I ask forgiveness

I deeply apologize.  I could have done better.

For the sharp comments and irritable retorts. 

For the cranky mornings and frustrating indecisiveness, I’m sorry. 

For the moments of impatience, cutting off without really listening, and assuming without hearing, I could have done better.

For the unanswered emails, forgotten birthday cards, and delayed calls to keep in touch.  For the friendships that slipped behind errands and plans unmade due to laziness, I apologize.  For the times when you needed an ear, a hug, a hand to hold, and I wasn’t there.  For the connections lost without required tending and support asked for that I didn’t hear, I’m sorry. 

For the fear, panic, worry and heartache I’ve caused.  For the times together marred by my worn-out craziness; for the rigidity I can carry in my wake, I could have done better.

For tossing aside the blessing of life, invincible faith to choose familiar over right, I’m sorry.  For the expired rules I blindly follow and the childhood fears I grasp without reason.  For the anxiety over the mundane as I miss the sweet blossoms; for the aimless obsessiveness and automatic rituals, I apologize.  For the doubts that halt my footsteps and the self-criticisms that mute my voice; for the lip service to ideals and the promises absent of action, I could have done better.

For the wasted minutes of worry and the pits of overwhelm I easily slide down.  For taking for granted the blessing of breath, limbs that move, and a beating heart.  For misplacing priorities in favor of tired habits and putting off growth for tomorrow, I could have done better.

For all of the ways I may have hurt you, known and those I don’t even realize, I ask for your forgiveness.

For all of the ways I have cut myself off from bliss, abused my blessings, and lost sight of my dreams, I ask for my own forgiveness.

I could have done better. 

I hope, plan, and intend to do better in the coming year.

The Case for Fasting

I used to argue my case for fasting, fervently citing ritual and tractate, claiming spirituality as my motivation rather than an excuse to have a calorie-free day.  It wasn’t all a life.  I wanted to be a member of my tribe, beat my chest remorsefully along with my community and share the hunger pains of late Yom Kippur afternoon. I believed that fasting could be holy, a setting apart, a focusing on the holy rather than the mundane.  But for me, the larger truth was that I wanted an anorexic’s freebie day.

I was 20 the last Yom Kippur I fasted, already a veteran patient at eating disorder treatment centers and hospitals.  I was 20 and home from college for the High Holidays, arguing with parents who feared for my life on a daily basis.  As I pled my case, they rebutted with worries that fasting would in fact keep me out of the book of life, that not eating was choosing a slow death rather than opting for another year of life.  I knew the allowances for the sick, elderly and children, that fasting didn’t apply if health was an issue.  My parents were right.  If fasting symbolized a sacrifice, a step away from the norm in the direction of holiness, then for me, eating was more meaningful than fasting.  But at the age of 20, I was to starved and stubborn to concede their points or admit the reasons behind my staunch desire to fast.  I held my self-destructive ground and spent the day light-headed in shul, bowing and remorseful, chanting communal sins while beating my bony chest. 

And so, aside from the services, it was no different from any other day.

My light-bulb moment wasn’t at the blast of the shofar or the closing Nehila prayers.  It wasn’t the sermon that moved me to tears but rather the break-fast later among family and friend.  It had been a bitter day for me, knowing the insane hypocrisy of begging for another year of life while having spent the past 365 days actively tossing aside that very precious gift.  I was afraid to pray for healing, too ashamed to make vows of recovery as I stood on too many years of broken promises and identical Yom Kippur reflections.  But as I stood from the sidelines and watched my family fill plates with warm kugel, bagels and lox, and all the Jewish comfort foods I loved, a small light flickered within.  My personal fast never ended.  There was no break-fast celebration for me.  There was no end date where my inner calculator shut off and my starving dictator was muted.  There was no meal where I freely filled my plate and rejoined the land of the living.  I listened to the laughter and praises to the chef as I cried out my first true prayer of the day.

