Mia Serra

Learn An Insppiring Dance That's Outside Your Comfort Zone

Thursday 21st 2011f April 2011

Finding A fresh approach to Passover becomes more challenging each year. The echoes of repetitive phrases such as "with a strong hand and an outstretched arm" - added to the wrath being poured out by the outmoded English of the Haggadah - engenders more dread than inspiration in me.

But something has stuck with me since hearing Torah scholar and author Avivah Zornberg speak recently. It was the idea that the midbar -- the wilderness - is a noun looking for a verb. That the doubt underlying the circuitous ramblings of the Israelites, represented by the midbar, is looking for affirmation.

The way this happens, according to Zornberg, is through action and, in particular, through speech, m'daber in Hebrew. Telling it like it is, Emperor's new clothes style, can be inordinately powerful - as can challenging the status quo through speech.

The philosopher Emerson introduces the idea that some people are alive but have not decided to be fully born yet.

They can go wherever they like, but eventually find they are wandering aimlessly and existing in limbo.

In an article in a women's magazine the other week, a single man in his thirties explained that he is comfortable with his record collection and nights out with the boys and does not want a girlfriend spoiling this, or requiring him to grow up. Yet he has a nagging sensation that he is stagnating.

We have everything. We are materially comfortable and medically well taken care of - but lack of pain is anaesthesia, not freedom.

The dictionary defines freedom as "the ability to make choices" and in terms of gadgets, holidays, food and other luxuries, we have more choice than ever.
But as long as we feel safe, we are not making the choices that transform our lives. The bolder our choices, the richer our lives become. The more we adhere to our path and principles, in the face of peer pressure, the greater our self-respect becomes.

The speech part is also important. Having the courage to speak our minds and ask for what we want or believe is right, gives us clarity and strength. It moves things on from a place of disorientation to more solid ground.

As my old acting teacher used to say, "action drives story" - people sitting around thinking about doing something makes for terrible theatre. And we are writing our own stories after all.

I used to prefer the idea of focusing on beauty and kindness, being malleable and responsive to others. But right now I feel irritated by inaction. It is the right hand - the strong outstretched one - that I feel needs to act to make dramatic changes.

The idea that we adapt to life and try to fit in with it, rather than push against it, moulding it, becomes more appealing the older we get. Yet, through over-conforming we push ourselves closer to the wilderness and further away from our selves.

Now I am expecting a baby it has become very tempting to drop out of society and submit to being a mother only, losing interest in anything else.
To some extent I am sure this is what I will do and there are biological reasons why mothers become obsessed with their babies. But to stay alert,, to keep making choices in spite of any fears, to believe I have options and to actively choose them is still my goal.

Zornberg asks, how do people learn to dance? Is it a spark of inspiration from the inside? Or is it by copying someone else, watching their movements on the outside?

The alchemy, it seems, takes places between the two. We are inspired and we seek knowledge. The important part is to persist, to continue to be inspired and to keep on acting on that inspiration.

As Emerson says, we should strive to be persistently heroic, to "adhere to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age... Always do what you are afraid to do".