Sermon: “Should” – a little word with great power (Cantor Cheryl Wunch)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 11 April 2015

“Should children have a best friend?”  “Why you should sleep-train your baby.”  “Why you should absolutely not sleep-train your baby.”  “Why you should start every day with lemon water.”  “Why voting should be mandatory.” “Why synagogues should stop charging membership fees.” “Why you should always use the Oxford comma.”  “Why you should NEVER use the Oxford comma.”  “30 places that every human being should visit before they die.”

Believe it or not, these are all headlines from print or online articles that caught my eye just in the past week.  They may seem to have nothing in common, and while the subject matters may not connect to each other, the thread that binds them all together is one, little, yet powerful word – “should.”  The word “should” seems, to me, to have become one of the most commonly used words in the English language today.  I don’t have any empirical data to back that up, and I’m sure that there are many other, more common words that are used far more frequently, but I believe that the word “should” has infiltrated our lives and, to great detriment, our psyches.  The word “should” is tricky.  It doesn’t say that something is required.  “Should” is a suggestion, a strong recommendation, but it is also more than that. “Shoulds” often remind us of what is socially acceptable, culturally proper, and, if we don’t follow them we can be met with disapproval or even exclusion. “Shoulds” help us to conform – whether to societal norms or to our internal standards. “Shoulds” are absolutes, they are black and white.  If they happen, then we are happy, and if they don’t we are often devastated.  They are demanding, and virtually impossible to accomplish every time.   From a young age we are told that we should look a certain way, should dress a certain way, should behave a certain way, and should want to follow a path that puts us at certain life-stages at certain times.

I was taught a number of years ago, that any time someone says “you SHOULD do x” or even when I think to myself, “I should be y” my response can be to question “should?  According to whom?”  More often than not, the answer to that question shows that whatever I feel that I should be doing is really just some arbitrary social norm. If the answer to “according to whom” is “according to me” then I probe deeper – why do I think that I should do or be this thing?  Inevitably I can find that the “should” that I am imposing upon myself originally came from an outside source.  And who’s to say that someone else’s standards are right for me?  We all have our own ideas of how things should or should not be – and while sometimes it is helpful to have rules, most often the “shoulds” keep us trapped.  We set ourselves up for failure.  “Should” is a judgement.  It is, by nature, an assessment of goodness or “good-enough”-ness. And so when we don’t fulfil the “shoulds,” we take that as an indictment of our selves.  We SHOULD have done it, and if we didn’t, we’re not good enough.

New Year’s resolutions tend to fail within 3-4 months… well, here we are – 4 months into the year, and I’ll bet that a number of you are finding yourselves wondering what happened to all of your good intentions back in January.  So why do resolutions fail?  Resolutions fail because they are “shoulds.”  “Shoulds” aren’t about what we really WANT, they are about guilt and shame.  I SHOULD lose weight …. I SHOULD….be more generous, I should be more productive, I should be more patient, I should meditate more, and I should take more time to cultivate my hobbies.  Those all mean something very different from “I want.”  “Should” feels like something that’s being forced – either externally or internally, and when something is forced, that’s when we tend to rebel.  “I want” is a statement that comes from the depth of our souls, not from external pressures.  Successful change comes because we want to change, not because we think that we should.  Doing something because we want to is fulfilling and often pleasurable, while doing something because we think that we should, is a chore.  In fact, we don’t actually have to make resolutions if we really, truly desire change.  Resolutions are only necessary when we decide to change because we should, not because we really want to.  Change happens when we’re ready to change, not when we pressure ourselves to change.  Someone can try to quit smoking multiple times because they think that they “should” and yet will often find that they won’t be truly successful until they really want to quit.  After experiencing a loss we don’t get over our mourning and sadness just because we feel that we should, we get over it when we’re ready, when our hearts truly want to heal.  We may create healthy new habits because someone tells us that we should, but we certainly don’t sustain them until we truly want to change.

In Hebrew, the word “should” is translated as tzarich, or chayav, both of which also mean “must.”  In English there is a subtle difference between “should” and “must,” but in Hebrew, and more specifically biblical Hebrew, that difference isn’t there.  So how do we know if the Torah is full of ‘shoulds’ or full of ‘musts’?  Well, actually, our Torah is full of neither.  Our commandments aren’t given to us as “shoulds” or “musts,” but as simple instructions or directives.  “You will not eat them.”  “You will sacrifice it.”  The Torah removes all “shoulds” and even all “musts” and just tells us what we will or will not do.  Does that mean then, that we must blindly follow all of the rules and laws laid out in Torah?  Of course not. We know that already.  Most of us wouldn’t be here today if we thought that the Torah was intended to be followed literally, and all of your clergy here at Alyth have spoken about this exact issue from this bima many times.  But I think it’s interesting to note that even the Torah, our source of all morals, values, and laws,  knew that “should” wasn’t a helpful way to phrase the commandments.  They are rules, they are instructions, but they are not societal recommendations.

Children need rules.  This is pretty basic.  The Israelites were, in many respects, like children.  They needed to learn the rules. They needed to be told how to conduct themselves and how to live.  But as we grow and mature, we start to learn that what is good and appropriate for one person or group, may not be so for another.  The type of nutrition or exercise or medication that one body needs isn’t the same as what another body needs.  Cultural norms and traditions vary greatly from one society to another, and so the same rules and the same “shoulds” can’t possibly be appropriate for everyone.

Now, I’m not saying that life is meant to be purely hedonistic.  Of course there are obligations, financial, social, moral.  Societies needs rules, it needs general “shoulds” – we’re not looking for anarchy.  I’m not saying that we need only do the things that we want to do and eschew our responsibilities, but I’m saying that the psychological impact of “should” is not particularly helpful.  “Should” puts us in a position where we either win or lose, we’re either good enough or we’re failures.  Living up to the “shoulds” is like we’re trying to prove something to ourselves or to others.  It’s saying that there is something wrong with us that needs to be fixed.  “Shoulds” come along with a big serving of shame – shame for who we are now, and even greater shame for all of the “shoulds” that we don’t accomplish.  The concept of “should” can easily exacerbate both depression and anxiety.  If we live our lives constantly thinking “I should do this” or “I shouldn’t be like that” it is a terrible burden to bear, and we are only dooming ourselves to feelings of failure and reduced self-worth.  When our beliefs about ourselves are based not upon how we want to be, but upon how we think that we should be, we will never truly be able to feel fulfilled and content.  We will always judge ourselves against this arbitrary model of perfection.  None of us are perfect, and none of us are children that need to be constantly told what to do and how to do it.  We may need guidance, but we also need to be free to attend to our deepest desires and goals.  Releasing the “shoulds” is one of the biggest steps towards true fulfilling happiness.  And so any time any of us feel as though there is something that we SHOULD do, or a way that we SHOULD be, let’s ask ourselves – “should?  According to whom?”  And to paraphrase our Bar Mitzvah this morning, when we hear or feel those “shoulds,” let’s learn where those “shoulds” are coming from, judge their validity, and then decide for ourselves whether we want to follow them or not.