September 21, 2006
One woman’s search for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything
Why are we here?
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ÂSo, instead, I decided to put the word out.
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I contact my friend Lori Gottlieb, a writer and NPR commentator who had a baby on her own last year. I figured she might have some insight into the meaning of life, on how it was all purposeless and directionless until she had her baby, and how she believes that "children are the future/teach them well and let them lead the way/show them all the beauty they possess inside..." oh, no, wait, that's Whitney Houston.
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But all Lori said in an e-mail was, "meaning? You mean this life's supposed to mean something?" Not coincidentally, that was the same response I got from my friend Ruthie Ellenson, daughter of Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She is editor of "The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt" (talk about meaning).
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But maybe their irreverent response suggests, as tradition says, that women are on such a higher plane they don't have time for such narishkeit -- such foolishness -- as philosophy. Busy people rarely do. But then, maybe their answers also are a reflection of my choice in friends.
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Obviously, I had to reach beyond my immediate circle, so I began sending out e-mails, asking community leaders around the city to share their thoughts:
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- Marc Firestone, from Aish Hatorah, responded, "When I take my little kids to the beach, they often want to build sandcastles. I've always had a slight resistance to this activity. I think the reason is that everything (but the memory) will be gone by the next tide. I really do like to be involved with activities having more permanent results. It is true that the act of spending my time doing what a small child needs will chip away at my naturally self-centered nature -- this small personal change will endure." As an observant Jew, he added, "I think life is about refining my soul/body to have a deeper relationship with my Tatty in Heaven -- forever."
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- Mark Parades, director of Jewish relations for the Mormon Church in Southern California, wrote that one of the most popular Mormon maxims is, "Men [and women] are, that they might have joy": "God, our loving Parent, put us here on earth not only to learn lessons in life's school of hard knocks, but to enjoy life in the company of friends and family. We all lived together as one big heavenly family before passing through the veil and being assigned to a variety of nations, eras, and circumstances. Our ultimate goal is to live our lives in such a way that we can pass though the veil in the opposite direction and high-five our ancestors who are waiting to welcome us home."
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- Rabbi Zoë Klein of Temple Isaiah believes that the meaning of life is to be God's mirror. She tells a story of how before God created the world, he had to realize He existed. God realized "I am!" and then wondered, "I am what?" God created us as the "what," she wrote. "We are made in God's image so that God may learn about Godself. In that way, we are God's mirror. God looks at us, and sees Godself," she says. "Whenever we fix something, heal someone, embrace someone, we are fixing, healing, and embracing God. Whenever we feel sad, lonely, or insignificant, we must remember that we are here because God needs us; God doesn't know Godself without us! We are God's mirror."
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- Ron Wolfshon, president of Synagogue 3000, has just written "God's To-Do List: 103 Ways to Be an Angel and Do God's Work on Earth." (Jewish Lights, 2007). He summed his message for me: "Every human being is 'made in the image of God.' Judaism interprets this to mean that each of us has a 'spark of divinity' in us that enables us to emulate God's ways. Acting on our God-given talents to 'be an angel' and do God's work gives our lives meaning and purpose. This is the Jewish answer to Rick Warren's question: 'What on earth am I here for?' Judaism says: 'We're on earth to be God's partner in the ongoing work of creation and repair....'"
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- Rabbi David Wolpe, of Sinai Temple in Westwood, also referenced a section of "The Hitchhiker's Guide," and then said in an email, "Our task, through the remarkably various and proliferating paths that life offers, is to take what we were given, polish our souls, burnish them, grow them through failure, through joy, through love, through learning and return them to God deeper and a bit wiser than they were at birth."
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- Rabbi Daniel Korobkin, Rosh Kehilla of Yavneh, said, "You are here because God realizes that the only way you will experience the greatest good is by working hard to overcome your obstacles. He gave you free will, with a desire for both good and for evil, and He gave you a soul to cheer you on and give you the strength to succeed."
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- Rabbi Mark S. Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, put it poetically: "We pass through life moment after moment. Moments of joy and sorrow to be shared with family and friends. Moments of quiet and solitude to contemplate the tiny miracles of the world around us. Moments of compassion and concern to imbue our lives with ultimate meaning. Rosh Hashanah is the annual scenic overlook of the moments of our lives. Which moments do we regret? Which moments do we savor? Which moments will we carry into the New Year?"
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- Rhoda Weisman Uziel, the executive Director of the Professional Leaders Project and a good friend, told me in a phone conversation that she thinks about the subject every day: "I spend my time doing things that are meaningful, caring about others, trying to become a better person, more giving. I think it's constantly about giving and receiving and creating. That's it. That's the whole secret."
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- David Suissa, advertising guru and founder of Olam magazine, talked about his children, but when first asked about the meaning of life said, "I have no idea. And I think about it a lot. What does humanity mean? It's not even knowing the meaning of life, but just thinking about the meaning of life that helps pick you up when you're down."
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Perhaps the real question wasn't, "What is the meaning of life?" but why is it important to know the meaning of life? I went to Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of Interfaith Affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, who is not exactly my rabbi, but one of the rabbis I consult for informational, rather than halachic, purposes.
