Tammuz: Mending our vision

Last night at sundown, the Jewish month of Tammuz (pronounced ta-mooz) began. It is our Jewish summer month. In 17 days, we begin a period of time we call the “Three Weeks of Sorrow,” a serious time leading up to the somber remembrance of many times throughout history that grave calamity befell the Jewish people. The Three Weeks of Sorrow have traditionally been seen as a time to refrain from anything which gives us pleasure and joy, as it is considered a time of national mourning. That is a more orthodox approach to this period of time. I am not orthodox.

The name of the month, Tammuz, comes from an ancient pagan idol that was worshiped in those times, and is a peculiar name for the month because our other months are not named for pagan idols. Tammuz therefore serves as a potent reminder to put away idol worship (see my previous blogs about the golden calf), and turn fully to the One. Clearly, Tammuz marks the beginning of a lengthy season of teshuvah, turning, and mending our souls (tikkun hanefesh). Since Tammuz marks our failings in history, a time of great darkness and mourning, it is right to also look to Tammuz and find the keys of how to repair these failings.

The ancient sages and mystics connected Tammuz with eyesight, and thought of Tammuz as the month to mend or repair our eyesight. Since seeing requires light, and Tammuz has been a time of darkness in our history, the month of Tammuz is dedicated to  mending our eyesight by learning to see in the dark. Sometimes what we see is influenced by narrowness and constriction, by seeing only darkness and what is missing or lacking, what we fear. And then we act out of this darkness, this fear or anxiety, seeing lack or deficiency. Tammuz calls to us to instead see the light, to see with clarity and to act wisely from a place of goodness and trust and clear vision.

The remedy to fear, anxiety, and deficiency is not getting rid of fear, anxiety and deficiency. It is not overlaying fear, anxiety and deficiency with a positive mental attitude or filling our deficiency with what we see as lacking. Rather, the remedy to fear, anxiety, and deficiency is, simply, trust. So Tammuz asks us to cultivate this clear vision by cultivating trust. Not trust in our own solutions, mind you! We will get to that in a moment.

The Hebrew word for trust is bitachon (pronounced bi-tah-khone). The root batach literally means to lean or rest on someone or something. Who or what do we rest on? Our own thoughts, solutions, or ideas? Or is it something else? To discover, let’s take this word, bitachon, trust, and break it out:

Bitachon is spelled bet-tet-chet. Each of these letters give us a key for correcting our vision:

1. bet: stands for brachot, which means blessings
2. tet: stands for tovah, which means goodness
3. chet: stands for chayim, which means life force

So to do the work of mending our eyesight, we practice seeing the blessings, seeing the goodness, seeing the life within and around us. To do this, we begin our day in the morning with saying a blessing; we end our day at night by remembering one good thing we saw or that happened; and in the middle of the day, we pause for a moment and see the life-force within and around us. In these ways, we immerse ourselves in bitachon, trust, which is the remedy for our perception of negativity, darkness, lack, fear, and mistrust. Let us not forget that what we see, our vision which needs to be mended, is what we choose to see in our minds.

Not long ago, I was talking to a guy about mental positivity and “manifesting” and such things as talked about endlessly in books like The Secret or certain motivational speakers. He asked me if these are good ways we can mend our vision. No, I don’t think they are, and here’s why: they are false overlays and mental constructs that stem from the very issue we are trying to overcome. The solution of any problem cannot come from an overlay, but must come from that which causes the problem in the first place. We must get to the root cause, and fix that,not merely overlay it with a band-aid approach. Let me explain.

My work is not to outline specific solutions to difficulties and challenges, nor to project or manifest or ask for specific things or outcomes, because the specifics of ways and means and results are not my business. That’s above my pay grade, so to speak. That is G!d’s part. My job requires only that I do my part.

Here is where “prosperity thinking” and books like The Secret and other “positivity preachers” miss the point completely: when we manifest for certain results or try to think our way to happiness or prosperity or whatever it is we think we lack, what is our starting point? The starting point is narrowness and constriction, seeing the lack, the deficiency, the problem, what we don't have but we want or need (or think we want or need). Instead of coming from a holistic place, it instead creates a wide gap between the problem (what I perceive I want/need/don't have but hope to) and what I think the solution should be. The solution feeds from the problem, so we never escape from having the problem as our focus and starting point!

