HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT G-D WANTS?

TIMES OF STRESS ARE TIMES FOR GROWTH

Whenever someone says, “expect the unexpected,” slap them hard on their face and say: You didn’t expect that, did you?

An older man had serious hearing problems for many years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the man to hear 100%.

The old man went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again.”

The man replied, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to their conversations. I’ve changed my Will six times!”

In this week’s portion, the twelve tribes of Israel are born. After birth, each of the children is given a name by his mother, coupled with the meaning of the name.

I want to focus today on one very interesting name given to one of them, a name still used today in the Jewish world: Zevulun.

Leah, Jacob’s first wife, mother's six children. She names each of them. Her sixth and last child she names Zevulun.

The name Zevulun means a stable and permanent home, a fixed dwelling place. With the birth of this child, Leah said, “Now, my husband will, at last, reside with me.” 

Is this a reason to name your child Zevulun, “a stable home,” because from now on your husband will see your home as his primary radiance? A name in Judaism is not random; it expresses the soul and inner character of the person carrying that name. The name Zevulun, therefore, must signify not only the milestone that Leah reached with Zevulun’s birth but also the nature and chemistry of this specific child.

Yet it is here where we get stuck. From all the tribes of Israel, the one least associated with stability was Zevulun! As Jacob himself testifies and predicts about his son: “Zebulun will dwell on the coast of the seas; he will be at the harbor of the ships…” From all the tribes of Israel, it was his vocation that represented the very opposite of steadiness, constancy, and permeance. He was never in one place; always on the run.

Yet, from all the tribes of Israel, this boy receives the name Zevulun, which means “The stable home,” representing the steadiness, constancy, and permeance of “Home, Sweet Home,” the solidness of a life.

The Rebbe explained that there are two forms of serenity in life. There is the serenity of heavenly paradise and the serenity of earth.

An example for the first would be the serenity of a retired man, he says to himself: I have no duties, responsibilities, concerns, stresses, pressures, or hassles. I am worry-free, burden-free. I am comfortable. My health is not failing me. Life is perfect. I am serene…

But, that life is usually the stuff of dreams. There is another form of serenity. I may have 101 items on my to-do-list. Yet, I am serene, not because I have nothing to do, but because I am anchored in the core of all stability. “Even when I walk in the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil for You are with me.

You are like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land or a sheltering rock in a storm. It does not matter whether it rains or shines, or what changes come your way, you are always sweet, serene, and calm.

What is a Jew? Someone asked the holy master Reb Yitzchak Vorker. “To be a Jew,” he said, “is to dance while you are sitting in one place; to scream while you are silent, and to be alone even when you are among a thousand people.”

This captures the true depth and power of the human soul. It is easy to remain calm and happy in an isolated cocoon. This does not prove anything. The true nature of my soul and my infinite rootedness in the source of all light and peace emerges in those moments when the whirlwinds are raging, yet I remain anchored in the loving embrace of the Divine.

Think of your own challenges during these times of Covid, or those of your loved ones. At times, they have shaken you up, to your core. You might have felt lost, forlorn, and bewildered. You cried, you felt anger, pain, loneliness, betrayal, fear, and hopelessness. You felt uprooted, vulnerable to the brutal forces of nature.

But when you allowed those feelings to be, giving them their space, respecting their voice, not trying to suppress them, when you allowed yourself to be completely vulnerable, raw, and open; you felt a certain calmness. It is the serenity born from the light buried in the depths of the abyss when you allow yourself to gaze at it.

As Kind David sings:

If I ascend to the heavens, there You are, and if I make my bed in the grave, behold, You are there.

If I take up the wings of the dawn, if I dwell at the end of the west,

There too, Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will grasp me.

I said, "Darkness will darken me, and the night will be as light about me."

Even darkness will not obscure [anything] from You, and the night will light up like day; as darkness so is the light.

For You created my reins, You covered me in my mother's womb.

A Jew comes to the holy Rebbe, Rabbi Yisroel of Rhizhin. He complains that he has no time to study or pray; he lacks the mental space, calmness, serenity, and time required for proper prayer and concentration. The Rebbe of Rhizhin says to him: “And who says G-d wants you to pray and learn when you have time, and amid plenty of calmness? Maybe He wants you to learn, pray, and connect to Him when you have no time and no extra mental space? Maybe he wants you to have serenity when you don’t have serenity?!”

He quotes to him the Mishna in Ethics of the Fathers, where Hillel: “Do not say ‘When I free myself of my concerns, I will study,’ for perhaps you will never free yourself.” The meaning of the Mishnah, he said, is this: How do you know G-d wants you to learn Torah when you are free of all concerns; maybe what He wants from you is to learn Torah amidst all the stresses of life. Maybe that is your mission in this world?

We often wait till we are relaxed, centered, anchored, and happy, in order to be relaxed, centered, anchored, and happy…. But that is not how life in this world works. But as the expression goes: “A Ship in Harbor Is Safe, but That Is Not What Ships Are Built For.” It is in this world where we manage to achieve a far deeper feat: to be able to embrace our pain, and struggles, give them to G-d and discover within that space our deepest connection to the source of all oneness and peacefulness.

Thus it is Zevulun, the symbol of a life of change and flux, the one who takes the ship out of the harbor into the tumultuous waters, who was given the name that represents stability, permanence, and firmness. Because in many ways, his stability is one that can never be shattered and destroyed. When does a marriage develop into an unbreakable bond? When we can talk about that which makes us drift apart from each other; when we can address the most vulnerable, weakest part of the link between us—and find trust there. When we can learn to repair the relationship after it has been challenged.

That is what the soul learns during its journey of life on this earth. Not everything will always be perfect and calm. But it is at such moments when you will—if you remain present and open—discover your deepest connection to G-d, to the truth, to authenticity. You will discover how powerful and connected you really are. This is what our mother Leah sensed about her son Zevulun. The Jew will discover his truest joy and serenity via the journeys of Zevulun. “Rejoice Zevulun in your departures,” Moses says.

Do you know how a lobster grows?

The lobster is a soft mushy animal that lives inside of a rigid shell. That rigid shell does not expand.

How can the lobster grow? Well, as the lobster grows, that shell becomes very confining, and the lobster feels under pressure and uncomfortable. Its shell causes it great agony. It goes under a rock formation to protect itself from predatory fish, casts off the shell, and produces a new one. Eventually, that shell becomes very uncomfortable as it grows. Back under the rocks. The lobster repeats this numerous times.

The stimulus for the lobster to be able to grow is that it feels uncomfortable. Now, if lobsters had doctors, they would never grow because as soon as the lobster feels uncomfortable, goes to the doctor, gets a Valium, gets a Percocet, feels fine, never casts off his shell.

We have to realize that times of stress are also times that are signals for growth, and if we use adversity properly, we can grow tremendously.

Each of us is a Zevulun, in our own way. We are each confronted by the hassles of life, each of us in our own way. Do not fear them. On the contrary, they are there to bring out the best and the deepest in yourself.

Zevulun, which means home, is where G-d wants to live; that is why Jacob, too, wanted to live there.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky