Va-et’chanan: Masters of Nothing

 

A few years ago, the author Malcolm Gladwell wrote a bestselling book called Outliers that profiled a few highly successful people and tried to analyze how they were able to achieve what they did.

What Gladwell concluded was that there was nothing magical about their success – no divine inspiration that enabled them to rise from nothing to the top of their field. What he found was that these highly successful people, these outliers, all shared some common elements that contributed to their success. One of the factors he identified was something he called “the 10,000-hour rule.” He called it “the magic number of greatness.”

According to Gladwell, if you devote 10,000 hours to learning a skill – any skill, be it bouncing a basketball, or playing the piano, or cooking, or arguing a case in a courtroom – by the time you reach 10,000 hours of practice, you’ll become highly proficient. That translates to 90 minutes of concerted effort each day for 20 years – or three hours a day for 10 years, if you have extra time to set aside. If you’re a very busy person, and have less time to devote to learning your skill, you’d be able to reach the 10,000-hour mark if you work at it for 45 minutes a day over 40 years. Now, that’s not a realistic possibility for every person, but it raises an interesting point that relates to our Torah portion.

At this point in our story – Va-et’chanan, in Deuteronomy – the Israelites have been wandering in the desert for 40 years and freedom is within view, on the other side of the river. They’ve had 40 years to learn God’s teachings and the importance of obeying them. Forty years to learn the skills necessary for living as a free people.

During that time, they’ve received some pretty clear indicators from God when they’ve strayed from the correct path, like the plague that befell the people after some Israelite men decided to carry on with Midianite women, to name just one example. They know that their own leader, Moses, won’t be entering the Promised Land as his punishment for disobeying God. In short, they’ve experienced God’s wrath. Let’s also remember that the only reason they were wandering the desert for 40 years at all is that God believed the first generation of Israelites wasn’t worthy of embracing freedom. You’d think they would’ve learned a few things by now, or at least learned to steer clear of the things they shouldn’t do.

But after 40 years, and ample opportunity to reach the 10,000-hour magic number of greatness, the Israelites have become masters of nothing. Of all the enemies they’ve encountered through their wanderings, the Israelites are their own worst enemy. The situation is so bleak that Moses pleads with God a second time to let him enter the land. He’s not asking for selfish reasons. He knows the mortal dangers that the Israelites will encounter once they cross the river, and their ability to lead hasn’t exactly inspired his confidence. There’s a midrash that has Moses pleading with God, “Let me go in as an animal, or even as a bird which can fly the length and breadth of the land.”

Moses knows the Israelites need protection. He wants to watch over them. God refuses his request, so Moses continues what he’s been doing throughout Deuteronomy. He repeats as a narrative everything the Israelites failed to learn over the course of 40 years, which in this Torah portion includes a slightly revised Ten Commandments. It’s not so different from a parent giving a recalcitrant kid the same piece of advice over and over again. You think that perhaps this time will be different. Maybe this time they’ll buckle down, focus, get serious and start doing what’s expected of them.

So we could reasonably ask ourselves: What kind of role models are the Israelites? They’ve had fewer distractions than the rest of us – no internet – and they’ve had plenty of feedback along the way. They’ve benefited from loads of repetition. Frankly, if they haven’t gotten it by now, when will they? Or, more accurately, will they ever get it?

We read the Book of Deuteronomy as we approach the High Holy Days — the time when we reflect on our own failings, and on those occasions when we might’ve unwisely ignored guidance or feedback. Maybe we’ve made the same mistakes over and over again. Maybe we’ll even do better next time. That’s all we can hope for — and that’s the same hope that Moses has for the Israelites.

Most of us have a way of performing as we should when we have to. We do our work, we pay our bills, and we meet our obligations to our community and each other. We rise to the trivial and significant challenges that life presents us. It would be nice to think that it’s self-motivation that informs our actions, and often that’s the case. But we’re not always motivated. No one is. We need deadlines. Sometimes we need something stronger, like fear, frustration or even desperation. We need to imagine what might happen if we don’t take action. We need to see that land waiting across the Jordan. After 40 years it’s right there, not just within the realm of possibility but almost within our reach. We need only to take that next step. And we ask ourselves: if not now, when?

As we move toward the Days of Awe, we’re reminded that change is within reach for all of us. This is an incredibly comforting thought and also a deeply empowering one. Think about it: We’re handed this opportunity each year to set new goals and embrace life’s possibilities. On a personal level, we’re replicating the Israelites’ journey. Their goal was freedom; we seek to liberate ourselves from our bad habits or past mistakes.

