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When Rav Assi was dying, his nephew entered and found him crying. He said, āWhy are you crying? Is there any Torah that you did not study and teach to others? Lookāyour students sit before you. Are there any acts of lovingkindness that you did not do? Furthermore, despite your stature, [you humbled yourself and] you stayed far from disputes and did not allow yourself to be appointed over the affairs of the community.ā
Rav Assi replied, āMy son, this is why I am crying. What if I am asked to account for the fact that I was able to arbitrate disputes among the people and did not?ā (Midrash Tanhuma, Mishpatim 2)
This is your lucky stretch, because now two posts in a row I've got you hooked up with sneak previews of incredible books before they launch. š
Many of you already ā for good reason ā know and love Priya Parker from her Art of Gathering and/or her newsletter or the like. And I imagine that many of you have gathered (heh) that her facilitation wisdom will now help us navigate the inevitable hiccups that happen once we're together.
It's only coincidence that The Art of Fighting comes out a few days before Rosh Hashana, the heart of the Jewish time of repentance and repairā but that does mean that it's a great time to go deep into this book. (Needless to say, not all conflict is harm. Nonetheless. This is a good, good time).
Both for this season and beyond, we here at Life is a Sacred Text have developed, together with Priya, a special Jewish conversation guide for The Art of Fighting that pairs the themes of the book with Jewish texts* and ideas.
Whether or not you're Jewish, this is a great time (as is every time) to look around at the places of discord in our lives and see whether what is... is what must be. The book, and the guide with it, offers a way forward. (You can use the guide even before the book's come out.)
This is a Life is a Sacred Text guideāso you know that it means that it's accessible to anyone of any background. AND it may hit particularly close to home for many of us (maybe even especially this year?)
*Only one of which appears in this post. Can you guess which one??The conversation guide is free with any book preorderā
and you'll get more than enough material for a few hours of community programming,
Shabbat potluck jamming,
org or movement processing,
or whatever else you can think of...!
Here's how:
1. Pre-order The Art of Fighting.
(It'll be delivered to you when it comes out on Sept 8th.)
2. Take the TRANSACTION NUMBER from your pre-order purchase (on your receipt!) and put it into the GUIDE link, below.
3. You'll get the guide automagically in your inbox!
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We talk a lot about an argument "for the sake of Heaven"ā but what is it?
The argument which is for the sake of Heaven, the purpose and aim that is sought from that argument is to arrive at the truth, and this endures ... And [with] argument which is not for the sake of Heaven, its desired purpose is to achieve power and the love of contention, and its end will not endure... (Bartenura on Pirkei Avot 5:17)
As I've been trained, there's no such thing as a good relationship in which we ignore conflict rather than deal with it:
Rabbi Yosi ben Chanina said, āA love without rebuke is no love.ā Resh Lakish said, āRebuke leads to peace; a peace where there has been no rebuke is no peace.ā (Midrash Genesis Rabbah 54:1)
Priya and I sat down to talk a bit about some of the things that so many of us tend to forget about conflict ā especially when we're in the thick of it:
Do I think it's a little hilarious that the default image has us both grinning while the caption just says, "fighting"? MAYBE
And allowing space for healthy conflict is, in its own way, Rebbe Nahman of Breslov suggests, a sort of imitatio dei, a way to generate from nothingness. For, he wrote:
Know this: that disagreement [machloket] is analogous to the creation of the world, which consisted of creating an empty space.... For were it not so, everything would be infinitely divine [ein sof], and there would be no space left for the world. Therefore, God contracted the light to the sides, and an empty space was left in which the world could be created, with all its time and spatial dimensions, all done by the act of speech... So too is the case with disagreement, for if all the scholars were united, there would be no creation of the world. It is only when there is disagreement between them, and they divide and each draws to one side, a space is created between them... And all the arguments they each use are only in order to allow the world to be created by them [...] just as [God] created the heaven and the earth with words, so too can [those engaged in learning]! (Likutei Moharan I:64)
As you know, Parker is offering a critical lesson on applying these skills to our democratic sphere on September 2ndā do not miss it:
Priya Parker, author of The Art of Fighting, helps us learn how to fight with the people we want to belong to, and to hold the space that happens even before repair. How do we stay in relationship around issues that matter while confronting real differences; harm; fear; urgency; and power?
Even the people we're sure are wrong, wrong, wrong can illuminate much for us, if we're willing to open ourselves up to the process:
Ben Zoma says: Who is wise? One who learns from every person.
(Pirkei Avot/Sayings of the Sages 4:1)
No but really just get the guide
(The one that looks like this: š¬)
ā¤ļø š± ā¤ļø
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