Making conscious choices: behavior changes thought

I like the Bible. I think it has a lot to say.

Today I watched a TedTalk from someone who started out thinking that the Bible is pretty irrelevant to our lives today but who opened himself to an opportunity, to follow the rules in the Bible as literally as possible: My year of living biblically by AJ Jacobs, author, philosopher, prankster and journalist. I’ll let him tell his own story. It’s well worth a listen.

Now the irony of this humorous but thoughtful presentation is that the man spent quite a bit of time, it seems, visiting with Christian fundamentalists as his source for living people who take the Bible “at its word”. And yet…AJ Jacobs is Jewish. Agnostic and not practicing, to be sure, but Jewish. He could have spent a lot of time, very profitably, in an orthodox Jewish community among people who take the Bible “at its word” in another way and who follow the rules in the Bible every day and every moment of their lives. Maybe he did, but he didn’t mention that in his presentation.

If he had visited with this community, he might have reduced his task somewhat from the outset. Jacobs came up with 700+ laws. Traditional Judaism recognizes 613. Many of these 613 commandments, 365 positive and 248 negative, cannot be followed today. Some apply only to agriculture in the Land of Israel. Some apply to the mechanisms of government in a theocratic state that doesn’t exist today. Some apply to Temple sacrificial worship and priests. The Temple no longer stands, and the priesthood is a ceremonial institution only. The 19th/20th century scholar known as the Chafetz Chayim identified 77 positive commandments and 194 negative commandments to observe outside of Israel today.

Here are some insights Jacobs did mention from his experience that I share:

First and most important: behavior changes thought. This was true for me. There may be only 271 commandments for me to follow, not 613, but that’s still a lot! And I noticed that in trying hard to follow these commandments in my life, my worldview began to change.

Here’s an example: Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. For about 26 hours each and every week, no work, including cooking. That doesn’t mean you sleep. The time is structured with three meals, ritual activity in the synagogue and the home, study time, rest time, time to take a walk or visit with friends and family. The time comes to a conclusion with a ritual. A theme winds through the day, and it is one of harmony and hope.

Before I began to observe the Sabbath fully, shopping and cooking everything before the holiday, turning off my phone and my computer and beginning and ending the space in time with candle lighting rituals, I wondered how on earth I’d ever be able to take 26 hours out of the week. Six months later I smiled knowingly when non-observant or non-Jewish friends enjoyed a meal in my home on Shabbat and, feeling the indescribable atmosphere of that sacred space in time, told me how much they’d love to do this in their own lives but didn’t see how they’d carve 26 hours out of their busy weeks.

You just do it. You prepare for the day, then turn off everything and just . . . stop. For 26 hours.  And then you start to fill that space in time you created with the candle lightings, the meals, the specific rituals at prescribed times, the study, the walks, the visiting and the rest. Priorities and practices start to realign themselves.  What was important yesterday isn’t today. And the truth is, when Shabbat is over, there is a residual effect. Everything changes. That’s why the tradition is that when every Jew celebrates Shabbat three times in a row in all its particulars, Messiah will come. It’s that world-changing.

The second idea that struck me is “don’t ignore the irrational.” I get what Jacobs was saying, but I don’t like the way he’s saying it. He was talking about ritual, and he used the example of a Martian coming to earth and seeing two rituals, Jacobs’ practice in the course of his experiment of wearing a beard and what he imagined to be “biblical clothing,” which he first described as “irrational” — and someone lighting a birthday cake full of candles. Which behavior would the Martian see as irrational? Probably sticking a lot of wax candles into something you hope to eat and then lighting them, right? The truth is, both practices have meaning for the people who engage in them — yet one we accept, the birthday candles, the other, a religious practice, we reject as irrational. They’re both irrational, and that’s ok, says Jacobs. It doesn’t mean they’re not meaningful.

I wouldn’t use the word irrational about ritual. It’s a language. If we speak English and don’t understand a word of, say, Cyrillic, it will sound like gibberish. That doesn’t mean it’s irrational, just unintelligible until we learn the language. Ritual focuses our energy. Ritual is intentional unlike habit. Ritual creates meaning.

We said that behavior changes thought. Ritual is organized behavior.  It’s a non-verbal language, something I like to call “body language”. When we engage in ritual behaviors and speak in particular ways, we shape our consciousness. Isn’t that what all of life is about, from childhood in our parents’ homes to school to immersion in a culture? While we may all have different ideas about how much we need to structure our children’s lives, we can probably all agree that we can’t just let children grow up willy nilly. Turn on the news any night of the week and see the results of thoughtless immersion in American culture these days, and consider your options.

We are all, every one of us, shaped by our context. No matter how much we like to think we are independent thinkers, none of us is. Through ritual behaviors, we can shape our context in a particular way, surround ourselves with particular consciously chosen messages. So I agree with Jacobs, don’t discount ritual. What I wouldn’t say is, “even though it’s irrational.” I would say, don’t discount ritual, because it can be a powerful, positive force for shaping your life and worldview.