The Wisdom of Getting Unstuck: How to emerge from and avoid the muddy middle, Shimshon Meir Frankel, Mosaica Press, Los Angeles, CA, ©2021, ISBN 978-1-952370-13-7, p. 175, plus appendix, $22.99.
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California – Each of us hears an internal voice, it talks to us every day. For some, this voice repeats the harmful and disheartening comments made by parents, teachers, siblings, and friends. It reminds us of our failures and insecurities. This voice, according to Rabbi Shimshon Frankel, a clinical psychologist with more than a quarter century of experience, and author of The Wisdom of Getting Unstuck, is your Antagonist, and “when we start to identify ourselves with the negative messages that it delivers, we’re bound to start experiencing a heightened degree of discomfort, emptiness, pain, and tension.”
In his practice, Frankel first helps people recognize when they are living in the “muddy middle,” a metaphor for times of anxiety, nervousness, or uncertainty; times when self-confidence wanes and hopelessness appears, and then works with them to escape. The Wisdom of Getting Unstuck is self-help book for people wanting to break out of the muddy middle, regain control of their lives, and make themselves masters of their own destiny.
Frankel bases the ideas found in The Wisdom of Getting Unstuck on both psychology and religious thought, examples, and symbolisms, such as, Machshavah, striving for our actions to emanate from our head and not our heart; Mussar, spiritual practices grounded in Judaism, leading to a moral, ethical, and purpose-driven life—when we cultivate our inner qualities, personal improvement happens, and Chassidus, unshakable love of, faith in, and reverence for God and his laws.
Machshavah, for example, distinguishes between the clever and the wise, respectively personified by King David, representing a life of struggle and flight, and Rabbi Yehudah ben Teima, exemplifying wisdom. Cleverness is a step toward wisdom: A clever person has ways of escaping “unhealthy desires, negative external influences, and self-evading pursuits.” The wise person avoids trouble altogether.
Yehudah ben Teima, whose thoughts and ideas are frequently repeated and reinforced by Frankel, is quoted in Pirke Avot (5:20) saying be strong as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and mighty as a lion. Ben Teima believes people possess an inner strength, like the leopard and lion; the ability to run and escape, like the deer; and to see all three-hundred sixty degrees from any angle, like an eagle in flight. By adopting these characteristics, escaping the muddy middle is a real possibility.
Frankel also draws on two aspects of Gestalt psychology: differentiation, the ability to separate oneself from the outside world and become a unique entity, thereby permitting “us to see our Antagonist for what it really is—and to see ourselves as a whole being, and an independent entity,” and introjection, internalizing unhealthy externalities, messages from the outside world, resulting in resistance to change.
By intertwining psychology with the wise sayings of Judaism’s sages, Frankel strives to motivate his readers and bolster their strength in order to extricate themselves from and flee the muddy middle. His numerous stories, anecdotes, and references offer healthy inner narratives in lieu of the Antagonist’s defeatist script, what he calls an inside-in approach—knowing which healthy messages to take in and which to exclude.
For Frankel, Judaism offers paths to a new narrative, for example, through the “Power of Return,” recognizing where we are and conjuring the spirit of change, mourning the person we’ve become, and, the tricky step, drawing on our inner strength to identify the Antagonist and avoid its destructive messages, and through “Habituation,” adopting and repeating new actions, needing just two or three recurrences before becoming routine, according to the Talmud.
Frankel, challenging the reader to commit to change, presents analogies between humans and animals. For instance, a person under the influence of his/her Antagonist, like a hungry bear, is never satisfied; always on the prowl, suggesting the “human appetite” results from dissatisfaction with one’s lot. He tasks readers to alter their perspective from sensual hunger to spiritual hunger, believing God will help with success as He helped King David throughout his life. He also challenges readers to make the decision to change, then be persistent, consistent, and follow through.
To paraphrase Rava (c. 280 – 352 CE), the Antagonist first appears as a wayfarer, then as a guest, and finally as the master. “Remain unabashed in the face of [the] Antagonist’s opposition,” Frankel writes. In support of this, he cites Reish Lakish (c. 200 – c. 275 CE) who asserts God gave Israel three traits of brazenness: being stubborn, stiff-necked, and obstinate. Yet, these might not be enough, the Antagonist is astute.
Returning again to ben Teima, Frankel encourages his readers to be bold as a leopard, the opposite of contentment and complacency. Leopards are also wise, and Israel possesses wisdom, having the ability to recognize the reawakened, approaching, and soon to be controlling Antagonist and its adverse messages. He also wants readers to be like a swift deer, fleeing the Antagonist by rejecting its damaging themes; “run away from your problems,” embodied by King David; run away to a new location, demonstrated by the patriarch Abraham.
Run to where? The destination for Frankel is clear, the Torah—the Five Books of Moses, offering faith in God and rules for leading a well-lived life, a middle path through obedience to its righteous behaviors. Frankel encourages readers to become part of something larger than themselves and to do good because the reward for good deeds reduces the power of the Antagonist.
The Wisdom of Getting Unstuck perceives people as individuals with extended psychic boundaries. The wider the boundary, the greater the external impacts, and the longer and more negative the Antagonist’s script. Frankel raises awareness of the Antagonist, inspiring and cajoling readers into action, not by quotes from secular scholars, the accomplishments of sports heroes, the messages from motivational speakers, or victories in organizational life, but rather through wisdom found in the Hebrew Bible and the words and deeds of Jewish sages. Frankel, understanding the Antagonist will never be defeated, only temporally quarantined, offers support and strategies to minimize outside influences, extract oneself out of the muddy middle, and move forward as an authentic human being.
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Fred Reiss, Ed.D. is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. His newest book is The Jewish Calendar: History and Inner Workings, Fourth Edition. He may be contacted via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.