Wisdom Connecting the Five Books with Our Emotional Brain

Holy is hard – for good reason.  I always have a choice!

From The Five Books: “Aaron shall take the two he-goats and let them stand before the Lord . . . and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the Lord and the other marked for Azazel. . . . [Aaron] is to offer as a purification offering [the goat designated for the Lord]; while the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be left alive before the Lord, to make expiation with it and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel. . . . Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and it shall be sent off to the wilderness . . ..” Leviticus 16:7-10, 21

“You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. . . .  he [who] has profaned what is sacred to the Lord; that person shall be cut off  from his kin.” 19:8

“You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind.  You shall fear your God: I am the Lord.”  19:14

From our Emotional Brain: Neurons that fire together, wire together.  Neurons that fire apart, wire apart. Norman Doidge, The Brain that Changes Itself

Two goats stand at the entrance to the Tabernacle. His eyes closed, Aaron reaches into a bag, his fingers touching one marker but finally closing around the other sealing the fate of the each goat.  One will die, sacrificed upon the Lord’s altar; the other will be sent out into the uncertainty of wilderness.  Different directions but with the same purpose!

Humans are to be holy and humans will sin!  These two clashing assumptions live side by side within the words of this Torah portion.  And within my life too!  Yours as well?   I strive to act well and yet receive frequent reminders that I’ve slipped.  My desire for holiness is all too often betrayed by automatic emotional responses that protect me by attacking the other person or distract me with a great story that justifies my not-so-nice act.  Probably the sneakiest of these is my ‘I’m better than you’ story.  These human habits pull me away from being holy.  How can I shift more toward the holy?

Nothing Never Happens: Aaron shall take the two he-goats. Two goats waiting, one will die and the other will be led out into the wilderness. Chosen by lot, not by human will.  In most moments, we are at this juncture.  We can say this or that, do this or that.  There is always an option, a choice even though the situation seems to come upon us by chance.

As we walked toward home I was half dragging my dog along. A young lady chided me politely but harshly, reacting as if my pulling was abusing the dog. With a controlled but angry defense, I explained that the harness prevented injury and that I wanted to keep my dog separate from a dog behind us.  When the young lady insisted there was no other dog, I simply said, ‘Turn around!’  Hah! I had won!

But I had also lost.  As my automatic emotional defenses engaged to protect me, I lost an opportunity to speak from compassion.  Had I opened my heart before opening my mouth, I would have thanked the young lady for her concern and doing so, we each would have walked on smiling, not angry. One goat goes this way, the other that way.  A moment for holiness lost.

No innocent choice. You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. What does it mean to be holy?  The abundance of responses suggests that, living in these bodies, we are privy only to hints, not answers. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk puts it this way. “Holiness signifies preparedness.  Thus: you shall be vessels ready and prepared to receive, ‘for I YHVH am holy’ – I am always ready to save you.  All that is necessary is that you be prepared and ready with holy thoughts.” ¹ So how do I prepare my vessel to receive?

Opening my heart to compassion before opening my mouth requires thoughtful preparation.    Regrettably that’s neither a simple task nor quick fix.  Our brain is a marvelous learning organ. Neural plasticity, the brain’s ability to wire new connections, gives us a great advantage when facing new challenges.  But learning also gets in the way of moving toward holiness because, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”² That is, once connections are made and fire frequently, the pattern is reinforced producing  resistance to change. “Ironically, some of our most stubborn habits and disorders are products of our [brain’s neural] plasticity.  Once a particular plastic change occurs in the brain and becomes well established, it can prevent other changes from occurring.”³ So when my brain perceived the young lady’s words as critical, I responded defensively.  Nothing’s wrong with that.  It’s good protection, mostly.  But as long as I am filled with defensiveness, there is no room for any other person, no compassion – no space for G-d!