Please Hashem, help me choose life.  Guide me toward healing and end this perpetual fast that keeps me far away from you, locked in a tiny life. With gratitude for the million second chances, please grant me this moment, this chance to taste freedom, this opportunity to take a bite of my mother’s kugel as a step toward life.

This year I’ll be at services with my community, making my amends and atoning for my sins.  This year I’ll beat my chest and desperately plead for my name to be sealed in the book of life. This year I still need to do better, take bigger bites and farther steps. 

This year I’ll find my holiness in a full belly and experience as much spirituality in the sounding of the shofar as in the taste of my lunch. 

Exactly what I was looking for

It never ceases to amaze me as the unexpected teacher arrives, when the words swirl into my heart, freshly brewed as exactly the message I need to hear.  I’m always surprised when my sour first impression fills with sweetness and I’m reminded again how book covers rarely capture the story’s poetry. 


I was rushing, later than I planned, panicking over a missed self-imposed arrival time.  I was late for a petty reason I abhor – can’t decide what to wear – and then my inability to walk away from unwashed dishes or the bathroom floor that all of a sudden demanded immediate swiffering. Stupid.  And when I’m late, anxiety sets in, even in the absence of consequences; simply the act of rushing becomes my pavlovian panic bell.  I’m trying to practice deep breathing as I hike up seven flights of stairs, not knowing that the Rosh Hashanah services I’m searching for are on the second floor.  Note: Should really include floor number on direction sign instead of merely “Stairs to services”. 

I find a seat, saving one for my even later friend, and close my eyes, trying to find a width for prayer, for calmness to open a connection for spirituality.  But after 20 minutes in a sparsely filled women’s section of dry chanting and mumbled Hebrew, I’m inching towards the door. To the background of the shofar, I wondered what I was expecting?  I don’t belong to a shul, and no place ever seems to have the right ingredients of passion, holiness, music, meaning, familiarity and community to deliver the warm “Lauren” specialty I crave.  No service is going to deliver instant fulfillment, light bulb moments flashing by the second.  I keep my tush in my chair and try to locate my own door to spirituality.  But then I followed the trail of congregants into an ‘alternative class’ and while fighting the ‘bad Jew’ guilt of opting for lecture over services; I shifted in the hard plastic chairs and found what I was looking for. 

With humor and the casual manner of a young Rabbi, this man captured my attention and spoke with an honesty that struck me deep into the place of stirring change and motivating action.  He made the day come alive, brought G-d into this Day of Judgment, and handed me old lessons rewrapped to fit the missing pieces in my life today.  He spoke of pausing to take stock, and the gift of a Judgment that withholds decrees for another ten days.  He made it personal, telling tales of his own neurotic craziness and how he wants turn to G-d before the crisis and not only once disaster has brought him to his knees. 

There was more during the hour I listened; more lessons I wish I could have jotted down, knowing that there were too many jewels lacing his words and that they would blend and fade by the time I got home.  I forced myself to simply be, to stop taking stock myself, to wait until later to ponder the places in my life that need renovating, the lessons that I still haven’t learned.  But the catch phrase that keeping bouncing between my brain, even two days later, is this: Are you willing to be ‘woken up’ no matter what?  Even if it means suffering and pain, loss and tears?  This was why I came to services that day.  This is what I needed to hear – again.  This is the lesson that burrows between my routines and widens the doorways of holiness.  It’s time to wake up –no matter how many fears and scrapes that journey may hold. With gratitude, I head home, eyes wide open, opting for a contemplative afternoon at the park rather than mindless errands that all can wait.  I head home blessed with the next week to sift through my prior days and pull out the weeds by the root.  I know that the motivation will dissipate and pearls of wisdom will get lost in the shuffle.  I still find myself distracted with moving and organizing just hours later, and remind myself that change still counts even in small increments. 

But the teacher arrived, and I was in my seat.  In a room full of strangers, I was among community as I found exactly what I was looking for.  

