Downsizing

God bless my dreams. Just woke up from another one that I won’t describe (whew!!!) other than to say it involved standing up for what I believe, and backing down when the reality shifted, searching for my pants, and my broken glasses, demurring an opportunity to join the younger generation in a fun outing, stopping to put my lights on while riding a bicycle in the dark against the traffic, and taking that ride past an antiquated “Sidney’s Matzah Factory” where by chance I ran into a former colleague by the name of Whitehair and half exclaimed and half inquired, “You’re in Providence!?”  A lot of grist for the dream interpretation mill there, but most important is, as always—what were my first conscious thoughts after such a surreal escapade?

The message is simple, even if you wouldn’t come up with this from these dream fragments yourself. This is my year of downsizing in the physical plane and, God willing growing in the spiritual and emotional planes. (I’ll be satisfied not to lose any ground on the intellectual plane.)

It hit me that “less is more”—a common phrase that my great teacher in architecture school, the late icon of American Post-Modernism, Charles W. Moore dismissed in both word and deed. He lived a personal and professional life dedicated not just to “less is a bore,” but comically to “Moore is not less!” Moore indeed was more. He packed so much into his time and space frame—abundant artifacts in his abundant houses abundantly designed as a stage for his abundant personality that was embodied by his abundant torso. Charlie was larger than life in so many ways that it eventually led him out of life at an early age.

The torah says, “I have set before you life and death. Choose life that you may live.” My quest, this journey upon which I am embarking, is to choose life by downsizing my body, yet I suspect I am also on a path to downsize my entire worldly physical experience in favor of other rewards—rewards of a more spiritual nature. This is a time in my life where as part of my spiritual eldering I must begin to understand the absolute truth of my mortality. That includes the necessary eventual diminishment of many of the physical attributes I have taken for granted most of my life. I don’t mean to hurry that process at all. On the contrary, recognition of the consequences of life itself and certainly all of the decisions and actions I take within each day of this life, enables me to treasure each day and to weigh each decision all the more. Recognition of the consequences of life allows me to slow down the pace, which for 64 years has militated against such consciousness.

Only in recent months has the notion of retirement even crossed my mind. When the corporation I work for put my continued employment into question my response was to fight to reinvent myself in the company and save my job. One outcome of this ordeal was a clearer awareness that someday this job will indeed end. This inspired such questions as, “What will my life be after that and when?” Powerful questions deserve powerful answers. From questions like these flow a stream of related issues touching on my life with my wife, our physical surroundings, our financial planning, and issues after which government agencies are named, such as health, education and welfare.

No doubt my dream was at least in part influenced by the passing this week of another great teacher of mine—an architect of lesser note, but a far greater presence in my life than Charlie Moore. John M. Kahl, Sr. was without question my greatest manager, mentor, coach, supporter, collaborator, and above all friend that I have or likely will have in the workplace. In too many ways to recount here I owe my professional life to him. We would laugh when he would tell me about his imaginary classmate Les Izmore. The loss of a friend like John awakens the elusive awareness of the fact of one’s mortality.

Most of us living on the physical plane become enraptured by the physical trappings of this world—the many sensory pleasures that come from surrounding ourselves with property and possessions, delighting all our senses with food, sex, travel, entertainment—a constant bombardment of physical delight. How well can we adjust to downsizing any or all of that? Can we do it on our own timetable or are we beholden to external circumstances as one by one earthly delights diminish or disappear?

Coincidentally—or not—shortly after I begin this eighteen-month program designed to downsize my unhealthy appetite for food I will begin an eighteen-month program designed to enhance my spiritual growth called Kol Zimra with Rabbi Shefa Gold. I see a great possibility that these complementary activities will feed one another in a very healthy, spiritual, and life sustaining way. Less is more, and it opens a door. I pray that less stuff and less stuffing open me to infinite possibilities on planes where physical attributes and material possessions become of less and less importance.

I Had a Dream

Would you like to hear my dream? Of course not, unless, perhaps it is the Martin Luther King, Junior kind. If it’s comprised of the hallucinational images I awoke with in the middle of the night, of course you do NOT want to hear my dream. A couple of weeks ago I updated my Facebook status with this comment:

Passover song parodies are like certain bodily aromas. It's hard to take someone else's, but your own seems fine. I didn't like a version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame I saw, so I wrote my own. Seems fine to me. 

And then, of course I offered the words to my song parody for all to groan at, like someone else's flatus.

