness, I would have expected prayer or deeper Jewish observance to carry me through. The expansive access to resources I had available to me in a crisis should have been easy to obtain, even an afterthought. Rabbis are supposed to handle adversity in matters of health and when life hangs in the balance well. There were so many decisions that had to be made, and while those weren’t always made in a vacuum, the quiet moments of my experience was a constant self calculation. How much effort do I need to put into caring for my dad, for my family, for my responsibilities to this community? Twisting, manipulating, organizing. Time for myself? The answer was always, ‘later.’ Truth be told, I didn’t use the tools available to me, even though I’m really good at getting them for you. Sure, I cared for my father the best way I knew how. And I isolated myself as long as I could believe I could do handle it all by myself.

Pull myself up by the bootstraps, right? What happens when the bootstraps aren’t strong enough? Worse, what happens when they break? Or, is it like the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoken at Ohio State University in 1968, “I guess that it is alright to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” It’s not social stratification, it’s the flaw in the American dream.

Look to our tradition - Moses didn’t have boots either. Time and again he throws his hands into the air in total frustration. Our great hero leads the people from slavery to freedom, but he’s angry, tired and exhausted. He doesn’t listen to God’s words and strikes the rock when he should have spoken first. Promised lands are for confident leaders who respond perfectly to every situation.

Job had friends. He had lots of people to tell him what was wrong with him. He doesn’t listen to their far-fetched advice. He loses everything, and before he loses his life, God restores him. We learn that giving help is easy. But don’t expect your friends to give you good advice.

We really don’t have very good models for how to ask for help. Our Rabbis are quoted saying, “As soon as a man stands in need of the help of his fellow-creatures, his face changes like a bird whose feathers change colors” as if to say one who relies on the help of others blushes in embarrassment. (Berakhot 6b)

The struggle with living like this aren’t the problems themselves, though they are surely the symptoms of the malady we face. Adversity is a gift and a curse. It helps us clarify our values, it reveals hidden strengths we didn’t know were accessible to us. And still, adversity can separate us.  We can easily devolve into a self-isolating tornado of personal struggle and unflinching resilience. This cannot be the ethic we celebrate.

We’re losing the art of asking for help, and by consequence we’re losing each other.

Let’s admit the appearance of asking for help from others can seem shameful. Adam and Eve don’t hide from God because they’re naked. They hide because they’re embarrassed. Asking for help jeopardizes the pride we hope others feel in doing our best. Perhaps it’s the criticism we’re fearful of receiving for being weaker, incapable, inferior. Or, it’s the fear of total rejection; that somehow asking for help, the answer ’no’ is too heavy a burden to bear.

Most surprising is that asking for help isn’t a Jewish value. Sure, stand up for the elderly, honor your parents, protect the rights of the stranger, the orphan, the widow. Tikkun Olam is helping others! But to ask for help for me?  Suddenly, we Jews believe in ESP. We expect others to know when we need their help. “It’s just too embarrassing to ask...but you should have known better.”

That is why there are so many walking wounded among us. So many who are quietly suffering, not because they’re facing some intractable crisis, but because they’re facing real challenges - complicated health issues - losing friendships and lovers - lacking a sense of purpose. They are alone in their suffering and have no way to responsibly share it. (And yes, even rabbis are not mind readers.)

We say we don’t want to be burdens to each other. And the irony is that should someone need our help, we hardly feel a burden by them, if at all! How many meals can we cook, hands can we hold, smiles of encouragement and constructive support can we share? We’re really good and answering the call.   

It’s more than just turning to a friend, a member of the family, or paying another for the service of help when you need it. The secrets of our lives - the silent (and sometimes not so silent) sufferings we endure - family members who are ill, mentally and physically, the failures in business or in our relationships are weaknesses we don’t easily share with the people we love and trust the most. There is no language for how to respond to this in Judaism. We haven’t created it, yet.   

Why bring this up now? If Jews haven’t been good at asking for help throughout the millennia, why should we care? Hasn’t the toughening of our spirits helped us achieve so much? To be sure, the new horizons of the 21st century are in sight. With them, the accelerating changes in our social climate feel disruptive and inspire tribalism and bring back into focus the all too familiar and terrifying anti-semitic tropes. And yet, we’re better together. The strides our community has made and continues to make with each other and the world around us inspires new hope. We will do well to adapt to these dramatic changes. Developing a culture of genuine involvement in each others’ lives seems relevant now, more than ever.    

Yuval Harari is one of those thinkers who helps us imagine our future by describing our human ancestors. He observes that we don’t like it when things that are unfair because we came from societies that used to share everything.  Give two people the same thing and they’re happy. Give someone something more than the other, and there is fierce competition.

There is scant a religious tradition that teaches you how to ask for help.

Yet, cooperation is biological and what invigorates healthy religion. Not asking for help is a thwart to this basic human principle. Judaism is humanity’s great contribution to the refinement of the human spirit and offers so many models to inspire human excellence. Our contributions should be true for feelings, for ideas, for trust too.

So, I set myself to experiment here, because this isn’t just a theoretical proposition. I identified three areas of focus and how I may become a better ‘asker’ for help.