“Well,” he asked, “Isn’t focusing on the solution and fostering a solution-driven mentality a step above the darkness and negativity of focusing on the lack and deficiency?” In a way, yes, but it still has the same starting point as the problem-driven mentality, doesn’t it? And this is the beauty of a more holistic viewpoint, encouraged by our new look at the month of Tammuz and its practice of mending our vision.

Remember, too, that a problem-driven mentality is not limited to focusing on our individual, personal issues. If we are overly concerned with identifying and fixing other people’s problems, or the problems we see out there in the world, and if we are always talking about what’s wrong with other people or this world, even though we are not focusing on ourselves, we are still immersed in a problem-driven mentality, and stuck in that gap. No matter whether we are focusing on our personal problem(s), or someone else’s, or the world’s, it does not further us.

Here’s the crux of the matter: The opposite of a problem-driven mentality is not a solution-driven mentality, because we can’t focus on a solution unless we are still allowing the problems/challenges to drive that! Both a problem-focus and a solution-focus have the exact same starting point, and no amount of time spent on focusing on the solution will ever completely neutralize the stemming issue of lack/limitation/what I don't have. Even a solution focus is driven by the problem which led us to the solution! And, perhaps worse, a solution focus leads to little ego thinking we have the complete solution in our own doing whether by mental yoga or other ways to manipulate our situation.

So here is how we mend our vision this month, and remove ourselves entirely from the unending cycle of problem/lack/need/want to solution/filling the gap between deficiency and having what I think I need/want:

Do not even give a second thought to the gap between what I have and am able to do, and what I think I might want or need. Let go of the specific results I want and how they are going to happen. That is above my pay grade. I do the work I am called to do, and I let go of the results. I give my best to the work at hand, and let G!d be the Giver of Blessings, whatever they may be. The moment I decide what G!d needs to do for me and how is the moment I begin playing G!d. And that is not my job.

As long as I remain aware of and thankful for my blessings, always look for the good, and honor the life-force coursing within and around me everywhere, I have done my part of the job. I am to focus on living bitachon, living in trust, through seeing the blessings, the good, and the life force, in daylight and in darkness. This is my part of the job; the rest is up to G!d.

By moving out of a problem-focus, and not trapping myself into the cycle of here’s the problem and here’s the solution I think I should have, I learn to live a bitachon-focused life. I never need concern myself with results or conditions or using G!d like an atm machine who dispenses cash or health or opportunities, large or miniscule. If I am asking for things/situations I think I need, it is coming from the starting point of what I think I don’t have. By starting instead from bitachon, from trust, I am acknowledging that everything I need is already fulfilled, and my part of the job is to show up and be the channel for blessings and goodness out into the world.

By seeing myself as having everything I need already within, and focusing on being a channel of blessing and goodness and life to the world around me, amazingly, I receive what I already give and see. I do not have to return to the starting point of this-is-what-I-have-but-this-is-what-I-need/want. I simply live from the point of I have everything I need already within me, and I choose to be a channel for this flow of blessings and goodness and life out into the world, and as I live that, it becomes reality for me as well.

The Secret and other books and speakers like them told us to focus on little ego and what we think we need and want, even if it’s small things. It’s all about me-me-me and what I can get from the Cosmic atm because of what I lack and think I need. Tammuz calls us to us to see the light, to see with clarity and to act wisely from a place of goodness and trust and clear vision. We don’t need to manifest or finagle results and outcomes. We only need to live a bitachon-focused life, which takes us entirely out of the unending cycle of problem-which-needs-a-solution-which-leads-back-to-problem and around it goes. Overlays of positivity and mental yoga to fill the gap will keep us stuck in this never-ending cycle. Better than either is to live with our soul centers firmly planted in bitachon, trust.

What do you choose to see in your mind? Lack? Problems which need solutions? Negativity that needs the overlay of positivity? While focusing on solutions and positivity are a step towards the right direction, they still keep us locked into the starting point of deficiency and lack and challenges. We have a choice to bypass that altogether!

Are you ready to move into your soul center and see the blessings, the goodness, the life within and around you, already there, trusting that what you choose to see, and channel out into the world, is what you already have? We don’t need to manipulate G!d like a Cosmic atm. When we mend our soul vision, there is no lack. There is blessing and goodness and life all around and within! And we trust that as it is without, so it is within, and vice versa. We are what we believe and how we act, not what we manipulate and manifest. Let us BE the blessings and goodness and life, and that is exactly what we will see and what we will receive!

Let us welcome the gift of Tammuz, of mending our vision and of seeing clearly!