It seems there are a lot of words one can insert in place of “Passover song parodies” in the snippet above. “Dreams” is one. “Diet plans” may be another. As I move inexorably closer to the beginning of my next major life improvement project I become increasingly nervous that I will find myself talking incessantly about its demands and ramifications as friends and family desperately edge backwards out of the room. With each step they take toward the exit I am afraid that I will follow pontificating that, “It isn’t a diet actually, it’s a life style change. Here, let me tell you more!”

All of that is understandable, perhaps even admirable. For one thing, as I learned in one famous weekend transformational seminar that, like dreams and diet plans, the mere mention of sends people scurrying like pigeons running from a four-year old, it is important to talk about your goals with others. They called it “enrolling” others in one’s vision. I call it trying to convince oneself by trying to convince others. The more people one tells about one’s intentions, the more pressure one puts on oneself to live up to those intentions. No doubt there is truth to that, only why should other people have to suffer?

Setting aside the power of “enrolling” for a moment, there is also the issue of how one avoids, in the course of polite conversation, mentioning what is likely to be the most all consuming topic in one’s life at the moment. Am I thinking that I will embark on a “life style changing” campaign that requires my abstaining from eating almost all manner of food for six months and somehow not mention it to the people with whom I would normally enjoy both food and their company (which often focuses on the topic of food)? The subject has to come up.

My conclusion is that I will feed my soul, even as I “deprive” my body, by blogging a bit about this journey from obesity to fitness. If I find myself in a situation where I feel compelled to speak about the Medical Weight Management Program at Kaiser Permanente to someone not affiliated with it or, bless her, to my longsuffering and supportive wife, I can merely say, “It’s a long story. If you are really interested read my blog.” That way I get to blather endlessly about how “I really don’t have any food cravings” and no one has to sneak out of the room. They can simply choose to read it or more likely not.

So, would you like to hear my dream? There was this huge cheesy New York pizza....

The Loneliness Paradox

On October 5, 1965 Rabbi Sidney Ballon ז״ל delivered a Yom Kippur sermon on loneliness. He asserted that it is an inevitable condition of life for every one of us, and that rather than to deny it we can use it consciously and constructively in several ways. We can use it to increase our empathy for others, allowing us to appreciate the blessing of friendship all the more. We can use it to generate greater creative expression, as do many artists. After offering a few other observations, he concluded his address by saying that loneliness may be a gateway to faith. He quotes the author of the Psalms, David, who exclaimed “Adonai ro-ee, the Lord is my Shepherd!” This, of course reminded me of the “last sermon” of my brother, Jeff ז״ל, when he too exclaimed with conviction, “Adonai ro-ee!”

In an era where such faith seems unapproachable for so many of us, how can we use the lesson of our family’s great teachers? I search for a theological statement that is so clear and compelling that I can live by it, and moreover, share it in a meaningful way with others. The analogies of the Bible are indicators of the palpable faith of our ancestors, but serve only to reinforce the distance between ourselves and the God with whom our ancestors professed to abide.

When Sidney Ballon preaches about loneliness as a path to connection I’m intrigued by the suggested paradox. It resonates for me in its recognition that regardless of how many people and activities and social networking media we surround ourselves with, we are all inherently alone. It makes me realize that in the occasional moments of lucidity that I may experience—those moments when I feel deeply connected to the Universe—that paradox is very much at work. Our spiritual quests, even conducted in the company of our communities, are ultimately solo activities.

Thinking once again of the words of David, that Jeffrey and Sidney before him found so meaningful, I have the choice to dismiss these words or to let them inspire me to move further along my lonely walk through life’s shadows, searching for the strength, hope, and courage that they so expressively reflect. I am not sure whether it is as much a search for this strength or a search for my own metaphor to describe it. We may be subject to the belief that because there are no adequate words to describe a phenomenon then the phenomenon may not truly exist. That summarizes for me the challenge of faith in the modern age. Logic and science demand definition of the subjects they address. Religion and spirituality, by their very nature, address the issues that defy such definition. Hence we must detach from the insistence to define the indefinable and just open our hearts to accept whatever partial evidence, whatever inadequate metaphor, whatever inexpressible inkling presents itself. Even if we do not possess the courage and the poetry of a David or a Jeffrey to shout, “Adonai ro-ee,” let us be inspired by those who do. Let us remember and honor, and love them through living our lonely lives ever accompanied by their spirit.

