Years ago, at a crowded Chassidic gathering, I saw a ninety-year-old man agilely climb over a bench and push people aside to make room for himself. Someone called out: Old fellow, how do you move so agilely? He replied, “I am not an old man of ninety. I am three young men of thirty!” I want to focus on two words that have the power to change our lives. I’ll begin with a story.
A rabbinic colleague of mine met a talented young man. It seemed like he was blessed with everything. He was smart, charismatic, handsome, and came from a loving family. When the Rabbi first met him, he thought that if anybody had a reason for happiness, it would be this man. He seemed to lack nothing. But soon the Rabbi realized that it was just the opposite of what he had assumed. One day the young man confessed, “Rabbi, I have so many problems.” He began to describe how he felt:
I am not smart.
I am not talented.
I am not popular.
I am not handsome.
I am not lucky.
And I am not a good Jew.
After ten minutes of listening, the Rabbi pinpointed the common denominator. He said, “You don’t have any problems. You have just one, and that’s your “I am’s.”
What follows those two simple words, “I am” determines the quality of your life. If you constantly think, “I am not blessed. I am not capable. I am lousy,” then indeed you will be lousy. But if you begin thinking, “I am blessed. I am capable. I am happy. I am going to succeed,” then you will succeed because you will animate these qualities that lie dormant within you, and you will make wonders happen in your life. Whatever follows your “I am” you will become. It is a kind of prophecy.
For centuries, people believed it was impossible for a human being to run a mile in less than four minutes. Countless athletes had tried and failed. In fact, it was widely believed that it was physiologically impossible for a human being to break the four-minute barrier; the human bone structure was not suitable, human lung capacity was too limited.
But then in 1954, Roger Bannister broke through the four-minute barrier, setting the world record. What happened next was even more remarkable. Less than a year later, 37 other runners also cracked the four-minute mile. The year after that, the number was 300.
The human bone structure did not suddenly improve. Human perception of what was possible did. Previous runners had been held back because they thought, “I am not capable of cracking the four-minute mile.” Subsequent runners learned from Bannister that it could be done.
With this story, we can better understand a well-known Biblical story. G-d appears to Moses at the burning bush and tells him to return to Egypt to free the Jews. Moses felt he was not equal to the task and said to G-d. Listen closely to what he says: But I am nobody. I am a stutterer. I am not capable of leading the Israelites... Send someone else.
Notice Moses’s “I am’s.” He was saying, “There’s nothing amazing about me, and hardly anything wonderful. I’m just lousy. “I’ve got an ugly scar, one that prevents me from speaking clearly and eloquently.”
The wrong “I am” threatened to prevent him from heeding the Divine call. G-d tells Moses to revise his defeatist mentality. He urges him to start carrying himself like an ambassador chosen by G-d. You can go to Pharaoh, He tells him because you do not go alone. “I will be with you.” In other words, after your “I am” place the words, “G- d’s messenger.” Therefore, Moses, don’t argue that “I am not capable.” You can confront Pharaoh, you can confront the challenges and injustices in the world, no matter how difficult it seems, because I’ll always be right alongside you,
fighting with and for you. I will give you the strength you need to succeed. Because Moses changed the words that came after his, “I am” he was able to lead the Jews to freedom!
Friends; as was true for Moses, we may have had situations in life that tried to push us down in the past six months— bad breaks and disappointments.
You could easily let that ruin your sense of worth and lessen your life’s richness. But it’s the beginning of a new year, full of new energy, new blessings, and new potential. G-d is saying to you what He said to Moses, “Don’t say you are incapable, because I am with you.” Shake off the low self-esteem, the inferiority, and the negativity, and start carrying yourself like royalty. Emulate Moses and move forward by endeavoring to
actualize the feeling, “I am valuable. I am capable of. I am handpicked by G-d. I am excited about the future, and I will work to bring it about.” This upbeat spirit transformed Moses. At 80 years old, against all odds,
he took down the world’s greatest empire and led a nation to freedom.
There is no doubt that achieving an upbeat spirit is challenging. The human mind naturally gravitates toward the negative. Let me illustrate.
Aaron is waiting on the platform at the train station. It’s Friday afternoon. He notices a Jewish man wearing a kippah standing nearby and asks him for the time, but the man ignores him. Aaron asks him again, “Could you please tell me what time it is?” Again the man pretends not to see him. Now Aaron is frustrated, he says to the man: “Excuse me, but I’ve asked you twice now for the time, why are you ignoring me?”
Suddenly, the man looks up and says: “Look, young man, we're two Jews here - both waiting for the train. If I answer you, then, of course, we’ll be striking up something between us, which means that when we get on the train you will probably come and sit next to me. Which means that we’ll probably be talking to each other throughout the trip. This means that I will feel compelled to invite you to you my house for Shabbat and when you’re at my Shabbat table, you’ll meet my daughter. She’s a wonderful girl and you seem like a nice guy, chances are, she’ll like you and you’ll like her and you’ll eventually want to marry her. Now let me ask you: “Why would I want a son-in-law who can’t afford a watch!?”
