Rabbi Zoë Klein

Boredom is a slithery epidemic, numbing our senses and disconnecting us with the world. Boredom is a lonely experience, lost in a wasteland. It is also perhaps the most unsacred emotional states to be in, for when we are bored, we close our eyes to the miracles we are drenched in every moment, even the quiet soft moments. We stop being grateful for the constant metronome beating out our precious pulse, or the rise and fall of our chest as we breath. We shut our mind from remembering the moist feathery clouds drifting overhead and the finely wrought lace of a determined spider in the corner.

Boredom is the opposite of Judaism. As Rabbi Harold Schulweis wrote, “Boring people are easily bored. There is nothing within that allows them to see, hear, taste, touch, smell the world with wonder. They are bereft of their senses. Things are all the same. Day follows day, monotonously, unrelieved by passion, wonder, awe, amusement. There are no surprises, not even the planned surprise parties. Those, so readily bored, may find some light by turning within. Why am I bored? What fears block my engagement with the world? What anxieties dull my sensibilities? To find the world interesting lies at the heart of Judaism…to be a Jew of faith is to be anything but bored. To be a Jew is not to yawn away one’s life, but to stand slack-jawed in amazement at the world of possibilities, and to rise with excitement toward its realization.”

When we talk about yawning everyone wants to yawn,
You have an urge to yawn,
How many of you are suppressing a yawn at this moment,
Well don’t suppress, it, let it out, I won’t be insulted,
Yawns are contagious,
No one knows why. No one know why we yawn in the first place…
Why is it?
Why when we see someone yawn do we want to yawn…
Is it that fatigue is contagious,
Is it that boredom is contagious,

When we open our mouths all of a sudden with the desperate urge to pull in as much oxygen as we can as if, as if, as if we are drowning, drowning in what? Drowning in nothingness, in numbness, that is the yawn, it is the silent gasp, the silent cry to be lifted out of unappreciative unawareness, it is our soul crying out, ‘open me, open my eyes, let me see the garden, let me see the miracles all around, let me not move through this world with eyes shut, let me be attuned to the symphony of sound, the mantra of textures, the artistry of creation, the majesty of living, it is the soul’s silent scream, wake me up, o God, rouse me, let the hair on the back of my neck stand up like a troop, alarm me with the blast of a shofar, wake me up lest my days sail past me and I notice nothing!’

Boredom is the most unsacred place to be. Aaron Zeitlin wrote a wonderful poem in which it is written “Praise Me, says God, and I will know that you love Me. Curse Me, says God, and I will know that you love Me…Sing out My graces, says God, raise your fist against Me and revile, says God, Sing out graces or revile, reviling is also a kind of praise… But if you sit fenced off in your apathy, if you look at the stars and yawn, if you see suffering and don’t cry out, if you don’t praise and you don’t revile, then I created you in vain.” We learn from this poem that even anger is a form of praise, for it shows how deeply we care. To be angry at God is to care about God’s creation. However, to yawn at the stars, that is to dismiss the creation entirely.

Yawning is contagious, but love can be contagious too, gratefulness can be contagious, goodness can be infectious, joy can be pandemic, let me joy be airborn, let my joy seep into every open yawning mouth, every open yearning heart, every pore, every ear…

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote “To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live…How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.”

Next time you find yourself feeling bored, take a walk around the block and count the living things you see. Turn over a rock and watch the rolly pollies scurry about. Go home and look up rolly polly on the computer and learn some of the wonderful attributes God endowed this little creature with. Eat a peach, jump through a sprinkler, or, if you are tired, just sit and watch the little particles of air swirl into spirals in your breath, little galaxies of dust, and know that God’s fingerprint is there too.

To be a Jew of faith is to be anything but bored. To be a Jew is not to yawn away one’s life, but to stand slack-jawed in amazement at the world of possibilities, and to rise with excitement toward its realization.