Act - Elul Day Two

I do not particularly like to admit that, for this past year, I have been curiously passive. I have responded and reacted far more than I have acted. I have allowed the forces of Chance and Capriciousness to make their marks upon me more often than not. More often than was good for me.

To be honest, they've left me rather bruised and somewhat battered.

I do not like to admit that, sometimes, over this past year, it was so much easier to rack up those bruises than to decide. To pick or choose or move or act. I hate to admit that, for this past year, sometimes staying in bed sang a siren call so sweetly, lulling me into just one more Pajama Day, just one more time. What could it hurt?

Well, um, actually - me. All that battering and bruising - all the doubt and panic and passivity, all the stuckness and immobility damaged me. Every time I waited, every time I watched and let life role over and through, come what may, it became easier to let it. Most times, it didn't matter - six of one, half dozen of the other. Or, at least, close enough not to matter.

It became so easy, that when it mattered, when I really needed to act, I couldn't. Didn't.

It's one thing to do this to myself. It's quite another when my inaction - as it so inevitably did - singed so many others around me. Letters didn't get mailed, forms didn't get signed. Calls weren't returned on time.  I showed up in body, my spirit stayed somewhere locked away, passively waiting for the other shoe to drop, yet always surprised when it did. I fooled myself into believing I was showing up enough for the people I love.

Mostly, I was just hollow.

I have a lot of clean up to do. How apropos, to realize all of this now, as we enter this season of separating what I would like to believe of myself from who I really am. I don't have to dive too deep in this one. When I abdicate the need or ability to act, I don't just give up control, it is not just me who gets tossed about on the rocks. It is everyone around me, and the closer they spin to my orbit, the more scraped and skinned their knees become.

The good news - I haven't passively waited for this season to change, to realize that all the bruising and battering was not the fault of cruel and capricious chance - much as I would like to lay blame at that particular altar. No, my wounds, and the wounds I placed on the people I love and hold dear were all due to me not acting, to me merely drifting through my life.

The beauty of Elul is the freedom to say "I am weary and afraid and I have no clue at all - but still, I will act. I will err and possibly flail about, but I will act, put one foot in front of the other and show up, even imperfectly." I think, perhaps, this is the only way to heal: act. Show up, again and again, imperfections and mistakes and weary, grudging doubt.

The Gates are open, but I gotta get there to walk through.

#blogelul

#BlogElul 2 - Act

Pray to God, but row towards shore.

I do a lot of praying these days. Not so much on the rowing. I seem to be a bit stuck. Sigh.

Don't get me wrong - I love the praying part. I get lost in the praying part. It's like finding a thread, maybe even that elusive blue thread, out of the corner of my eye, that one beautiful thread that allows you to dance along its very narrow edge - knowing that a single misstep that would cause you to fall, to be lost forever - but the joy of it, the grace of that dance is enough to carry you, with surety and ease, straight to God.

Like I said, I love that dance, and I get lost in it. But here's the thing: I don't just use that dance, that praying part, as a refuge, a safe haven in a restless, roiling sea of life, where chaos licks at a shore that is pocked and unstable, eroding faster than, well, sand in water. I use it to hide, to keep from rowing. I pretend, fingers in my ears and "la las" spilling from my lips, louder and louder to reach over the growing crash of waves that threaten to fill my tiny lifeboat and sink me, I pretend that praying is enough.

I forget, oh-so-conveniently, that I am responsible for rowing. You know the story, right? There once was a man, gentle and mindful and good, who was devoted to God. Prayed all the time. Practiced compassion and was righteous and kind. One day, while on a cruise, there was a horrible accident and this man ended up on a deserted island. The man, though, had the absolute strength of his faith, and knew, without a doubt, that God would save him. So he prayed. He prayed day and night, mostly echoing the tender, plaintive words of Moshe: Please God, save me. He felt a little uncomfortable, praying for his own redemption, but he knew that his wife and children and friends needed him, his employees needed him, and his clients and the community needed him. So he prayed.