Coming Home

I found the yellowed clipped article tucked between baby pictures and frayed friendship bracelets.  It was a photo from when I was ten presenting my construction paper tzedakah(charity) box to the head of the Phoenix Jewish Federation.  I had collected my dimes and proudly handed over my accumulated allowance to support Project Exodus, the campaign to save the Ethiopian Jews.  I’m sure my $26.14 made a huge difference, but the bigger question is why I was so inspired to help at age 10. 

Yes, it was a great cause, providing support and aid to help Jews immigrate to Israel.  Yes, my mother was a very active volunteer in the Jewish Federation, which is how I heard about it in the first place.  But I’d never been to Israel nor met any of these refugees. There had been other campaigns and causes that lacked homemade coin boxes.  So what was the difference here?

It was home.  The campaign ad crooned heartfelt lyrics as the desperate families deplaned and kissed the Israeli soil.  We were helping them come home. This was something I cared about.  I couldn’t ignore the loss of safety in their eyes, scanning horizons for a place to call your own.  I related to the pursuit of community, the welcoming arms that cushion life’s blows.  I too longed to belong, to fit in, and to exhale with a knowing of care.  I sought to transform new into familiar, unpacking for a day’s vacation, tacking up pictures to the wooden walls at summer camp.  I nested, secure in the trinkets and love that home defined.  I resisted travel, shaky when forced to cram home into carry-on bags, lost in the backdrop of adventure. 

I knew how a house isn’t always a home, how adoring aromas can vanish in the face of frustration and exhaustion. There were nights of wandering into my parent’s bedroom, mute to explain this ache of being homesick for a home that doesn’t exist.  I was a worrier, and got trapped within the tentacles of fear, where reassurances that ‘nothing bad will happen to us’ paled by Holocaust legacies and nightly news. 

But there were also afternoons of storybook home-ness, finger-painting with pudding on the kitchen table and diving for pennies in the lukewarm pool of an august night.  There were meals of laughter and snuggling before bed.  I was lucky.  I had a house that stood as a home, even throughout the raindrops.  And still, I wanted more, needed more.  I craved constant perfection, eternal happiness, and an eraser for the edge of anger that crept in.  I compared my home to TV shows and fiction chapters, always coming up short.  I yearned for permanence, a home that never disappointed, was too busy, or overworked.  

In other words, I needed to change my definition.  And I have.  I’ve grown up, and remain stunned by the beauty that I grew up in, the support that lay beneath my feet, even when I was blind.  I hear about houses of horror, traumas and nightmarish childhoods.  And I say a prayer of thanks that I know what home feels like. 

So the coins saved were my way of sharing home.  I donated my allowance in an effort to quench the desire for safety, to help the wandering rest, to build a room that could become a home for the sad eyes I saw on the screen.  

I wanted to help them come home and to ensure one for myself. 

Baby Steps

Jewish Journal: Incredible Orthodox Response to Homosexuality

On one hand, I’m impressed at the stretching of old boundaries and inclusion of alternative views.  I’m happily surprised at the compassionate welcoming and allowances they delineate.  On the other hand, there’s still the black and white bottom line: Halakhic Judaism views all male and female same-sex sexual interactions as prohibited. There’s really no way to get around that.  They can instruct on kindness and welcome differences with softness, but for someone striving to live a strictly orthodox lifestyle, it would be impossible to simultaneously be in a committed same-sex relationship.  Still, I appreciate the discussion, and the modern approaches taken by a community who roots itself in biblical days.  I appreciate the avoidance of cause, leaving out the debate of environment versus genetics, nature versus nurture.

 I appreciate the comments about “change therapies”. I’m always struck by the fact that it was only in 1978 that the psychiatric diagnostic manual removed Homosexuality as a mental disease.  Ironically, the same day I read this article, I stumbled across another website – JONAH: Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing.  www.jonahweb.org, which is one of the aforementioned ‘change therapy’ sites helping ‘unwanted homosexuality’ sufferers and family members.  I want to rant about how prejudicial the mere idea is.  I want to rally for gay rights and tolerance for all.  I want to march for the right to keep bedroom practices in the bedroom.  And yet, I get it.  I can understand how if I was a strictly Orthodox Jew and was homosexual, maybe I would want help ridding myself of those urges.  I can understand if I believed that observance of torah was the path to bliss, then being gay would be a struggle to overcome much like depression, addiction, anxiety, greed.  I can understand.  It doesn’t mean I agree.