Stopping: Opening my heart to compassion means stopping automatic defenses from exiting my mouth.  As I do so, my brain stops the habituated neural firings.  “Neurons that fire apart, wire apart.”⁴ Aaron’s fingers rested on one marker before closing on the other.  Stopping is an essential skill, both preventing injury to the other person and retraining my brain.  As the neurons containing my defensive responses cease to fire, the wiring weakens creating space for something else in this vessel called my brain.  But stopping is not enough.

Training: My brain must also be trained for compassionate response.  Picturing that young lady, I can rehearse a more compassionate response, for example,  “I appreciate your concern.” Repeating this phrase and similar ones in the visualized situation links new neurons and practicing repeated firings helps wire the compassionate response.  Yes, it is mechanical!  It is not necessary that I ‘feel’ compassionate, at least, not yet.  Like any ‘training’, repetition is key.  Let’s remember that it was repetition that wired the defensive response into my brain in the first place.  The good news is that neurons fire the same way whether we do an action, we see it done or when we just think about it. Unable to tell the difference, rehearsing and visualizing works to rewire us towards compassion.

Awareness: You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind.  You shall fear your God: I am the Lord. Don’t insult the deaf, that’s a no-brainer.  But only if you approach it on the simplest level. Looking deeper, we must consider all the words that come out of our mouths, for there is a more subtle deafness.  Our eyes cannot easily detect deafness.  Walking along, we might greet someone and get miffed when they don’t respond.  Perhaps they were unable to hear us.  Even further, we are often deaf to different processing styles.  If my wife or daughter asks me for driving directions, I must laboriously write out, ‘turn left at the signal, drive two miles and turn right, etc’.  As a strong visual-spatial style I prefer to sketch a map! But if I want them to get to their destination, I must put my style aside.  Managing subtle deafness requires that I enlarge my awareness.

The same applies to blindness.  Having 20/20 vision does not mean we don’t have ‘blind spots’.  In fact, visual and auditory stimuli taken in by our eyes and ears is just ‘data’ in our brain.  “We see with our brains, not with our eyes . . . our eyes merely sense changes in light energy; it is our brains that perceive and hence see.”⁵ Each of our brains may give different meaning to exactly the same light frequencies or sound vibrations.  The frequencies and vibrations are detected by eye and ear.  The world is given life and meaning in our brain.

You shall fear your God: I am the Lord. Insulting the deaf, placing stumbling blocks before the blind are only two of the many behaviors set before the Israelite people. Sexual boundaries are particularly prominent in this list.  And while each behavior is between one human and another, like the two goats going their separate directions, each and every behavior is also linked to G-d.  In that casual contact with that young lady, the words that came out of my mouth were a holiness test.  And I failed.  There will be another!

How is brain training holy? Rabbi Mendel is on target:  “. . . people are supposed to move and change.  In every way that you sanctify yourselves, God is raised up (matiliet).”⁶ Humans wrestle with changing situations and our plastic brains.  That’s the way it’s supposed to be.  And what we do makes a difference. Rabbi Jonathan Slater says it clearly: “Our deeds have consequences not only for us and our world, but for God as well.  As we perfect our actions, as we strive for holiness, God’s perfection is even more so, God is raised up above all else.  Therefore, we must commit to being holy, for that is how God’s holiness is exalted and raised up.”⁷ As I create space in my brain for a more compassionate response, I affect the world around me.  The young lady walks off with a very different feeling than the win/lose tightness.  As I am kinder to her, I can be kinder to myself in the wake of the event.  All these shift my balance toward G-d.  That’s the benefit but there is also a price.

“So, if we truly engage in the work of sanctifying ourselves, then the closer we might come to God the greater will be our fear.”⁸ Becoming holy includes fear.  This fear is not the flight/fight fear we experience in response to danger but rather a fear more akin to awe.  It is the fear/awe feel standing by Niagara Falls, the crushing power of the water pounding in our ears or snapping back at the sight/sound of lightning striking 100 yards from us.  Rabbi Mendel likens it to approaching a king. The closer we come, the more the fear!