On the second day, in the middle of his morning prayers, the man heard the distant drone of an airplane. Soon he saw it flying not far from his little island. So he prayed harder, "God, please save me!" The next day, as he prayed, he heard the sound of a chip's horn, sounding loudly, not too far off, but he refused to be distracted from his prayers. "God will save me, I know it!" Soon, he could only hear the sounds of his own prayers; the boat missed the island and continued its search for the man in other latitudes. On the third day, the man's prayers, softer now, as he was hungry and thirsty and nearing death, his prayers were interrupted by the thwap-thwap-thwap of a helicopter. The man, though, filled with the fire of his belief in the saving power of God, refused, again, to be distracted by the annoying noises around him, and he prayed all the more.

On the fourth day, the man found himself in heaven, standing before God - Creator of All Things, the Merciful Judge - and he scowled. Scowled! Oh, he was angry. "God!" he cried. "God - I have been your faithful servant, a good man. I've followed your commandments, provided for my family and my community, worked for peace, fought for justice. My faith was strong. And when I need You most, You ignored my most heartfelt pleas! Why didn't you save me?" His anger gave way to his pain.

God looked at the man with love and compassion. "But I sent you the plane, the boat, the helicopter..."

I sit in my boat, praying like mad, staring at the shore and willing it to come to me. I tell people that I am working to perfect the Telepathy App for 2014. They think I'm joking. I mostly am, but there is that small part of me, that little kid part of me - the kid with the pigtails and shiny maryjanes, who is sitting on the swings, motionless, staring at the playground full of kids, willing them - wanting them - to come near, to be next to, to care - that little kid is desperately praying: "You do it. I can't. Please."

There are times - days, months, eons that become concentrated into single instant - when I cannot act. I can only sit, watching life and the shore and the playground with utter longing. But I'm scared, and lonely and less than and vulnerable. I pray and pray and pray, but the oars absolutely defeat me. 

In my posed and poised position, I wait for release. For change. For movement. I forget, in the midst of my prayer, that it really does begin with me. Pray with your feet. Doesn't have to be a huge and boundless leap into the great unknown. A step. A single step, no matter how small, that step moves me forward. 

That is where faith lives. That is the beginning of redemption and the saving grace of God - a single step, from here to there.

This Elul, I pray. That's the easy part. But this Elul, I am reminded, that I am called to act. Through the fear and shame and guilt, and whatever else keeps me stuck and sitting alone on that swing, I must ACT. And in that action, no matter how infinitesimally small, that movement carries me closer to God and closer to you. 

Pray to God, but row towards shore...

Stacey Zisook Robinson

Elul 5774

Elul, Day Six: Do

Earlier this year, I wrote an essay about our tradition to open our doors at Passover. during the seder, when we recite HaLachma Anya: "This is the bread of our affliction; let all who hunger come and eat..." It is, perhaps, my favorite prayer. It is rare that I can say it without weeping a bit.

But it troubled me this year, and I couldn't quite pinpoint why. 

We opened the doors. We recited the words. We closed the doors. And then we got on with it. It felt, if not different, then perfunctory and unfinished. Sitting in Shabbat morning service a week later, I was struck with this thought: how utterly un-Jewish those Passover doors are.

And there it was, the source of my unease, my dissatisfaction:  Since when do we, as Jews, require that those in need come to us for aid?  Since when do we wait?

We are not a people who sit idly by.  We act.  We do.  We repair.  And we do this, when we do it most Jewishly, joyfully, purposefully.  We climb the ladder that Maimonides showed to us so that we can reach out to others-- enable others-- to become independent and productive.  And always, always, we repair our world with compassion: no shame, no fanfare, no ticker tape parades.  To wait for those in need to come to us, to announce to us their need, seems to fly in the face of our teaching.

Those doors of Passover-- so filled with hope and potential! But it is not enough to just open the door and hope. It cannot be. There is no time to wait for those who hunger, or thirst, or need to come to us. We must step through those doors, into the world, to heal and repair, to be the change we want to see. We must step through the doors of Passover, and know that, as we do, there is God-- there, exactly there. Perhaps it is there, exactly there, that we are redeemed.

This is Elul. And because it is, because I am called upon to reflect and prepare and return, I wonder: did I do enough? 

I don't want to be like the man who, upon hearing the catalog of human suffering and hatred-- war and famine and  despair not least among them-- cries out to God: "How can You allow this to happen, God?" only to hear God's reply as a still small voice from deep inside himself, "How can you?"

I will not fix the world. Not on my own, anyway. But I cannot wait for the world to fix itself. I cannot wait for someone else to bring healing or hope. It is my task to do. To act. To open the door and step through...