A snippet of a phone conversation yesterday with a friend:
Me: Hi, how are you?
Friend (a bit down): Y’know, I’m okay.
Me: What’s going on?
Friend: The elections. I’m so anxious.
Me: That’s why I watch very little of the news.
Friend: Yeah, well, I’m a politics junkie. I can’t help it. I doomscroll.
Sound familiar? Yeah. If not you, surely someone in your household or life. For months-into-weeks now we have been ramping up. Every headline an all-caps shout about who might win, how close the race is, how the future of the nation depends on this particular election in ways that are unique and unprecedented. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe that is true, or maybe that idea keeps us hooked on the news. Election-related stress is now as much of a news item as the actual election. We’re stressed out hearing about how stressed out we are. And then… national attention is focused on our community’s voting patterns: is one candidate or party better for Israel, or the Jewish people here in the US? How do our answers to that question align or misalign with the rest of that candidate or party’s stated agenda and values? How do we activate our activism in positive ways to influence the outcome of an election we are super anxious about? How do we vote our conscience this year? And will it, and us, ever calm down?
I’m not a politics junkie, I’m a life-of-the-spirit junkie. All week, I’ve been gearing up to write this blog, my first since the fall holiday marathon ended and I turn my attention back to other things. I’ve been wondering: what can I say that is spiritually helpful to us right now? What is really at the heart of the matter?
What is at the heart of the matter is that – as the Native American fable has it – we each have two wolves inside of us, and the one you feed is the one that grows. In Buddhist terms, as taught by the late Thich Nhat Hanh, it is the idea of inviting positive seeds. “We each have many kinds of ‘seeds’ lying deep in our consciousness. Those we water are the ones that sprout…[and] nothing exists without its opposite.” So if you have a seed of anxiety, you have also a seed of calm. If you have a seed of despair, you also have a seed of hope. When we focus on the seed that will nourish us, it naturally grows.
In Jewish thought, this idea is taught through the framework of the yetzer hatov (good inclination) and yetzer hara (evil inclination). “Who is strong? One who conquers their inclination.” This teaching in Pirke Avot (4:1) emphasizes inner strength as the ability to control our impulses and habits – including our addiction to the news, to doomscrolling, and most of all of allowing ourselves to feed our own despair and anxiety. “A person should always incite the good inclination (yetzer hatov) against the evil inclination (yetzer hara)” (Talmud, Brachot 5a). The yetzer hara will always be there, “crouching at the door” as God says to Cain in last week’s parasha. “But you can master it” (Genesis 4:7).
This next week will be full of temptation to despair, to worry, to anxiety. We can choose to feed that in ourselves, doing ourselves harm as well as doing our part in making that the air we collectively breathe in this cultural moment. Or we can choose to nourish something else. We can choose to water the seeds of calm, of looking for the good in every situation, of hope. If we choose that for ourselves – the yetzer hatov – then we will shape this cultural moment for the better, helping others feel that tov, that goodness, too. In fact, I think I just came up with my new favorite translation of yetzer hatov: positive vibe. We can choose that, create it together, if we want to.
I close with a reminder, one that I think may get lost in the frenzy this year. The reminder is that our living in a democracy – while stressful, to be sure, and full of problems – is a blessing. This country, with all it suffers, is a blessing, in so very many ways. Voting is a blessing. Few generations in the history of the planet have been blessed to be able to participate in any way in the rule of government. In that spirit, I share a meditation to be recited before (or after) voting, composed by Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson:
May it be Your will, at this season of our election, to guide us towards peace.
By voting, we commit to being full members of society, to accepting our individual responsibility for the good of the whole. May we place over ourselves officials in all our gates…who will judge the people with righteousness (Deut 16:18), and may we all merit to be counted among those who work faithfully for the public good.
Open our eyes to see the image of God in all candidates and elected officials, and may they see the image of God in all citizens of the earth.
Grant us the courage to fulfill the mitzvah of loving our neighbors as ourselves, and place in our hearts the wisdom to understand those who do not share our views.
As we pray on the High Holidays, “May we become a united society, fulfilling the divine purpose with a whole heart.”
And as the Psalmist sang, “May there be shalom within your walls, peace in your strongholds. For the sake of my brothers and sisters and friends, I will speak peace to you.” (Ps. 122:7-8)