I Hated It

“I hated it.”

Those three little words, in response to my therapist’s question, “How did you feel about being the rabbi’s son?” were the key to unlocking a decades long battle with my father. You see, as simple a phase as it may be, when I uttered that response it came as both a great surprise and a great relief for the first time in my life to become conscious of this truth. 

It was around the same time—early 1991—that I discovered Robert Bly’s so-called “Men’s Movement” which also served to help reshape my relationship with my father— at that time about sixteen years after his death. I consciously began a new journey toward connecting with him in a way I had not done since I was very young, if I had ever done so at all.

Several months after my cathartic moment in therapy, I was back East with a few friends from high school whom I had not seen in many years.  I told them of my startling revelation. To a person they all shrugged and laughed, saying, “Of course, Doug, we all knew that!” I was left wondering why it had taken me over forty years to figure it out for myself.

That was over twenty years ago, and what began as a trickle of acceptance and a portal to filial love has become a gushing fountain as I pore through the archives of Dad’s sermons. They represent more than a scholarly walk through time. They bring him to life through a rich exposition of his most passionate concerns about Judaism and life itself.

A few nights ago the topic of emotions came up in my men’s group (that incidentally has been meeting almost weekly since shortly after I discovered the Men’s Movement). I mentioned how I had discovered this hidden emotion—my hatred of being the rabbi’s son. One group member asked me to say more about what I hated. In another moment of self-discovery I responded that it was less about the pressures of being a focal point of community expectation and more about the fact that he was out serving them so much that he seemed absent in my life.

Then it hit me—one reason that I am luxuriating so in reading these sermons. Day after day, night after night, I reach out for him and he is there. I pick up the pages that he held in his hands. I carefully release the corroded paper clip that he so casually adhered to these pages decades ago. I sit or lie back and read his words. I quickly discover with each four or five or six-page packet whether he is routinely responding to the duty of delivering his weekly message, or whether he has tapped into a deeper wellspring of fervor on a topic that emanates from his core beliefs. Either way, I hear his voice. He may have been talking to a sparse gathering in Columbia, South Carolina in 1939 or to an assembly of soldiers on Keesler Air Field in Biloxi, Mississippi during the early years of World War II, or to his thriving congregation on Long Island in the fifties and sixties. Regardless of the original audience, in these moments he is speaking solely to me. I have my daddy all to myself, and I love being his son.

Trifecta

It was a trifecta of sermons. The three sermons that I read in the wee hours this morning took on greater significance because of the special circumstances of last night's Shabbat service, but each was powerful in itself.

Yesterday was November 11, 2011—the 37^th anniversary of my father’s death. We went to shul to recite the Mourners’ Kaddish. In addition, there was a guest speaker, a brilliant and devoted young man who now heads up our region of AIPAC—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He spoke passionately about the need to continue to communicate with our legislators about supporting Israel. He was introduced by a politically active member of the shul who inserted a few words about the significance of Veterans Day and honoring those who have served to defend our country.

After services I got into a conversation with one of the congregation's leaders about the joy I have experienced reading my father’s sermons. I mentioned that it was one reason I don’t dread insomnia—because I always have some great reading to turn to until I tire enough to fall back to sleep. That notion was realized at about 4:30 a.m. when I awoke with a very active mind. I needed to jot down a few ideas lest I lose them. Then I turned to the bins of sermons. I have been reading them in reverse chronology for the most part. This morning I withdrew a file folder simply labeled in penciled capital letters: PRE-LEX—meaning an unsorted collection from the years before my father’s 1948 move from his first pulpit, Tree of Life Congregation in Columbia, South Carolina, to his subsequent position at Temple Adath Israel in Lexington, Kentucky.

I took the yellowed folder and placed it on the dining room table where I sat for about an hour absorbed, once again, by his heartfelt messages. Three sermons stood out—not only for their rhetoric or historical significance, but also because they so closely connected with the themes established earlier in the evening.

In chronological order, the first was dated December 12, 1941. It’s opening words—

Since last we met for Sabbath worship, a great shock has come to our nation. As a result of a sudden and treacherous attack by the navy of Japan, as a result of the declaration of war upon us by Germany and Italy, our government has been left with no choice but to declare war in return and to throw itself fully and actively into the world struggle which began a little over two years ago.

