Jab, Jab, Right Hook

OK, seriously, what is it with the Evil Inclination? That guy is irritating, annoying, aggravating and a downright sucky guest in any party. Mine has gotten particularly frustrating lately. I described him, in a recent article, as a school yard bully. Well apparently he took that as a challenge and evidently has taken some “performance enhancement” pills resulting in him been being a real jerk lately.

He’s got a great move that has been hard punching me over and over again for weeks. If you’ve ever done any boxing you know what I mean.  A few years ago my husband and I got really into boxing…. You know in a ring with gloves kind of boxing… although the boxing gym moved before we ever made it to the ring so our practice was more with the bags out in the open or practicing “light touch” spars with partners. It was awesome… have I mentioned that I have a competitive streak? Wait, I’m rambling. So, in these spars you get to know your partners and their go-to moves. Some of them you become really good at blocking and they rarely, if ever, land. Others, no matter how hard you try, it’s really difficult for you to block the punch. The contacts keep coming until one day you get focused enough, and practice enough, and develop enough speed and coordination and finally you block that punch. Happy dance! It feels good to work hard for something.

And that’s really why we are all here right? Not boxing, I mean working hard. We didn’t want a close connection with the Creator to just be handed to us – we wanted to earn it.

So back to my darling (maybe if I start talking nice he’ll knock off the orneriness) EI, he has fine-tuned an exceptional punch sequence that I have not been able to block. It’s a good one. Jab Jab Jab, Right Hook, Upper Cut and she’s (that’s me) outta here!

His choice of topic is spot on – picking things about which he has been throwing little jabs at me: “You’re STILL working on your patience? Don’t you think you should be SO much more patient by now? I know so-n-so who just up and decided one day that she needed to improve her patience and that was it – she hasn’t gotten irritated even once since then. I wonder what she has that you don’t?”

Then when I’m good and irritated and distracted with the jabs – BAM! He lets fly with a strong right, knocking me a little loopy and making me forget what it was that I wanted to work on. His timing is impeccable too – giving me something to find irritating moments after or even during a time I’m actively committing to working on a character flaw.

“You want to work on patience? I see you just wrote it down there in your journal. In fact you haven’t even finished the sentence yet but I know what you mean so here: for the 2 minutes you were inside, your little guy went from happily painting a picture on craft paper to painting the side of your house a new brilliant color! Hahahahahahaha.” He has a hearty belly laugh which, if it wasn’t at my expense, would be quite pleasant to listen to.

Cue forgetting myself and over reacting on my part at which point Mr. EI jumps in with his famous knockout uppercut: trying to convince me I’m a failure, that I’ll never get any better at whatever self-improvement I’m working on, that I might as well just give up and “stay down”.

Oh that would be so easy to do. But we learn with emuna that staying down is not what Hashem wants us to do. He wants us to pick ourselves up and try again. To acknowledge where we’ve done better, where we still need to improve, never giving up and always, always ask for His help.

So I lost my patience for five minutes before I shook the effects of the hit off and regained my balance. That’s better than last time when it took me six minutes and maybe next time it will only take me four minutes.

Eventually I will learn to block those swings and deflect them away from me. I will keep my arms up, keep moving, stay focused and get expert help (hitbodedut). When a punch lands, if I remember I will regain my balance quickly (engage my emuna). In the process I will be growing stronger, faster and ultimately, with Hashem’s help, I will win the round.

One day in boxing class, my coach punched me hard because I was ineffectively blocking and the opportunity was there. It sucked. I didn’t like my coach very much at that moment. My coach also congratulated me immensely the day I properly landed my first uppercut.  My success was reflective of their efforts. Something tells me, in the end, my EI will congratulate me because after all, my success in overcoming him is his success in helping to make me stronger and more connected to Hashem.

I may have hung up my boxing gloves but striving for emuna and closeness with the Creator is a life-long round and I have no intention of “staying down” no matter what kind of punches get thrown.

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Jennifer invites you to participate in a regularly held Noahide on-line study group that reviews the garden series books of Rabbi Arush. You can contact her at jenniferjwoodward@gmail.com to be added to the weekly newsletter for dates and times. Visit the blog at noahidenews.blogspot.com.