Days of Awe, Days of Sadness

As I write, Rosh Hashanah is less than a week away. Full disclosure: mu parents were mostly gastronomical Jews – holidays were more about meals and family gatherings, and less about religious obligation, God or ritual. The High Holy Days were the (mostly) exception to this rule.

Don't get me wrong – we still had the huge meal, inhaled in mere seconds, or so it seemed. Every year we promised that while the  next year may not be in Jerusalem (and we were mostly sure that we were referencing the wrong holiday, but we said it anyway, because it was Jewish and . Me us seem mostly knowledgeable) we would at least create more space between the courses, eat more slowly, and maybe – just maybe – cut a course or two. That never happened, Still, once a year, we all gathered – the immediate family, extended family of grandparents, aunts uncles, cousins from both sides, along with anystray friends with nowhere to go.

More, on these days – two for Rosh Hashanah and one for Yom Kippur, we all went to synagogue. There were no kid services, no family services. There were new dresses and shoes, and mom hauled out the brimmed hats and good jewlery. Dad did the suit and tie and my brothers were forced into their ouw suits, with ties the sixe of Texas and colors that ran the spectrum. Hey, it was the 60s and 70s; what would you expect?

So, you'll understand my love for these days, these Days of Awe – they are about gathering and connecting and loving and jostling about and food and family. And these days, as I have chosen to dive more fully into my own Judaism, they are also about obligation and ritual and God. And, oh! how I love that my Judaism holds sacred space for both expressions!

I accept that, by training, the High Holy Days are reserved for family (whether you like 'em or not, and on these days, whatever the feuds may be, they are set aside for these gatherings as much as possible, even though flare ups were bound to happen, and provided some amount of theater to the long and sometimes boring dinners), just as I accept that I have been commanded by God to be present for ancient prayer, sacred music, the afflcting of my soul. On that first day of Rosh Hashanah, I know that then the shofar sounds, I have both satisfied the commandment that I hear the shofar and that the service is just about over. I am a Jew with feet in both worlds.

Unfortunately, I also know – have known for the past eight years – that my brother literally took his last breath as the shofar sounded on that first day of Rosh Hashanah. We were all gathered, not around my brother's crowded dining room table, but his haspital room. He was not conscious, not on those last handful of days, but we were there, to talk to him, talk to one anohter, let kim know (please God, let him know!) that he was, ever and always, surrounded by love.

We played his sacred music on that last day, the first day of the new year – music from the Broadway stage. He, my other brother and I had grown up on this music, had spent our summers on the stage, performing our hearts out to the music of Gershwin and Berlin, Rogers and Hammerstein and Hart. The last show we played for him was Once Upon a Mattress, the first show he was eer in. It was during “Yesterday I Loved You” that he suddenly opened his eyes for just a flash, took a shallow breath and died. The shofar sounded at that exact moment in a room down the hallway.

Rosh Hashanah: what a busy and joyous jumble of a day! The Book of Life and Death is opened and the Gates of Justice swing wide. 1It's the birthday of the world. We stand with awe and trepidation as we undertake the breathtaking majesty of diving inwards, a deep and long and solitary dive, into murky waters that make us gasp and shiver with cold. But eventually, the water warms and the silt and grit settle and we learn to see, to shine a light on the inside, all the beauty, all the pain, all the hope and need.

It is all about redemption.

This day is redemption and majesty and reflection and God.  It is joy and celebration and hope and...

Whatever this day is, whatever the ritual and tradition that surrounds this day may be, what it is, what Rosh Hashanah and all the Days of Awe will ever and always be, is my brother's yahrzeit. And year after year, for all the pomp and circumstance of Rosh Hashanah, for all my yearning for redemption and God, drowning out the music and prayer and the triumphant sounding of the shofar that opened the Book and flung wide the Gate - all I could hear was the steady cadence of "This is the anniversary of my brother's death."

So yo'll understand, I hope, this is one of those days that I am less forgiving of God.

I know - absolutely know - that God is not at fault in this. God didn't set the butterfly's wings to flapping that ended in the hurricane of my brother's death. There was no Divine Plan here. Randy smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, existing on equal parts caffeine and nicotine. He was diagnosed with Stage Four metastatic, inoperable and incurable lung cancer when he was 45, and died when he was 47. Not a day goes by that I don't miss him, though I don't think of him every day as I once did. Stretches of time go by-- a handful of days, a week maybe, and I will suddenly stop, feeling the ache of his loss like a stitch in my side, sharp and hot, receding into a dull throb until it is more memory than real. My breath doesn't quite catch in my throat when I think of him. Mostly.

He died because he smoked. He died because he got cancer. But he died on that day, eight years ago. On Rosh Hashanah, the day of pomp and circumstance and joy and celebration. On that day, there in the hospital, the Book was laid open and the Gates swung wide and my brother died, all in the space of tekiyah.  And so these Days have suddenly become hard. And I am suddenly less forgiving of God.