What ensued, in part, was an expression of his regret that the nations did not see fit to disarm after the First World War. His ardent pacifism was clear. At the same time he realized that the current call to arms was unavoidable. He urged his congregants to remain calm, to be prepared to make great sacrifices to protect our “precious heritage” such as “the foundation and guarantee of American democracy” afforded by the Bill of Rights. These were not empty words for he later served as an Army Air Force Chaplain first stationed at Keesler Field in Biloxi, Mississippi and later traveling from base to base across North Africa.

To read his words of patriotism and service were a true reflection of Veterans Day.

The second sermon, dated January 30, 1948 began with the reading of an urgent telegram that he had received:

SYNAGOGUE COUNCIL RECEIVED FOLLOWING AUTHORITATIVE MESSAGE PALESTINE “SITUATION FAR MORE SERIOUS THAN GENERALLY BELIEVED IN AMERICA. INDICATIONS ARE ARAB WARFARE WILL INCREASE AND LIKELY TO ASSUME LARGE PROPORTIONS. IMMEDIATE SHIPMENT EQUIPMENT AND ESTABLISHMENT INTERNATIONAL FORCE FOR IMPLANTATION ASSEMBLY DECISION IMPERATIVE. TIME FACTOR MOST VITAL.” UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES WE SUGGEST YOU ASK ALL PEOPLE YOUR CONGREGATION AND COMMUNITY TO WRITE WHITE HOUSE, STATE DEPARTMENT AND YOUR SENATORS URGING U.S. GOVERNMENT TAKE INITIATIVE SUPPLYING ARMS TO YISHUV AND ESTABLISHING INTERNATIONAL FORCE TO ENABLE YISHUV TO DEFEND THEIR LIVES AND UPHOLD UN DECISION. FURTHER REQUEST YOU DEVOTE NEXT SERMON TO THIS AIM.

He decried the “hypocrisy and treachery” of the British and the complicity of our own government in arming the Arabs and denying the same for the Jews of Palestine who had been granted statehood by the United Nations. His words—“It is the duty of American Jewry  to keep public opinion informed and to make its exertion of feeling known to its congressional representatives and the State Department.”—were strikingly similar to those we heard last night, sixty-three years later.

The third sermon is one that literally had me in tears as I read parts of it to Debbie this morning, for it was a reflection of a third aspect of last night’s service—the recitation of the Mourners’ Kaddish. His words:

My dear friends, during the Middle Ages it was the custom for dying fathers to leave their children not only a will disposing of the physical assets of the parent, but also something called an ethical will in which the parent offered to his offspring some advice with regard to their future behavior and some thought about life in general....

He offered these words on March 26, 1948, the evening of his final Shabbat in Columbia, South Carolina. He continued, “A departing rabbi, I believe, is likewise expected to leave some profound last words—an ethical will to his congregation.” Then he modestly expressed doubt about his own profundity though it was very present. He touched on three traits of Jewish character that he wanted to call to the attention of his congregants. The first was to love one’s fellow Jews, with special attention to the needs of the tattered post-war Jewish community abroad. The second was to maintain a loyalty and strong sense of identification with “the sweep of Jewish history as it has traversed the centuries.” He added, “The good Jew feels strongly his roots in dim antiquity. He cherishes deeply his ancestry going back to the days of Abraham....” He feels a connection to and identifies with the entire journey of our people—past, present, and future. My father's third concern was about American Jewry. The great centers of Jewish life of the past—Babylon, Spain, Poland—had given way to America, and that we “must carry the torch” and “accept the responsibility” of sustaining our “intangible values of culture and religion.”

These were valuable messages, but the coda was what moved me the most.

As I leave these thoughts with you I should like to add a word of caution of a more personal nature. I should like to refer to a number of remarks I have heard from good people who are my friends and who think they pay me a great compliment by these remarks, but who actually leave me somewhat saddened by them. On several occasions I have heard the remark that now that I am leaving they would not have such great responsibilities [within] the Synagogue, because they really had either joined or contributed or were active out of a sense of friendship for the rabbi personally. ... I appreciate the friendship and I cherish it, but if all that I have been able to leave with you is a sense of personal friendship then I have failed, because my ministry has sought to instill in you...the qualities and the feelings that I have already described to you.

He went on to implore them to support and learn from his successor. Then added,

Build your new Temple and fill it with your prayers and your love. And carry on for your sake, and for your children’s sake, and for the sake of all Israel. I would hate to think that I have given to you these years of activity only to have these efforts go to waste. And you will be paying me much more of a tribute by carrying on your efforts than by informing me that after all, it was only for me. Carry on I say to you as my parting wish. Carry on—remembering always that:

It is a tree of life to them that lay hold of it

And all the supporters thereof are happy.

