Keep Going, Everything is Awesome
“Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of a team…” If you know the song, I’m not at all sorry for reviving this earworm in your mind. These lyrics (from Tegan and Sara) form the mission statement for The Lego Movie, a feel-good story of learning to embrace yourself and become part of something bigger. In other words, these lyrics also represent a core aspect of religion - personal growth within commitment to a larger community. The centrality of team spirituality finds a home in the Jewish concept of minyan, which requires a minimum of ten Jewish adults for certain activities. We might re-work the lyrics to something like “Everything is Awesome! Everything is holier when you’re part of a minyan…”
The emphasis on collective experience stretches back to biblical times, when Israelite identity centered around tribal affiliation. Even personal sacrificial offerings, a primary religious activity, happened through priests in a centralized location. Almost every spiritual action located the individual within the web of the Israelite people. And so it is surprising in the Torah to discover a ritual of radical spiritual individualism. Bamidbar chapter 6 introduces us to the nazir, or “nazirite”. Medieval commentator Rashi explains that the word means “separate, aloof”.
Primarily, the nazir separates from drinking wine, or consuming any grape product at all. They cannot cut their hair or shave, and they cannot be in proximity to dead people. They could be a lifelong nazir or just be a nazir for a predetermined amount of time, but for the duration of their time as a nazir, if they accidentally encounter a dead person or otherwise mess up the practice, they have to entirely shave their head and start the whole term over again. This all sounds a little extreme and strange, but the strangest part of all is that this practice is entirely optional. Only people who want to voluntarily avoid grapes and dead people and grow their hair long need to do so.
There are very few examples of detailed, voluntary spiritual practices in the Torah, and the ancient rabbis had mixed feelings about the nazir, because in effect what the nazir does is to separate themselves from other people. They opt in to become holier-than-thou, if only for a limited time. A debate in the Talmud (Ta’anit 11a) revolves around whether the nazir is in some way sinning because of self-deprivation, or whether they are extra holy because of it. While the larger principles revolve around what role self-denial plays in spiritual growth, we can see the discomfort as stemming as well from the degree to which an individual cultivates their own spiritual practice rather than participating in the team practices that Judaism historically emphasized. When you are invested in everything being awesome when you’re part of a team, someone seeking the Awesome in a more solitary way might feel a bit subversive.
As you may know if you’ve been reading these essays over the last month, we are exploring Torah through the lens of Rabbi Adina Allen’s Jewish Studio Project rules for art-making. We have followed pleasure, noticed everything, and refrained from commenting on what others are doing. Like the nazirite rituals offering an individual practice nestled within spiritual community, these rules carve out a container for personal exploration within creative community. (Of course, creativity and spirituality are deeply interwoven!) Our final rule is “Keep Going.” And it highlights the tensions and possibilities of personal work within communal context.
We all have our own rhythms, pacing, and intuition about when to begin and end activities. One of the wonderful things about solitude is being able to flow exactly as makes sense for you. Of course we aren’t always so good at listening to our own cues, but they are there and when we attune to our senses and the wisdom of experience, we know exactly when to go for a walk, when to finish eating, when to pick up a pen and when to put down a paintbrush.
But when we gather together, our rhythms and pacing cause some dissonance. We are almost never on the same page about when to start and stop. This gives rise to complaining, and to the stoic patience of someone resigned to sitting through an activity they are pretty much done with but alas, cannot get out of. When we are making art with the Jewish Studio Process, we have a set time for art-making. I’m on my own - no commenting - but not necessarily on my own time. Most often, the time flies by and, stunned by the bell, I want to do more work. Rabbi Adina often says, "Find a comfortable or uncomfortable stopping place.” But on other occasions, I finish what I thought I’d do only to find there are still fifteen minutes left for art-making. I get a strong urge to twiddle my thumbs, stare into the canvas, or hop up and walk around aimlessly. This is when the rule comes into play: Keep going. Take advantage of the dissonance between my own rhythm and the pacing of the group. Make more marks on the page until a new idea arrives, or a surprise emerges, or I suddenly realize I was doing something different all along. “Keep going” is an invitation to unexpected revelation. As Rabbi Shefa Gold says, “Boredom precedes breakthrough.”
Our Kavana Cooperative is built on the potent tension between the personal and the communal - “personalized Judaism in a community context.” Here you can take on your own version of the nazirite vows - a set of creative constraints and commitments that you are responsible for, and no one else. Everything is awesome and welcome - every way that you can dream up to deepen Jewish practice, personal growth, spiritual exploration. And it is cool when we are part of a team, an intentional cooperative where we witness, support, boost, and participate in each other’s spiritual lives. Find the niches that nurture you, and in those places where you show up and then aren’t sure what to do next - keep going! You never know what wisdom will come of being a little lost for a while. Just know that even when you are on a personal journey, you are never all alone.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jay LeVine
