Strange Work

I’ve been pondering writing something about ‘strange work’ for a while now. Every time I speak to someone who can only talk about their job for an hour and a half, I’ve had the urge to write this. Every time someone tells me that they’d love to make aliyah, but it doesn’t fit with ‘the career plan’, I’ve had the urge to write this. Every time I see people spending 18 hours on the job, while their home life falls into wrack and ruin, their kids go off the derech (path) and their wives start to obsess about getting divorced and finding someone who will ‘really love them’, I’ve had the urge to write something about ‘strange work’.

The Torah is very clear that there are three major, cardinal sins that a Jew is meant to die, rather than transgress. One is murder; two is immoral sexual behavior; and three is avodah zara.

Avodah zara is usually translated ‘idol worship’, which conjures up images of people bowing to little figures made from stone, or worshiping the sun, or some other image made from wood, metal, papier mache, whatever.

We like to think, in the 21^st century, that avodah zara – idol worship – is at least one thing that we don’t have to worry about doing. But we’d be wrong, because the literal translation of avodah zara is ‘strange work’.

Within living memory – my memory, and I’m still not all that old – most people didn’t have ‘strange work’. They would get to the office at 9, leave at 5, and that would be that, until the next working day. It’s not like that anymore. Today, people get to the office early in the morning, and don’t leave until late at night. They answer emails obsessively: on the subway in; on the armchair at home; in the middle of romantic nights out with their spouse; at a friend’s wedding; up mountains in the middle of nowhere.

They frame all their hopes and aspirations in terms of their ‘career’: they abort babies that might get in the way; they break off loving, fulfilling relationships that might get in the way; they push off getting married, or having children, because it might get in the way. If they are Jews, keeping Shabbat, eating strictly kosher, and avoiding inappropriate ‘socializing’ with members of the opposite sex can all go out the window, for the sake of the ‘career’.

Yes, they might have a spouse waiting for them at home that they’ve barely seen for the last five years. Yes, they might have a kid that they last spent some quality time with on their birthday – 10 years ago. Yes, they have a whole bunch of ‘good deeds’ to do, which never get done, because there is always yet another looming crisis or deadline at work. But the single most important thing in life is their job, and their ‘career’.

And the strangest thing of all is that we all think that this sort of behavior is ‘normal’.

People who bow to little stone idols, or ask a tree to look after their crops, are clearly deranged lunatics. But people who think that their job is the source of all blessing, happiness and prosperity are clearly very sensible.

When you read biblical and historical accounts of individuals who used to burn their children in fires, to appease false deities like Moloch, the mind boggles. Who could possibly be deluded enough, cruel enough, crazy enough, to sacrifice their own child to a powerless idol?

But are we so different? When we don’t make our children’s Chanuka plays, or parent-teacher meetings, because our priority is ‘work’, what are we sacrificing? If we rush to do the boss’s bidding – even on a weekend, even late at night, even in the middle of our anniversary supper – what are we sacrificing?

When we race through the daily prayers, or skip them altogether; when we get home from work an hour (or more…) after Shabbat came in on a Friday; when we simply can’t make time to learn some Torah every week because we spend every minute working, working, working – what are we sacrificing?

When all is said and done, the people from way back then are fundamentally no different from you and I. They also had a choice to make: either, they could recognize that there is no other power in the universe other than Hashem, and act accordingly; or, they could choose to believe that the ‘rain god’ would provide them food; the ‘war god’ would protect them from their enemies; and the ‘love god’ would let them get away with any terrible, immoral behavior they wanted as long as they remembered Valentine’s day.

In the 21^st century, we have the same choice to make. Either, we can try to keep our work to a minimum, and make time for our souls, our spouses, our families, our mitzvot and religious observance; or, we can choose to believe that if we don’t work all the hours G-d sends, we’ll be left penniless, hungry and homeless.

Either we can ask G-d to give us emuna, and to help us to believe that G-d is providing for us – because there is no other power in the universe – or, we can think that we are getting it all under our own steam. That it’s my ‘great college degree’, my ‘great business acumen’, my ‘great dedication to the job’ that’s doing it all.

Not so long ago, I, too, was obsessed with ‘strange work’. When we first got to Israel, and Hashem was making my business go down the toilet, and I hadn’t yet even heard about ‘emuna’, I went to see a Rav for a bracha. The Rav asked me how many children I had, and I told him; ‘two girls’. He gave me a bracha that I should have a son – and he refused to give me a bracha for my business.

I was fuming! I couldn’t believe the ‘cheek’ of the Rav; that he’d ignored the most important thing I’d gone for (my ‘strange work’) and only given me a bracha to have more children…

Now, I know better. Now, I can see how people caught up in ‘strange work’ have their value system and priorities completely warped by it. Thank G-d, Hashem took the business away from me. If He hadn’t, I honestly dread to think what sort of person I’d be today.

I may have had more money (although even that is extremely doubtful). But I definitely would have had far less shalom bayit, far more miserable kids, and far less emuna and G-d in my life.

And I could never have given up my ‘strange work’ without a lot of help from Hashem, because I l-o-v-e-d it. I had such an amazing feeling of being in control; of being successful; of ‘getting things done’ – all of which was clearly rooted in, and feeding my evil inclination.

It was an amazing distraction from the ‘real work’ we are sent down here to do, namely trying to fix our souls. But ‘real work’ is hard. ‘Real work’ can take months, and even years, before it starts to pay out any obvious dividends, and for months at a time, you can really feel like a pathetic, miserable, failure.

Which is good.

It was good for me – as uncomfortable as the feeling was, it cracked my veneer of arrogance, and really opened the door for me to start having more humility. And humility, as Rav Arush teaches again and again, is the single biggest perquisite for doing teshuva, having emuna, and making space for G-d in your life.

But it definitely wasn’t ‘fun’. It definitely wasn’t ‘enjoyable’; and it definitely wasn’t something you can spend hours talking about at cocktail parties and simchas.

That’s why ‘strange work’ is so addictive, and so hard to let go of. And that’s also why it’s so incredibly bad for us, in almost every way.

Three thousand years ago, our ancestors had to choose between ‘avodah zara’ and serving Hashem. Today, we have the same choice, albeit, dressed up differently. Are we going to continue to let our obsession with our careers and jobs ruin our lives, or are we going to draw a line, and make time for G-d, for our families and for our souls?

Instead of an hour extra overtime, are we going to get home for supper with our spouses and kids tonight? Are we going to catch that great shiur? Are we going to go for a walk, and talk to G-d?

No-one ever died thinking: ‘I wish I’d spent more time in the office’. But when the time comes to meet their Maker, plenty of us wish that instead of wasting our lives on ‘strange work’, we’d actually done more of the real job that G-d sent us down here to do.