Giving Away our Power

Dr. Elliott MalametAs has been noted many times by commentators down through the ages, one of the distinguishing features of the Hebrew Bible is that the flaws of its protagonists are exposed, on full display, to the merciless gaze of the reader. Unlike attempts at stylized heroic literature such as The Iliad, Biblical characters not only make mistakes but act out imprudently and even childishly, just like well…we would, faced with similar situations, especially when they lay blame at the feet of others.The blame game is played out from the beginning of human history right through to the entrance to the Promised Land. Faced with virtually no one existing whom he can accuse, Adam still manages to blame both God and Eve for a decision that he freely made to disobey the directive not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. His sputtering deflection aimed at the divine—"The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it”—is remarkably disingenuous, as though Eve somehow forced him into a headlock and crammed the offending fruit into his mouth before he could react.Other characters, often impulsively, will bemoan their fate through shifting their ability to be happy or simply endure what comes to those around them. Rachel, when faced with the poignant and painful gut punch of infertility, blurts out to Jacob, “give me children, or I will die,” as though he has the power to instill in her fecundity just through a wish. Meanwhile, Jacob’s response to her not only reveals his own emotional obtuseness and staggering lack of empathy—" Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?”—but also makes her feel like, somehow, she is to blame for her own plight. Pray harder, it would seem, and maybe God will relent. Nothing to do with me.Even the greatest of the prophets, Moses, is famous for his continuous complaining about his prophetic mission and the ungrateful flock that he must lead. Time after time, Moshe wrings his hands and wants to be done with it, once and for all, his life a daily burden, his patience worn to the bone. As Nietzsche would say about all of the above, “human, all too human.”Perhaps the central feature of blaming other people is that, in doing so, we give away all of our power, as though they have stolen our agency and are holding it hostage. When we blame, whomever we blame, it is as if to say, “if not for you, my life would be happier. If you hadn’t done that, I would not be in the situation I am in. Whatever bad is happening to me, it’s your fault. And only you can make it right.” In other words, I am powerless.What an incredible amount of influence to give to someone else over your own life.Judaism’s feelings about the ultimate source of authority have been transparent from the start but maybe the finest articulation of this in Jewish liturgy can be found in Psalm 146: “Do not your trust in princes, in human beings, who have no salvation [from death]. Their spirit departs and returns to the earth, on that very day their plans come to nothing.”A profound meditation on permanence and transience, on what lasts and what will inevitably fade, the psalm poses a stark challenge to all of us to think through what we revere, and whose approval we run after every day, only to find that it was all fleeting and maybe not worth the anxious devotion that we assigned it.A memory from many years ago. After a prayer service I have led, a woman asks to speak with me. She is in her late sixties, never married, very skilled at her job in the entertainment industry. But she is haunted by the things not done. And as she tells her story and begins to unravel a part of her life, she is on the edge of tears. She says that her boss, someone who had been extremely demanding and very difficult to work with, and whom she found herself preoccupied with for many years – that man has died suddenly the previous week. As she takes a breath, I try to intuit the source of her distress. Did she realize that she appreciated him more than she realized and was now regretful that he was gone?Quite the opposite. “I spent twenty-five years obsessing over stuff at work, plotting moves and counter moves to make sure that I was in his good books, and then suddenly – poof – he’s gone and frankly, it seemed so meaningless. His death felt like a question for me – why did I give up so much of my time and my life to this person?” A question to which she, and certainly not I, had any answer.Each of us has an idea of whom we think can be helpful to us, who is important, who we need and who holds the key to our happiness. Psalm 146 urges us to consider whether we are allowing any human beings in our life to serve as our ultimate source of wellbeing, security, emotional and spiritual equilibrium, because that kind of placing faith in a mortal is an illusion of the most painful sort, an illusion that will be unmasked on the day of that human being's death.Usually, the best example of this kind of illusion in human life is in romance, where we invest enormous hope in the other person as a kind of guarantee of our happiness. Stock cultural phrases like “I can’t live without you” reflect a very disturbing imbalance in our outlook. We tell ourselves that they hold the key to our security and wellbeing and our fate. Imagine the kind of pressure that places on others. Intimate relationships are without a doubt central to living, for us to thrive and feel good about our world and ourselves, but they are not the final security of our life.For the Psalmist, human beings should be respected but not worshipped, loved but not idolized. They certainly should not be a source of fear and ultimate power over us. Everyone must answer to a higher authority; that isn't just a threat for victimizers, it's a reminder to those of us who allow ourselves to be victimized.The American dollar bill notwithstanding, in whom do you trust?