 

 I wish there was a way for greater inclusion, for participation regardless of sexual orientation, for equal membership without concern for dating practices.  I wish it didn’t have to be an issue, that the torah was mute on the subject.  But for those that believe in the word of Torah as binding and literal, then there really isn’t much more room for compromise.  So I’m impressed with the new Orthodox rabbis’ response to Homosexuality, and I cheer for all human beings are created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect (kevod haberiyot). Within the confines of black lines and stone-set rules, they worked hard to carve away room for differences and to address prior prejudices that ran rampant within the community. 

There will be those who cry outrage at bottom-line beliefs and point fingers of homophobia.  There will be those who sneer at refusals to perform marriages and statements of same-sex acts being prohibited.  I will not be among them.  Sure I wish for a different outcome.  Sure I believe that it doesn’t matter who you sleep with when it comes to matters of faith and living a good life.  But I also respect those who seem to be trying their hardest to extend compassion while still grasping the roots of their life guidelines.

 So instead, I nod with appreciation, remembering that all big change comes in baby steps. 

How Do You Judge a Life?

How do you judge a life? What are the measurements used to determine evil versus heroics, balancing past mistakes with current kindnesses? Is the criminal marked ‘bad’ for the one-time crime or redeemed by present smiles and generosity?

It’s easier to stamp labels on foreheads, file people into boxes with defined edges and concrete rules.  It’s easier to dismiss, opting to wander trails of black and white over gray shadows.  I tend to delineate my life with ‘either/or’, neatly sweeping ambiguities aside in favor of stark answers.  I struggle to feel anger amidst love, disappointment mixed with longing.  I debate options, weighing the pros and cons, searching for the ‘right’ answer, the perfect solution. 

So it was with swimming anxiety that I closed the last page and set the new novel by Michael Lavigne on my night table. I tossed and turned in the abstract, unsure of how to sit with a character I both hated and respected.  Forced to acknowledge all facets, I was stuck.  Was he a hero or a villain? There were no instructions left, simply a beautiful story of a Jewish father and son, rippled with questions of truth and love.  “Not Me” by Michael Lavigne forces us to wrestle with the gray within ourselves, the world, and the hidden secrets tucked in dusty corners.  He writes about a family born from the ashes, the Phoenix emerging after the Holocaust.  He describes buried baggage and the secrets we keep as we begin anew, toiling in the soil of a life worth living.  He writes about a father he adores, a father he hates, a father he worships, and a father he doesn’t really know. 

But does a lifetime of supportive hugs and gentle parenting vanish in the light of old failures? Can you love based on the current while avoiding getting tangled in disgust over old actions? Who deserves forgiveness? Do you even want to forgive?

How will you rate a life, determine if love is worthy? “Not Me” forces us to question the untold behind the words, to dissect the characters as slivers of ourselves, and to stretch our black and white lives. 

With true talent, Michael Lavigne offers a gripping story worth reading mingled with an after taste of self-reflection.  And as I grapple with life’s grayness, I nod with appreciation at a novel worth reading. 

Waiting for faith before taking the leap

Don’t touch.  Hands in your pockets! Fighting my urge to embrace my mentor, I watched him approach the Starbucks table, armed with pages of wisdom and faith.  He was my Orthodox Rabbi, suit clad even in 115 degree Phoenix summers.  He was my Rabbi, and we met to study, pondering life’s questions and seeking truth over iced coffee and air conditioning.  I toted my leather-bound texts, books that increased my intelligence simply by sitting on the shelf.  I scribbled in margins and underlined with question marks, searching for the words that would make me believe, words that would propel me into a faith rooted in surety. 

