On Gratitude, Shalom, Shabbat

I lost one of my jobs yesterday. It wasn't a "job job," or even a "payed gig," more a part of the service aspect of being a college faculty member, so I'm not worried about my bottom line or anything. Nor do I fear boredom: the College will find plenty more things for me to do, eventually. But whenever someone takes away something you have invested yourself into in the name of thinking someone else will do it better, and especially whenever that something is a group of people you have enjoyed being a part of and care deeply about nurturing – well, despite my best effort it tends to hurt a bit. 

Yesterday, however, the meeting in which this particular bomb was dropped came right after reading a fantastic article on the Jewish-motherhood blog site Kveller:   http://www.kveller.com/mommy-sometimes-i-wish-we-were-christian/

I'll let you read the article yourself, but one of the gists is that throughout our history – a history that has given Jews a spectacularly high bad-news:good-news ratio – Judaism has taught gratitude for the life we are blessed to have. And with that in mind, I was able to get through today's bad-news meeting and even walk out of it with a sense of inner calm. 

I thought, more-or-less: Okay. What's done is done. Some people didn't like the work I did. I can do more than brush it off, I can even be grateful. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to work with outstanding, interesting, fun people in the advisor "job" that I used to have. I am grateful to still have my "day job": a steady job in a world where many do not know where the next paycheck is coming from. I am grateful that life has already presented me with enough challenges that I will not lack for interesting things to fill the space in my life that this bad news opens up. I am grateful that one of those challenges is this very first-year-of-Judaism project. Barukh attah, Adonai!


Today, I got my semesterly course evaluation student surveys. If I had any faith left in these assessment instruments, it would be shattered by this term's batch: one class seemed to agree that I was the very embodiment of good teaching, two classes said that I had a few things to work on but was basically a good guy who cares a lot and tries hard and gets better-than-average results, and then a couple of students from the fourth class gave me horrible scores and called me names like "unprofessional" in the comments. In past semesters, that bad fourth apple would have spoiled the bushel: no matter how much praise is heaped on me, the few hurtful words do hurt, especially when the implication of those words is that I have somehow hurt someone. 

And yet, this time it was different. I found that I had a sense of perspective that had been missing even one semester ago. I could separate my worth as a person from my job performance, from what bad things people have said about me in that context. 

Here, the connection to Judaism is less obvious. Gratitude comes up again, to some extent – I was certainly grateful for the many students who felt happy with my work and took the time to tell me about it: that says a lot! – but I think the real reason Judaism has improved my ability to cope, to distance myself both from these bad comments in student reviews and from the admins' dim view of my advisor performance, is the lesson I have learned from Shabbat.

You see, in my years living with the so-called Protestant Work Ethic, the faith of my upbringing convinced me to identify myself and my worth as a person with the work that I do in the world. Judaism has no problem with people doing good work, but once a week it forces me to stop doing that work. It forces me to see that I exist, that I am a whole person and a pretty good person at that, loved-by-God-and-by-other-people, when I am not working. 

In other words, I am not my work. My work 6 days a week is what I do; the person who hangs with his family and practices peace and gratitude and all the rest on Shabbat is who I am. 

Barukh attah Adonai, Eloheinu melek ha'olam, she'asani b'tzalmo.
(who has made me in your image)

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