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"It's crucially important for me to have meaning in life," he said. "I need that meaning; I want to know what I'm doing; I hate doing things on autopilot, or thinking of myself as a creature of habit, hormones or history," he said. He insists on doing something by choice, things that have real meaning. This is what has allowed Jews who were hated, who were living in poverty, to survive thousands of years, Adlerstein said. "[The Jew] did not choose to opt out, because he saw himself as a private person able to affect the cosmos by his mitzvot."
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Man's purpose in life, Alderstein said, was best summed up by Luzzatto's, "The Path of the Just." Basically, as I understood Adlerstein's summary, God created the world in order to bestow his goodness on man, and the purpose of life is to allow human beings to achieve the ultimate happiness and perfection by merging with God. We all have roles as individuals in which we have to maximize our potential, to do something not just for ourselves, but for our community.
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And perhaps the answer is as simple as that: Judaism is the meaning and purpose of life.
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"I think all of Judaism is based on that," says Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom. "It seems to me this is the heart and soul of the tradition. Am I here simply as a robot doing the will of God, or do I exercise the freedom of my will to make important choices to change the character of the universe?"
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For Schulweis, who is also the founder of the Jewish World Watch, a campaign to end genocide around the world whose current focus is the crisis in Darfur, the purpose of man is to repair the world and shape history so it reflects the highest ideals of godliness. Schulweis will be speaking about man's purpose in life and the achievement of happiness on Yom Kippur.
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"In Judaism, the key in everything is meaning," he told me. Every religion, every country, every "-ism" has a meaning and purpose, he said. "People cannot live without meaning and purpose," he said. "They go crazy."
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Speaking of crazy, I'm embarrassed to admit in the face of such great rabbis and thinkers that I gleaned the most understanding from a psychotherapist; not mine, just an erudite gentleman I cornered at a party, casually asking him about the meaning of life.
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"In psychotherapy, the meaning of life is very much important because without meaning there can be depression," said Martin Novelle, a marriage and family therapist, echoing Schulweis' explanation. Connection, he said, is the key to life. "Religion is how you connect with God, and in this world, with love and career and family and friends. When those connections have no meaning, alienation and distance and ennui set in. Depression takes hold and isolation begins. So without meaning, it almost creates a jail cell within."
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You cannot care, he said, if there's no meaning.
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What he said next threw me for a loop: "It could be relationships with animate and inanimate objects. Art could be speaking to you -- that inanimate painting or page leaps out and creates meaning within you; it becomes a secondary dialogue between the reader and artist."
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Eureka! It's not that I don't care about finding the meaning of life, it's just that what I've been taught no longer holds meaning for me.
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Consider these last seven years of my life: I left Israel, left New York, left Orthodoxy, left the Orthodox community. I've left, in a way, everything I was raised to believe in, everything I once believed in, everything I was used to, everything I ever knew. If that's not a crisis of meaning, I don't know what is. On the other hand, working in the Jewish Community, living in California, the spiritual capital of the Western World, I've expanded my horizons. I've learned about all different branches of Judaism, about different holistic approaches to life. I took up running, practice yoga, visit an acupuncturist, and am trying -- desperately and pathetically trying, despite all signs of failure -- to learn how to surf.
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Most importantly I went back to school to earn my master's in creative writing. There I found a new community of writers, of people interested in the same subjects I am interested in, who are willing to stay up late into the night talking about the purpose of dialogue and setting and scene the way I once pondered the meaning of "Life, the Universe and Everything."
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I've started reading books like "The Artist's Way," which counsel things like: "I am a channel for God's creativity, and my work comes to good," and "I am willing to let God create through me."
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I've started going to lectures again, finally able to find a subject that interests me. I've begun teaching English, leading workshops, going to all sorts of literary events around the city.
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In short, I have found meaning in my life again.
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Are you disappointed?
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Are you sorry that this story hasn't ended with my return to the religion of my forefathers?
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Or finding a different branch of Judaism that speaks to me?
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Perhaps that will be one of the endings of my story, but not the ending to this story.
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You see, I have come to recognize, in part through this search, that I have found, for now, something that is meaningful to me, something that gives me purpose in life. If some people say this purpose is selfish or silly or not meaningful, well, I suppose I can say only this is my life, and I'm the only one who can really say what is meaningful about it.
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Really, I'm sorry I haven't given you the meaning of your life. Did you honestly expect me to?
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Maybe some people would say you should join a synagogue, or start a family -- or start spending more time with the family you already have; that you need to love your job a little bit more -- or a little bit less -- or to find a job that you really do love, no matter what it pays.
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Or that you need to stop spending so much money, or stop spending so much on the things you don't care about, or to start spending money on yourself, to spend time alone, or with loved ones.
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See the thing is: How should I know what you need to do? I'm not a rabbi or a philosopher or even a self-help guru who has sold millions of books. To paraphrase a song lyric -- and I always seem to find inordinate amounts of meaning in songs -- "I'm just another writer/still trapped within my truths..."
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What I'm trying to say is this: There is, in a sense, no conclusion to this story. I can't tell you the meaning of life. My life or yours.
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The only thing I can tell you is that it's important to look for meaning in your life.
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But it's not the answer. It's only one answer. I think the one lesson I've learned from this thing called life is to beware of anyone who says he has the answer, and that there is just one.
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Unless, of course, that answer is 42.
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