I started with what was simple for me - physical health. I took the initiative to hire someone to come and work with me once a week, not only to help me take accountability for my physical well-being, but to also learn how to live a healthy life. Sure, I’ve lost a few pounds and I have some sporty new muscles to show off. I’ve changed my eating habits, my exercise habits, and my total physical outlook is changing, for the better. They call a workout space in Hebrew, Beit Kosher - being physical is a way to keep Kosher - keep fit.  But, what I’ve learned is that by being physically fit, I can be emotionally and spiritually fit too.

In addition to completing the 11 months of saying Kaddish for my father, I took it upon myself to do two things in recovering from the grief of loss. First, I shared the story. I shared things with you, with my community, that I was first embarrassed to share. I shared parts of my father’s life that were difficult for me to understand. I shared parts of my life that were unseemly, vulnerable and yet so real. For those who know what sharing like this means, there was nothing more healing than having the opportunity to tell the story of my father’s life and death with a community of friends and supportive voices.  

The second thing I did was enter into a therapeutic relationship. I spoke with someone. I have to tell you this is indeed the most difficult thing for me to share with you, because there is a quiet stigma about asking for help from a therapist, as if I wasn’t strong enough to handle the challenge on my own. Truth be told, I could have managed on my own, but I didn’t have to. That’s the greatest fallacy of the bootstrap myth - you’re all alone out there, so pick yourself up.

Finally, I sought some spiritual guidance. Rabbis are really good at this part. I have a strong network of colleagues who could support me in my journeys toward healing and help. I found prayer again as a tool to enter into sacred conversation with myself and my God. Thank God for Yossi Dresner and our daily minyan! I found strength in friends and colleagues that I suspected was there, but confirmed when I reached out and simply said, “I need.”

And so it is for us.

We will cultivate the spirit of helping here at Valley Beth Shalom. This will be the first place, the central place where we can find each other and gain and provide the support we need - not only for today, not only in crises - but for every day.  We know well how to ask for help when crisis hits. Can we practice the art of helping each other before those times come?

The art of helping is physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Thankfully, we can look out into the community and see that so many of you make it a priority to be physically healthy. Finding the right motivation and making a commitment to our physical well-being isn’t just about looking good. It’s about feeling good too. In 1903, we first met the staunch supporter of Theodor Herzl, Dr. Max Nordau. He postulated that we needed to be muscklejudentum - Muscle Jews! Because our new identity will not be bound to the limp and listless yeshiva bukher, poring over a Talmud seeking Gd in books. Physical strength isn’t so we can lift ourselves up by some mythical bootstraps, though American Ninja Warrior seems to be the epitome of this type of physical strength! If we’re going to ask for help from each other and the world around us, being physically present is the first great step.

We, the clergy, can’t tell you how many times we hear from you how difficult it is to enter the shiva home of a grieving friend and knowing what the right thing is to say. We can’t tell you how many times you come into our offices, meet us in coffee shops or whisper to us in passing how difficult it is to manage the challenges you face. Like confession, you hope the rabbis will prescribe a few Adon Olams and you’ll be on your way! To practice the art of asking for help, we need to practice the art of giving help too.

Ben Franklin was more than a rags to riches story. He didn’t stop when he amassed significant wealth. He shared insight and wisdom with all of us. There’s a psychological phenomenon termed after him, much like what we identify as cognitive dissonance, called the Benjamin Franklin effect. When you ask for a favor from someone, not only are they more likely to help you again and again, but they are also open to receiving help themselves!

Simply put, we need more of this. Cultivating a spirit of compassionate and sacred help is a value. We may call this Shutafut - or sacred partnership. More than being present in each others’ lives, taking an active role in helping each other become our best is a responsibility we can and must adopt. Partnership with God is best seen in our partnership with each other. When it comes to physical and emotional well-being, living in a community that accepts our weaknesses and vulnerabilities only to help each other grow, is the healthiest community of all.

And finally, when it comes to spiritual well-being, we must overcome the feeling of helplessness when it comes to accessing to the languages of our tradition. Some of us simply do not know how to enter sacred spaces alone. In our ignorance, we’ll turn away, hunker down and tighten the grasp of our will power even more.

Rabbis, prayer communities, study groups. These are the tools for spiritual health that we all need to access and cultivate within us. It’s all here.

In essence, there are four essential building blocks for asking for help and learning how to offer help.

1. Use Your Faith - Belief in people, belief in God, belief in yourself. If you have a belief in people, help must be an essential element of that belief. Starting here enables you to see the humanity of another.

2. Share Your Story - You have experiences. Telling your story to relate to another helps all us recognize the commonalities of our experience. The more we share in our experience, the more we can help each other grow from our experience.

3. Find Experts - There comes a time when no matter how deep your experience is, there are people who dedicate their lives, express their passion and share their gifts to help you and us grow. Physical trainers, mental health professionals, rabbis and spiritual leaders are the experts we must turn to for help when we need it.

4. Become a Shutaf - A sacred partner. Experience isn’t momentary, it’s cumulative. Enduring adversity and learning from your experience is a step toward expertise.

We can make a new definition for what Judaism has to teach the world about asking for help. We will model what a caring community is, so that we can share this model with others. Let yourself become a part of this community more deeply and fully this year. Let this year be a year abundant in health, in body, spirit, and soul, for you, for your loved ones, for us all.

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