How do you define crisis? Webster Dictionary defines it as an unstable or crucial time, or state of affairs, in which a decisive change is coming, especially one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome.
We usually define crisis as an impending doom. For example, discovering that your spouse wants a divorce, the impending death of a loved one, the shattering news of a life-threatening illness, the loss of employment amid significant financial debt are all forms of crises. How about having a prison sentence handed down to you from a judge? I would think that qualifies as a crisis, too.
Our general sense is that a crisis is terrible news in the making, but the critical definition of crisis is an unstable time with a decisive change in the making. It is not necessarily good or bad, it is just different and it depends on what we make of it.
What We Make of It
Let me tell you about Shawn Balva, a promising young football star whose career and life shattered after failing a drug test. With time, he became a full-blown addict and criminal. Even being arrested and tried for multiple armed robberies did not slow down his drug habit. He continued using even while on house arrest and even in jail awaiting sentencing.
The day Shawn was sentenced to eight years in prison he decided his drug life had come to an end. Indeed, it was the last time he used. Shawn was asked what made him stop and he replied that he felt he had come to the end of his line and his luck had run out. He was about to embark on a new chapter, and it was time to break with the old.
The interviewer made a point that got me thinking. He said, most people make rousing commitments on days filled with promise. When they begin a new career or start a new marriage, they are inspired to turn over a new leaf. You were heading to prison, your future was dark and bleak, and yet you saw it as a new beginning?
Shawn explained that indeed he had. To me the point was hammered home. A crisis is not good or bad; it is what we make of it. It is hard to put a bow and a smile on an eight-year prison sentence. Shawn wasn’t sugar coating his future. He knew how hard life would be on the inside, and indeed it was brutal. But he knew something else. No matter what was coming, the past was now in the past. It was time to break with it. For better or for worse, a new chapter was beginning, and he would not bring his past burdens along when his future was about to begin.
Crises are frightening, but they are also a clean break. It doesn’t mean the future will be easy. It means there is a demarcation line in your life, and you can make the best of it if you choose.
Finding G-d
Prison was brutal for Shawn as it is for nearly everyone there, but amazingly, it was in prison that Shawn found G-d. Amid the misery and darkness, Shawn found a point of light. At first, he struggled to connect with Judaism on his own, but with time he met other Jews in prison, including Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin, who mentored and supported him.
Shawn explained that prison only imprisons your body. The system does its best to wear you down and take control of your soul, but that is your choice. You decide whether to hold on to your soul or surrender to the pressure. In prison, Shawn began to study the Torah. When studying, he felt free. His body was chained down, but his soul was connecting with G-d. You can be chained down on earth and yet soar to the Heavens. It depends on what you make of it.
Our Ancestors in Egypt
In Egypt, our ancestors chose to do just that. When Joseph passed away, they knew they were in for a long term of suffering in exile. Yet, the Torah tells us that “"As they were tortured, so did they proliferate and expand." This means that G-d rewarded them with many children. Our sages taught that Jewish women had sextuplets with every pregnancy. Moreover, their pregnancies were painless and smooth, so they never hesitated to have more.
But how would they feed so many children? Why would they keep having them if conditions were so harsh? Why would they want to bring children into such a dark world? These questions plagues the Jewish men, but the women ignored them. The more they suffered, the more connected they felt with G-d. The more dependent they felt upon G-d, and the more G-d provided for them. In the end, all these children survived and most merited to leave Egypt.
The Moral of the Story
The Torah tells us stories so we can learn from them. Knowing that our future will be painful qualifies as a crisis, but every crisis is also an opportunity. And the greater the crisis, the greater the opportunity. In the Clinton White House there was a common phrase, “Don’t let a crisis go to waste." While this is a cynical manipulation of suffering for political gain, the idea has merit. Every crisis is an opportunity. For our ancestors, the crisis that could have crushed them, gave birth to a nation, six hundred thousand strong. A nation, filled with faith in G-d and a radical commitment to keeping their creed alive.
Our lives are filled with crisis at every turn, some more urgent than others. Some real and others imagined. The question is never how they came to be. The question is always what we will do about them. The question is never what the crisis will do to us. The question is always what we will do with it.
Remember that the very same G-d who is there with us in times of plenty and calm, is there with us in crisis. The only thing that changes is the message. The message of a crisis is: let go of the past because change is coming. We don’t know how we will land on our feet, but we know that we will. And when we do, we will carve out a future free of past blemishes.