The quads turning one! Birthday reflections 2024

This time of year has become the birthday season for my family. My wife kicks it off on June 2nd, then my firstborn on June 17th. The quads are July 4th, and I’m August 23rd.

Birthdays are a time for reflection, and the heavy concentration basically turns this whole quarter into a “thing”. As If I don’t reflect enough already 😛. But, along with the quads, a lot has changed this year. I have a LOT of things I’ve been thinking about. 

Yesterday my friend Moshe Bitton celebrated his birthday, and as part of his reflection he taught us about a beautiful connection between music and mysticism. In short: music can be expressed as the creation and resolution of tension. For whatever reason physiologically (not our focus here) different sound vibration relationships can evoke actual feelings in people 🤯 . To me that is crazy.

My eardrums vibrating can set off a reaction that causes me to feel feelings. Happy, sad, stressed, resolute – what music moves you emotionally?

The piece of music he chose to focus on is called The Beinoni. It’s a well known melody in Chabad circles, and Moshe brought to our attention that, essentially, the entire piece is tension. Tension tension tension. Even the “resolution” is on a chord with tension. Just what we need, right? 

Wait a second. In storytelling, the idea of creation and release of tension is important too, isn’t it? Aren’t the best parts of a book or a movie supposed to be the climax? Do I like tension? Or do I not like it? Well, that depends. Am I looking for comfort? Or do I want to be *awesome*? <The word awesome should always be in Jack Black’s voice, it’s better that way>

Chabad mystic teachings often refer to 3 categories people can fall into: a tzaddik –
“righteous” person; a rasha – a “wicked” person; and a beinoni – an “intermediary” person. The categories are essentially focused on one’s level of self control. 

Tzaddik: refined to the point where no exertion of control is necessary to do the “right” thing. 

Rasha: can be split into 2 categories: 1) a person who doesn’t struggle because they’re 100% impulsive instinct. 2) A person who struggles and sometimes has control, but sometimes isn’t able to maintain control ← this is me.

Beinoni: only a sliver on the struggle spectrum. A person who, in spite of their struggles, is never actually acting in an out-of-control way. This is the goal we’re striving for.

The way the classic text Tanya describes this struggle is with the word “war”. We are at war with ourselves. Thus, the niggun called The Beinoni is dripping with tension. The tension of the inner war that we must fight, each and every day. The war we fight is for personal development – the battle of our inner light over our inner darkness. 

This year we had quadruplets, which means our outer tension has been… yea… leaving a lot of room for inner tension 😛. But that made me think of another concept I love: Wabi-sabi. 

I first learned about wabi-sabi from a childhood mentor of mine Yosef Wosk. From Wikipedia:

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘び寂び) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.^[2] The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature.^[3] It is prevalent in many forms of Japanese art.^[4][5]

I’m realizing as I write this how difficult it is to capture the essence of an aesthetic in words. I Googled “opulent living room” and “wabi-sabi living room” and picked the first picture from each search. What differences do you notice?

For this search I tried “wabi sabi coffee table” and “royal coffee table”.

Which table looks more child friendly? What is the purpose of the table? Both of these tables are marked similarly between $3,000-$4,000, so it’s not a price thing. 

The point is that life has struggle. We can choose how we want to relate to that struggle. The quads came out as little aliens, who couldn’t even suck so they needed a feeding tube. Now they're normal babies. Yay?

I could get mad when the kids make a mess.

I bought a shop vac instead. This time was a win 😂 What will be next?

We choose how we want to relate to the tension in our lives. Is your tension a nick on your expensive coffee table? Does the nick matter? Does the coffee table matter? Do you matter? Read this. And watch Kung Fu Panda. 

Love you guys. Have a great weekend!