As lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel is showing documentarian Marty DiBergi his sacred hall of various musical items, they come upon an amp that is, according to Mr. Tufnel, “very, very special.” Why? “Because the numbers all go to eleven! Look, right across the board: 11…11…11.” DiBergi sees why this is of note, as most amps go to 10. He asks, “Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?” “Well,” he replies, “it’s one louder, isn’t it?” He continues, “It’s not ten. You see, most blokes gonna be playing at 10, you’re on 10 here all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on 10 on your guitar, where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere! Exactly! What we do is if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?” “Put it up to 11.” “11. Exactly. One louder.” Confused as to the point, DiBergi poses the question, “Why don’t you just make 10 louder, and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little louder?” And, unsure of how to respond, there is an awkward pause before Tufnel shares, as though for the first time, “These go to 11.”
It is, of course, the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 2011, the only day in a century where all six digits of the date are exactly the same. And as I thought about the number 11, that scene from Spinal Tap started playing over and over again in my head. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how prescient that hysterical scene is, how much it actually resonates with our world today.
See, we’re a society that demands that each of us be running on all cylinders at all times. Because technology enables us to perform virtually any kind of function from wherever and whenever we are in the world, what was previously considered in the realm of possibility is now downright expected of us. We have made the leap from “can” to “should” with precious little concern for the deleterious impact it has on our mental and physical health. And especially in an economy such as ours, where jobs are scarce and employers know that if you won’t do it, they’ll find someone who will, we do it. We blow right past 10, we go to 11, and we stay there. Damn the consequences.
But it’s not just in our work or school, is it? It’s with everything. It’s how we party, how we dress, how we socialize, because going to 11, even in the land of 10, may be the only way to get attention, to get noticed. And you can’t watch any competition anywhere—whether it’s a football game, The Sing-Off, X-Factor, The Biggest Loser, Top Chef, or America’s Next Top Model—without at least one person per week saying the most asinine and obvious clichés, like “I came here to win.” (Oh, you’re the one.) Or, “Failure is not an option.” (Actually, I’m pretty sure it is.) And, the killer is always something about demanding, giving, or pledging to give 110 percent.
Now, I’m torn about the phrase. I use to laugh it off and chalk it up to sheer ridiculousness. How could anyone give 110 percent? How could someone give more than what’s actually possible to give? You can’t. It’s dumb.
At least, that’s what I thought.
And yet, perhaps there is something to it. Perhaps there’s something in the human condition that allows for the rare, occasional moment in which we somehow transcend what science or common knowledge define as the boundaries of possibility. Adrenaline kicks in and people can suddenly lift up a car to free someone pinned underneath. A firefighter runs into a house ablaze to rescue a child trapped inside and both emerge unscathed. Wesley is able to hold his breath for what seems like forever in order to save Princess Buttercup from the quicksand traps in the Fire Swamp.
But we don’t have to be a firefighter or Wesley from the Princess Bride to know something of what it means to go to 11, to give 110 percent. Just look at Abraham in this week’s parasha, Vayera. Three men appear seemingly out of nowhere near his tent and, as the text reads, “Seeing them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them, and, bowing down to the ground, he said, ‘My lords, if I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought; then wash your feet and recline under a tree, and let me bring you a bit of bread and you can restore yourselves.”
But that’s not enough. That’s only 100 percent.
The text continues, “Abraham then hurried toward the tent, to Sarah, and said, ‘Hurry, knead three measures of wheat flour and bake some [bread-]cakes!” Abraham then ran to the herd and took a young calf, tender and sound, and gave it to the servant lad, who quickly prepared it. He took sour milk and [sweet] milk and the calf he had prepared and set [it all] before them; and as he stood over them under the tree, they ate.”
Put aside for the moment your feelings about meat and vegetarianism. He didn’t just get some bread for his guests and give them space to wash their feet and chill. No. The man went and took one of his cattle, made it into dishes for them, and prepared an entire spread for them, a veritable feast…for three total strangers! We the readers are privy to the fact that these men are, in fact, angels of the Eternal, but Abraham most certainly doesn’t know this. And in the end, Abraham’s act of kicking his kindness up to 11, of offering hospitality in the 110th percentile, is rewarded in Sarah’s becoming pregnant with Isaac.
So you see that these things aren’t impossible, irrespective of how unbelievably overused the terms may be or how foolish they might sound. But the moments where the phrases actually apply are few and far between. We can’t possibly function at 110 percent all the time, even if we really wanted to, because if we did, we would completely and totally collapse. Nor should we strive to be constantly at that level. Cause if we’re always there, it doesn’t mean anything. If we’re always there, then all we’ve done is make 10 louder, so that our amp isn’t really special at all.
On this day, on this Shabbat, may each of us come to understand that living our lives to the fullest doesn’t demand that we are always turned to 11, always trying to give 110 percent, even as we appreciate that potential within us. May wisdom and love be our guide in choosing the moments where we do so. And as we take stock of our lives, rather than asking, for what do we go to 11, perhaps the question we should be asking is: for whom?
AMEN.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Go To Yourself - Lech L'cha 5772 (Youth Camp Appreciation Shabbat)
I was just barely eight years old. My brother, three and a half years older, had been before me, but only the previous summer, when he was 10. And though I had been going to day camp for the prior three summers, I knew this was an entire world of difference. I had no idea what I was getting into, no testimony from my brother of what it was like to start at my age, no concept of what this was really going to be like. All I knew that it was a long time to be away from home, away from everything I had ever known at that point of my life. And I was absolutely terrified.
