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"Kavannah for Living" - Unit 6

Working

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B’rucheem haba’im, chevrah. Welcome to the conversation!

Prelude:

In the early eighties, Joe Jackson sang "Welcome to the working week, I know it don't thrill you, I hope it don't kill you." His words rang true at that time because many Americans were dealing with the first tremors of the transition that moved the American economy from a domestic big industry producer to a global information and resource coordinator. More and more Americans found themselves disillusioned by companies they once were loyal to, and found new jobs where they saw no direct or "real" results of their work. Karl Marx's warnings about the worker being distanced from the means of production were coming true. As a result, the long hours of labor began to seem worthless, and the dignity once associated with hard work diminished. In contrast, take the early Jewish pioneers in Israel who began the kibbutz movement. They saw work as the most sacred of activities. In their writings, founders like Ahad Ha-Am wrote that the new form of prayer was work. He and others created communities in which work was the central ritual. For most people, the reality of work life falls somewhere in between fruitless toil and sacred calling. Work environments are places where we build successful relationships, learn how to operate on teams, and become leaders in ways that are satisfying. There are also times when we feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment due to the completion of a task or project. A spiritual approach to work begins with the understanding that work can be a destructive force, but is not a necessary evil - in balance it is a vital part of a complete life.

THE RITUAL:

In some way, greet everyone in your office or on your floor, with a "shalom aleicem" - this could be a "good morning" a "How's it going" or any other greeting.

When you get to your workspace, you might recite the following bracha:

Hamachin m'zadey gaver - Blessed is the one who guides my steps.

Commentary by Reb Zalman:

The Malchuyot prayers of Rosh Hashannah are a reminder to us about setting priorities. Malhuyot asks the question -- "What is trumps in my life?" When the king calls, everything else falls by the side. Most people don't have their priorities straightened out, and mistake the means for the ends. For example - Papa goes out to work. He wants to make a living for the family, but by the time he's involved in his work the family doesn't count anymore. At a certain point he forgets why he is doing the work. Malkhuyot is supposed to straighten this out-to ensure that the means will not gain preponderance over the ends, and to return us to the sources.

This is true even for a doctor. While a doctor is operating, he or she is not thinking about humanity, or compassion. They are simply focusing on the mundane tasks at hand - even when saving a life. Every so often they must return to their basic motivation to renew themselves.

When you have so many people together, all who have their priorities out of line, the work environment can become toxic. For this reason, I suggest that people in an office setting come together once a month to do t'shuvah - a Yom Kippur Katan. The questions they need to address are: What has caused tension here? How have we all contributed to it? How can we forgive one another? How can we work to resolve the tensions in the future?

From cars we learn that all things that work require periodic maintenance. This is true for our inner lives as well.

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