VAYEISHEV | When Settling is Spiritual Bypass

This week's Torah is dedicated to my teacher, friend and colleague, Robert Gonzales. May his soul settle freely.

 

וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן׃ 

And Jacob settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan.

Genesis 37:1

 

This week's Torah begins with "and Jacob settled." On the story level, twin brothers Jacob and Esau reconciled and buried their father Isaac. They took giant steps, risking their vulnerability for the sake of healing their birth trauma and making amends for their early years of jealousy and competition. In dramatic scenes they laid out before each other all of their households. Their clans spread and prospered.

But Jacob isn't settled. He yearns to stop running and wrestling. He wanders in search of a deep connection to a place of stability and tranquility. He tries settling in the land of huts, Sukkoth (Gen. 33:19), and tragedy strikes between his sons and the indigenous population. Elohim, Source of Generative Power (Gen. 35:1) sends Jacob back to the place where he and Esau reconciled. Go back there. Connect to that makom, that place. Access the vulnerability you and Esau stepped into there, put down the "false gods," the divisions and distractions you worship that block you from seeing unity and pursuing peace.

The journey is unsettling, filled with sorrow and loss. Devorah, who nursed and accompanied Jacob's mother Rivka, and his beloved wife Rachel, are taken by the road. And Torah instructs, the journey is necessary to birth Generative Power, the name Rachael gives to their son Benjamin as she dies.

Overcome by grief and exhaustion, Jacob takes it upon himself to declare an end to the journey. As Esau did in their youth, Jacob abandons the inner journey for momentary physical relief. He gives up the work of inner healing and tragedy befalls the clan.

We all yearn to settle, to be at peace. This is an essential motivation for setting forth on the spiritual path. We can spend our entire lives running to find peace, running to find the place in which to settle. Torah, Buddhism and Nonviolent Communication give us tools to stop running and settle into balance between the journey for inner peace and our relationship to the physical world.

Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to stop running by resting in each moment, in each breath. We can't control the events and crises that swirl around us. We want to engage in the world in a way that brings peace and receptivity. We can become skillful at accessing the energy of settling and stillness inside ourselves, so that we ride life's turbulent waves and participate in the healing. If we are lucky and diligent in our practice of returning to mindfulness with each breath, we can come to an understanding that we are the waves. And that we also are the ocean. We live in the embrace of ocean and wave.

The teachings and practices offered by Nonviolent Communication trainer Robert Gonzales give us a path to inner transformation, so our settling isn't a bypass or ignoring of the impact of our actions on the world. When I sat with him in circles of Israelis and Palestinians, we practiced making room inside ourselves for whatever we were experiencing. Whatever fear, suspicion, sadness or despair arose, we sat and practiced compassionately embracing it. In pairs, with eyes closed or gazing into each other's eyes, we settle into ourselves, allowing our inner capacity to expand.

Using some of the tools of Nonviolent Communication, we allow our consciousness to rest in feelings that arise and the universal life energies activating the feelings. This is how we continue the journey of healing separately and together. Making room for everything is the antidote to spiritual bypass. We don't jump to any "shoulds," as in, “you should feel this” or “you shouldn't feel that.” We make space within ourselves for whatever we are feeling.

Then we turn to each other and listen. We make space within ourselves for whatever the other person is feeling and needing. Making this inner space, free from judgments that arise as "shoulds," as in  "I should,” or “she should,” is the precondition for settling.

Making space inside ourselves is the precondition to learning to settle and occupy land responsibly and compassionately. Tragedy and violence arise when we settle the land before we have made space within for everyone's experiences and needs, before we experience ourselves so expansively that we can embrace all others as part of ourselves? Before we settle, how can we learn to hold our own full experience without acting out violently, without taking more than our share?

