Last Shabbos was a snow day in Chicago. A big storm moved through and dumped nearly a foot on us. The weather folks said it was the biggest November snowfall in a decade.
On Sunday I dug out the snow blower from the back of the garage (we’ve had pretty light snow in recent years) and joined the lovely civic ritual wherein neighbors say hello to one another, commiserate a little bit, and help each other keep our driveways clear as the city trucks plow us back in while clearing the streets.
The days since have been cold, so the snow is still on the ground. And I’ve noticed that on my walks with the dog, I am drawn to keep the air pods out of my ears and just listen. It’s quieter when there’s snow, almost like there’s a blanket muffling the usual noises of cars and wildlife. Most of all, my ears are drawn to the sound and sensation of snow crunching under my boots. Combine that with the special kind of air that can follow a snow storm, the smell of a winter hat on my head and a scarf around my neck, and it transports me right back to being a little kid walking to elementary school in Ann Arbor. It’s fabulous.
As it happens, I spent my Shabbat snow day reading Rodger Kamenetz’s new book, Seeing Into the Life of Things. (I was cramming for the exam: I interviewed Rodger about the book on Wednesday night, ahead of his teaching an online IJS course about the book next month. I’ll be taking it, and I hope you will too.)
While I read plenty of books, and while many of them are wonderful, this one stood out. Why? I’ve been trying to put my finger on it.
It’s a smart book, for sure: There are discourses on Wordsworth (the source of the title) and Freud and Einstein. The Ba’al Shem Tov and Rabbi Isaac Luria make appearances, alongside Rumi and the Dalai Lama and other deep wells of insight. I like that kind of intellectual stimulation. And as one who writes myself, Rodger’s writing is like a cup of chamomile tea with honey on a cold day—warm and smooth and sweet, the kind of thing you drink in slowly and savor. (He said Wednesday he’s much more of a “re-writer”—revising and sculpting and crafting every page over and over again. I wish I had that kind of patience.)
But ultimately I think what drew me in was what Rodger invites us all to do: be present with our experiences without rushing to label and analyze them with words right away. When we do that—when we slap a label onto something or someone, when we reactively move to interpret a dream rather than lingering with the ineffable sensations it beckons us to dance with—we forfeit something precious: our imaginative capacity. As Rodger writes in his introduction, “The sacred takes place in the imagination. A poetic state of mind is the ground of visionary experience.” (Like I said, tea with honey.)
This week we reach the climax of the Jacob and Esau story, a story that is so much about this human challenge of knowing and not knowing—and how to hold, or even embrace, the not-knowingness. We sensed it in Isaac’s not-quite-knowing encounter with Jacob-dressed-as-Esau last week, and this week we touch it again with Jacob’s profound uncertainty about Esau’s intentions as he approaches with a small army.
“And Jacob feared greatly, and it troubled him, and he divided the people who were with him… into two camps.” (Gen. 32:8) Rashi, in one of his most famous comments, says: “He feared—that he would be killed; and it troubled—that he might kill others.” This is an ethical reading, highlighting what I certainly like to think of as a classically Jewish approach. It holds the fullness of the stakes without minimizing the positions.
Yet Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak HaLevi Horowitz, the Chozeh or Seer of Lublin (d. 1815), offers a different reading: “And Jacob feared—he experienced fear because of Esau, but immediately ‘and it troubled him’—the fact that he was fearful, particularly after the Holy One’s promise, ‘and I will protect you wherever you go’ (Gen. 28:15).” Jacob’s initial fear is a perfectly understandable one: It seems like his brother is coming to kill him. Yet the Chozeh turns the “troubling” of the verse into something like the “second arrow” in Buddhist teachings: Jacob is aware of his fear, and the fact that he’s afraid makes him even more upset—because he should be trusting in God.
I didn’t ask Rodger, so this is just me, but I sense an opening here to understand Jacob as struggling in the space between reactivity and wisdom, which might also be the space between analyzing and being-with, or between the illusion of knowing and the reality of not-knowing. Yes, Jacob needs to make a decision, and he needs to be careful—mindful, even. Can he do so in a non-reactive state?
I think that’s what the Seer of Lublin is asking of Jacob—and of we who are his descendants. As Rodger and I discussed on Wednesday, the age and world we live in is built on so much reactivity. (Jane Eisner told me this week that the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year is “rage bait.” Q.E.D.) But we are so much more than that. So maybe stay close to your breath a little more. Linger with the taste of your coffee or the light of the Shabbat candles. And maybe take out the air pods when you’re walking and listen to the sound of the snow under your feet.