I Am Alive!

The following is the message I delivered on Rosh Hashanah to residents of the Lytton Gardens Senior Community in Palo Alto and then, with some changes, to fellow congregants at an alternative Kol Nidre service at Congregation Beth Jacob in Redwood City. To give credit where credit is due, I was inspired by the theme of my father's 1949 Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon in which he examines the Zochreinu prayer and raises the question, "What is this life that we pray for?" We answer the question in very different ways. Nonetheless, it is very sweet to draw from the well of his knowledge and spirit.

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During the Holy Days we insert a prayer into the Amidah. It has four short phrases, each ending in the word chayyim—life!

Zochreinu l’chayyim, melech chafeitz bachayyim, v’chotveinu b’seifer ha-chayyim, l’ma-ancha Elohim chayyyim.

Remember us for life, Sovereign who delights in life, And inscribe us in the Book of Life, For Your sake, God of life.

Why do we pray for ourselves to be entered into the Book of Life? Even though we all may seek longevity, I doubt that many of us pray literally to be inscribed in a Book of Life. We are speaking in metaphor, and it’s this metaphor I would like to examine with you tonight. Let’s explore three questions: first—who, metaphorically, is doing this inscribing—that is to whom are we praying? Secondly—when is the inscription rendered—does it really happen during the ten Days of Awe? And finally—what is this Life that we are praying for—is it mere survival?

Question 1. Who is doing this inscribing?

If you’re like me, you don’t envision a God sitting in judgment, weighing our merits, and inscribing our fate in a heavenly journal. So, to whom do we reach out for salvation? I’m sure that among us there are many different answers to this theological question.

My response is that rather than reaching out, I find prayer a reaching in—to the spark of Divinity that is within me. I choose to believe that that spark, that energy, is in each of us, in all of life and is what connects us one to the other and indeed to all Existence. If there is any truth to this, then when I pray to the Divinity within me, I am simultaneously praying to the Divinity within you and in all of Life for support of my greatest longings. Therefore, to answer my question of who is doing this inscribing, I would have to say each of us possess that power.  

That brings us to Question 2. When is the inscription rendered?

We say these prayers annually, but is this decree of life or death rendered once a year? Many of us have worked in organizations that conduct an annual performance evaluation. This may have some benefits, but the concept has its flaws as well. A good manager won’t wait until the end of the year to provide feedback. She will continuously acknowledge what’s working to reinforce those behaviors and make immediate corrections of things that need improvement. 

Likewise, our inscription in the Book of Life cannot effectively be an annual review. Though we set aside this special time for reflection once a year, self-reflection, forgiveness, and the desire to change are most effective when they are part of a daily, not an annual, practice. Indeed, we write our own story every day. We render a continual verdict that we bestow upon ourselves by our daily thoughts, words and deeds.

If we were to pause each day to truly take stock, then we would inscribe ourselves in the Book of Life. Each time we stop to appreciate the miracles of daily existence, we inscribe ourselves in the Book of Life. Each time we stop to express gratitude for our abundance, we inscribe ourselves in the Book of Life. Even when we face great challenges—and we all do at one time or another—each time we stop to recognize and accept our challenges as part of life rather than to become distracted by anger, resistance, and self-absorption we inscribe ourselves in the Book of Life.    

Think how we could put ourselves in the Book of Life every day if we were to take even a few moments for quiet contemplation. I invite you this Yom Kippur, and really at any time, to do this. Just sit quietly, and observe the thoughts you are drawn to. See to what degree you sit in judgment about yourself or others. Listen for your own prayers and the prayers of others. Exercise gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness for all, yourself included. Where there is growth there is life, so consider how you might make changes in your life to continuously grow and improve.

The answers, therefore, to our first two questions are: we are doing the inscribing and we are doing it continuously.  

This brings us to our third and final Question. What is this Life that we are praying for?

Ignoring for a moment some of the modern medical, ethical, and legal debates about what constitutes life, if we talk about the most common understanding of our physical existence—our hearts, lungs, and brains all functioning in good order—would mere survival itself be sufficient to answer our prayer or does life mean something more to us ?

For some, especially if we are plagued by illness, physical existence may be our primary concern. For that, however, do we not seek the counsel of doctors and therapists rather than listen to shofar blasts, ancient prayers and words of Torah?

