The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Judaism

Wrestling With Atonement- Yom Kippur Kraziness

I am willing to bet that few people have written a post about Yom Kippur while listening to Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music. It is not really the sort of music that one thinks about as setting a proper mood for introspection but it happens to be what is playing on iTunes right now. In another moment I’ll shift gears and put on something more appropriate, but this will work for now.

In a relatively short period of time the sun will rise and set and rise and set and another Yom Kippur will have come and gone. And so I find myself sitting in the dark contemplating what it all means to me and what I have learned.

I’ll start out by quoting from Moments When I feel Closest To G-d:

“I have written a number of times about my struggles with G-d, how I Yelled
at G-d and the challenges I have had with davening. If you are really interested you can read more here, here and here. There are probably a couple more links but that is enough time shilling for my own blog.

If you are here you are probably interested in what I have to say or trapped beneath a heavy object and unable to do move away from the keyboard. If you are trapped and without an internet connection I encourage you to search for meaning in what I say, I do all the time because what is the purpose of living if there is no meaning in life.

That is not really tongue in cheek, it is just my wry sense of humor saying that we all need to find a reason to be here and that it is an individual thing that does not have to mirror your neighbor.”

I used to dislike Yom Kippur immensely. I didn’t really find meaning in it. It was a day that seemed to be predicated upon enduring being uncomfortable. I didn’t find the davening to be significant, meaningful or interesting. Most of the people around me spent the time in shul complaining about something and few had anything positive to say.

At some point that feeling changed, but I can’t say when. I have been trying to figure out when and what changed, but it is like grabbing smoke. The harder I try the harder it is to determine. So if you’ll bear with me I am going to to just ramble a bit.

Unetaneh Tokef grabs me

“On Rosh Hashanah it is written and Yom Kippur it is sealed
How many shall pass on and how many shall come to be;
who shall live and who shall die;
who shall see ripe old age and who shall not;
who shall perish by fire
and who by water;
who by sword and who by beast;
who by hunger and who by thirst;”

Part of me shrugs my shoulder at it all. It is easy to blow it off and say that people die, earthquakes happen, fires burn and the world goes on. Certainly I won’t say that divine punishment is the reason for natural disasters. Neither will I say that some people die early because of some unknowable divine plan. That is not how I roll.

But I have come to appreciate setting aside time to sit down and take a hard look at my life. It is not always easy to engage in that sort of introspection, to take a hard look at the good and the bad. And that is what I do.

I try to take time to consider who I am. I am a flawed individual. There are many things that I need to improve upon. It would be unfair, unreasonable and unwarranted to suggest otherwise. I have made mistakes that I am very sorry for. I have traveled upon some dark roads that I wish that I could have avoided.

I don’t expect to find salvation by admitting all my sins. I don’t believe that with a few words they can all just be forgiven and washed away. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Neither do I believe that I should engage in endless self-flagellation for them.

What I will try to do is the best I can to improve. I’ll do what I can not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to try and be better for the future. A large part of that effort will be spent on trying to help my children avoid the pitfalls that I fell for and into. It was a challenging year, but that is how it goes.

So here we are at the end of the post. Have I learned anything more about myself? Nope. Not sure that I have done much other than babble. But I am a believer in the exercise so if I am still blogging you can expect to see this kind of post again.

And for what it is worth, if I have offended or upset you my sincere apologies.

G’mar Chatima Tova. I wish you an easy fast. May you be inscribed and sealed.

A Tale of Two Widowers

This is the sort of post that I struggle to write. I struggle because I have a story to tell and I want to convey the message in a particular way but I am not quite sure how to do it. It is a story of life and death, of the power and pain of love.

It is moments like this where I wish that I could write music because such a tale deserves an appropriate soundtrack. A full orchestra that could impart the highs and lows of this story because I am not quite sure that I can do it justice. Since that is just not possible I am going to do my best to fumble my way through this. All I can do try my best to catch the Silver man, so here we go.

Just a few short hours ago I was at a holiday dinner with my family. The table was covered in with a beautiful linen table cloth and adorned with china and silver. Several assortments of flowers were spread out throughout the table. And of course there were lots of guests surrounding the table.

Now I could tell you about the peals of laughter emanating from children like silver bells or I could share the sounds of my grandparents and relatives discussing the election and the rabbi’s sermon. It wouldn’t be hard because those are probably things that you can relate to.

But then I might miss out on sharing a tale of two widowers. Two men who lost their wives roughly a year ago. Two men who sat at the table and enjoyed the meal, but whose eyes and words revealed the depth of the pain of loss.

It seems unfair that I can’t tell you their individual stories because it is. It is unfair because they lost the light in their candle long before they ever expected to see them go dark. It is unfair because it is unfair. Sometimes evil people live much longer lives than good people. It is unfair because life is unfair.

And it bothers me that I have to teach my children that no matter what we do life will never be fair. It bothers me that I have to teach my children about death and that no matter what they or anyone else does, they will experience death. One day the people they love the most will be gone and all they will have left will be memories.

