Welcome to Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day with me, Josh Feigelson.
I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you benefit from our time together.
My youngest child has a felt board in his room. You know, one of those little black boards that you can stick white letters on forming a wise quote with sage advice like, “Be your best self,” or “Carpe Diem.” Sometimes you’ll see them in a coffee shop with the wifi password, or maybe outside a doctor’s office. For whatever reason, Toby decided he wanted one in his bedroom and, adolescent that he is, he put up a perfectly ironic and adolescent quote: “Home is where people don’t judge you if you fart.”
Like I said, perfectly ironic and perfectly adolescent. And also perfectly true. Because, let’s be real for a minute: for many of us, I expect, freely passing gas is one of those things we would never do at school or at work or in a restaurant, but it’s totally fine to do when you’re sitting on the couch watching Netflix. Like, who cut the cheese? Oh, and Mom, pass the pretzels.
Am I wrong?
This is the fourth episode in our miniseries on home, and our topic today is the family—and the familiarity that accompanies it.
Back in our first episode, I quoted former Major League Baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti, who said that home is a place where we can be free from wariness. What does that mean? It means that when we’re truly at home, we don’t feel like we have to beware. We can let our guard down, we can be vulnerable—because we feel safe.
When families work well, that’s what happens. Families generate a feeling of familiarity—which is pretty similar to a feeling of at-homeness. In a healthy family situation, we hopefully feel safe, accepted, at peace, and loved unconditionally. As Robert Frost put it, home is the place where, when you show up, they have to take you in—-even if you cut one during family movie night.
But let’s be honest: family life isn’t always a movie night. In some families, it rarely is.
As much as family can provide a deep kind of at-homeness, it can also be a source of deep feelings of estrangement. Our families might be places where we feel deep tension, not ease; they can be places where we feel profound judgment, not acceptance. If Frost is right, and home is where they have to take you in, that doesn’t mean that we or our families want to be together—it might just mean we’ve run out of any other options.
No one in the Torah exemplifies this struggle more than Jacob. You’ll remember the story: Jacob is born into a pretty messed up family. His father, Isaac, was nearly sacrificed by his grandfather, Abraham (and the two of them never spoke to each other again after that). Jacob lives in a toxically competitive relationship with his twin brother, Esau, and ultimately turns to deceit in order to steal Esau’s birthright and special blessing. Esau wants to kill him, so Jacob runs away from home. Like I said, a messed up family and a messed up home.
Ultimately Jacob marries and has a family of his own. When he finally comes back to his homeland, he meets Esau and, in one of those highly symbolic stories of the Torah, wrestles with Esau’s guardian angel in the middle of the night. He survives the encounter, and when he finally arrives safe and sound with all of his family back where he belongs, what does the Torah say? Vayiven lo bayit — Jacob built a house for himself (Genesis 33:17), and vayavo Yaakov shalem, he arrived safe, whole, complete.
What does the story of Jacob teach us about being at home in our families? First, that it’s complicated. Just because we’re biologically related or even grew up together doesn’t mean that we feel safe, secure, and welcome with our families. That takes work—and sometimes, even with work, it may not be possible (it’s never really clear if Esau forgives Jacob or not).
Second, I think Jacob’s story reminds us that we have homes and families of origin and then we have homes and families that we create—and not only biologically speaking. We might feel particularly at home with friends who are like family to us. And of course, by definition, the people we marry are people outside our families—which means we’re kind of culturally hard-wired to form new families and homes. Or, in other words, we can experience different qualities of at-homeness with different people, and that’s totally normal.
As we close today, I want to invite you into a practical reflection. It doesn’t require you to close your eyes, but it might help to grab a piece of paper, or just open a blank note on your phone.
I want to invite you to think about the home you grew up in. It doesn’t matter if it was a house, an apartment, or multiple places. If it’s comfortable for you, just try to bring an image to mind, and then mentally step through that front door.
You might ask yourself: What did you have to beware of in that house? Were there parts of your personality you felt like you had to downplay to get along? Maybe you felt you had to be the perfect student like Jacob, or the tough one like Esau. Just name that armor. Acknowledge it without judging it.
Now, look at the home you live in today, or the chosen family of friends you’ve built around yourself. Mentally step through that threshold.
Ask yourself: Where is the ‘fart board’ in this space? By which I mean, who are the people in your life right now in front of whom you can completely drop your guard? Where can you be messy, flawed, or totally unfiltered without the fear that they will stop loving you? Try to imagine that space in your mind. Maybe allow yourself to feel some gratitude for the fact that vayiven lo bayit—like Jacob, you have built a home, a family, for yourself
Finally, you might consider the space between these two houses. Like Jacob standing at the river Jabbok, most of us carry a little bit of a limp from our childhood homes into our adult relationships.
This week, as you interact with family, or even simply as you notice old childhood patterns popping up, allow your self to just pause and ask: Am I acting out of the armor of my first house? Am I standing firmly in the safety of the house I’ve built today? Where might I tap into that unconditional Hesed, that loving connection, of home and family? And how might I bring it into this moment—so that all of us might feel a little more at home?
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.
ENDING
Thank you for joining us for Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day, a production of Unpacked, a brand of OpenDor Media, and the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. If you like this show, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Check out our website, unpacked.media for everything Unpacked-related, and subscribe to our other podcasts, and check out the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Most importantly, be in touch–about what you heard today, what you’d like to hear more about, or to dedicate an episode. Write to me at josh@unpacked.media.
This episode was hosted by me, Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Audio was edited by Rob Pera and we’re produced by Rivky Stern. Thanks for joining us.