emotional mastery

How to Use the Power of No

no Until you learn how to confidently say No to so many things, you shall always say Yes to so many things. The real summary of a regretful life is a life that failed to balance Yes and No. Yes! A life that failed to recognize when to courageously say No and when to confidently say Yes!

-Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I like to have guests at my Shabbat table, and depending on the themes of the weekly Torah portions, the table discussions can get a little heated. If you are apt to read the Torah and be offended, then welcome to the Torah portion, “Ki Teitzei.” Ki Teitzei means, “when you go out to war with your enemies,” and it opens with the rules a man must obey when coming across a “beautiful woman on the battlefield.” Since the Jewish people were getting ready to leave the desert and enter the Promised Land, where they would be engaging in battles for years to come, this was a very likely scenario.

So what were the rules? Could he rape her? No. Could he keep or sell her as a slave? No. Could he cut her head off and tweet the video? Definitely not. What, then, could a man in those circumstances do?

He could simply leave her where she was, or if he desired her, he had to bring her home, and wait during a cooling-off period where the enticement of her looks would diminish by stripping the woman of her finery, her ornaments and her ability to look seductive. During that time, the man could not touch her, but afterwards, if he is still desired her, he had to marry her – or else he was required to set her free and compensate her for her “ordeal.”

“But what if the woman didn’t want to marry the guy?” you could ask. “Didn’t she have a say in the matter? And she had no choice about being confined in his home for 30 days in a degrading way while he made up his mind about marrying her?” And you could reasonably conclude that this is sexist and horrible, since any procedure, which could end up forcing a woman to marry against her will, is unquestionably offensive.

One response is to put this in the context of the ancient world. According to commentators, in anticipation of battle, women would put on finery and make themselves beautiful to entice Jewish men, because winding up with a “nice Jewish guy” was a heckuva lot better than their other choices. Also, compared to the battle ethic of the ancient world (your typical rape, murder and pillage) the Torah scenario is positively enlightened and compassionate. Thanks to ISIS, and their ilk, I no longer have to contextualize this. Has anyone noticed that the “ancient world” is not so “ancient” anymore?

The Power of Emotional Mastery

But there is a much more profound response to these objections. The major theme of Ki Teitzei has to do with emotional mastery, to having deliberate and reasoned responses to emotionally charged situations. And so a deeper read of “when you go out to war with your enemies” could be this: “when you go out to war….with yourself,” referring to the struggle with those aspects of you that are base, unbridled and unbounded.

The purpose of the laws of “the beautiful captive” is not to result in an orderly marriage; rather, they are to prevent the marriage in the first place. The very objective of the process is to give the guy time to see the woman – not as a mere beautiful object – but as her authentic self. He has to be able to picture her as the mother of his children and someone who will be by his side for the rest of his life. He has to see her as compatible with his Jewish values and lifestyle.

He has to see her as not just satisfying his desire for instant gratification in the immediate present but as a total commitment to the future. And if she is not to be a full-fledged wife, then she can’t be something other, like a slave. Rather, she must be compensated and set free.

The Power of Choice

In the last few weeks of his life, Moses was cramming in his final words of advice and so the laws of Ki Teitzei come one after another. To what end? As slaves in Egypt, the Jewish people were not free to say “no” to the Pharaoh, and thus they had little to no free will. In the desert, the Jewish people lived with “strict justice,” meaning that punishment was quickly and visibly meted out. While they had free will, they also had the clarity of cause and effect, and so if you said “no” to God’s laws, you weren’t going to be around long to brag about it.

Once the Jewish people would leave the desert, however, and live in the Land, it was going to be an entirely different story, and that was Moses’ concern. They would not be slaves to anyone, nor would they live with “desert clarity.” They would have to figure out on their own how to say “no” to that which should be negated in their life.

And that is where emotional mastery comes in. Torah doesn’t permit us to have whatever we want, just because we want it. We cannot discard someone from our lives improperly or divest them of rights to suit our emotional needs. We can’t put things together that don’t belong together, and we can’t make admixtures of things that deny the unique individuality, needs, and purpose of all living things. Each person and each situation have its carefully circumscribed borders of protection.

Understanding and respecting the sensitivities, the boundaries and the proper uses of all things – whether human, animal or even vegetable – is the basis of mastery over those emotional urges, which could cause us to violate someone or something else.

The Power of Yes

So the battle is between you – and you – to develop a healthy way of dealing with exclusion. Certain things, certain people, and certain situations simply do not belong in our lives, nor do they belong with each other. It’s about understanding the “Law of Exclusion” and going to war against that which blurs our boundaries.

A slave cannot say “no.” Only a human being with autonomy and free will say “no.” And that is precisely what makes a “yes” so powerful, so meaningful. Therefore, saying “no” to that which will bring you down is saying “yes” to that which can elevate you, make you grow, and sanctify your life. And that is certainly worth fighting for.

 

Internalize & Actualize:

  1. In what ways are you at war with yourself? Are you winning or losing the battles?
  1. Is there a situation you are currently dealing with that you are reacting to in an emotionally inappropriate way? This week try to remove yourself from it, and then, with some distance, revisit how you are thinking and feeling and note if anything has changed.
  1. What is a part of your life that shouldn’t be? How can you begin to separate yourself from it (or from that person) who is unhealthy or toxic for you? Recognizing that something or someone doesn’t belong is the first step in the process.

 

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