But I’ll do my best to teach my children to seek the positive side of all this. If the loss doesn’t hurt than there is a problem. I have often thought that to a certain extent you can expect the loss to be as painful as the love was joyful.

I spoke with both of these men at different times this evening and I spoke with both of these men during shiva calls. And part of what struck me is how deeply they loved their wives and how their losses wounded them.

At separate moments they both made a point of telling me to make sure that I truly live my life because the person I love most could unexpectedly be taken from me. It is a theft like no other. I can’t say that I truly understand what they are going through, but I can say that I am convinced that the hardest pain to deal with is mental pain.

You can always find a way to get around the physical pain, but mental pain is a harder nut to crack. How do you turn off your memory. How do you forget and would you really want to.

So I find myself lost in thought about the words that they shared with me and how to apply them to my life. I don’t want to wake up and say that I failed to live my dreams because I failed to try. It is one thing to have tried and failed and another to have never done so.

I can find a way to live with the failure of having tried and been unsuccessful, but I don’t think that I can live with never having tried. Someday is a great way to put off the future, but someday doesn’t always come.

And so I find myself pondering the new year with similar thoughts and questions to those I had last year. If I have any sort of resolution it is to make a greater effort to live my dreams and to do the things that I need to do to have a happier and more meaningful life because you really don’t know when it might all come crashing down upon you.

Crossposted here.

Why Me? Rosh Hashanah Thoughts

Why Me? Why Me. Why me!

Language is ever so interesting to me. Words can do so much to communicate thoughts and feelings. All it takes is a bit of effort to craft a sentence that let’s the reader know what is on your mind. When you phrase it like that it sounds ever so easy.

All…It…Takes…Is…A…Little…Effort.

As if the failure to properly express yourself can be attributed to your not trying hard enough. I try. I try really hard. I won’t lie and say that I do every time because I don’t. I am lucky in that I can usually get by with less. But that can be attributed to years of practice and some sort of natural ability.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many others out there who are much finer writers than myself. I know and accept that. The trick is trying to outwork the others. The rub is knowing that with a little hard work I can improve. The question is merely whether I am willing to put in the extra effort.

All of this is a long winded preface to some thoughts about the coming new year. Before I jump into it I am going to link to some prior posts on or related to the topic. It is a silly trick I use to give myself a moment to consider what I am about to write.

The Impact of My Actions
Unetanah tokef
Yom Kippur- Besheret- Judgment & More
Another Day, Another Funeral- It is Elul
The New Year
Rosh Hashanah Thoughts

Free association posts are among my favorites. Hint for those who do not follow, I am still considering what I want to say. So I’ll do what I do best and just dive into this.

This time of year always leaves me unsettled. Life feels like a contradiction. I feel comfortable with myself and completely at a loss. I look in the mirror and ask if I am the person I should be. If I say no I tell myself I am being too hard and if I say yes I ask why I must live in denial.

There is no right answer, I cannot win because I am my own biggest critic. As a compromise I remind myself that I am imperfect and that my father is right, all you can do is your best. Well, I am doing my best, but in some areas it hasn’t been good enough.

Some people tell me not to worry, that I am part of a bigger plan, but I have problems with ambiguous remarks like that. They make you feel good because you can sigh and just live because G-d will take care of you. The problem is that I see too many things that make no sense.

Blog friends who have lost children, family friends who have died far too young and my own share of friends who have been taken well before their time.

Don’t tell me that G-d has a plan. I can’t go to a bereaved parent and tell them that it is going to be ok. When we buried ‘D’ I shook with anger. In between the time he died and the birth of my children I struggled to accept that there was any sort of higher power.

‘D’ was amazing. He was someone who lived life with a purpose. He was a scientist who had incredible ideas about how we could change things and improve life for everyone. He was going to make a difference in the world. He would have changed things and now he is dead, ten years in the ground.

What sort of plan takes him away and lets the BTK maniac run around. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I can accept free will. I can accept a world in which we are granted the opportunity to be good, or evil or anywhere in between.

But a plan, nah, that I cannot do.

I can look in the mirror and yell about all the things that are unfair in life. I can cry because it seems that everyone else seems to get that brass ring. They get to lead the life that I want. I can look at them and say that it is clear that they are so much happier than I am. I can point and say that once again I am stuck on the outside looking in.

Except that when I talk to friends who are leading these amazing lives most tell me that they are not so amazing. There is always something that is serving as the fly in their ointment. So maybe I can be content in knowing that we all have our struggles, or maybe not.

I suppose that part of what I find so unsettling about this time of year is that I can give a long list of people who have died. It is probably no different from any other time of year, but still it affects me.

“On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall die,

Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not,

Who shall perish by water and who by fire,

Who by sword and who by wild beast,

Who by famine and who by thirst,

Who by earthquake and who by plague,

Who by strangulation and who by stoning,

Who shall have rest and who shall wander,

Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued,

Who shall be at rest and who shall be tormented,

Who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low,

Who shall become rich and who shall be impoverished.

But repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severe decree.”

