Dogs, Frogs, and Torah on Valentine’s Day
As I was chasing down our runaway dog yesterday, I couldn’t help but think about Valentine’s Day.
I can’t tell you the story of today as a feast day or much about St. Valentine. I can’t tell you why we exchange cards or how chocolate or roses got involved. My partner and I celebrate Valentine’s Day as a secular holiday. Many of the Valentine’s Day rituals that we take part in have just always sort of been there.
On one of our first Valentine’s Days together, I bought my partner a giant stuffed frog. She was exasperated, of course — what do you do with a giant stuffed frog in a college dorm? Fair point. The frog and I exchanged nervous glances, apparently some Valentine’s Day rituals applied better than others. I crossed off stuffed animals and, later, flowers as Valentine’s kitsch without much meaning. (Chocolate stayed, thankfully.)
Back to our neurotic dog: he has his own rituals as well. When we get home each day, he does a circle dance to let us know that he is excited that we are still alive and that he needs to pee. (As far as I can tell, those feelings are closely related in his mind.) He will not eat his dinner unless I complete the proper ritual: filling his bowl, having him sit, setting the food down, giving him a command to eat it, and then turning on the faucet to wash my hands.
When something in his ritual changes, he panics. If he doesn’t hear the water from me washing my hands, he will nervously wait there with slobber dripping onto the floor.
Yesterday, our yard gate was open for an unknown reason. Normally our dog hops down onto the grass and then comes back up (or digs a hole), but with the gate open he panicked. Deviation! So he ran right through it and headed down the road at full speed. No looking back for this dog, apparently.
Rabbi Eugene Borowitz describes rituals as “poems we write with acts rather than words”. There is deeper meaning, closer connection when we perform activities in a certain order, in a certain way. These symbolic actions create meaning that is fundamentally different from meaning created through words alone.
Saying “I love you” is different from a dramatic kiss, as most romantic comedies know. And the ritual of a wedding is a step even further.
When we disrupt rituals that we expect, you’re likely to feel a creeping sense of discomfort. For me with the frog, that meant rethinking a holiday. For our dog, that meant abandoning everything that he knew and running out into the wilderness. Maybe these are not bad things — after all, Judaism says that the Torah comes from the wilderness as well. (OK, OK, it is bad for our neurotic dog. But he’s safe now.)
As Rabbi Sari Laufer writes:
In another teaching, the rabbis are even more direct: Allow yourself to be treated like a wilderness, they suggest. It’s a startling image, this one of being a wilderness. It’s an image that any of us, standing on the precipice of something new and unknown, might take to heart. Am I to be trampled by uncertainty? Yes. Tread upon by anxiety? Yes. Am I also going to be open to new people, new possibilities, new adventures? Yes, yes and yes. For the rabbis teach that if we are able to do this, if we allow ourselves to be a wilderness, then Torah will be given to you as a gift. Here, of course, the sages meant Torah in its strict sense — the five books of Moses, or the first section of the Hebrew Bible. But because the word Torah literally means “instruction,” I want to expand the definition to include it being the possibility of and vehicle for new learning, for a new way of looking at ourselves and the world, for a different direction entirely.
So how do you balance the two?
On the one hand, rituals can provide deep, poetic meaning that goes beyond words. Even though my partner and I were married in a secular wedding, we exchanged wedding bands as a ritual of commitment. We took meaning from these infinite circles and brought it into our own lives.
On the other hand, rituals can be stifling. Following burdensome, repetitive, or problematic rituals can prevent us from growing. They can prevent us from finding new meaning and new learning out there in the wilderness.
When in doubt, I’d suggest choosing love. Recognize the unspoken meaning inherent in otherwise senseless traditions, but stand ready to shed those that are misaligned with your heart.
And if you have too much love to choose from (love steeped in meaningful rituals and love caught up in the wild and unknown), then maybe recognize that having too much love is not always a terrible problem to have.
