The Holistic Juggler

As a student (and co-author) of The Holistic You, I try to balance the various important sections of my life, my personal 5Fs: faith, family, finances, friendships and fitness. Of course, that doesn’t mean dividing my day, week, month, or year into five equal sections. It means keeping a mental diary and making sure that each area is receiving enough attention.

I am at such a point now. One of our daughters is facing a health crisis. My role as her mother and my identity as grandmother to her children is my focus. In clearing my days to be available for these duties. I will be taking a hiatus from this column for the next few weeks. I don’t do this lightly. I have written my Musings for over ten years and rarely missed a week. I love sharing my thoughts with you and so many of you reply with your own ideas in the comment section or when we (used to) meet in public.

If time and energy allow, I may post sporadically or our wonderful team may rerun some previous years’ Musings.  I didn’t want to ‘disappear’ without letting you know what’s going on. We have seen “hugs” from God already and we are confident that He is in control and guiding our family through this challenge.

Thank you for your prayers and warm wishes.

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Life Isn’t Fair

Why are we all made so uneven? Some are born into affluence and some into poverty. Some are born into health some into misery. Some are born in America, with all its advantages, some into primitive tribes.

Well you get the idea. Some people believe this unevenness can be blamed on some evil thing the infant does. This doesn’t seem right to me. Some believe this can be blamed on what some ancestor did. This doesn’t seem right either. How can all this be the result of a benevolent and omnipotent Creator?

William D.

Dear William,

Your questions plagues most thinking people at one point or another as they mature and recognize that, “Life isn’t fair.” It is not a new question, yet each era brings its own challenges, and one of the trials of our particular time is the difficulty we have in acknowledging that we cannot understand God’s ways. Humility comes hard to us.

It is difficult for our human minds to reconcile, “Life isn’t fair,” with the idea of a benevolent and omnipotent Creator. That is one of the challenges of faith. From our limited perspective, life certainly isn’t fair, but there actually isn’t a word for ‘fair’ in Hebrew, which implies that the concept doesn’t exist. The word ‘just’ however, can be frequently found – TSeDeK. God is a God of justice and one of our tasks is to work on bringing justice to His world.

According to ancient Jewish wisdom, babies are born with pure souls and we can only sin once we are capable of making choices. A baby cannot, by definition, sin. Nonetheless, the reality is that some babies are born ill or into awful families or situations. It needs to be enough for us that God understands the reasons for this even when we do not.

One analogy related in Jewish tradition is the way that the underside of a needlepoint tapestry looks. It is a messy mixture of colored threads with no discernible pattern. Yet, when you turn the needlepoint over, a beautiful picture emerges. Our perspective comes from the vantage of the underside. God sees the magnificent final picture.

We are not enormous fans of John Rawls, a famous American political philosopher, but he did come up with an interesting idea: Suppose a genie came to you twenty four hours before you were born and offered you the opportunity to design the political, cultural, and economic system into which you would be born. The only snag is that you have no idea whether you’ll be born to a rich family or a poor one, or whether you’ll be born male or female, black or white, super smart or below average. Now you would want to choose some system that would give the best shot to the most people for the longest time.

What is helpful about this little thought experiment is the context of your question—how lucky to be born in America rather than to a primitive tribe in New Guinea. However, God’s point is that nobody, yes, nobody needed to be born to primitive tribes or into repressive and horrible regimes. He gave us a blueprint for the best societal living called the Bible. Those countries that came closest to following it developed medicine, science, extended life, travel and exploration, and affluence. As some of those cultures traveled the world promoting a Biblical vision, the standard of living in many countries rose. However, so called ‘colonization’ became politically demonized, and so many countries were plunged back into barbarism. Many other countries have yet to see the light and make it out.

Ample evidence already exists to make the case that what separates successful countries from dismal failures is not geography, race, or weather. It is nothing but culture—another word for the transcendent idea people gain for their existence from whomever they worship.

God is saying, “Look, I have given you proof and proof again that the Bible guides everyone to a better life. It is horrible that anyone has to be born into a cruel tribal life but it doesn’t have to be that way. I just need you all, Jews and Christians, to show the way to the light.”

Warmly,
Rabbi Daniel and Susan Lapin

(This is a reprint of one of our most popular questions found in the Dear Rabbi and Susan book)

Defeating Despair

While serving the synagogue it was my privilege to establish in Southern California, my wife and I frequently sailed our forty-four foot cutter to Catalina Island.  On that 26 mile jaunt, we often saw dolphins, whales, and other beguiling sea life.

When fog set in, I’d think of Florence Chadwick, who in 1952 set out to swim from Catalina to the mainland.  When fog obscured her goal, she lost her drive and abandoned her attempt. Despair defeated Florence.

After the fog lifted she was horrified to see that she had quit only half a mile from the beach.  Two months later, with the coastline visible, she tried again and succeeded.

Let’s understand this principle from Moses, who in one Scriptural account responds to Israel’s provocation with steadfast leadership while elsewhere in the Bible he responds to similar provocation with exasperation, hopelessness, and even despair.

