Inner Connections: Shabbes Nasso YOU own YOU

We enter Shavuot which goes right into Shabbat and in Israel we read parshat Nasso, so I said to myself that if I have the time before the holiday I’ll write on Shabbes too….

I love this story that a client told me…

Her first birth, she informed me, wasn’t easy to say the least. Nothing went as she planned. The birth was disappointing and difficult. She told me that she felt horrible afterwards, even restful. One day, a few weeks after birth she sat in the park with her new baby and another woman sat down next to her. They both realized that their babies were the same age.

The way of women is to talk and they started sharing their birth experiences. She told her story to the other woman and for some reason she didn’t say neither the name of the hospital nor the name of the midwife, the one who she felt made her birth such an unpleasant experience.

The other woman told her story. She had the most beautiful birth. Her experience was the exact opposite of my client’s. She, for whatever reason did mention the name of the hospital and even the name of the wonderful midwife who she attributed to making her birth such a pleasant experience.

Lo and behold it was the same hospital, the same midwife. Isn’t that interesting!

My client realized something.

She went through whatever she had to go through because that was her experience. It had nothing to do with the hospital or the midwife or her baby. It just was what it was for her. It’s not right or wrong, but personal and individual. Two people can go through the same thing and they will perceive it differently. You can be in the exact place, the exact time and it doesn’t matter because no two people are the same, neither are their triumphs nor their challenges.

I always tell women, “Don’t listen to other people’s stories and get scared or compare or worry. Your experience is your own. You own your perception. You shape your perception. You are in charge of what to do with your thoughts and fears.”

Twelve princes brought gifts and offerings for the Mishkan (Tabernacle). They were all the same gifts and yet the Torah lists each prince’s contribution separately. Yehudah brought x, y, and z. Zebulun brought x, y, and z…. Each one is repeated in an apparently duplicated way.

Why isn’t it written in a generic way saying that every prince brought x, y, and z? Why the repetition?

Because each and every person is different. We feel different. We perceive different. We do different things with the very same things that we might have. So x, y, and z means one thing to Reuben and it means something entirely different to Shimon.

I can relate to you and validate you and try to understand you because I might have similar experiences, but ultimately, I don’t know what you feel, how you were affected or exactly what you are going through. I look at you and I sit back and I admire your individual contribution, your effort, but I can’t and I shouldn’t compare.

These princes also teach us that it doesn’t really matter who thinks of what first or that this one did x, y and z, so why should I bother?

Will one more phone call really make a difference? Does that person really need me to express my condolences or to wish them a mazel tov? Do what I, me, have to say or do, does it really matter? Do I have a contribution to make to this world when really nothing is new and it’s all the same?

YES!

The Torah tells us, “Yes! YOU, you matter. No one can give or do what you do because no one is you.”

Now, it’s getting late and I have written enough.

Please just know that the Torah was given to YOU personally, individually. YOU count, YOU can make a difference. Reclaim your experiences and know that you own your mind.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!

Elana