Once again, my life spontaneously resembles or reflects the Jewish calendar. The Joyous and spiritually renewing slew of Jewish Holidays is followed by a bitter beginning to a mysterious episode in my life. A precious and valuable friendship has taken a turn for the worse, and I feel like a parent about to watch a child make a horrible decision. I feel at a loss, because it seems no matter what I say, I make no difference, or I make the situation worse.
I feel the only real cause of the situation is the strength of the relationship, and the deep caring and sense of connection that is there. But right now those things are producing strain and distress, not the pleasure and fulfillment they should produce. It is particularly exacerbated by sudden geographic proximity, which is not the norm, which allows for some real possibility of reconcilition, but only if the other party is willing to meet me face to face, which I am in doubt as to his predisposition toward accepting right now.
It's a really painful situation, I think for both of us, but it seems almost insurmountable. I know that means that it probabaly is surmountable - that it is in fact a thing which we can both overcome - but all the same, it feels like grinding sand in my stomach right now, and keeping me up at nights. I want to help, but the one thing I don't want to do is make it worse.
Reading about Cain and Abel in Torah study this week, I was struck by how involved God was with Cain's decision. He doesn't just let Cain go and make his mistake, he instructs him, and tells him what will happen if he doesn't just act cool and accept his lot. But no, he goes ahead and does it anyway! He loses his cool, and therefore he loses all the good things that could have come out of his life. I feel in one way like I am in a position to tell my friend not to go and do something stupid, not to make a decision that both of us will regret. On the other hand, I have a personal stake in the decision, so I am slightly biased in my hopes for what he wants to do. Maybe what I should do is let that go.
Because I also don't want to be like Cain. If Cain gets himself into trouble by wanting some sort of recognition for what he's done, then he can't advocate too much for his own desired. But wait. That's my friend again. Why is he doing this? I know he has his reasons, but they are not good ones. It's just that he really believes them.
And actually, that's where I think my pain is coming from. God says, if you do right, then that is its own reward. But if you do not do right (presumably, either do not make a sacrifice, or else, get upset when your sacrifice is not recognized, and then do something destructive), then sin couches at your door, etc.
So we should all be careful of looking for recognition of our good deeds. It not only sets us wrong with God, but it sets us wrong with the people that we really love and really want to connect with. It makes us adversarial without us even realizing it.
The really surprising thing about this passage is that God is essentially helpless. He has one weakness, and that is Human free will, which he, of course, gave us. So, in essence, he created his own monster. That is his Kryptonite, and it breaks his heart every day.
The good news is, we can always overcome this. Our freedom of choice means we can choose a different course, if only we are open to the suggestion of it, which comes, slyly and subtlely, but it means the difference between life and living Hell. For all of us included.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Pure Joy
My Arms hurt from carrying a Torah Scroll. My first one! It was so exciting. I think, based on what I saw at the Conservative Synagogue I went to for Simchat Torah, that I am considering personally renaming Simchat Torah to "International Day of Silliness." One leader/reader brought up a bunch of hats with him and changed hats every few paragraphs throughout his reading. When they opened the Ark, they had all the children gathered up at the front, and when it was opened, it turned out the whole thing was filled with, in addition to Torah scrolls, balloons and ballooon animals, which they handed out to the kids.
It was a great and beautiful day. We pushed all the chairs back and danced like fools who love their Torah. I even got a chance to carry one. And I danced with a lovely 3-year-old girl named Jessie, as we all went outside in the sunshine for our final Hakafah. Someone even told me what a Hakafah is - a circuit. Which is basically what you do. You dance in a circle. What a great physical manifestation of eternity. Someone asked me to dress the Torah after, but I couldn't do it, owing to the fact that I haven't become officially Jewish yet. But I said I'd be happy to do it once I do have my Beit Din.
Meanwhile, that does not seem to have prevented me in any way from enjoying the Simchat Torah. And I'm happy about that.
