|
Hannah’s Lesson for Today: Resiliency
Good yontiff everyone. I’m going to go straight to the heart of the matter this morning. This past year was one of trials, of heartbreak, of setback, of financial strain, of loss, and of worry for everyone - and no one knows when it will truly get better. The fact that this year has been so difficult for so many has had an interesting side effect. If you think about it, stories about real heroes have been extremely important for us. The heroism of Captain Richard Phillips of Maersk Lines Ltd. is one example. His selfless dedication to his crew spared them possible death at the hands of Somali pirates, and his rescue lifted our souls. The miraculous landing of his US Airways Airbus A320 in the Hudson River by Captain Chelsey B. “Sully” Sullenberger without a single fatality similarly gave us a hero worthy of the term. Two other stories might not have had the same coverage, but deserve our notice. The first one was reported by the Jerusalem Post daily, and involves a 92 year old, and currently unidentified, Jewish woman who survived the concentration camps of Nazi Europe. Apparently destitute, her last known employer was a Jewish man in New York, who hired her to move his car to avoid parking tickets in exchange for a hot meal and a room. Imagine his surprise when he was a beneficiary of her estate, along with Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The amount of her bequest to him has not been released publicly, but Hebrew U received $100K from her nearly $300K estate. The second story you might not have heard about involves a philanthropist who lost millions to Madoff, Robert Lappin of the Boston area. Lappin had a foundation that supported Jewish education that had to shut down due to his loss. Before the news of Madoff’s chicanery broke, Lappin’s personal net worth was around $50M. Since 1991, Lappin had invested all of the money from the 401(k) plans of his 60 employees and all of his charitable foundation’s money with Madoff. That money disappeared overnight. Lappin’s response was to replace the $5M of lost pension funds with his personal money, over half of his remaining fortune. Peter Lappin said the decision to replace the employees’ losses was immediate, and that he, his brother, and his sister all supported their father’s wishes. “You know what? The opportunity to build the wealth back will refund us,’’ he said. “We’ll recover to some extent over time.’’
Every one of these examples shares some common features. Most important is the fact that none of these heroes are anything but normal human beings. They don’t come from Planet Krypton and attend Justice League Meetings. Their stories aren’t fictional accounts from the pages of the comic books. They aren’t cut from any mold different than any other human person. Yet, each of them is a hero for what they did. It seems to me that ultimately a hero is simply someone who did not let adverse circumstances stop them from doing what they could do, when it was time to do it. All of these real-life heroes faced adversity with resiliency, persevered, and serve to inspire us today.
Our tradition knows exactly the nature of the resilient hero. Perhaps no better example can be found than the account we read today in the haftarah, the story of Hannah. For years she endured the ultimate challenge for women of the biblical world: infertility. For years she lived with the scorn from her rival co-wife. For years she lived with the loving but inept efforts of comfort from her husband. In the end, she prevailed. I’d like for us to examine Hannah’s story through the prism of resiliency, and offer some insights that will help us learn how to be more resilient when we face the challenges that life will throw at us.
First, let’s discuss resiliency itself. It used to be thought that resiliency was a trait one either had, or didn’t. Now we know that it is a set of behaviors, thoughts, and actions that anyone can learn. In fact, research suggests that most people are more resilient more often than not. In general, most of us adapt to life-changing situations and stressful conditions over time. Certainly it isn’t always easy, and typically it takes time. Even so, most people move toward being a survivor of a tragedy than staying a victim of a tragedy. The very motivation to be seen in that light is itself part of resiliency.
Having that background, I’d like to turn our focus to Hannah’s story. I’m going to use her story to highlight four core features of resiliency. These four core features are also tools that we can use to strengthen our own resiliency.
The first core feature is that of having connections. Our family, our friends, a support group, civic groups and faith-based organizations are all possible sources for the connections that can give us hope to keep trying in the face of our challenges. We need to find the people who will be “The Choir” for us, and offer us positive and supportive energy. What Hannah teaches us is that sometimes the best choir might not be people in our immediate circle and circumstances. Her co-wife should have been empathetic to Hannah’s barrenness but wasn’t; in fact she was combative and toxic. Her husband tried to be empathetic, but in the end he was ineffectual. The High Priest didn’t necessarily “get it” right away. Hannah didn’t quit looking for her support until she went directly to God.
Our choir doesn’t even have to be people we know or who know us. For some of us, it might be the stories of ancestors who overcame their own challenges. Sometimes it might be the writings of a great rabbi or philosopher. For some people it might be the words of a poet or the music of a particular musician or a specific painting that inspires our souls. Whoever or whatever might comprise our choir, we need them and the inspiration they offer us to keep trying. Our deepest connections enable us to know that we are not alone, and to find the courage and the tenacity to continue on. In doing so, they help strengthen the muscle of resiliency, if you will. The more support we have, the more courageous we can be, and the more likely we’ll be not to give up this time or the next.