In the end I come back to the same place year after year. It doesn’t serve any purpose to argue about whether we should be good because G-d tells us too. I still believe that you do not have to have religion to be a moral and ethical person.

I try to live that way because it is the right thing to do, not because I may be rewarded. I try to live that way because life is better when we are nice to each other. It is simplistic and a bit self righteous, but it works for me.

And in the end we all have to figure out how to live in a manner that works for us as individuals and collectively.

Tisha B’Av- 2008

Sometimes the words flow from my fingertips through the keyboard and onto the screen. Sometimes they say exactly what I want them to say, their meaning is clear and I am happy. But sometimes they fail to convey what I need or want them to share, their meaning is garbled and unclear.

It can be a terribly frustrating experience, but it sometimes serves as a good reminder to take a moment and consider what is taking place around me. Tisha B’Av is a day that I use to reflect and remember and to look forward upon that which is coming.

I don’t know why, but I am reminded of some of the lyrics from Graceland:

“There is a girl in New York City,
Who calls herself the human trampoline,
And sometimes when I’m falling flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Whoa so this is what she means,
She means we’re bouncing into Graceland,
And I see losing love
Is like a window in your heart,
Everybody sees you’re blown apart,
Everybody feels the wind blow,”

Scratch that, I know why I thought of it. A dear friend of my parents is in the midst of tremendous turmoil. Last year he lost the person he cared for most and now he is lost and unsure. A grown man, unsteady on his feet and although his eyes are open his vision has been stolen from him.

Heartbreak can do that to you. A broken heart can make you lose the ability to feel the warmth of the sun and to see the blue of the skies. A broken heart can make you question all that you are and all that you thought you would be.

Tisha B’Av reminds me of heartbreak on many levels, like I said it is a day that I use for thought. I could write more, but I think for now I’ll share some pieces of some old posts with you instead.

“Shabbos may be spiritual and religious in nature, but let’s face it. A group of teens on their own in a foreign country, there is bound to be some activity because we were all on hormonal overdrive.

So I was a bit surprised with my reaction to our first Shabbos in country. It began with a walk from the base to the Old City, the Kotel was our destination. I remember parts of it well. The conversation I had with a very dear friend stands out to me, some of the buildings and people do too.

But it wasn’t until we began walking over the rooftops in the Old City that I began to notice that there was something special in the air. It wasn’t until we got closer to the Kotel itself that I really began to feel something.

It was the connection that I had felt there earlier in the week. The bond that I felt towards all the other Jews in the plaza who were davening and the unmistakable feeling that G-d was there with me, us, them, everyone.

It was stronger than it had been before.

It was almost surreal.

I felt like I was in some kind of science-fiction movie in which I was traveling through time and space. It sounds goofy, but I really did feel like I was standing in the same place that I had been in thousands of years before and at the same time experiencing it for the first time.

And more than anything else I was pleased to feel like I was part of the group, I was in on the secret. I was happy to be able to daven with kavanah and real belief and not to sitting there waiting for Maariv to end. It wasn’t a chore to be endured but a pleasure.

It was just one more piece of chain that brought me back into the fold that made me believe again. This is a story that really could be much longer and much more eloquent and to some extent I feel that I am not doing it justice because how I can share something like
this, how can I explain something that tugs at places so deep inside you don’t know that they exist.

If I was a man of brevity I would end this tale here, but there is too much to share, too much to say and I need to add another moment or two to my story.

The next morning at Shacharit I was a little disappointed because that feeling from the night before was fading. It was like an amazing dream, the kind that you wish would never end so you try to go back to sleep and get it back, hold onto it so that it doesn’t disappear. But trying to do that with a dream is a little bit like grabbing a fistful of water, no matter how tight your grip it spills out from a million different places.

I can remember daydreaming, lost in thought of the night before. We had danced with reckless abandon and sung out loud, almost shouting the prayers, but still with reverence. There was a power and an energy. As I look back I realize that it was a little bit like being buzzed, there was a high and I fed off of it. All week I waited for Shabbos to return so that I could experience it again and each time I got lost in the moment. I began to wonder if this feeling was going to be limited in time and place. I got my answer a little later.

It was Tisha B’AV and we were in the hills overlooking the Old City. We read Eicha and discussed the burning of the Temple, the sack of Jerusalem and the moment made a huge impact upon me. I could look out on the city and picture the flames, in my mind Jerusalem was burning. I could hear the screams of the women and children, smell the fear and feel the greed of the invaders.

I might have cried, but I couldn’t tell you for certain. I was so caught up in the moment, so enthralled and so amazed that something could move me that way.

The next day we returned to the Kotel and again I lost myself in the crowd, but this time I made my way amongst the crowd to the wall itself and just lay my head against it. My eyes were closed and my hands caressed the stone.

Time passed and the end of the trip grew closer. I began to get anxious about returning to Los Angeles because Jerusalem had become home to me. If I could have I would have stayed. I would have stayed indefinitely.”

I am spent. Here is one more link. I’ll be back later: Eicha- An Aching Heart Mumbles.

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