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Friday January 18, 2008

Finding the worry-free zone in Judaism

by stacey palevsky
staff writer

If there are two words of advice frequently given but infrequently followed, they must be “Don’t worry.” I have no proof for this, except stories: My best friend fears that every time she leaves the house, her cats will chew through a cord and electrocute themselves. To avoid worrying, she unplugs her lamps when she leaves home.

Once, when I received a letter from an old flame I hadn’t spoken to in a year, I worried so much my stomach cramped up and I couldn’t sleep.

While I try to avoid dwelling on the parts of life I can’t control, I often fail. I worry about dinner tomorrow night, or remembering to get renter’s insurance, or meeting a deadline.

And so, when I learned that an East Bay rabbi would be talking on “Not to Worry?! The Jewish Tradition of Worry, When it Helps and When it Doesn’t,” I knew I had to attend.

The Jan. 11 talk was part of a Shabbat dinner with JGate, an East Bay organization that reaches out to unaffiliated and disaffiliated Jews of all stripes.

Rabbi Bridget Wynne started the conversation with a joke: A Frenchman, an Englishman, a German and a Jew are on a trip through the mountains. The Frenchman says he is so thirsty he must have a glass of wine; the Englishman, a cup of tea; the German, a pint of beer.

The Jew says he is so thirsty he must have diabetes.

Laughter filled the room. Then the rabbi asked us: Why do Jews worry so much?

One person suggested that because we have been persecuted for so long, it is the worriers who have survived. Another said that Judaism’s emphasis on personal responsibility promotes worry. I suggested that our communal mindset might promote collective worry.

Rabbi Bridget added another element: That because the Torah and other Jewish texts encourage the idea that we can always do better, be better and make the world better, we have a sense that we’re always falling short of expectations.

Then someone asked: Does Judaism offer us a way to cope with our worry?

I got excited about the potential conversational shift. I may not go to synagogue often, but I love learning how my faith intersects with everyday life.

Rabbi Bridget seemed pleased with the question too, and the context.

Cultural Judaism — which often appears in popular culture as jokes highlighting our neurotic tendencies — gives a false impression that the faith doesn’t have much to say about throwing water on worry’s flames.

But, Rabbi Bridget said, Judaism provides a framework, even an antidote, to worry. For instance, Jewish tradition teaches us to say 100 blessings a day. This is not to make us feel stressed about counting our blessings (“Have I said them all? Did I miss some?”), but to remind us that we shouldn’t let our worries cloud our ability to see the wonder and beauty in our world.

“The idea of making so many blessings is to say: Stop. Pay attention. Look how amazing this is,” she said.

I looked forward to implementing this new wisdom.

But when I emerged from the BART station, I realized I had forgot my keys, and none of my roommates were home, nor answering their cell phones.

I felt anxious. I hadn’t been home that day and was exhausted. Then I worried: Would I have to walk around in the chilly night air or sit on my stoop until they came home from a concert?

A moment later, I noticed that my favorite neighborhood coffee shop, which I thought closed at 10 p.m., was still open.

I walked inside. The place was packed for an open mic night.

Apparently, every Friday night, the place fills with musicians and their friends, keeping the place going until midnight. I had lived nearby for more than a year and never noticed.

So I said some mental blessings — for having learned that my gratitude for life’s small pleasures could be rooted in Judaism, for the joy in noticing something for the first time, for the warmth of the café.

I had three blessings in a matter of minutes. An hour later, my roommate notified me he was home. And so I walked up the hill — without a worry.

Stacey Palevsky lives in San Francisco and can be reached at stacey@jweekly.com.

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