It was a great and beautiful day. We pushed all the chairs back and danced like fools who love their Torah. I even got a chance to carry one. And I danced with a lovely 3-year-old girl named Jessie, as we all went outside in the sunshine for our final Hakafah. Someone even told me what a Hakafah is - a circuit. Which is basically what you do. You dance in a circle. What a great physical manifestation of eternity. Someone asked me to dress the Torah after, but I couldn't do it, owing to the fact that I haven't become officially Jewish yet. But I said I'd be happy to do it once I do have my Beit Din.
Meanwhile, that does not seem to have prevented me in any way from enjoying the Simchat Torah. And I'm happy about that.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Building a Sukkah
I have to admit that Sukkot is one holiday I was not entirely prepared for. I don't know what a Sukkah is - well, basically, I do, but I can't say I understand entirely the concept - and, quite frankly, or, more to the point, it scares me. Which is why I think it is something that I should do, or at least help someone else to do. And yet, I totally failed in causing this to come about.
It was not for lack of opportunity. It was weeks ago that someone first mentioned the idea of helping build a Sukkah, and it came up repeatedly since then, but I found that, on each occasion, I found some excuse not to go. Finally, I spoke to a friend on Friday, and we made some sort of arrangement for me to accompany her to help with a sukkah-building, but bad communication ensued, and I did not get the information I needed to get there.
All I had when I woke up on Sunday (today) October 12th was the knowledge that right then, on that day, thousands of Jews were building Sukkahs on a beautiful day in the East Bay, and a strong desire to join them, but no actual, definitive plans to do so.
So what did I do? I waited for my friend to call me, and she never did. That's because she had left her phone at home, and assumed that I had gotten her email, which I hadn't, because I was waiting for her to call me. So there it goes.
I had to be content with building something, metaphorically, in my own mind. But what I really wanted to be doing was building something with my hands. I wanted to be involved in a group activity that involved several people working together to build a physical structure that eventually would come to mean something. It made me yearn slightly for my college days, working in the theatre, where I enjoyed nothing more than walking around a pile of planks with a power drill, putting pieces of wood together to make a stage set. Or using power saws or a chainsaw to carve pieces of woo into the exact right shape so that someone could come along and say, "I know what that is." It's process and product. It's something you can't do on a computer, and you can't do it alone. It's a communal activity, and the result is something you can't see, but it is evident all the same, and everyone knows its there.
A friend at work made a comment recently that he fasted this past Yom Kippur, which he hadn't done in a while, and even though he hadn't felt strongly about it at the outset, he found that it had some definite effects on his mind, in how it made him think about his actions, his eating, and how it made him aware of controlling his desires for a certain purpose. I had the same feeling. And I think a similar result occurs with building a Sukkah, as with all physical actions we take up in Judaism.
And some of those actions may seem random. I mean, after all, why build a temporary structure in your back yard and live in it for several days? I mean, the Torah can tell us why, and tradition can give us all kinds of reasons, but really, why? The answer is, nobody really knows. All we really know, is that we do it because we are told to do it. But the way I see it, it's kind of like a parent telling a child to do something. Maybe the child doesn't really know why he or she is being told to clean his room. All he knows is that if he doesn't, he won't get his allowance, or some other such bonus. So he does it. And he finds out, later in life, that the real reward was not his allowance in that moment, but rather a sense of duty, of fulfilling obligations, of having discipline, and also having a clean room, or a clean house. And all of these things benefit not just him, but everyone around him. Or her.
It's the same with a Sukkah, I believe. The result is, immediately, a concrete structure. But that in itself is not the only reward. The reward is also the community you build along with it. It's the symbolism of the "four species," and the satisfaction that comes with building something with your own hands, no matter how simple, or how temporary. Because all of our lives our temporary. We build them with our hands, live in them for a while, and after that, our souls go back to a more permanent place, to the eternity from which they came. These bodies are our Sukkahs, this planet a beautiful desert, teeming with life and danger, for which we should be fantastically grateful for the privilege to inhabit for even the shortest period of time. For we are the luckiest we could ever be. Right now. In this moment. No matter how bad things around us may seem. And we must always remember, too, that we do not build our lives alone. It takes many hands, and the help and guidance of others, even as we help them. We must remember to let other people in sometimes, and not shut them out and try to live in our Sukkahs alone. Because when we do that, then we truly become less than we could be, and we don't live up to the commandments to live, to enjoy life, and to be a part of the human community.