The second core feature of resilience is mindfulness. We need to be aware of and attuned to our needs. It’s when we listen to that “still small voice” from our deepest place of true self that we can transform what might seem unimaginable into a workable problem. In Hannah’s case, she knew without doubt that she needed to produce a child for her husband. She needed to go through pregnancy, labor and delivery and produce a progeny for her husband. She determined that she didn’t need to raise the child to adulthood; she didn’t need to see him marry and become an heir, or much less a father. When she was able to define her essential need, she was able to determine a workable plan, namely her deal with God. “God, she said, “give me a son. In turn, I’ll give him back to you.” By being willing to renounce the joys that other mothers might expect as a matter of course, Hannah created a scenario in which her needs could be met. We can do the same in our own lives. We cannot stop challenges from entering our lives; what we can do is interact with the stresses they present differently. We can reframe a crisis from being an insurmountable challenge, and we can make simple goals to deal with it. We can take decisive action instead of ignoring the challenge in the hopes that it will go away. These actions need not be momentous; in fact, they can be simple acts that are no less profound for their simplicity. Each person has his or her own best plan—for some it’s exercise, for some it might be more joy, for others perhaps prayer. The trick is to begin the day starting from our own wisdom about what we need most to live a healthier, energizing, non-toxic life.
The third core feature of resilience involves recognizing and utilizing our signature strengths. When we call upon the best part of ourselves to address our challenges instead of our vulnerabilities, we make a decisive move from victim to survivor. In Hannah’s case, she utilized her intense capacity for prayer. Other people might start to network and reach out to friends for support. Some people might draw upon their creative sides, and journal or blog about their experience; some might paint; some might create music. Other people turn to the opportunity to be helpful to others as a way of affirming their own value despite being in crisis. One example I will share with you is that of a family I know from my time in the Berkshires. Tracy and Dr. Ben Seckler are the parents of a precocious son, Charley. Charley has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. His muscles are deteriorating at an alarming pace. Unless a cure or treatment for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is found, Charley will lose his ability to walk by adolescence, and subsequently lose all muscle function. Like all boys with Duchenne, he will die from respiratory or heart failure in his late teens or early twenties. Tracy and Ben share the following. “Perhaps the hardest thing about having a child with a fatal disease is knowing that one day our carefree boy will realize that he can’t do the things he loves most – chase his older brother Sammy, swing the baseball bat over and over until he hits the ball out of the yard, and smother his baby sister with slightly-too-aggressive kisses and hugs. Our goal is to stop this disease – or slow it dramatically – so that it doesn’t have a chance to knock Charley off his feet or wipe that kooky grin off his face.”
Tracy and Ben created Charley’s Fund as part of their response to meet their goal. Charley was diagnosed with DMD in July, 2004. Since then, thanks to the generosity of many people – from family members to corporations to sympathizers they have never met – Charley’s Fund has directed more than $14 million to support research for a treatment or cure. The Secklers have done this by digging deep into their signature strengths to organize, educate, and motivate donors. They leverage their ability to talk with scientists and researchers in the field and make extremely focused grants. They asked themselves the same question anyone in crisis has to ask: How am I going to handle this? We can ask ourselves the same question, and our answers will lead us to choices that play to our strengths as well. We might be tempted towards self-pity, but in our resiliency we can affirm our pain and bewilderment, and at the same time affirm that that is not where we will focus our energy. We can survive our challenges without being victims of them. Each of us is worthy of overcoming our challenges. We all deserve the chances life offers to improve our selves, to celebrate our successes and our joys. We can have faith that we are indeed worthy, and let that lead us to a desire to find a meaningful response to the challenge that lies before us.
The fourth and final core feature of resiliency that I share today is that successful, sustainable change happens incrementally. Just like building muscles through our physical conditioning efforts in the gym is cumulative, just like one’s spiritual development is a process, so too is the deepening of our resilience. Our best ideas and solutions are accomplished not in one fell swoop, but step by step, day by day, and sometimes even hour by hour. Remember that in the haftarah, Hannah endured for years until she accomplished her goal. Like those who seek sobriety or a break from other addictions, “one day at a time” is the path to make ourselves more resilient. Achievable, small goals quickly lead to a next step. To be resilient means to favor the small “quick win” over the “big win.” This creates the sense of growing accomplishment, and not the big win which is neither feasible nor viable. One important component that makes a big difference for many people is creating a practice of gratitude. My colleague Tom Cohen serves a congregation in Paris, France. He recently shared an insight his congregation gained while participating in a pilot project created by Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem (psycho-trauma unit) in conjunction with TsaHal. According to the project the act of showing gratitude was one of the KEY elements in helping to develop healthy mental resilience. With gratitude comes the perspective we need to appreciate the small but critical successes that occurs in the course of incremental change.
Life will be challenging. We will perforce face our share of tribulations, and likely even tragedy in our lives. Even so we can emulate our hero Hannah to be survivors and not victims. We can create our connections,extend our mindfulness, use our signature strengths, and create successful and sustainable change in incremental measures. May we add to the blessings that await in the year ahead by creating stronger resiliency for ourselves, and in doing so model the normal heroism of the human spirit for others who need our inspiration.
I wish us all a year marked with the blessings of goodness, sweetness, health, peace, and a deepening of our resiliency.
|
