Parents and Time: The Key to Living a Longer Life An Intertextual Exploration Parshat Yitro February 11, 2023

Opening Poem:

We are all children of Abraham

but we are also the grandchildren of Terah, Abraham's father.

And now, perhaps, the time has come for the grandchildren to do

to their father what he did to his father

when he broke his statues and idols, his religion and faith.

But this, too, will be the beginning of a new religion.

Yehuda Amichai, from Patuah, Sagur, Patuah Translated by Rabbi Steven Sager

Questions:

• What does it mean to "honor" parents?
• Why is the command to honor parents associated with lengthened days?
• Why is this the only one of the "aseret hadibrot"-- the ten utterances to have a reward?
• Why are "lengthened days" the reward for this specific mitzvah?

Zohar: Awakening Mercy in the World

"This mitzvah is meant to awaken and intensify God's mercy on All creations. The pain which the mother bird suffers when she is sent away and forced to abandon her young "awakens the forces of mercy in the world" and releases an outpouring of mercy from the heavens above which alleviates all kinds of human suffering."

.....Mindfulness extends human life by reducing anxiety, stress and depression, it also lengthens subjective life span. That is, because mindfulness helps us 'live in the moment' rather than being trapped inside a foggy daydream, we fully experience more of life, and therefore our lifespan is effectively increased.

Let me explain. Without realizing it, most of us spend much of our time trapped inside the "busyness" of daily life. We are effectively unconscious to the world and sleepwalk through our days. Being locked inside such busyness can erode a vast chunk of our life by stealing our time. Take a moment to look at your own life:

• Do you find it difficult to stay focused on what's happening in the present?
• Does it seem as if you are "running on automatic," without much awareness of what you're doing?
• Do you rush through activities without being really attentive to them?
• Do you get so focused on the goal you want to achieve that you lose touch with what you are doing right now to get there?
• Do you find yourself preoccupied with the future or the past?

Now extrapolate this to the life you have left to you. If you are thirty years old, then with a life expectancy of around eighty, you have fifty years left. But if you are only truly conscious and aware of every moment for perhaps two out of 16 hours a day (which is not unreasonable), your life expectancy is only another six years and three months. You'll probably spend more time in meetings with your boss!

If a friend told you that they had just been diagnosed with a terminal disease that will kill them in six years, you would be filled with grief and try to comfort them. Yet without realizing it, you may be daydreaming along such a path yourself.

If you could double the number of hours that you were truly alive each day then, in effect, you would be doubling your life expectancy. It would be like living to 130. Now imagine tripling or quadrupling the time you are truly alive. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars—literally—on expensive drugs and unproven vitamin cocktails to gain an extra few years of life; others are funding research in universities to try to extend the human lifespan. But you can achieve the same effect by learning to live mindfully—waking up to your life.

Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World, Mark Williams and Danny Pennan

https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/blog/mindfulness-in-frantic-world/201202/the-seven-mindful-steps-enhancing-your-life-expectancy

Liberating Ancestors with A Smile

Thich Naht Hanh

When David was young, he was very bold. He declared: “I do not want to have anything to do with my father.” But is it possible for us not to have anything to do with our father? Can you take your father out of yourself? When you look deeply, you see that you are the continuation of your father. You are your father. There is no escape.

So if you declare that you don’t want to have anything to do with your father, that is only your anger, your wish. In reality that is impossible because you are your father. It is better to reconcile with your father within you. It is better to reconcile with yourself.

One day, after crying a lot, David sat down and began to write a love letter to his father. Because of the insight that came from that practice, he was able to see his father’s suffering and his own ignorance.

I told him, “If you don’t practice, you will transmit that suffering to your children and your grandchildren.” You practice for your parents and for your children and their children. When you are able to make a peaceful step, it is not for you alone. You do it for all your ancestors, and you do it for all your children and future generations. When you are able to smile, all the ancestors in you are able to smile. It is very important. You need a Sangha to support you for that smile to become possible.

You may think that a smile is nothing, but it is a lot. With a true smile, you make all generations of ancestors in you smile. It is liberation; it is transformation. Every mindful in-breath, every mindful out-breath, every peaceful step, every smile is an act of liberation. You offer liberation to your ancestors and to your children.

This is an extract from a Dharma talk which was published in the Summer 2020 issue of the Mindfulness Bell, the magazine of the international Plum Village Community.

https://plumvillage.org/articles/understanding-our-father/

My Parents’ Lodging Place
Yehudah Amichai
Translated by Chana Block and Chana Kronfeld

2.
In their great love my parents saved me from disappointment,
from pain and sorrow. Now I am left with their savings
plus the pain I would like to spare my children.
How all those savings have piled up on me!
My parents always told me, “I’ll show you,”
Sometimes threatening, sometimes in a voice of sweet love:
I’ll show you. Just you wait, I’ll show you.
“Someday you’ll learn,” sternly. “Someday you’ll learn,”
in a soothing, reassuring voice.
“Do whatever you want,” yelling and screaming,
and “Do what you want, you’re a free person,”
like the good angels singing in chorus.
You don’t know what you want,
You don’t know what you want.


3.
My mother was a prophet and didn’t know it.
Not like Miriam the prophetess dancing with cymbals and tambourines,
not like Deborah who sat under the palm tree and judged the people,
not like Hulda who foretold the future,
but my own private prophet, silent and stubborn.
I am obliged to fulfill everything she said
and I’m running out of lifetime.
My mother was a prophet when she taught me
The do’s and don’ts of everyday, paper verses
for one-time use: You’ll be sorry,
you’ll get exhausted, that will do you good, you’ll feel
like a new person, you’ll really love it, you
won’t be able, you won’t like that, you’ll never manage
to close it, I knew you wouldn’t remember, wouldn’t
forget give take rest, yes you can you can.
And when my mother died, all her little predictions came together
in one big prophecy that will last
until the vision of the end of days.

4.
My father was God and didn’t know it. He gave
the Ten Commandments not in thunder and not in anger,
not in fire and not in a cloud, but gently
and with love. He added caresses and tender words,
“would you” and “please.” And chanted “remember” and “keep”
With the same tune, and pleaded and wept quietly
between one commandment and the next: Thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord in vain, shalt not take, not in vain,
please don’t bear false witness against your neighbor.
And he hugged me tight and whispered in my ear,
Thou shalt not steal, shalt not commit adultery, shalt not kill.
And he lay the palms of his wide-open hands on my head
with the Yom Kippur blessing: Honor love, that thy days
may be long upon this earth. And the voice of my father --
white as his hair. Then he turned his face to me one last time,
as on the day he died in my arms, and said, I would like to add
two more commandments:
the Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not change,”
and the Twelfth Commandment, Thou shalt change. You will change.”
Thus spoke my father, and he turned and walked away
and disappeared into his strange distances.