That’s called positive Jewish thinking...
The truth is, this story, in a humorous way, reveals the mind’s mechanics. The trouble is, the human mind isn’t designed to make you happy. It’s designed to help you survive. The mind tends to automatically download, “I am fearful, I am worried. Why would I want a son-in-law who can’t afford a watch!” So if you leave your brain’s survival software to run your life, you’ve got little chance at enjoying it. You will be filled with stress and anxiety.
The good news is, there’s another path: one that involves directing your thoughts so that your mind does your bidding, not the other way around.
This path leads to not just survival but thriving. In Jewish tradition, what is the first thing you do every morning, immediately on waking from sleep? What are the first words you say? It is a short prayer that opens with “Modeh Ani —I am grateful!
Isn’t that beautiful! The first order of business in the morning is to actively take control of our own mind, and bend it towards gratitude. It is to put the word “grateful” after the words “I am.” Modeh Ani, “I am grateful to You, G-d, for giving me back my life.” At the very moment we open our eyes, we download the correct “I am” “I am grateful.” “I am happy.” We thank G-d for all He has given us.
This single act has the power to make our day much happier. We already have most of the ingredients of a happy life. This will help focus your mind on your blessings and help shape the rest of your day.
Do you wake up in the morning and think, “I’m tired, I’m old, I’m stressed?” Or “I’m young and energized and ready to take on the day?” Whatever follows your “I am” you will become.
Along with starting the day Jewishly and optimistically, there is another simple thing that we can do that will help change our mood for the better. The words we use affect us deeply. If you doubt the impact mere words can have, consider how you would feel if someone called you a really nasty name. Your face turns red; your blood pressure goes up, your whole body tenses. Words have a biochemical effect on the body, almost like a punch to the stomach. Our word choices affect our emotions and even our abilities.
The words you consistently use to describe yourself will change how you think, how you feel, and how you live. The Rebbe was an uncompromising optimist, not because he wasn’t a realist or because he was uninformed about all the difficulties of the Jewish people and humankind. The Rebbe was actually one of the best-informed people because he had more than four thousand Shluchim couples who were situated literally around the world. He knew from them all the problems and all the issues. He was a
realist, but he approached reality from the perspective of optimism.
One of the tools that he used to express optimism was language. He insisted on using language to express positive thinking and optimism rather than negativity. For example, he never used the traditional
Hebrew word for the hospital – Beit cholim, which literally means a house of sick people. He insisted on calling it a Beit refuah, a house of healing. Why?
Because he wanted the people who were in that hospital to know that they were there to gain greater health and not because they were desperately ill. He wanted to focus their minds on “I am getting better” rather than on “I am ill.” When the Rebbe visited with handicapped soldiers who had been wounded in Israel’s wars, he refused to call them handicapped; he used the word exceptional. He told them that “If a person has been deprived of a limb or a faculty, this itself indicates that G-d has also given him special powers to overcome the limitations and to surpass in other areas the achievements of ordinary people. You are not disabled or handicapped but special and unique, as you possess potential that the
rest of us do not.”
The wounded soldiers went into the meeting thinking, “I am handicapped” and left thinking “I am exceptional.” When pressure mounted for the Rebbe to finish a project, he never referred to the
finishing time as a “deadline.” He didn’t like that word. Instead, he used the word “due date.” The deadline connotes death, while the due date connotes birth. “I am against a deadline” or “I am at the due date.”
If you want to change your life, if you want to shift and renovate your emotional patterns, one fundamental way to do this is by selecting the words you’re going to use to describe how you think and feel. Our words have creative power just as seeds do. By speaking them, they are planted in our subconscious mind, grow, and produce fruit. If we think and use positive words we will reap blessed fruits. That's why we need to carefully tend to what we think and say.
The Rebbe had the same optimism when it came to Judaism. When he met a person who said “I am not a good Jew,” he would ask him or her to do a mitzvah; to start lighting candles before Shabbat, or to put on tefillin, or put a mezuzah on his or her home. But he would go further. He would ask: “Are you honest? Do you give charity? Do you pay your employees on time? These are mitzvot too. Why do you focus on what you are not? G-d loves you for all you are, for the mitzvot you do, and now why not add to those mitzvot?
Dear friends, G-d is creating a new world on Rosh Hashanah, a new year begins. New light and energy are shining down upon us. Let us seize the moment. Let us change the channel. Let us march forward into the promised land.
Shana Tova a Happy and Sweet New Year,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Tom Peacock wrote...