Is responding compassionate really possible for ordinary people?  “Each human life is invaluable [and] it is so easy to destroy.”⁹ These words emerge from the mouth of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish.  As he was being interviewed on Israeli television “. . . he received news that an Israeli tank shell had landed on his home and killed his three daughters.  Within minutes the doctor’s public shock and bottomless anguish appeared on Web sites around the world.  More than any other single image, Abuelaish was the face of the second Gaza war.”¹⁰ The tragedy Dr. Abuelaish faced was both personal and impersonal.  No one aimed at his daughters.  The soldiers had a story, ‘The enemy is over there.  Fire!’  By chance it was his house and his children were in that room. But choice followed.  He stopped his automatic defensive anger.  He had trained himself for many years to heal, not harm.  Now he is speaking for a new era of peace. “Palestinians and Jews were created to live together [and] no one can deny the other one’s rights.”¹¹ “And even if I got revenge on all the Israelis, he went on, “do you think my daughters are going to come back? Does it help them to commit more sins? I want people to learn not to treat a mistake with a mistake.”¹²

We stand between choice and chance. Like it or not, chances drop situations in our laps, some small, others huge, but choice and training determines our reactions. Holiness is as near as the neurons in our brain firing one or another word from our mouths.  We can retrain our brain, replacing automatic responses with ones better aligned with the needs of others and respecting boundaries between us.  As we do, we choose holiness and our choice penetrates across worlds.

 

From the Skeptic:

“. . . the primary function of religion in both traditional hunter-gatherer communities and modern state societies [is]: (1) explanation and (2) social cohesion”

Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil, p. 5.

For Our Right Brain:

“For me, I have to think my strength is from God. . . .  Why was I selected, and my daughters? I fully believe God chose me for something good.  The death of my daughters is for a purpose.”

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, quoted in The Jewish Journal, May 1-7, p. 42.

From Below, For Above: What was your worst moment when your response to chance led you far from the holy?  What was your best moment?

For You – and your body: What are your defensive responses?  What are your automatic triggers?  Where in your body do you experience them?

For You – and your story: As you grew up, how were problems and challenges explained, i.e., moving, bullies, illness and loss?  Were the responses to chance events holy or not?  What has changed for you?

From Above, For Below: “Master of all worlds and Lord of all lords!  Not in the merit of our righteousness do we cast our supplications before You, but in the merit of Your abundant mercy.  What are we? What is our life?  What is our kindness: what is our righteousness? . . . For most of [our] deeds are desolate and the days of [our] lives are empty before You. . . .  except for the pure soul that is destined to give glorification and reckoning before the throne of Your glory.” Morning Blessings, The Complete Artscroll Siddur, p. 29.

MY PRACTICE: Actions that can help me live better with each person.

I realize 

Gerry: I realize I need much more training for compassion.

During the next week, I will

Gerry: This week, I will rehearse and visualize “Thank you for your concern” as the first words out of my mouth.

1. Selections from R. Menachem Mendel of Kotzk’s Ohel Torah, An Ongoing Text Study Program of The Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Rabbi Jonathan Slater, 30 KS kidoshim1, p1.
2. Doidge, Norman, The Brain that Changes Itself,, p. 63.
3. Ibid, p. xx.
4. Ibid, p. 64.
5. Ibid. p 15.
6. Selections from R. Menachem Mendel of Kotzk’s Ohel Torah, An Ongoing Text Study Program of The Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Rabbi Jonathan Slater, 30 KS kidoshim2, p1.
7. Ibid, p. 2.
8. Ibid, p. 1.
9. Rob Eshman, “This Week” in The Jewish Journal, vol. 24, number 11, May 1-7, 2009, p. 6.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid, p. 42.

 

Copyright Gerry Owen 2009            Your Comments are appreciated.