PREPENT Day 19 // Kishinu Oref: We are Stubborn

A reflection on "Kishinu Oref: We are Stubborn" by franny silverman

I’m sitting on a bench in a public park watching my child chase the bubbles that I’m blowing from the little green container of soap in my hand. The bubbles shine iridescent, transparent glossy rainbows, and when they smack up against each other, most of the time, they pop. When they smack up against the force of my daughter’s grabbing hands, they pop. But sometimes too, the bubbles encounter each other mid-air and the smack becomes a hug and the two glossy spheres join to create a new shape, some lumpy spherical venn diagram floating off into the distance. Sometimes the bubbles encounter each other, and form another bubble, their edges kissing lightly, opening up, with the strength of the bond keeping them intact as a whole unit. One three dimensional perimeter of thin, iridescent, glossy, transparent, rainbow soap filled with the breath of my lungs floating away. Something new. Something that wasn’t there before that wasn’t there until they encountered each other.

What would it take for each of us, with our ideologies, beliefs, narratives, opinions, experiences, feelings, to encounter each other with enough lightness that we could open ourselves to the possibilities presented by that which is other.

Kishinu oref - we have been stiff-necked, we have been stubborn.

For a decade, I’ve been engaging in a methodology rooted in transformative mediation, honed by practitioners at Resetting the Table, to support people to have meaningful conversations across charged political differences. 5784 has had me applying those tools more than ever. I want nothing more than to support people to be understood as they wish to be understood so that they may soften the rigidity of their ideological membrane, and open up to simply taking in someone else’s stance and seeing them as they wish to be seen. To move beyond the binary-either/or thinking which accompanies stubbornness, beyond the bubbles popping, into something softer, slower, messier, not necessarily ever experienced before.

And then last week: my neck stiffened. Literally.

My joints were inflamed across my body and accompanied by a variety of symptoms, I was in tremendous physical pain and discomfort with a long list of commitments I did not want to break. Permission to change the plans were granted by all those around me, including colleague partners and clients, but that was not in my narrative. I was stiff-necked and doubling down. I would pop pills and take baths and deliver the content I was hired to deliver and lay prone afterwards, contemplating my choices. I was rigid. My stubbornness was not about someone else’s narrative, but about my own narrative: I am a person who doesn’t break commitments. The show must go on. And then the deeper narratives that pervade in spite of my knowing their speciousness: My worth is wrapped up in what I have to offer the world. If I ignore it, it will go away. If I don’t show up now, there won’t be a later.

Where does your stiff-necked-ness live? In what ways are you stubborn? What would be possible if you softened, opened, in that area of your life? What would it take for you to do just that?

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franny silverman (she/her) is a consultant, coach and creator, with over 25 years of experience supporting individuals and collective groups to move towards greater equity and mission alignment. A practitioner of transformative mediation and restorative justice practices, franny supports people to move through conflict and charged differences with bravery, compassion, and accountability. An active antiracist practice and dedication to the health and wellness of Jewish diasporic communities drive her work. She has been a board member of Lab/Shul since 2017. Learn more about her work at here!

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Welcome to PREPENT 2024/5785: A-Z Daily Reflections on Public Accountability into a Better New Jewish Year

Daily content will be shared on weekdays from the New Moon of Elul (September 3, 2024) until the Eve of Yom Kippur (October 10, 2024).

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