In Exodus 16:2-3, the children of Israel complain against Moses and Aaron, who had just liberated them from hundreds of years of horrific slavery.  The Israelites pretend ridiculously to recall desirable circumstances in Egypt where they claim to have lacked nothing.  Frustratingly, they express remorse at having been taken from that Egyptian paradise.

Without hesitation Moses sternly chastises them for grousing against God and assures them that they will soon see meat and bread. (Exodus 16:12) Through the remainder of chapter 16 Moses leads calmly and confidently.

A year later the Israelites again demanded meat. (Numbers 11:4) Hearing them grouching and kvetching, Moses was deeply distressed. (Numbers 11:10) Instead of admonishing them as he did in Exodus, he cries out to God:

Why have you afflicted your servant? Why haven’t I found favor in your eyes that you lay the burden of this entire people upon me?
(Numbers 11:11)

Moses renounces responsibility for the people and in hopeless anguish contemplates the impossibility of finding meat for them. (Numbers 11:12-13).  Sliding swiftly into utter despair, he confesses himself incapable of carrying the people any further and begs God to end his life. (Numbers 11:14-15).

Moses seems so utterly demoralized that even when God promises to bring meat for the people, Moses reacts incredulously asking God if enough animals exist for them.  (Numbers 11:22)

One clear distinction between the two instances is that in Exodus, the Hebrews had just left Egypt.  While certainly an oppressive regime, at least Egypt was a known evil.  Their future in the desert however, was terrifyingly unknown.  Moses ‘cut-them-some-slack’ because he felt their fear partially excused their impudence.

The story in the 11th chapter of Numbers is quite different.  A year has elapsed during which God has unfailingly provided for their every need and Israel’s ingratitude is incomprehensible to Moses.  Instead of confronting them as a steadfast leader, he avoids them and laments his circumstances to God.  The goal of a strong, faithful nation that would trust in God was obscured by fog.  Despair defeats Moses.

Had I now been teaching a Sunday school class, this is where I’d leave it.  But I think far too highly of my Thought Tool readers and thus must offer you another golden nugget of ancient Jewish wisdom.

God’s solution was for Moses to select seventy elders to stand with him.  They didn’t have to do anything other than just stand with him.  Their firm vision and complete confidence was contagious.  Moses caught some of that confidence and defeated his despair.

By associating with those who recognize that God’s plan is good, we also come to see that our despair is born of our mistaken assumption that there is no goal. With the help of wise friends, we realize that the goal is still there, even if hidden by fog.

Are life’s burdens sapping your freedom and vitality? Are money worries, illness, loneliness, addiction and other circumstances, both in and out of your control, making getting through each day an overwhelming challenge? This week, our audio program Let Me Go: How to Overcome Life’s Challenges and Escape Your Own Egypt is on sale. Whether for you or for someone needing a fresh perspective, this resource is indispensable. Rabbi Lapin delves into three lessons from the Exodus story that will inspire and guide you to escape your troubles and build a better life. 

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Man of the Hour

To get the most out of a William F. Buckley speech, you needed a dictionary. To get the most out of a Rush Limbaugh broadcast, you needed a sense of humor. 

God and Man at Yale, Mr. Buckley’s cri de coeur, was published in 1951, the year Rush Limbaugh was born. This critique of Mr. Buckley’s alma mater, Yale, for its hostility to religion and its indoctrination of students in values that opposed those of their homes, launched a new era in conservative politics. With his high-brow Bostonian accent, his impeccable appearance and his reasoned and well-thought-out arguments, as well as those of others to whom he gave a platform in his National Review magazine and on his celebrated PBS television show, Firing Line, William F. Buckley was the man needed for the moment. Listening to him opine and debate allowed honest,  intelligent and curious seekers of truth to weigh up different views.

Only a few decades later, fewer and fewer Americans were interested in or able to follow complex, factual presentations. And fewer were being exposed to a wide range of views. The earlier criticisms against Yale were by now the equivalent of chiding your neighbor because his vicious pit bull wasn’t well-groomed. A new man with a new method was needed to give voice to traditional American ideals, and Rush Limbaugh stepped up. While I loved homeschooling and then working from home, one of the few drawbacks of minimal time in the car was not being able to listen to his show as often as I wished.

Like Mr. Buckley, Rush laid out arguments and ideas, but rather than presenting  them in lofty, measured tones, he wrapped them in bravado and sometimes cutting humor. I winced at some of his barbs and personally found them in poor taste, but I acknowledged that those crude words and the attention and hatred they sparked exposed millions of people to ideas that were being suppressed in major newspapers and magazines. A friend once remarked after watching the Sunday morning TV talk shows that he despaired when a Republican politician showed up with boring charts and diagrams filled with incontrovertible facts while his Democrat counterpart showed up with misleading statements delivered with passion and zeal. As my husband often remarks, crusaders will usually defeat  accountants. Rush Limbaugh was a crusader; a man on a mission. He was also a showman and marketer and recognized that those qualities were needed to get any sort of hearing with the public. 

Like many others, I choked up when Rush received the Medal of Freedom during President Trump’s State of the Union speech in 2020. The hatred, vituperation, and hostility directed at him by the Left never dampened his love for America and the truth. Having never served in the American military, he was a bloodied soldier who served his nation. May his memory be blessed.

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Yes, words do matter.

On sale this week