Elul Day 13

Dear Elul Writers,

Of all the emotions that give me a run for my money, there is none more challenging than anger. Maybe because I am generally mild-mannered? Maybe because the home I grew up in was relatively conflict-averse? Maybe because anger is scary and burns bright and fast, and has the potential to be all-consuming? Whatever the reason, I struggle with my own frustration and anger, even as I know these emotions to be utterly natural, a part of what it means to be alive. 

Perhaps this is why I was so drawn to this piece by Lydia Davis which is either a very short short story or a prose poem entitled Trying to Learn.

I am trying to learn that this playful man who teases me is the same as that serious man talking money to me so seriously he does not even see me anymore and that patient man offering me advice in times of trouble and that angry man slamming the door as he leaves the house. I have often wanted the playful man to be more serious, and the serious man to be less serious, and the patient man to be more playful. As for the angry man, he is a stranger to me and I do not feel it is wrong to hate him. Now I am learning that if I say bitter words to the angry man as he leaves the house, I am at the same time wounding the others, the ones I do not want to wound, the playful man teasing, the serious man talking money, and the patient man offering advice. Yet I look at the patient man, for instance, whom I would want above all to protect from such bitter words as mine, and though I tell myself he is the same man as the others, I can only believe I said those words, not to him, but to another, my enemy, who deserved all my anger.

I am moved by this text because it feels so true to my experience. As we’ve already noted this month, we witness a sense of multiplicity not just in others, but also internally. Is the patient Jordan also the frustrated Jordan? Is the goofball Jordan also the self-righteous Jordan? And, is it possible that all of these varying versions or ourselves could live in balance?

Prompt

The Rambam, in his Hilchot Deot (The Laws of Human Dispositions), offers the needed, if not altogether surprising, advice that we should seek out a middle path. He gently reminds us that we should not be ill-tempered, burning with anger, nor should we be unfeeling as if we weren’t alive. Rather, he asserts, “Everyone whose traits are intermediate and balanced can be called a chacham, a wise person.” Where in your life are you seeking the middle path? What aspects of your personality could use more balance? Maybe you need to cut a trail between vulnerability and guardedness. Or, perhaps you could use a middle way between bucking the system and going with the flow. Is there wisdom that you think you could find along the middle way?

Bivracha,

Jordan