In spite of God’s protection, the Israelites knew that living as a free people would be fraught with peril and uncertainty. We’re well aware that the future is uncertain too — sometimes in a good way and, sadly, sometimes not. But we’re compelled to move forward. The High Holy Days demand it of us and – whether we like it or not — so does life. We just have to do our best and count our blessings.

May we all continue to appreciate our strengths, to accept a degree of uncertainty in our lives, and to maintain our faith in those possibilities that we cannot see.

Have a good week, and Shabbat Shalom.

Jonathan Schwartz is Back (And So is Sanity on Sunday Afternoons)

For me and plenty of other people who love decent music, sanity has returned to our Sunday afternoons. Jonathan Schwartz is back on the radio. Internet radio this time – TheJonathanStation.com – but no one really cares. After a long winter and spring with Jonathan absent from the airwaves, we’re just happy to have him back.

Jonathan’s new Sunday show debuted on Father’s Day, and the occasion was fitting. For more than 50 years, wherever he wandered on the dial, from WNEW-FM to WNEW-AM to WQEW-AM to Sirius and finally to WNYC, Jonathan had served as our idiosyncratic master teacher in The Great American Songbook, created by people like George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, and his own father, Arthur Schwartz.

On a personal level, he was an almost palpable part of my existence, an angel on my shoulder with unusually good taste. In the late 1970s, as a homesick college freshman with hall-mates who favored Donna Summer and “Le Freak,” I discovered one night that if I opened my window, held my boom box in the air and tilted it at a 90-degree angle, I could hear Jonathan’s voice on WNEW-AM, 150 miles away from my Providence dorm. I could hear Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald too, but it was Jonathan’s voice that mattered the most to me. Still does.

Later, back in New York, I would listen to Jonathan pontificate about his beloved Boston Red Sox and Philip Roth as I wrote speeches and press releases at work. When the kids were little, I drowned out the “Barney” theme song that perennially emanated from my living room by keeping Jonathan at top volume in my kitchen. (The super-sized mimosas I hid in red Solo cups also helped.) Much later, it was Jonathan, and the little packages of graham crackers in my oncologist’s waiting room, that helped sustain me through six months of chemo.

In mid-December, a #MeToo frenzy exploded at WNYC and Jonathan was removed (along with fellow on-air host Leonard Lopate). The station’s paltry attempts at justification only made it apparent that the dismissals were without cause, which made the situation especially heartbreaking. Jonathan issued no public statement. Listeners, including me, promptly cancelled our WNYC sustaining memberships. Many of us congregated on the internet, gravitating to the Facebook group The American Songbook with Jonathan Schwartz – which was not formally affiliated with Jonathan — to express our anger and sadness.

On the Facebook page, listeners, both men and women, pointed to the lack of due process in Jonathan’s removal. Age-ism seemed the likely culprit. (Jonathan was 79 at the time of his removal; Lopate was 77.) It occurred to me, in the current un-nuanced climate, that if Sinatra himself had suddenly materialized and serenaded his female coworkers with a song like Rodgers’ “My Funny Valentine” – “Is your figure less than Greek? Is your mouth a little weak?” – well, he probably would’ve been fired too.

People joined the Facebook group from as far away as Dubai, and a community took shape around Jonathan’s absence. We mourned. We reminisced. We had a lone malcontent banned from the group. And we did our best to recreate what we’d lost, posting songs that Jonathan would play and even attempting our own “Salute to Baseball” like the one he hosted every Super Bowl weekend. We wondered if we’d ever hear Jonathan on the radio again.

In early April, after searching the internet regularly for news on Jonathan, I spotted a logo on Twitter for a new entity called The Jonathan Station. Shortly after that, the station launched a 24-hour music stream featuring the American Songbook. Finally, on Father’s Day, Jonathan went live for the first time in six months. There’s a photo of him, smiling, on the Facebook page, taken right before the inaugural show. He looks like he’s precisely where he’s supposed to be. One member of the Facebook group said that when she heard Jonathan’s voice, she cried.

There’s something to be said for loyalty, for continuity, for well-deserved resurrections, and for those memorable voices that make your heart sing. I’m not just talking about musicians here.

“Oh! So there you are,” Jonathan began his first show. “It’s become June.” As though he’d never been away.

 

Pinchas: Nothing to Lose, So What’s Stopping You?

