  Spiritual
This week: 36 Reasons Why Edited by: SophyBells  
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Hi, I'm SophyBells ~ your editor for this edition of the Spiritual Newsletter.
The Rev. Scotty McLennan, author of the book Finding Your Religion, compares humanity's innate need for spiritual searching to climbing a mountaain. In his view, we are all endeavoring to climb the same figurative mountain in our search for the divine, we just may take different ways to get there. In other words, there is one "God," but many paths. I honor whatever path or paths you have chosen to climb that mountain in your quest for the Sacred.  |
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36 Reasons Why
Recently I got caught up with the Amazon Prime series, “Transparent.” For those of you not familiar with show, “Transparent” is the story of the Pfefferman family. Their patriarch, Morty, comes out as a transgender female, Maura, years after his three children are grown and he and his wife Shelly have divorced. The series deals with not only how the family handles Maura’s transition, but their own very human frailties and imperfections. In a scene from season 3, the Pfefferman family and other members of the temple have gathered for a service to end the Sabbath. The Rabbi, a woman named Rachel, says:
“Welcome. Shabbat shalom. The rabbis tell us that there are 36 people whose righteousness sustains the world called the lamed-vavniks. So if you know your Torah, we know that God destroyed the world once, right? Noah and the Ark? Remember? So these 36 people are like an insurance policy against that ever happening again. So who are these 36 people? I want you guys to put your hand on the shoulder of the person next to you and get really close, so all of us can be linked in this circle? Is everybody close? Okay? Who are these 36? We don’t know. Even the 36 don’t know. So what is the lesson? The lesson is to treat each other as if we might be one. Or who knows? You might be standing next to one now.”
The notion of 36 righteous people has become popular in modern culture recently. “Kevin (Probably) Saves the World,” is new fall TV series whose plot is built around them. Apparently it’s a story line the world needs to experience in these dark and dangerous times! I was unfamiliar with the story of the 36, and was so moved by the “Transparent” episode that I wanted to find out more about them. According to tradition, it is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and were it not for them, all of them, if even one of them was missing, the world would come to an end. The two Hebrew letters for 36 are the lamed, which is 30, and the vav, which is six. Therefore, these 36 are referred to as the Lamed-Vavniks. And who, we might ask, are these righteous ones? According to the legend they are not saints; they are not holy people, they are not recognized by others or even known to themselves. They simply are what they are and in their very being, they somehow sustain the world. This Jewish concept is based on a Talmudic statement to the effect that in every generation 36 righteous “greet the Shechinah,” or the Divine Presence.
Imagine if we treated one another as if the possibility existed that you or you or you might just be one of the 36, our community, even our world flourishes. Imagine what would happen if everyone were to believe that someone in their family or neighborhood or workplace or school, or that person shopping near you at the grocery store or driving on the freeway, just might be a lamed-vavnik. No one would discount anyone else, or treat them as “less-than” – no one would marginalize, sexually harass, mock, deport, insult, attack, or discriminate against them. Just imagine what would happen if we treated each other with dignity and respect, just in case that other person might be one of the 36? And what might happen if we treated ourselves as if we might be one of them? Perhaps we might be less prone to self-criticize and negatively evaluate ourselves. For we would know that if we were one of the 36, the fate of the world rests upon our shoulders. Where we go, it goes; how we act shapes and influences the spheres. Our every little act of tolerance, kindness, patience, friendship … our every commitment, each positive emotion, even a smile, can change the world for the better.
There is a Netflix series called “13 Reasons Why” which revolves around a high school student, Clay Jensen, and his friend Hannah Baker, a girl who committed suicide after suffering a series of demoralizing circumstances brought on by select individuals at her school. A box of cassette tapes recorded by Hannah before her death details thirteen reasons why she ended her life. Each tape is addressed to a select person in her school and details their involvement in her eventual suicide. The title of this newsletter, “36 Reasons Why,” is a twist on that Netflix series. What if, instead of those 13 people somehow having had a part in Hannah’s decision to choose death over life, they had instead given her a reason to live? What if instead of taking her life, she was inspired to LIVE her life, and live it more fully because of the positive impact those 13 people had in her life? Or in this case, the 36 lamed-vavniks?
Yes, the story of the 36 righteous ones is just that – a story, a legend, a parable – but just because something isn’t factual doesn’t mean it isn’t true. And now more than ever we could use these stories and take them to heart. Imagine how different our country, our world, could be if we all treated one another, and ourselves, as if one of us just might be one of the lamed-vavnik? How might you act differently if you treated others as if they were one of the 36? How might you act differently if you treated yourself as if you were one of the 36? What would that look like?
I know for me it would definitely mean experiencing and showing more patience in my life – my hair trigger impatience toward a slow driver does not serve me well, nor does it offer kindness or compassion. But if I can look at that person driving below the speed limit in front of me as one of the 36, perhaps I too will slow down and not let the anger inside of me boil up for what is really no good reason. And if I saw myself as possibly being one of the 36 – well, maybe I wouldn’t be so hard on myself about my perceived imperfections.
How about the rest of you – how might you behave differently if you were to look at others, or even yourself, as being one of the 36 righteous ones? Share your writings/thoughts with me as a comment to this newsletter, and I'll share it next month. |
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Much to my surprise, there were no responses to my last newsletter "Spiritual Newsletter (October 18, 2017)" - tho I am sure many of our members are blessed by animals in their lives!
    
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