If you've ever been to a hospital, you've seen the metal poles with the IV lines, attached to the patient through what's called a "port" - a kind of catheter inserted into a vein. It's more convenient for all concerned - doctor, nurse, patient - than using a needle to inject the medicine or nutrition. For one thing, the patient isn't poked each time something needs to be infused.
The metal poles go where the patient goes. if the patient is up walking, someone - patient or caregiver - has to make sure the pole, with medicine bag and attached IV lines, go along. Same thing if the patient goes to the bathroom. As long as the patient is being infused (the medical term), he or she is tethered to pole, unmistakably through the plastic tubing.
While it is safer and more convenient, being tethered can also be a nuisance. (For home health care, often backpack like bags are used instead of a pole.) Being un-tethered, when there's no infusion for the moment, gives one a sense of freedom. You don't have to worry about kinking the plastic tubes or getting too far ahead of the pole, etc.
This contrast between being 'tethered' and 'free' (though the port/catheter is still there) got me thinking about the whole concept of being tethered, and the invisible tubes that connect us with others. These 'tubes' or connections may not be visible to the eye, but they exist - emotionally, intellectually, spiritually.
So what are we tethered to - connected to by lines of force, so to speak? Our family and friends. Our faith and trust in G-d. These are of course positive connections, things to which we want to be tethered.
But, following our analogy, if we are tethered, we're not free, not independent. Perhaps 'free' is the wrong word, because we aren't ever free in the sense of being divested of responsibility or relationships. There's a word in Hebrew that better expresses the idea: hefker. It means unclaimed or unowned - disconnected.
We are, therefore, always tethered, always connected. We are not always tethered to things that uplift us, improve us. Sometimes we're tethered to routines - having a coffee break at the same time every day, following the same route to work, having the same sandwich everyMonday. Routines of daily living are important, of course. They help structure our days and serve as ways of maneuvering smoothly through society. But if we're tethered to the routine and not its function, what then? Instead of giving us a way to interact socially or helping with our personal maintenance (hygiene), the routines begin to control us.
Then there are the negative things we are tethered to. Anger is an obvious emotional tether. We can tether ourselves to other things that are harmful or non-beneficial. Our favorite sports team, for instance. We can invest so much energy and time into the team's success or failure that our own lives become affected. We can live through the team, the sports gear, all the externals and peripherals.
We can be tethered to bad ideas, politics that are knee-jerk, the label-and-shout of so much news. Asking critical questions helps us break free from bad ideas, but how often do we ask critical questions of those we want to agree with? The bad ideas need not be political - they can be academic, they can be social. ("It seemed like a good idea at the time.")
Even with the positive tethers, we have to examine the connections. When a tube delivering medicine gets a 'kink' in it, something beeps to tell the nurse the medicine is not being delivered properly. In our relationships with friends or families, we have to check the connections, the lines of force, to make sure everything is clear, that there's no blockage.
Especially in our relationship with G-d, we have to make sure we are tethered properly. In this regard, there's an interested Chassidic story about Rabbi Yisroel of Ruzhin. He had a routine whereby every morning, he would traverse mountainous terrain as part of his preparation for prayer. During the winter, the terrain was treacherous. Yet Rabbi Yisroel was never harmed. He attributed his safe passage back and forth to his connection to G-d.
A couple of skeptics came to town and mocked Rabbi Yisroel's faith. The path must not be that dangerous, they insisted, or there was a secret route. To prove their point, they set out the next morning through the snowy terrain. They came back some hours later, not having made it halfway, bruised and battered and lucky to have no broken bones.
When Rabbi Yisroel returned from his daily journey, they asked him for his 'secret.' Rabbi Yisroel of Ruzhin replied, "When one is connected to what is Above, one does not fall down below."
In one sense, then, we are defined by our connections - who and what we choose to be tethered to. Of course, we can't always choose. Some connections are beyond our control or choice, at least initially. But we can choose the nature of our tethering, the type of relationship we want to have.
Medically, doctors decide on what we'll be tethered to. They don't do this randomly. They've studied for years to know what medicinal connections are needed for what connection. In our relationships - with family and friends, with ideas, and above all with G-d, we need invest the time and critical thinking to make sure we are tethered properly.