A Matter of Attitude!

A man had a satisfying dinner at a restaurant. When he was finished with his meal, the waiter asked him if everything was all right. “The food was delicious,” replied the man. “I only wish that I was given more than one piece of bread.” The next time he dined in the restaurant, there were four pieces of bread in the basket. Once again, when the meal was completed, the waiter asked if everything was all right. “My compliments to the chef,” he said. “But one complaint ……..there were only four pieces of bread in the basket.” The next time there were eight pieces of bread in the basket. “The other restaurants give you all the bread you can eat,” he complained. He returned to the restaurant the following week. On his table there was an enormous loaf of bread that was six feet long and two feet wide. It had taken four people to carry it to the table. The chef and the waiters looked on, pleased with themselves, to see how the customer would react.The man looked at the loaf and commented, “Down to one piece again, I see.”

Like this man, the Israelites who were freed from bondage in Egypt had a bad attitude.  Soon after accepting the covenant at Sinai, they lapsed into the idolatrous worship of the Golden Calf. Crippled by the crushing experience of bondage, they careened from one disaster to the next as they journeyed to the Land of Canaan. It didn’t have to be that way. It was all in their attitude. They complained chronically to Moses. They showed little confidence in his leadership or faith in G-d. They longed to return to Egypt. They were rebellious, they were stubborn. They demonstrated that they were unworthy and unready to live as a free people in their own land.

In this week’s parasha, Moses assembles the people to re-affirm the covenant with G-d first entered into at Mount Sinai.  The old generation, born and raised in slavery, has died. Moses addresses the new generation, poised to enter the Land of Canaan, with these words, “You who are standing here today”. Now the usual Hebrew word for “stand” is “Omed” as in “Amidah” – the standing prayer. The word in Hebrew that Moses uses for “standing” -- “Nitzavim” -- is related to the word for monument, in Hebrew – “Matzevah”. Therefore, the word connotes not just “standing” but “standing erect or upright”. The people who are assembled are standing upright when they re-affirm the covenant.  Their posture symbolizes their changed attitude of the Israelites toward life. With this new attitude they are ready to enter the Promised Land and settle it.

Philosopher and psychologist William James, who flourished around the turn of the 20^th century, wrote, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that people can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.”

We cannot change our lives when we remain burdened by our past.  Once they became free men and women, the generation that was slaves in Egypt was unable to move beyond its experience of oppression in Egypt. They maintained the mentality of the slave, and the attitudes that they developed as a subjugated people governed their lives as free men and women and held them back. Their children and grandchildren born in freedom in the wilderness did not carry the baggage of their Egyptian born parents and grandparents. This new generation did not only stand when they were gathered to re-affirm the covenant, they stood upright.

There is a story about a woman who had a beautiful old tree in front of her house. The tree was destroyed in a storm.  When the insurance agent came to see her, she took him to the remains of the majestic old tree. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by this storm and she wanted the insurance company to make it whole again.

After a brief silence, the agent said, "Cut it down Mam, and forget it."

People similarly hold on to the past when they need to let go. We nurse memories of past losses, recalling the times and the relationships in which we were wounded in our lives -- by neglect, by abuse, by indifference.  We hold on to grudges and refuse to forgive those who hurt us. Instead of cutting our losses and moving on with our lives, we get caught up in “what might have been”. We get stuck in the past, and this prevents us from appreciating the present and welcoming the future with optimism, with hope and with the trust that good things will show up in our lives.

As we enter the New Year, we should ask ourselves.  Do we have attitudes toward life that are holding us back? Are we still carrying burdensome loads from our past that are preventing us from standing erect? Are we holding ourselves back from moving forward because we are unable to free ourselves from our own personal Egypts?

A simple poem by Walter D. WIntle puts that thought into words:

“If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a person’s will
It's all in the state of mind.

Shabbat Shalom