Days of Awe, of Fear and Trembling, of the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), are upon we of the Jewish faith. As I sat in synagogue Thursday, listening to the supplications of the soulful prayer, “Avenu Malkenu,” asking “hear our voice.” I asked myself, “who should really hear my voice?” As I got lost in that question, I thought of the words of that past student I had met on my walk while waiting for the train to pass and I thought of a couple of e-colleagues with whom I was talking. And, two stories popped into my mind. I had read them long ago in the Midrash. I didn’t understand them until I had my epiphany in the early 1990s and they’ve been among my guiding tales. The first story says that during creation, God had decided to instill His divinity into human beings. The angels were outraged. How can something so pure, so precious, and so powerful be entrusted to an imperfect as human beings? If they had the Divine image, they reasoned, they will think like God thinks, and feel what God feels; they will create as God creates, and they will grasp eternity and live forever, as God lives forever. “We cannot let this happen!” they exclaimed. So they conspired, and the stole the Divine Image, and they decided to hide it., to hide it somewhere humankind would never find it. But where. “Let us put it at the top of the highest mountain!” one angel suggested. “No,” responded a second angel. They will one day climb the mountain and find it.” “Well, then, let us put it at the bottom of the sea!” another offered. “No, a fourth angel countered, ” they will dive to those depths one day and will find it.” “I know,” a fifth angel said. “We’ll put in the most inhospitable of deserts.” “No,” rejected the angels, “they will bring fruit to the barrenness, dwell there, and find it.” Suggestion after suggestion was offer, but each was rejected because of man’s creativity, imagination, and ability would . Then, the cleverest of the angels stepped forward. “No, not at the top of the mountains, or at the bottom of the seas, or in the dry deserts, or hot jungles, or cold arctic. I know of a place they will never go to look for it. Let us place it in each of them, within their hearts, and within their souls. They’ll never think to search there; they’ll find it there; and so, they’ll never hear that sacred voice. And so, teaches the Midrash, the angels hid the precious Divine Image within the heart and soul of humankind where so often for most people it lies hidden to this day.
HEAR MY VOICE
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It is said that these HIgh Holiday are called Days of Awe because we’re asked to do something, difficult, fearful, and frightening: face our mortality and inevitable death. But, having faced death and having faced it down by surviving cancer and a massive cerebral hemorrhage, I think we confront something far more challenging: life. Most of us, academics included, do not like to confront ourselves with a reflective and articulated “who am I,” especially our “afraids.” They’re taken as chinks in our armor that would make us vulnerable. So, many of us are afraid to fail, afraid to look foolish, afraid to stand out, afraid to stand up, afraid to lose, afraid of what others will think, afraid to try and to risk, afraid all this will undermine both our inflated sense of self and our self-centered academic and scholarly pursuits. We have convinced ourselves that: failure is not an option. The “others” will not be empathetic, will not forgive mistakes, will not forget exposed limitations; the others will not appeciate your changing, challenging, attempts, experiments, adventures, and explorations; the others will not accept different priorities. And, the “others” will make sure it will cost in terms of that promotion and that job-for-life guarantee called “tenure.” And maybe, what is worse is that we fear losing faith in ourselves, in our own abilities, and our own worth.
So, in the classroom, for which so few of us were intensely trained, most of us won’t take chances; we subtly cower with “it won’t work” or “you can’t get to them all;” we imprison ourselves with “I don’t have the time,” “I can’t,” “It’s not me,” “I don’t know how.” At best we engage in “Little Jack Horner” tinkering at the edges in our quest for the quick and easy guarantee. At worst, we refuse to even consider change, casting aside finding of latest research on learning with such defenses as “I’ve been in the classroom for years,” or “I know how to teach.” We shirk responsibility with blames of “they’re ‘don’t belongs” and “they’re letting everyone in” and “students today….” and “the administration wants…” We attack with a hurl of arrows tipped with poisons of “soft,” “fluffy,” “touchy-feely,” “new ‘agey,'” We sit paralyzed, unable or unwilling to do the good that’s within our power because we have convinced ourselves that what we do in the classroom is really of lesser worth and is not in our interest to give all we have. We find solace outside the classroom, in the lab or field or archive for which we were intensely trained. In those places, we find the time and our reassuring “can’s.” We find self worth in our degrees, titles, grants, research, conference papers, and “peer reviewed” publications.
That brings me to the second story, which I will “modernize.” The story tells of a questionnaire everyone had to fill out when they arrived at the gates of heaven. Everyone thought the questionaire had to do with what God will think of you. But, in really it is designed to reveal their our perspective on their lifetimes. The questions asked what did they believe their life amounted to. What was important? What mattered? What counted? What was their purpose? To what and whom did they devote themselves? In what and whom do they invest themselves. Everyone thought, as the story goes, these questions focused on “what did you do” when in truth they were concerned with the essential question of “who are you,” What was their essences. Of what were they made.
As an academic, in my study, in my den, over my breakfast table, by the koi pond, on my meditative walks, in my deepest thoughts, I can be the most moral of heroes. It’s easy to be a verbal moral hero by proclaiming “I care,” “I give,” and “I serve.” Everyone of us, deep in our hearts, thinks of ourselves as good, sincere, well-meaning persons. The real question is what happens when the proverbial chips are down, when you’ve got to put your money where your mouth is, in the real world of the academic rat race, in the self-serving pursuit of degree and position and promotion and tenure, in the pursuit of grants and research and publication, in the pursuit of resume lengthening and renown. What do we do to ourselves? What do we allow this rat race do to us? Do we compromise our integrity? Does it deafen and blind us to those in the classroom. Does it allow us to run the race at their expense? How many do we allow to go unnoticed in order for us to be seen? Do we display care, emit love, demonstrate support and encouragement, live caring? Are we the unconditional embodiment of belief, faith, hope, and love? Do we preserve them, protect them, defend them, nurture them in the service of ourselves and others? Do keep them alive, warm, glowing, and growing? Do we recognize and appreciate the miracles that are in our daily lives in general and in the classroom specifically? Do we consciously renew them each day? As I told an e-colleague, self-motivation and self-inspiration are like shaving: you have to do it every day.
Then something else popped into my mind as a guide to the answer of my original question. The psychologist, Victor Frankel, himself a survivor of Auschwitz, studied those who survived and those who did not. “The last, and greatest human freedom,” he wrote, “is the freedom to choose your attitude.” So, as the “Avenu Malkenu” came to an end, I imperceptibly shook my head. The answer to my question of “who should hear my voice” is none other than: me.
Louis