I offer that at the very least, for those of us who are gathered here at this Kol Nidre service, it seems we may be seeking more than mere survival. We also want a life of connections—connected to others in meaningful relationships, connected to society by contributing to it in meaningful ways, by performing acts of righteousness and loving kindness.

There are other connections as well. Most of us flourish when we are connected to the beauty of the natural world. We seek intellectual connections through great works of literature and the arts. We seek emotional connections through loving words and touch.

Ultimately we seek spiritual connections as well, through all of the above, or through maintaining our awareness of our place in the continuous chain of the generations, or through finding that Divine spark of which I spoke earlier—the Divinity within each of us that connects us to all of Life.

The answer to my three questions now read: we are doing the inscribing; we are doing it continuously, and the Life we are praying for is one of spiritual connection.

What if we now rewrote the Zochreinu prayer not as a plea to an external judge, but as a reminder to ourselves? Instead of asking: Remember us for life, we might pray May we remember that God and Life abound in each of us.

Instead of addressing Sovereign who delights in life, we might invoke: May the Divine power within each of us delight in our Life.

Rather than to recite the plea: …inscribe us in the Book of Life, we might urge ourselves: May we live our lives to continuously be connected to each other and to the Source of Life.

And finally, instead of praying: For Your sake, God of life, we might pray: For the sake of the Divine Spirit that is in us all.

That is my prayer for us tonight.

In closing, I’d like to offer another way to express the awe of recognizing the miracle of our lives and the spiritual essence within, using a melody and words recorded by the great spiritual leader Rabbi David Zeller, of blessed memory. You already know the tune. It was the beautiful niggun that we chanted at the beginning of our service this evening. There are actually a few simple words that go with this tune that capture the essence of what I am trying to impart. Zeller’s words succinctly declare, “I am alive! I am alive! And who is this aliveness I am? Is it not the Holy Blessed One?” 

Please join Dan and me now as we put these words and this melody together.


[To hear a sound clip go to http://davidzeller.org/aliveness/]

You Can Call Me Yesh!

It’s traditional for Jews to have Jewish names that we use at sacred occasions—such as when being called to the Torah or when signing a ketubah (marriage certificate)—while for virtually all other aspects of life we are called by our civil names. When we receive our Hebrew name, which is essentially a spiritual name, it is usually conferred as part of a ritual—circumcision for boys, and in modern times through a variety of naming rituals for girls. By contrast, our secular names are typically generated through the mundane filing of bureaucratic paperwork.

Today I engaged in a legal process with relatively little precedent, at least among my peers. With the help of the courts I inserted my spiritual name into my civil name. The Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara decreed that henceforth Charles Douglas Ballon shall legally be known as Yeshaya Douglas Ballon. This raises a number of questions that I will try to answer not only for others but for myself as well.

Why did I do it?

To answer this requires a little background starting with the oddity that, contrary to Jewish tradition, my mother named me after her living father, Charlie. To avoid confusion—or perhaps to create confusion—she then proceeded to call me only by my middle name, Doug. I don’t think I even knew Charles was my first name until I was well into grade school. Not surprisingly, I have always bristled whenever I have been called Charles.

When I was eight days old I was given the Hebrew name Yeshaya Dan ben harav Shimon. Yeshaya, meaning Isaiah; Dan, as in the tribe of Dan; ben harav, son of the rabbi; Shimon, my father’s Hebrew name, the equivalent of Simon.

Friends and family know that I started asking to be called Yeshaya, at least in spiritual circles, only about four years ago. They probably don’t know—as I had all but forgotten myself until I opened some old journals recently—that as far back as the 1980’s I was contemplating using my Hebrew name, and doodled imagined business cards with Yeshaya ben harav Shimon and other variations of my name.

Thoughts about changing my name persisted. Ten years ago, shortly before my mother’s death, I was so taken by the spirituality that was emerging from her in her final days that I then added her name to my already lengthy Hebrew name, becoming Yeshaya Dan ben harav Shimon v’Yonit. For me that was more than a tribute to my dying mother. It also gave me a sense of wholeness, an integration of the attributes of both of my parents—two extremely different personalities that I had long struggled to harness within myself.

