The Video With No Sound

What I learned yesterday while working through frustration.

Rabbi Shmuel Chaim Naiman

Feb 21, 2024

That’s me on the video I planned on sending you today. The video didn’t happen, as you’ll read shortly, but the book is waiting for you at Amazon.com. (It’s also available in stores in Israel, and on my desk here in Ramat Bet Shemesh.)

Dear Healthy Jew,

Yesterday afternoon I sat down to record a video for you.

Here was my great idea:

In two weeks from yesterday (March 5 at 8:30pm Israel time / 1:30pm EST) we’re meeting online for our second monthly Healthy Jew workshop: “What’s Real Food and Where to Find It.”

But it’s been already a month since our first workshop where over 30 Healthy Jews gathered live online for Israel Needs Healthy Jews: Finding Wellness During Wartime. And the replay I sent out back then was a whopping 48 minutes long. So I thought to record it again in under a half hour and send it out this morning. In this new video, I’d also add plugs for my book, Land of Health: Israel’s War for Wellness, and, of course, our upcoming workshop.

After a few fits and starts, I got into a great groove, and recorded an awesome presentation that clocked in, with the extra add-ons, at 32 minutes.

All was set.

Until I opened the file and heard silence.

Turns out my blessed bluetooth had been connected to my marvelous MacBook without my knowledge, and was dutifully recording nothing in the next room.

Wow, how frustrated was I?

First came the dark meltdown, where the blind rage knew no address and held no words.
Then the flash of a decision to never record anything again, because I’ve always hated doing video (which is kind of true), and who cares that “everyone” says I’m good at it and need to do it more. From today forward, The Healthy Jew will be words and pictures alone. Take it or leave it.
The next flash ripped from the other direction. Don’t give up! Get right back at it; it’s only a half hour to record it again. If this is the right thing to do, then it’s wrong to let anything stop you. God won’t go for that.

Now that God entered the picture, my confusion deepens:

What’s God telling me to do - try again or give up?
Where is God in this emotional upheaval, and all the other times I’ve been feeling overextended recently?

These are important and relevant questions for any disturbance or dilemma. Healthy Jewish living includes a balanced, realistic understanding of God’s role in our daily lives.

This is my understanding of how the God of Healthy Jews talks to us.

First, here’s where I won’t find God:

I’m not a prophet, so God doesn’t speak to me in words. Our only lines of communication are prayer (me to him) and Torah study (him to me). Praying to Him won’t tell me what He thinks, and I won’t find in the Torah any instructions about what to post tomorrow on The Healthy Jew.
I can’t trust my analysis of the situation to know what God is hinting at. I’m not smart enough to figure God out.

So who (or what?) is God in daily, non-Jewish-ritual life?

God is reality, not a really smart guy. God is exactly how things are right now, not the way I imagine things to be, not even what I’d like to happen.

So in my situation, God is:

this soundless video
feeling frustrated
feeling like never recording video again
feeling that I should just do it again with a smile.

God talks to me all day long through reality’s experiences and emotions, not my personal words or wisdom. I can find God in any situation by knowing the situation is God, because the situation is reality.

For example, allowing God (read reality) into this post and its dead video was very helpful.

When it’s Me deciding what’s the “right thing to do,” I’m looking for the outcome that Me thinks will make Me feel better quick, maybe even undo the uncomfortable feelings.
When God decides what’s happening, I can’t change reality, nor do I need to. All I’m hired for is to try my best, and when I don’t do my best, to admit my imperfections and try better next time.

Choosing God over Me doesn’t include figuring out what God’s telling me to do - that would just boomerang back to Me and My Mind. Instead, I listened to reality, whispering some acceptance inside the cacophony of frustration and flashing impulses. I began to let go.

Looking closely at reality, I learned some new perspectives:

I can’t make the video talk.
I don’t like that it’s not talking.
I really don’t feel like recording it again.
Nobody cares if I make another video or if I write about something else entirely.

Letting go opens the mind and heart to new ideas, ideas that aren’t forcing solutions, but working with reality. Perhaps these new ideas are God’s, although, as I’m not a prophet, I can never know for sure.

Soon a new thought popped in my mind: to tell you how I’m dealing with the video that wasn’t. Perhaps you might find that even more useful than a newly recycled online workshop.

Maybe God arranged this whole fiasco so that I’d share with you about the God of the Healthy Jews. And if you’re indeed reading this story, then it was definitely God’s will, because it’s now become reality.

Thank you for reading Healthy Jew.

Here are 2 great paths to continue the journey:

Also check out this intro and index to explore hundreds of posts about our 3 Healthy Jew topics: Wellness with Wisdom, Land of Life (Israel), and Sensible Spirituality.