The Lonely People of Faith

As we sit here in our homes, out of school and many out of work we are all confronted by an attack against three components of our well-being, as Dr. Lea Waters of the University of Melbourne notes: against “our sense of autonomy, relatedness (being connected to others) and competency (feeling effective).”  As I sat through my first Shabbat of “social distancing” I considered that perhaps there was another way to look at this situation. 

 Each year, our 7th graders have a unit in Advisory called “When Life Gives You Lemons...Make Lemonade.” In this unit we discuss the skills of how to look at life’s most difficult and challenging situations and see them differently.  

 I came across Chanie Gorkin’s poem a few years ago. Chanie, a high school student, was asked by her teacher to write about her worst day ever.  “Chanie turned the assignment on its head - literally.” She told her teacher that she didn’t believe in worst days ever and wrote the poem below.   (Note the importance of the question mark in the title). 

Worst Day Ever? 

By Chanie Gorkin

Today was the absolute worst day ever
And don't try to convince me that
There's something good in every day
Because, when you take a closer look,
The world is a pretty evil place.
Even if
Some goodness does shine through once in a while
Satisfaction and happiness don't last.
And it's not true that
It's all in the mind and heart
Because
True happiness can be attained
Only if one's surroundings are good
It's not true that good exists
I'm sure that you can agree that
The reality
Creates
My attitude
It's all beyond my control
And you'll never in a million years hear me say
Today was a very good day

NOW READ IT FROM BOTTOM TO TOP, THE OTHER WAY, AND SEE WHAT I REALLY FEEL ABOUT MY DAY. 

When asked about her poem,  she explained that it  “reflects the Jewish idea that it's possible to control how we see the world, whether negatively or positively:’I don't think there is such a thing as the worst day ever... I wanted to show how your day is really based on how you look at things.’”  We may not be able to control what happens- only Hashem does. But we can control how we perceive it. 

This poem didn’t end here, in her high school class, as Yvette Alt Miller describes.  She entered a poetry contest and it was posted online.  Zachery Stephenson, in London, complained on Facebook that someone had let him down and a relative in New York sent him Chanie’s poem. Stephenson then posted it on a wall of a local bar. A man named Ronnie Joice, who had been feeling down, saw the poem in the bar and tweeted it. “Within a week, Joice's initial message was re-tweeted thousands of times, and ‘Worst Day Ever?’ had become an internet sensation, downloaded over a million times, shared by thousands on social media, and translated into languages including Russian, Chinese and Hebrew.”

  
  We share with the students that the words of the poem do not change. All that changes is the way you look at them. We then do our “rose-colored glasses” activity where we discuss with the students that in life we can see things through rose-colored glasses- in an upbeat positive way. (Or some might call this seeing the cup half full and not half empty).  We ask for two volunteers- one puts on glasses with rose-colored lenses and one puts on dark glasses.  We hand each volunteer a sheet with 2 perspectives on them- ask them which one is the rose colored glasses perspective (upbeat viewpoint)  and which one is the dark- colored glasses (downer). They need to confer in the hallway for a moment to decide which one is which.  

Example:

 The Situation: During the hurricane, suddenly your power went off in your home. (real story!)

Dark colored glasses perspective: 

“It was the worst night of my life. There was no power so we all had to squish into one room.  And, all I really wanted to do was to go to sleep in my own room, but my siblings were playing and making so much noise!  It’s so boring with no TV to watch, and I knew my teacher would be angry at me for not doing my homework. I wish we had a generator!” 

Rose colored glasses perspective: 

“It was so much fun when the power went off in my house during the hurricane. We all got to sleep in the same room and my father didn’t have to go to work.  We stayed up late telling ghost stories- it was like one big campfire!  We stayed up all night playing games and having fun by flashlight.  I will never forget that night!”

            Our being together this past Shabbat made me think about this activity we do in Advisory. (I learn just as much as the students do if not more in Advisory!) 

The Situation: The spread of COVID-19 forces social distancing. 

Dark- colored glasses perspective: 

“Due to the spread of COVID-19 I had to cancel my plans with my friend who was supposed to come over for Shabbat. I was stuck in the house all Shabbat with my family and had nothing to do.  We couldn’t even go to shul and that meant that I really couldn’t daven because who cares about davening if there is no minyan. I was counting the minutes until Shabbat was over.” 

Rose colored glasses perspective: 

“Due the spread of COVID-19 everyone had to cancel their Shabbat plans.  At first I thought it would be boring, but it was actually nice to spend time with my family without everyone being pulled to their afternoon plans or with everyone going to different minyanim, or tugging at my parents when they are still socializing with their friends and I am ready to go  home.  We spent the afternoon playing board games, reading Harry Potter aloud, and learning Nach Yomi.  At the meal, no one ran off and we sang zemirot, did the alphabetical parasha challenge,  and talked to each other.  And, the davening...it was kind of fun to daven in our living room with everyone together and singing things out loud. We even layned the parasha from a Tikkun! I kind of wished that we had a piece of this every Shabbat.” 

            Same situation. Two different perspectives. Shakespeare said, “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  Or, as Dr. Martin Seligman, father of positive psychology said, “Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.”

This ability to achieve this positive perspective leads to learned optimism which is the opposite of learned helplessness, where people believe they cannot change their circumstances after they have faced repeated stress.  Martin Seligson did research on pessimism and wondered why some don’t feel helpless and are more optimistic in the face of negative situations.  He felt that learned optimism is the key. 

Learned optimism is not just a skill to make it through this coronavirus crisis, but a skill to make it through life.  We often have automatic negative thoughts and negative self-talk.  By recognizing our negative self-talk, and actively combating it with positive self-talk, we can achieve that learned optimism. Positive self-talk is exactly what it sounds like, as we explain to the students - talking to yourself-telling yourself you can do it, it will be okay, you have succeeded before and you will succeed again. It is sort of what you would tell a friend when he/she is faced with trouble, but instead, you tell the same thing to yourself.  It is a way to challenge our automatic negative thoughts.  And, it can be learned.  Yes, it is good to empathize with what our children are going through. But, after we do so, if we can subtly teach and model that positive self-talk they will weather difficulties better. 

As Jews, another answer to learned helplessness, pessimism or seeing the cup half full is bitachon- trust in Hashem.  Hashem cares for us and no matter what happens to us, He never stops supporting us, knows what we need and all that happens is ultimately for the good.  This perspective brings us to a life of optimism.  As it says in Tehillim 27:1: ה’ מָע֥וֹז חַ֜יַּ֗י מִמִּ֥י אֶפְחָֽד:

“Hashem is the stronghold of my life; from whom shall I be frightened?” Pessimism takes over when we leave Hashem out of the picture.  As parents, we can constantly model and inculcate this message of bitachon which can help our children lead more resilient and happier lives.  As I intimated in the title of this column, based on the title of a book by Rav Y.D. Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith, even when we are lonely, we are never truly alone if we have faith. 

While these times are trying for all, and some times of day are more trying than others, I did attempt to apply that learned optimism, those rose-colored glasses and that bitachon  to view this “worst time ever” in a more positive light.