So if anyone wants to help me build a Sukkah, this year, or any year, feel free. And thank you to all my friends and neighbors who have been there to help me build this Sukkah of my life, which I am grateful to have for this tiny little time that I am here.
It was not for lack of opportunity. It was weeks ago that someone first mentioned the idea of helping build a Sukkah, and it came up repeatedly since then, but I found that, on each occasion, I found some excuse not to go. Finally, I spoke to a friend on Friday, and we made some sort of arrangement for me to accompany her to help with a sukkah-building, but bad communication ensued, and I did not get the information I needed to get there.
All I had when I woke up on Sunday (today) October 12th was the knowledge that right then, on that day, thousands of Jews were building Sukkahs on a beautiful day in the East Bay, and a strong desire to join them, but no actual, definitive plans to do so.
So what did I do? I waited for my friend to call me, and she never did. That's because she had left her phone at home, and assumed that I had gotten her email, which I hadn't, because I was waiting for her to call me. So there it goes.
I had to be content with building something, metaphorically, in my own mind. But what I really wanted to be doing was building something with my hands. I wanted to be involved in a group activity that involved several people working together to build a physical structure that eventually would come to mean something. It made me yearn slightly for my college days, working in the theatre, where I enjoyed nothing more than walking around a pile of planks with a power drill, putting pieces of wood together to make a stage set. Or using power saws or a chainsaw to carve pieces of woo into the exact right shape so that someone could come along and say, "I know what that is." It's process and product. It's something you can't do on a computer, and you can't do it alone. It's a communal activity, and the result is something you can't see, but it is evident all the same, and everyone knows its there.
A friend at work made a comment recently that he fasted this past Yom Kippur, which he hadn't done in a while, and even though he hadn't felt strongly about it at the outset, he found that it had some definite effects on his mind, in how it made him think about his actions, his eating, and how it made him aware of controlling his desires for a certain purpose. I had the same feeling. And I think a similar result occurs with building a Sukkah, as with all physical actions we take up in Judaism.
And some of those actions may seem random. I mean, after all, why build a temporary structure in your back yard and live in it for several days? I mean, the Torah can tell us why, and tradition can give us all kinds of reasons, but really, why? The answer is, nobody really knows. All we really know, is that we do it because we are told to do it. But the way I see it, it's kind of like a parent telling a child to do something. Maybe the child doesn't really know why he or she is being told to clean his room. All he knows is that if he doesn't, he won't get his allowance, or some other such bonus. So he does it. And he finds out, later in life, that the real reward was not his allowance in that moment, but rather a sense of duty, of fulfilling obligations, of having discipline, and also having a clean room, or a clean house. And all of these things benefit not just him, but everyone around him. Or her.
It's the same with a Sukkah, I believe. The result is, immediately, a concrete structure. But that in itself is not the only reward. The reward is also the community you build along with it. It's the symbolism of the "four species," and the satisfaction that comes with building something with your own hands, no matter how simple, or how temporary. Because all of our lives our temporary. We build them with our hands, live in them for a while, and after that, our souls go back to a more permanent place, to the eternity from which they came. These bodies are our Sukkahs, this planet a beautiful desert, teeming with life and danger, for which we should be fantastically grateful for the privilege to inhabit for even the shortest period of time. For we are the luckiest we could ever be. Right now. In this moment. No matter how bad things around us may seem. And we must always remember, too, that we do not build our lives alone. It takes many hands, and the help and guidance of others, even as we help them. We must remember to let other people in sometimes, and not shut them out and try to live in our Sukkahs alone. Because when we do that, then we truly become less than we could be, and we don't live up to the commandments to live, to enjoy life, and to be a part of the human community.
So if anyone wants to help me build a Sukkah, this year, or any year, feel free. And thank you to all my friends and neighbors who have been there to help me build this Sukkah of my life, which I am grateful to have for this tiny little time that I am here.
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