After the November attacks in Paris I re-posted a blog “A Response to Global Events – And 5 Ways to Make a Difference Right Now” . Immediately I received a reply from a dreamer in London with the suggestion to add “Do an act of kindness, do a Mitzvah”.
And that response brings me to this blog : The Active Positive.
Recently I was at an inter-faith spiritual round table whose topic was : “How can we of many different beliefs co-exist in this world?” The panelists were direct, the questions from the audience were equally sharp and focused. Then, a man raised his hand and asked “Are you all certain of what you believe?” In other words, does God exist? Everyone paused, panelists and audience members alike equally stunned. We were there for this panel, we said with our eyes while looking at each other around the room, because we believed – in what, it didn’t matter, but in something, that was assumed. And now the question was “Do we believe”. The leader of my liberal synagogue answered: “Your question doesn’t concern me at all. Ours is not a preoccupation of faith or questions of faith; my concern is how can I best do, be, and express ethics and my spirituality in every day.”
And this brings me to the examination of questions.
Remember the guy Job in the bible who lost everything? His kids, his property, and eventually, his health. His story is a story of questioning. His colleagues come to the house and everyone sits down for pages and pages and pages of philosophical questions of why do bad things happen, are we the cause or is it random, do bad things happen for lack of our own goodness, is it because of our flaws, are we supposed to learn something from it, etc. etc. etc. PAGES of questions. The interesting thing, my Rabbi, Gershon Winkler, points out, is that the ONLY thing Job does is ask questions. He never does anything in response. In fact, Job never even leaves his house to either verify if in fact he has lost everything – he was just going off of what people came to his house to tell him! In other words, he was reacting off of hearsay. Further, as my Rabbi teaches, it is his health that is the last to go – in other words he worries and agitates himself into a state of sickness!
So what does God do after all these questions and questions and questions? He never answers them! Instead, God takes Job out into the wilderness and tells him to look up – look up at the stars and get the bigger picture. In other words : Go! Out! Do! In other words, all this question asking can become obsessive and a distraction keeping us from the real point.
I see today that so many of us flock to the news, blogs, posts, each other to pontificate, philosophy, argue over the events in the world. What is IS, what do they want, are we in danger? Is this a religious problem or a terrorist problem? Should our countries make an alliance with this or that other country to do this or that? All these questions and questions and questions. And, after exhausting days of asking them, reading them, re-asking them, re-reading or re-listening to them, what, actually, has been DONE? Does all this question asking, arguing, discussing, staying current, being in the know, actually DO anything to add positivity in the world? Or is this all this endless question-asking a great big distraction to make us feel that we, by taking a philosophical side, are somehow participating, when in fact it’s a justification for non-action?
Active Positive.
The world is a mess. This is a fact. AND, the world has beauty. Another fact. Rather than sitting in the space of taking a side, or hoping for outcomes, what would happen if we decided to adopt a philosophy of Active Positive? That instead of staying in the “head”, racing after the questions, we LIVE with the questions, LIVE with the uncertainties, LIVE with the not-knowing, not-making-sense, chaos of everything and instead focus all our thoughts, time, energies into ACTIVELY DOING, BEING, EXPRESSING all that we believe to be POSITIVE.
What would the world look like if, instead of debating whether more soldiers should be sent here or there or whether we should have more security, we turned off the debate and made dinner for an elderly neighbor? Or took time to teach a newcomer a new language, or show them the closest grocery store? Or teach a child how to plant a seed?
What would the world look like if, for every MENTAL engagement, we exchanged it for a physical action of positive?
Active Positive.
The world is a mess. AND, the world has beauty. What we want to live requires a bit of a choice. We don’t build the world by thinking about it. We build the world by doing. ACTIVE positive, not thought positive.
This blog started with adding the suggestion of doing a Mitzvah in response to global events. A Mitzvah is a good DEED. It’s what we, as Jews, are commanded to do. The key is that it is a DEED. Not a thought. Not a hope. Not an idea. Not a wish or an “if only”. A deed. And not Obama, or Hollande, or this country or that, or this organization or that, or this group or that, but Me. Right. Now. Me.
It’s the start of 2016 – What is your Active Positive? What world are you going to build this year?