Even so, I went. I fought against my fears by trying, with all of my eight-year-old might, to trust, to have faith. I knew that my parents and aunts and uncles had spent so many summers away at camp and I knew how much they loved it. So I trusted that it would be good; I tried to have faith that this would be the right thing for me. But I was still terrified.
That was, until I met Daniel. Daniel’s bed was near mine, and we connected at perhaps the very instant when our parents left the cabin, as the reality of being away from home for 4 weeks came crashing down on us. We were both somewhat dorky-looking, with big hunky glasses weighing down our little faces, sitting with books and stuffed animals and whatever else our parents put in our cubbies. But the connection, the friendship was instant. And while I certainly had my moments of homesickness over those four weeks, I knew that summers would never be the same again; that a summer without going away to camp wasn’t really a summer at all.
But the summers were only just the beginning. Because when I look back on that moment, and the summer a few years later where I almost didn’t go back, it literally boggles my mind. To think about the growth, the connections, the relationships I formed at Camp Harlam in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, is to think about all of the best parts of my life today. Friends that I made that summer and beyond are many of my closest today, more than 20 years later. I met my wife Tali because we had both spent summers there and had friends in common. I’ve attended at least a dozen camp weddings, where the silly cheers and inside jokes come back like it was only yesterday. I even co-officiated the ceremony of one of our friends with another of our friends who’s also a rabbi!
And it all began with Daniel. It all began with trust, with faith that my journey into the great unknown would be rewarding and fulfilling. Camp is where I learned about myself—what fires me up, what’s important to me; what makes me laugh, what makes me cry; what skills and talents and interests were within me that I never knew about. It’s where I learned how to live with others, to appreciate the synergy of working on something, building something together. It’s where I felt most tangibly the power of prayer, the chills of the Presence of God around me, the warm blanket of singing and making music together. It’s where I learned to be an individual, and at the same time, where I learned that I was part of something so much larger than myself, so much greater than the sum of the individual parts. To say that my summers at camp made me the person I am today, standing before you, is 100% accurate. But somehow, with all of the impact camp continues to have on me, to this very moment, even that bold statement doesn’t quite do it justice.
In our Torah portion for this Shabbat, Abram is called upon by God, with the words: Lech l’cha, “Go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” There, the text says, God will bless him. Abram leaves behind all he’s ever known to go to a place he doesn’t know. Interpreted one way, the Hebrew lech l’cha means, literally, “Go to yourself.” Abram found his true self, his true calling in his trust in God, and in taking a leap of faith, one that changed Jewish history forever. More than anywhere else, camp can be that place for anyone of us: the place where we grow into and discover our truest selves, where you can lech l’cha, go to yourself, perhaps in ways you never thought possible.
AMEN.
Even so, I went. I fought against my fears by trying, with all of my eight-year-old might, to trust, to have faith. I knew that my parents and aunts and uncles had spent so many summers away at camp and I knew how much they loved it. So I trusted that it would be good; I tried to have faith that this would be the right thing for me. But I was still terrified.
That was, until I met Daniel. Daniel’s bed was near mine, and we connected at perhaps the very instant when our parents left the cabin, as the reality of being away from home for 4 weeks came crashing down on us. We were both somewhat dorky-looking, with big hunky glasses weighing down our little faces, sitting with books and stuffed animals and whatever else our parents put in our cubbies. But the connection, the friendship was instant. And while I certainly had my moments of homesickness over those four weeks, I knew that summers would never be the same again; that a summer without going away to camp wasn’t really a summer at all.
But the summers were only just the beginning. Because when I look back on that moment, and the summer a few years later where I almost didn’t go back, it literally boggles my mind. To think about the growth, the connections, the relationships I formed at Camp Harlam in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, is to think about all of the best parts of my life today. Friends that I made that summer and beyond are many of my closest today, more than 20 years later. I met my wife Tali because we had both spent summers there and had friends in common. I’ve attended at least a dozen camp weddings, where the silly cheers and inside jokes come back like it was only yesterday. I even co-officiated the ceremony of one of our friends with another of our friends who’s also a rabbi!
And it all began with Daniel. It all began with trust, with faith that my journey into the great unknown would be rewarding and fulfilling. Camp is where I learned about myself—what fires me up, what’s important to me; what makes me laugh, what makes me cry; what skills and talents and interests were within me that I never knew about. It’s where I learned how to live with others, to appreciate the synergy of working on something, building something together. It’s where I felt most tangibly the power of prayer, the chills of the Presence of God around me, the warm blanket of singing and making music together. It’s where I learned to be an individual, and at the same time, where I learned that I was part of something so much larger than myself, so much greater than the sum of the individual parts. To say that my summers at camp made me the person I am today, standing before you, is 100% accurate. But somehow, with all of the impact camp continues to have on me, to this very moment, even that bold statement doesn’t quite do it justice.
In our Torah portion for this Shabbat, Abram is called upon by God, with the words: Lech l’cha, “Go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” There, the text says, God will bless him. Abram leaves behind all he’s ever known to go to a place he doesn’t know. Interpreted one way, the Hebrew lech l’cha means, literally, “Go to yourself.” Abram found his true self, his true calling in his trust in God, and in taking a leap of faith, one that changed Jewish history forever. More than anywhere else, camp can be that place for anyone of us: the place where we grow into and discover our truest selves, where you can lech l’cha, go to yourself, perhaps in ways you never thought possible.
AMEN.
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