Torah illustrates the perils of spiritual bypass in the story of Jacob. Torah is silent on the source of his decision to settle in Canaan, signaling that this isn't from his own insights and healing or from his striking encounters with Eternally Present. He bypasses coming face to face with the sources of his trauma and the violence in his family. He by passes healing. And tragedy again befalls the family.

The writings of the medieval Torah commentator Rashi shows how the Jewish tradition draws on the life of Jacob to caution against bypassing the healing of this world:

"[Yaakov-Jacob] settled." Yaakov was seeking to live in tranquility, when the troubles of Yoseif were thrust upon him. [Whenever] the righteous seek to live in tranquility, G-d says, "Is it not sufficient for the righteous [to have] what has been prepared for them in the World-to-Come that they should also want to live in tranquility in this world?

This presents a cautionary tale, so relevant for our time. Yes, of course, we all want to settle, we all want to live in tranquility. But when we settle at the expense of ignoring the impact on the rest of the world, before we truly embody the truth of interconnectedness, of valuing all life, we substitute the vision of a spiritual promised land for what is before our very eyes.

I am writing this on the morning of the U.S. holiday of "Thanksgiving." Do we celebrate this day and all that we have been "given" without looking deeply at its roots and impact? Our country was built on dehumanizing and then taking from the generosity of the native peoples. We failed to adopt their ways of inhabiting, rather than occupying, land. We continue to destroy our own social fabrics, which are dependent on healthy waters, forests, soil, air and the ecosystem that we need to survive. Our gratitude becomes a tragic way to bypass what we are called to do to preserve life.

Thanksgiving calls us to look around to see the impact right now of exploiting other peoples. We are witnessing daily the continuing hunting down of peoples who trigger fear and aversion in us because we haven't healed as individuals nor created healing refuges in our societies. Let us feel the call to reimagine and rebuild relationships with ourselves, others, and societies, that help us make room inside ourselves for fear and aversion, holding it, embracing it, so that we don't let it spill over and impact others, so that we can transform our inner landscapes into places of peaceful settlement.

Off-balance Settlement

In Israel and Palestine today, we see the horrendous fruits of out-of-balance settling. In the US, and across the globe, we are witnessing horrendous assault on human and other life. When one people, with suspicion and even hatred in their hearts for another, settle in the midst of the other people, it breeds violence and separation, hoarding of resources. The stories of Tamar and Joseph, the transformation of Judah, in the next verses of the Torah story, point to another way. The way of not settling until there is full reconciliation between all inhabitants of families and land.

The Tale of the Long Spoon

A traditional Jewish story, the “Tale of the Long Spoons,” shows the hellish nature of bringing people together when their hearts and care for each other are constricted, when they have "settled" without healing the illusion of human separateness:

One day a man said to God, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”

God showed the man two doors. Inside the first one, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of vegetable stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”

Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful vegetable stew that made the man’s mouth water. The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand.”

God smiled. It is simple, he said, Love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another. While the greedy only think of themselves…

Artist SOFO ARCHON comments on the parable:

Sometimes, thinking solely of our personal gratification, we tend to forget our interdependence with everyone and everything around us, so much so that we stop caring about them.

But, as this parable makes it clear, by doing so not only don’t we help others overcome their suffering, but we’re also unconsciously harming ourselves, since we are all connected on a very deep level.

Story credit: It’s not known for sure who wrote it, but it’s often attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshishok.

An NVC Exercise from Robert Gonzales

Sit together with a trusted friend or partner
. Take turns holding space for each other as follows:

• Person A asks Person B, “Tell me, how does the need for Love live in you?”
• Then A listens, following the energy, intentionally cultivating the capacity of "presence without pressure."
• When B stops, Person A asks the same question. Repeat this a few times.
• Then switch.
• Then pick other life energies from the List of Needs HERE.

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More writings from Roberta on Vayeishev: Joseph and Tamar, Abandoning the False Skin of Privilege
https://torahattheintersection.com/vayeishev-joseph-and-tamar-abandoning-the-false-skin-of-privilege/