Procrastination and the Ten Commandments: Parshat Vaetchanan

This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Nachamu, the Sabbath of Comfort, named after the first two words of the haftarah or prophetic passage. “Comfort, O comfort My people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1). It falls on the Shabbat following the fast day of Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. There are seven such haftaroth of comfort which lead into the high holidays. In the three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av there were three haftarot of admonition. This adds up to a total of 10 haftarot which are not directly related to the torah reading. I will come back to the number TEN because this week we read the Ten Commandments for the second time.

These past few weeks I’ve been part of an experimental group that deals with aging and cognition. It is a fascinating journey and we have regular meetings and do daily exercises. In addition, we are expected to choose a goal and detail a plan how we will achieve it. We check in weekly to find out if we are working on our goal and we get suggestions from the group and the moderator who is conducting the experiment on how to achieve our goal and get encouragement and support.

Since we are now heading towards the days of teshuva, the timing could not be better for me. It is not so much that I am a procrastinator, but that I have a high level of tolerance for “what is, is”. This also goes against the grain of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) as expounded by Max Weber, or as Benjamin Franklin famously said, “don’t put off to tomorrow, what you should do today.” My philosophy is more like that of Mark Twain which is “Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow.”

Given the national mood today and especially that of the government, which more and more seems to be pushing off making decisions until the day after tomorrow, no matter what the consequences, it seems odd to be working on personal goals. But perhaps that is the only thing about which I have some control. I kept off buying bottled water for our miklat (safe room) and finally broke down and had a delivery of 24 huge bottles. Our prime minister made a Freudian slip on his twitter account congratulating the Israeli Olympic team on its achievements by saying, hitalmut amnutit התעלמות אמנותית (artful, willful blindness), instead of hitamlut amnutit התעמלות האומנותית (artistic gymnastic exercise). And the local newspapers had a field day with his slip.

Perhaps the reason they jumped on this very easy to make verbal slip is because our prime minister is no longer concerned with governing, he is only interested in pushing off, not taking responsibility. He is treating the people he is governing as objects—our soldiers as pieces on the chess board; our hostages as bargaining chips. If only all of his troubles could go away—but then what? He would have to face up to the fact that he could be imprisoned.

In this season of teshuva, in order to move forward, we have to look back first; we have to take full responsibility for the damage we have caused. It may be too late for our PM, because there are some things that cannot be fixed, such as the lasting damage done to the psyche of our children; the PTSD which will continue to haunt this generation. We cannot totally cleanse, wipe out our memories, reboot, as if were. We will not be able to demand of our victims that they forgive the perpetrators. So are we really at a zero end game–a situation in which one person or group can win something only by causing another person or group to lose it. And is that good or bad? I’m never sure about that.

Since this week’s parsha includes the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5: 6-18), I thought of seeing if there are any ten commandments related to pushing off to tomorrow what should be done today.

I found this by googling, and perhaps some of these commandments describe the way of thinking of our leader.

The Ten Commandments of the Procrastinator

Your priority is avoid doing the task.
If you cannot avoid the task, you must delay it until the need becomes an urgent imperative. [And if you can get away with it, continue to avoid the task].
Tomorrow (always tomorrow) is the best day to do the task better.
There are always more interesting things to do that this unpleasant task. If not, invent them. [Like taking trips to the United States to address Congress].
There are always a witty and exciting excuse to justify any delay.
You can always blame someone or something about why the task is not finished.
There are always tasks. No matter if you finish the tasks soon or you finish the task later.
Distractions are a pleasant occupation, and often they serve as an excuse.
The task is boring and you think you are too prepared. Like a time bomb, the challenge is to finish the task at the last second. [Or play chicken with the nation’s destiny].
You’ll never finish the task late… the others expected the task completed too soon.

Despite my inserts above in brackets, I decided to use our ten commandments as a starting point to address our leader. You might want to compare these with the original ones.

MY REWRITE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS:

1. To our leader: Recognize that you are not God, and you should stop worshiping the false God of unlimited power that you believe in. If not, you will face the rage of generations, and will be responsible for “visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations” because you think you are God and above the law.
2. You shall not swear falsely that you are doing the best for the country, when in reality you are only trying to save your own skin.
3. You have been responsible for our non-observance of many Sabbaths, because we are fighting the war you got us into.
4. If only you and the rest of the Knesset would put in six days of labor, rather than take a vacation when we are all traumatized and waiting for the attack by our enemies.
5. Honor all the fathers and mothers who are suffering, having lost their sons, daughters, spouses and who are protesting daily, rather than accuse them of undermining the war effort.
6. You are responsible for killings on both sides—the ICC is mulling whether to indict you..
7. You should put the national interest above your own: equalize the burden of our soldiers, act against homegrown extremist-terrorists who continue to incite; condemn the radical fringe in your government.
8. You may or may not have stolen–until the court determines this, that is up in the air. Perhaps you have “only” taken bribes.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor and blame them for everything. It is time to honor our “neighbors” who live in this country and stop discriminating against them by passing laws of exclusion.
10. Don’t crave your neighbor’s olive vineyards and fields. Don’t build illegally on their territory or steal any of their animals. And prosecute those who do so!

I hope my attempt at satire does not offend anyone; I wish our situation were less dire. I finish writing this early Friday morning when we do not yet know what will happen in Doha. Hopefully, we will soon see at least 33 live hostages released and returned to their homes. May all the leaders of the world come to their senses and stop this war from spreading throughout the region. And may we all find comfort נחמה and rest מנוחה during these next seven weeks of comfort.

Shabbat shalom