Defense Against the Zone

Your Time is Your Own

In very simplistic terms in football, you can either play man-to-man defense or zone. In the former, each offensive player has a defensive player assigned to guard them. When your opponent plays zone coverage, splitting the field up into areas, the way to combat it is to put as many people in one zone in order to make the defense choose who they cover. Inevitably, it leaves someone open to catch the ball and score a touchdown.

The political version is playing itself out with this new administration which hasn’t even been in power for two weeks, and yet it feels like two months have passed. That is intentional. One of the implicit goals of the administration has been to “flood the zone.” They have wanted to push so many different initiatives, many with sketchy levels of legality, in order to confound their opponents.

In this case, unlike football, very real, and awful things are taking place as a result. As a person who finds this administration wildly cruel and petty, I have a desire to want to do the little that I can to combat these reprehensible initiatives but that desire is often met with a competing voice of

what can I even do?

It’s hard right now to feel like we can even do anything when our elected leaders, especially the ones elected as a bulwark opposition party, seem fairly feckless. As I was navigating this troubling feeling, I came across a friend’s post that quoted the following from Howard Thurman:

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Thurman, a theologian, author, and great leader of the civil rights movement was responding to a student asking what the world needs. As glibly as you could read this, I think Thurman meant it earnestly. To be alive in the world is not simply an organic response. It is the very way by which we can enact change in the world and, in fact, it’s how the world works.

What makes you come alive activates you to help others come alive. In a moment like this, what could serve as a better reminder to ourselves when we feel helpless?

A similar thread is woven in the Torah portion this week, Parshat Bo, as the Israelites make their way out of Egypt following the last of the plagues. In the beginning of the 12th chapter of Exodus, they receive the first communal commandment:

הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחׇדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.

This month, Nisan, ends up becoming the month of our redemption, the month we celebrate Passover, and the month in which we are reborn as a people. As usual, there is a peculiarity in the text. What does it mean that the month is for you? The text could’ve simply read, “this month shall mark for you the beginning of the months.” Instead it adds on:

רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחׇדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

it shall be the first of the months of the year for you

A powerful answer comes from the Sfas Emes, Reb Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, the great Rebbe of the Gerrer Chasidic dynasty:

החודש הזה לכם. ענין זה לגאולת מצרים. כי בגלות נחסר זה ההתחדשות. כמ"ש בפ' ויקם מלך חדש ע"ש. ובשעת הגאולה דהיינו שנתברר שהכל חיות הש"י. ומזה בא התחדשות. כי חיותו ית' יש בו התחדשות תמיד כמ"ש מחדש בכל יום תמיד. ופי' תמיד בכל יום. רק מי ששוכח והוא תוך הטבע כ' אין כל חדש כו'. אבל מי שנדבק בפנימיות חיות הש"י יש בו תמיד התחדשות. וז"ש החודש הזה לכם שיכול כל א' מישראל לעורר התחדשות זה ע"י אמונה שמברר בלבו שהכל מהש"י

The matter of this month being for you is related to the redemption in Egypt. For in exile, all renewal is gone from a person…but then, at the time of redemption, it becomes clear that all of one’s life force is from the Divine One. With this realization, renewal is then possible. For the divine life force contains renewal daily as God creates the world daily, so too do we as humans. One who gets too steeped in the material world loses sight of this but one who remembers the essence of life will find this life force once again. This is why it says, “this month is for you,” for every Jew has the power to awaken within themselves through the power of faith that everything is connected to this Divine life force.

Admittedly, that’s a whole lot of God talk, which works for me but I recognize may not work for you. If you’re in that camp, switch any God words out for humanity, the collective, human spirit, or anything else that helps you realize you aren’t alone in the world. Then, ruminate on that for a minute or two.

The Sfas Emes is saying that sometimes we get lost in the mundanity of the world. Our priorities get misaligned. We get so overwhelmed by the flooding of the zone that we forget that we have been gifted with an immense privilege which is that we can actually impact the world around us.

We can’t do that on every level but we can remember Thurman’s words which really are a reflection of the Gerrer Rebbe’s words. The thing that makes you come alive, the thing that connects you to your larger circle of being is the thing that’s going to make a difference in your life and in turn, the world around you.

As the Sfas Emes goes on to say:

אכן הקב"ה שלח נשמות בנ"י בעוה"ז לתקן כל העולמות על ידיהם

God created us in this world in order to fix it with our hands

There are these periods of life where we forget this, either because of something we have done or because someone else has acted upon us. We need to reorient ourselves in these moments. Renewal and change is possible not in exile, not when we are consumed by the flood of information, not when the walls are closing in, but when we remind ourselves that we have agency and power.

This month is for you is not simply an ancient command. It is a modern day clarion call that echoes through centuries. We can awaken things within ourselves if we just can remember that it’s been there all the days of our life. They’ll keep flooding the zone and what we can do is look inward, ask ourselves what gives us life, find direction from that answer, and activate to combat that cruelty.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Weekend!