And for all of that, when I stood in prayer and my knees began to buckle from the weight of my sorrow, when I was filled with an ocean of pain and loss, when I wanted to curse God-- when I did curse God - there were hands that reached out to hold me steady, and strong arms to carry me through to firm ground. When I demanded of God, to God-- where the hell are You? I was answered: here. No farther than the nearest heartbeat, in the still small voices of all those around me, who showed me, again and again, that I was not alone. Even in my pain, even in my doubt and despair, I was not alone.
In my faith, in my prayer, what I find, again and again - what I am given, again and again, is grace. What I get is strength and courage to face what life has placed in front of me in that moment... even if that thing is the death of my beloved brother. My faith is not a guarantee that I will never know fear, or that only good and happy things will happen. My faith, my prayer allows me to put one foot in front of the other and know that I will be carried through. And in that exact moment, the moment I take that step, I am enough and I am redeemed.

And in that moment, I dance in the palm of God's hand.


For my brother, Randy (z'l)
May we all dance in the palm of God's hand



L'shana tova u'metukah
May you have a good and sweet year

15 Elul 5773: Learn

Every Friday morning-- at least every Friday morning that we're both in town, which, during the summer can be a challenge-- every Friday morning, before the workday begins, for the last two years, I get to start the day in study with my Rabbi. I treasure those sessions. We sit at a wobbly table at a local Subway, eating our salads for breakfast, then take out the Sefer Aggadah, and dive in. We read and talk.  Discuss. Wander far afield. Disagree occasionally. Discover always.

Learn.

We're doing it in Hebrew, That is, I'm reading and translating the Hebrew.Needless to say, my Hebrew is-- how shall I say it-- not so much good. After two years, we're only up to Chava. He claims I'm improving. He is very kind, my rabbi is. One of these days, I want to write a book about our study sessions. I have a title already: Conversations of the Chasid and the Musar. I'll leave it to you to figure out which one of us is the Chasid, which the Musar (not that either of us is actually one or the other-- but we tend to approach our discussion from pretty consistently, he from one perspective, me from another. I like to call it twin sides of the same coin-- one is all outward exhilaration, dancing a joyous and celebratory path, the other is a more inward dive, a path of quieter contemplation. Both of our paths lead us to God.)

I can't imagine having a better way to start my day (that it is also just before Shabbat is an added bonus). I would be a professional student if I could. I don't know that there are many (any?) subjects I wouldn't want to jump into, splash around in the ideas and equations and arguments they have to offer. I want to learn the intricate beauty of fractals and string theory, understand the tragedy of ancient Rome and modern Egypt, Picasso's use of blue and Alinsky's use of direct action. I want to learn everything.

Sigh. I'm going to guess that that's one wish that will remain unfulfilled.

What I have managed to learn is astounding. Yes, yes-- I'm a school wonk, a study geek. I got me some book learning. The amount of minutiae and esoteric scholarly stuff that I've forgotten -- let alone learned -- would keep me awake at night if I ever thought about it. It may or may not have helped me in my actual life. Trust me: I'm not so sure that my PhD work in Early Modern English history was a relevant factor in landing me my job (Not directly, at least. Let's not get into the debate on how learning to think and write critically makes me who I am. I get that in spades) (And it has been helpful-- all of my training in history-- as a Jewish educator, so there's that).

The trick is, especially now, as I make my way through Elul to the promised land of the new year, the trick is recognizing the important learning that I've done. There's been a truckload of that, too. Let me break it down some.

I have learned

• There's nothing so bad that a drink won't make worse
• Sometimes the people you love will fail you. Remember that they are human, and sometimes, humans fail. 
• Sometimes the people you love offer a hand to hold in the darkness and shine a light so that you can find your way.
• Sometimes this is done by complete strangers
• Sometimes life is pretty crappy
• Even in the crappy stuff, there are moments of sudden brilliance and wonder
• It's ok to yell at God. Dometimes it's the only prayer we have to offer. God appreciates the conversation and loves a good argument
• I have wounded people I love dearly
• There's a difference between humility and humiliation; I get to choose where I stand in that
• I have two families-- the one into which I was born, and the one I have chosen along the way. Today I am grateful for both
• Pray to God, but row towards shore
• Practice kindness. It matters
• So does compassion
• The dictum "If you don't open it, you don't owe it" and its corollary "If you ignore it long enough, it goes away" are not true. No matter how much I'd like for them to be.
• Read some, study some, laugh some, learn some-- every day. It makes your heart full and keeps your soul dancing
• It's all Torah. Really
• I'm ok with contradictions.
• Life will not always turn out the way I want it to. 
• My best intentions will not always produce the outcomes I plan on
• Some learning is hard. 
• My son has taught me everything I know about love, patience and God. Not necessarily in that order.

There's more. There's always more. That's another thing I've learned: there's always something next, something after. It's the Scheherazade syndrome (I just made that up): life happens, a whirling, swirling mess o' life, filled with adventure and boredom and love and betrayal-- and at the end of every day, I sit, like the King in 1001 Nights and say "Not bad. I guess we'll do it one more time, see what happens next."

I am blessed beyond belief. That was a hard lesson to learn. I am grateful for all the lessons, even the hard one (maybe especially the hard one). I am grateful to all my teachers. I can't wait to see where my learning takes me next...