{"id":874,"date":"2014-10-07T12:24:04","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T16:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=874"},"modified":"2014-10-07T12:24:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T16:24:04","slug":"keeping-the-ball-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=874","title":{"rendered":"Keeping the Ball in the Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Balls<\/a>In his book, Tales of a Dalai Lama<\/em><\/a>, Pierre Delattre tells a story about rules, about games, and about life\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n

Once, he writes, when the Dalai Lama was very young, he was invited to a volleyball game after an interview with a Swedish professor.\u00a0 The players batted the ball over the net and whenever the ball hit the ground there were, of course, jubilant cheers from some fans.\u00a0 Others looked on,\u00a0distraught.<\/p>\n

The young Dalai Lama asked the professor to explain why people were playing against<\/em> each other.\u00a0 He pointed out the obvious truth: \u00a0Every time the ball hit the ground someone needed to be consoled.<\/p>\n

The professor explained that points were won when the opposing team missed the ball.<\/p>\n

The Dalai Lama was distressed.\u00a0 \u201cBut then the ball must hit the ground all the time. Such a way to play with the human spirit!\u201d<\/p>\n

Delattre describes the professor sitting, watching the game, thinking remembering\u00a0his students batting ideas around, himself offering a concept only to find his student chomping at the bit for an opportunity to prove his argument flawed.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the professor yearned for a class discussion that\u00a0would keep ideas in the air, allow the human spirit to take flight.\u00a0 Ashamed, Delattre writes, he left for Sweden with one desire: To go home and to change the rules of the game.<\/p>\n

I told this story during High Holy Days and asked my congregants: What if the rules of the game were to keep the ball in the air?<\/p>\n

What if we did not wait for others to trip and fall, but actively held each other up?\u00a0 What if we did not criticize what we felt were mistakes but simply asked others if they could rethink with us \u2013 and even consider that we ourselves might have rushed to judgment.\u00a0 What if we decided that having an ax to grind is equivalent to wishing humiliation and pain on someone else?<\/p>\n

WHAT OCCURRED?\u00a0 The boulder left the mountain.
\nWho awakened?\u00a0 You and I.
\nLanguage, language.\u00a0 Co-earth.\u00a0 Fellow planet.
\nPoorer.\u00a0 Open.\u00a0 Homelandly.<\/p>\n

The course?\u00a0 Towards the unsubsided.
\nYour course and mine was the boulder\u2019s flight.
\nHeart and heavy. Adjudged too heavy.
\nGrow more heavy.\u00a0 Be more light.<\/p>\n

On Erev Rosh Hashanah, I read this poem by Paul Celan, born Paul Antschel.\u00a0 Celan became one of the most well-known German \u2013 and Jewish — poets after the Holocaust.\u00a0 He was the only member of his family to survive.<\/p>\n

That night, I called the people Celan\u2019s \u201cunsubsided.\u201d Class and gender-neutral, stranger in the camp and Israelite from way back, old and young, the unsubsided, I said, all these stood side by side to listen.\u00a0 I imagined that the boulder\u2019s flight must have been the truth expressed in that moment: \u00a0Torah is for us all.\u00a0 We can stand together to receive truth, work together to understand it, and support each other in making our revelation real:<\/p>\n

Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach.\u00a0 It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”\u00a0 1<\/sup>Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”\u00a0 No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.\u00a0 (Deut. 30:11-14)<\/p>\n

It is close to you.\u00a0 It is in your mouth and in your heart.<\/p>\n

On Kol Nidre I asked my congregants: Can we disavow clinging to agendas, our egos and their needs?\u00a0 Could we vow to change the rules of the game, to keep the ball in the air?<\/p>\n

Should this not be our life\u2019s purpose?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Kol Nidre I asked my congregants: Can we disavow clinging to agendas, our egos and their needs? Could we vow to change the rules of the game, to keep the ball in the air?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[219,221,71,220],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dalai-lama","tag-kol-nidre","tag-moses","tag-paul-celan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":882,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions\/882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}