Losing, Winning and Mystery

Weaving Wisdom Paths From The Five Books of Moses, Our Emotional Brain and Our Lives.

In Search of Wisdom: Losing, Winning and Mystery

Relationships work!  All of them; it’s just that some bring us satisfaction while others increase our pain.  Blaming the pain on one person or the other or on something that happened long ago is so easy.  Our challenge is to tease out the mysterious forces that enable us to transform our pain and unlock satisfaction.

After my mom’s death, I struggled, not just with grief but also with redefining myself as I became the oldest living person in my immediate family.  The umbrella that had protected me as far back as I could remember was abruptly closed.  Now only vulnerable to life’s downpours, I had become the umbrella for generations below me. My first reaction was to bring everyone together.  We met only once – not a rousing success.  However, as this new position became more familiar, I found a quieter approach that brought more satisfaction to the family.  Losses often require us to internalize and integrate familiar lessons, even if we’ve not taken them to heart.  Loss can trigger transformation.

So much happens here in the Five Books.  After receiving instructions for a mysterious brew that purified them after touching a corpse, the Israelites resumed their journey. Both Miriam, source of water, and Aaron, priestly connector to God, died.  Angered at their continued demands for water, Moses struck the rock rather than speaking to it as God had instructed. Later as they journeyed, the Israelites sang and water appeared.  They were threatened by and turned away from one king but later defeated two others. These victories were remembered in song.

Behind these dramatic manifestations, we discern two quieter forces at work, internalization and integration.  Working together as one people, the Israelites were able to take in and take on powers previously invested in leaders.  With this new awareness, they could make their power felt in the world.  Pain seems to be shifting toward satisfaction.

Some of the ashes from the fire of purification shall be taken for the impure person, and fresh water shall be added to them in a vessel . . . and at nightfall he shall be pure. Integration is the purpose of this purifying brew.  Touching a dead person made a person impure setting them outside the community.  It is not necessary for us to understand how those ancient minds came to that conclusion. What is important is to notice that for them, impure is not bad but rather a temporarily condition that prevented a person from being in direct connection with God, from standing with the community in front of the Tabernacle.  The purification ritual allowed that person to resume their place within the community and with God.

If anyone who has become impure fails to purify himself, that person . . . has defiled the Lord’s sanctuary. Failing to purify ones’ self was the bad behavior requiring punishment.  Purify yourself and all is OK.  Choose not to purify yourself and out you go.  Being outside community meant you lost military protection and food supplies.  Pain without satisfaction.  Alone, you were vulnerable.  Alone, you died.

Loss also brings vulnerability.  With Miriam’s death, the community lost their mobile water supply. Water flowed again when Moses struck the rock but as a consequence the people were to lose his leadership once they entered the Promised Land.  Aaron died, shifting power from one known person to the priesthood supported by the Levites.  Three umbrellas closed, exposing the Israelites to a new and different vulnerability.  But then almost immediately they won two victories. How can we understand this shift from pain to satisfaction?

The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin . . . the whole community of Israel knew that Aaron had breathed his last. As the leaders who had helped the Israelites manage their fear and fretting died, the words of the Five Books suggest that the Israelites transformed themselves, internalizing and integrating new roles.  That they arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin implies a new connectedness.  And while it is possible they knew of Aaron’s death as the whole community because they saw Eleazar wearing the Aaron’s priestly garb¹, there is another more intriguing explanation.  “Language is one of the most important ways in which the social brain makes connections, enhances connections, and severs connections among people. . . . In the realm of the spiritual, few corporeal manifestations can be perceived directly. . . . the force of that which is not seen can be felt only when transmitted directly through speech.”² Within a week or so after my mom’s death, I noticed more elder generation thoughts in my head.  As my internal sense of self shifted, I began to act differently.  Is it not possible that the Israelites suffered the loss of Miriam and Aaron and then began to perceive themselves differently?  The words we use, both in our heads and with others, can help us transmute pain to satisfaction.

These phrases, in a body and the whole community, turn our attention toward the impact of internalization and integration upon the Israelites.  As they internalized the powers previously held by Aaron and Miriam, they were able to act differently.  They were better to link different aspects of community into one powerful whole people.  No longer deflected by internal conflict and overwhelming fears (at least momentarily), the community’s power was focused on one task and they won.  Following the loss of their leaders, these military victories indicate the new internal sense of linked Israelite community.

Thing may change for the better only to find ourselves slipping back into old behaviors and words.  Our challenge is to continue the process.  The Israelites understood that there was a power that supported their continued progress.  We can understand an additional support within the very structure and processes of our brain.   “Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure.  Doing this a few times a day – for months and even years – will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far reaching ways.”³

1. Etz Hayim, p. 887, note 29.
2. Chicago Social Brain Network, Invisible Forces and Powerful Ideas: Gravity, Gods, and Minds, 2010, p. 83, 85.
3. Hanson, Rick, and Mendius, Richard, The Practical Neuroscience of Buddha’s Brain: Happiness, Love and Wisdom, 2009, p.  77.

Quotes from the Five Books of Moses are from Etz Hayim, 1999.