About midway through this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, God tells Moses to do the following: “Go up to this mount Abarim and look at the land that I have given to the children of Israel. And when you have seen it, you too will be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother was gathered.”

In other words, God tells Moses, go to the top of the mountain and look at the land you’re not going to be entering because you disobeyed me. And then, God tells Moses, it’s time for you to die.

Let’s think about what must’ve been going through Moses’ head at this moment. He’s old, he’s tired, and after leading his people through the desert for 40 years, he’s not going to enter the Promised Land. Even worse, he’s instructed by God to go look at the Promised Land….and to see the world that’s going to go on, but without him in it. For Moses, this must have been a heartbreaking realization. For someone who’s spent much of his life as a leader, and a gifted leader, truly there is nothing more demoralizing.

After Moses gazes upon the land, something amazing happens. In Chapter 27, Verse 15, Moses decides to speak to God and it’s introduced this way: “Vayedaber Moshe l’Adonai laymor.” Which means, Moses spoke to the Lord, saying….”

There’s something interesting about that line that’s not at all apparent in the English translation. In every other instance in the Torah where Moses addresses God, the word that’s used is “vayomer” Moshe, which means, “Moses said.” But this time it was “vayedaber” Moshe. Which can also be translated to mean “Moses said.” They’re synonyms, but not identical ones.

The rabbis have a lot to say about the difference between the two words. Most agree that vayedaber has a harsher tone than vayomer. The former also has an implied hierarchy and it’s not something you would typically use when speaking to someone whose status is more elevated than yours.

Rashi says that by using vayedaber, Moses is more than simply saying something to God. He’s demanding a response. These are the words of Moses: “Let the Lord, the God of spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who will go forth before them and come before them, who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

So what possesses Moses to speak to God this way — not only to tell God to appoint a new leader but also to dictate the kind of leader God should pick? We would be correct in assuming that Moses is deeply concerned about the quality of leader who will come after him, and in ensuring that his successor will be capable of carrying out the business of detailed, day-to-day governance that will be required in order to build a nation. It’s also natural that Moses is cognizant of the shape his legacy is going to take.

But I believe there’s a more compelling reason Moses addresses God so forcefully. He has absolutely nothing to lose. He doesn’t have to worry about disobeying God: he’s already done that, and the worst thing that could’ve happened to Moses has already come to pass. His leadership is ending, he’s not going to be entering the Promised Land, and he has already been told that he is going to die. So why not just say what’s on his mind? To borrow a saying by Hillel, if not now, when?

We can all relate to this sudden burst of fearlessness….when you don’t care what people think and you just speak or you just act. Think of all the videos on YouTube of sprightly 90-year-olds cutting loose on the dance floor. If you still have the agility — or at least the energy — hey, why not? Might as well grab at life with gusto while you still can.

Anyone can adopt this philosophy. A few years ago there was a viral video of a little girl dancing at her school’s ballet recital to the song “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. She was shimmying and shaking with abandon and clearly didn’t give a damn what anyone else in her group was doing. The video got about 60 million views, not just because the kid was hilarious (which she was) but because her behavior was admirable. Most of us would like to be like that little girl, but we harbor grownup-sized fears of what we’ll look like, and what people will think of us.

How often do we stop ourselves from taking chances? For many of us, the answer is too often. How often do our fears stop us from trying something new? Fear of embarrassment. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of conflict. The truth is that maintaining the status quo is much easier than changing it. That’s true for people, governments and, yes, synagogues. Change can be a difficult and painful process, but it’s necessary for any kind of growth to take place.

Going back to Moses, he changed the status quo with his decision to be direct with God, and speaking to God in this manner turns out to be effective. In the end, Moses’ words carry real weight. God could’ve appointed Pinchas as Moses’ successor, but that wasn’t the kind of thoughtful leader that Moses envisioned carrying on his work. Instead, God appoints Joshua to succeed Moses.

Moses’ behavior sets an important example for all of us. We don’t have to wait until we have nothing to lose in order to speak freely or to take decisive action in our lives. We just need to pretend that we have nothing to lose. We need to remember that we have value and power. That our words matter. That our actions can lead to even greater actions. That although we’d prefer not to think about it, our time here may, in fact, not be infinite.

So, in the coming week, may we move ahead with purpose and intent. May we, as a community, always encourage each other to speak freely – because a healthy exchange of ideas is what inspires us to grow and to find fulfillment within ourselves and with each other.

Have a peaceful and safe week, and Shabbat Shalom.