Taking the plunge to being called Yeshaya in circumstances other than during Jewish rituals is part of a long tale of my spiritual odyssey that I won’t recite now. On the other hand, my recent use of Yeshaya arose in a discrete, spontaneous act. In May 2007 I was checking in for a workshop at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Connecticut. When they handed me a nametag to fill out I thought, “What the heck? We’re all Jews here!” and I wrote the large block letters Y-E-S-H-A-Y-A. For several days I was called Yeshaya. I loved the sound of it, and never turned back.

Having adopted the use of the name Yeshaya in one part of my life did not necessitate a legal change—so why do that, and why now? At the most mundane level we can thank the TSA—the Transportation Security Administration. In their often-nonsensical folly to tighten the noose around terrorism they recently enacted a rule that a person’s name on an airline ticket must exactly match one’s government issued ID. Since my driver’s license and passport read Charles Douglas Ballon I could no longer book tickets merely as Doug Ballon. Remember how I said I bristle at being called Charles? That also applies to airline ticketing kiosks asking me if I am Charles Ballon. Increasingly banks and computer forms and various agencies have been forcing the issue of my name. With Yeshaya now in play, using it officially seemed like the path of least resistance. I am not discounting the possible intangible elements to the change, but clearly the TSA pushed me over the edge.

  

What is the significance of it?

This is a much harder question to answer. It would be presumptuous to offer that the use of my Hebrew name in some way reflects any higher spiritual evolution on my part. However, adopting its use in the last four years, at the very least, parallels my increased desire to move along this path. During this period I have engaged in far more Jewish study than previously, and I have extended myself through greater service to the Jewish community. The effect specifically of inserting Yeshaya into my civil name remains to be seen. I won’t be changing my IDs until September after I return from some travel previously booked as Charles Douglas. When I start to see the new name on my driver’s license, credit cards, and tax forms, etc. who knows how it will effect me.

Legally marrying my primary Hebrew name, Yeshaya, with my preferred English name, Douglas, has power of its own. As when I added my mother’s name to my father’s, it is another form of integration. In this case infusing my entire life with Jewish consciousness. In a way it’s like taking a vow. It’s putting my Yeshaya consciousness up front causing me to take greater note of who I am.

Every name change in the Torah occurred at a moment of transformation in the life of one of our ancestors. Having the TSA push me into this is a far cry from God renaming Avram to Abraham or the angel blessing Jacob and naming him Israel. Nonetheless, the precedent has been established that our names are a reflection of the responsibility that we carry going forward in the world. It will be my self-imposed challenge to live up to my new name.

Some things won’t be changing. My Facebook page has already read Yeshaya Douglas Ballon for months. For the foreseeable future I expect to continue to be called by my middle name at work as I have always been. I hope not to chastise friends and family (too much) who do the same, although they should know I increasingly find the sound “Doug” to be a bit jarring, while “Yesh” (pronounced yay-sh) is music to my ears.

Is there a reason to create a ritual around changing one’s civil name?

Several persons suggested having a ritual around this. My first response was that I had already had a naming ritual on the eighth day, and that this “naming” is a civil action not requiring more than a judge’s decree. But I listened to my rabbi and other spiritual advisors. Inserting the spiritual into the secular is a significant act worth sanctifying in some way. This morning I attended the mikvah. Tonight a few of us read some poems, recited the sh'hechiyanu, scarfed some cookies and ice cream, and told stories about our names. On Shabbat I will be called to the Torah, and be asked to share a few thoughts about my name with my fellow congregants. Writing this blog is another way of marking and sharing this day as special.

Yesh Indeed!

“Yesh Indeed” is the name of my blog. Most men named Yeshaya, when choosing a nickname, go by “Shai” or “Shaya.” I would be remiss if I failed to mention the sweet way my now daughter-in-law (then my son’s girlfriend) offered a nickname for Yeshaya that seems to be uniquely mine. When I met Alana she politely stated, “I understand you want to be called Yeshaya. That’s a lot to say. Would you mind if I call you “Yesh”? Yesh means “there is” in Hebrew. In Kabbalah it’s paired with the word “ayin” which means “there is not” much as Yin is paired with Yang in Eastern thought. These words are sometimes more freely translated as “something” and “nothing.” Yesh is also an exclamation of delight in Modern Hebrew parlance. How could I refuse? Having Yeshaya morph informally into Yesh provides yet another facet to my evolving identity. Now I’m really “something!”

If I were to summarize this entire story while standing on one leg it would be this: Yeshaya Douglas Ballon—Yesh—is who I am, who I have always been, and who I hope to become.