How do we know when it’s time to make a move...or a change?
How do we know when it’s time to “stay put,” to be committed to where we are and to what we are doing at a given moment?
Most of us have had times in our lives when we did remain somewhere, because of a desirable job, a livable city or town, or, perhaps, because it was simply the best choice at the moment not to move.
There may have been other times when we realized that we should try to make a change. The job might have become less desirable. The city may no longer have offered us the connections, friends, opportunities and culture that we craved. Or, we might have reached a point of restlessness that led us to test out ability to make a transition to new pursuits.
What is it that tells us to stay or to go? We often just know for ourselves what we should do, if we have the wherewithal to do it. It might be that we have friends, mentors and confidants who are able to sense our need to spread our wings and grow. Those same people might be the ones who see us so content and fulfilled where we are that they might counsel against a change.
The Torah reading for this Shabbat, B’ha’alot’cha, from the book of Numbers, identifies the beacon that guided the Israelites in the wilderness.
We might think that the decisions for a change of location for the Israelites would certainly have emerged from a conversation between God and Moses...
But not exactly in this case. The direction did come from God, but it was in the form of a visible sign that all the people saw at once. Here is the description from Numbers, Chapter 9:
“On the day that the Tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle, the Tent of the Pact; and in the evening it rested over the Tabernacle in the likeness of fire until morning. It was always so: the cloud covered it, appearing as fire by night. And whenever the cloud lifted from the Tent, the Israelites would set out accordingly; and at the spot where the cloud settled, there the Israelites would make camp. On a sign from the Eternal they made camp and on a sign from the Eternal they broke camp.”
That sounds so easy. All the people had to do was to look up. Whether it was day or night, they would know if they were supposed to move as a community or remain in place.
We know that the Israelites didn’t make it easy for Moses or for God. This Torah reading includes an instance of new complaints about what was being provided for them to eat as they journeyed away from Egypt and towards their promised land.
In our lives, we know that change can be difficult. A widely-used stress inventory cites the following experiences, among others, as adding to the stress we might be feeling at a particular time: moving to a new city, retirement, losing a job, shifting one’s careers, redefinition of job responsibilities, illness, the death of a loved one, beginning or completing an educational endeavor, and outstanding personal achievement.
I find it fascinating and curious that there are positives mixed in with the negatives on this stress scale.
I want to share with you one moment from my life when reaching a positive goal led me to feel anxious and concerned.
I was in my concluding year at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. I had just completed my research for my rabbinic thesis on the career of Rabbi Abraham Feldman, who served in Hartford, Connecticut for 50 years. My next step was to compose the text for my thesis based on what I had discovered about Rabbi Feldman’s life and work.
At that point, I should have felt relieved and accomplished that I was ready to write. I didn’t.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I left my dorm room and walked down the hallway. One of my classmates saw me from his room and said to me, “Did you hear what happened?” I said, “No, I was sleeping.” He gave me the news. “John Lennon was shot in New York City and died from his wounds.”
I was speechless. The response to Lennon’s death over the next few days demonstrated how much people saw him and the best messages that he conveyed in his music as a beacon for their lives.
The murder of John Lennon affected many people, including me. He had just released his new album, Double Fantasy. At that point, we had to consider his life’s work complete. In the decades that have followed, his music continues to speak out in ways that we may not have been able to imagine back then. John Lennon had already, at that point in his life, created a lasting legacy.
I went back to my room after my classmate told me what happened. When I thought again about my rabbinic thesis, I knew that I had to finish what I started. I was at a crossroads that demanded that I not get stuck. I need to take action.
I began writing the next day. I turned in my completed thesis on March 9, 1981, five years to the day before the birth of our son Adam.
The events of December 8, 1980, one tragic for one of my favorite musical performers, and, the other, personal and creative, taught me how important it is to enjoy the journey, both while staying in place and when taking on new responsibilities or a new position. Either way, I knew that it was crucial that I feel fulfilled and renewed.
We may never truly know exactly what leads us to stay or go, even when we attribute those decisions to our own instinct or to the advice of people in our lives whose judgment we trust.
But the signs are waiting for us to simply take a look and follow their guidance. May we always be able to find that cloud by day, or fire by night, that will take us to where we need to go.
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