I asked him questions that his 5 year old daughter could have answered, exposing my ignorance with simplistic ponderings, trying to solve gray gaps from an academic perspective.  I wanted to know before I acted.  I wanted to see the Promised Land, to taste the sweet laughter before I made any changes in my life.  I wanted the rewards before I did the work.  I wanted to see the net before I took the leap.

We met each week to study, him focused on the writings we had chosen, I measuring his smile.  I was a student of his faith.  I watched for fulfillment, a joy that seeped beyond his sermons and into the walk from his car.  I watched his eyes for shadows and memorized the cadence of his voice, judging happiness and seeking proof of a life guided by deeper meaning.

He had what I wanted.  I was pretty sure.  I wasn’t asking him to exude bliss or be immune to life’s snaring boulders.  I wasn’t even requiring unwavering faith.  But I hungered for a sense of guidance, a feeling of connection, a knowing from up above.  I longed for a purposeful life, no longer having to figure everything out because there was a G-d that would direct my path. So I studied my Rabbi, and collected evidence of whispered prayers and true meaning. I logged obeyed mitzvot and heard truth amidst his tears.  I couldn’t trip him up with twisted analysis or catch him abandoning his religion when the rain began.  I came up with intellectual loopholes and incongruence between tractates, sure that I could find an excuse why I couldn’t believe, why this fulfillment wasn’t available to me.   Still, he had a response; even when the response was that there was no answer, there was only because. I questioned from the rationale, a scholar skeptical of ambiguity, craving black and white lines to contain the worldly gray.  I had abundant ‘whys’ and ‘but what its’, praying that he caught my subliminal longings for a way in, for a doorway to belief.

I wanted what he had, but I didn’t want to do what he did.  I wanted the security of community and the meaning of observance without the rules and obligations.  I wanted to know Hashem without having to change my lifestyle.  It didn’t seem to work that way.  I couldn’t think my way into spirituality. I couldn’t grasp the beauty of Shabbos or sip delicious melodies sung in gratitude if I wasn’t willing to show up and make the effort.  And so I stayed stuck.  So we studied and pondered, chatting as often about my life as the words on the page.  He showed up for our lessons and smiled if he caught my presence in shul.  He showed up as a mentor and simply waited, using his life as the urge for willingness, patiently offering Judaism and hoping I would tear off the bow.

When he moved across the country, I mourned my mentor.  I missed the Rabbi who made time for my doubts and saw through my skepticism.  I missed the Rabbi who spoke with passion and lived with one eye up above.  It’s easy to stay stuck when no one points it out, when calls to action are muted, and the questions cease.  It’s easy to wait till tomorrow and plan to believe next week.

But lessons get relearned and answers revisited beneath closed eyelids.  I find our book yesterday, flagged with orange post-its and highlighted passages.  I flip through the pages, no memory of what insights I gleaned or truths I learned, but I remember the lightness.  I can’t repeat any of his answers, but I see my sense of well being, and the sprouts of faith.  I hear his murmured prayers before sipping his drink, and touch my awe blended with yearning. 

He was my Rabbi and my mentor, dropping maps of strength upon pauses of weakness.  And I his student, choosing to pick up a map, begin the journey, and start asking questions again.  

Shiva for What Could Have Been

I could have related the facts, explained that Tisha B’Av was the day of mourning, grief over our temple destroyed.  I could have recited details of rubble and fasting obligations, but it would have been dry-eyed.  Ok, so the temple was destroyed...sure, not the perfect outcome.  But couldn’t we build another? Were we really to mourn for generations to come over broken bricks and fallen walls? I was told it was the ‘Saddest Day of the Year’ and I sat in ignorance.  Maybe I wasn’t moved because I have never been to Israel, never kissed the soil and connected with my homeland.  Partly I didn’t grasp the meaning of the temple. It wasn’t the destroyed structure that we mourned, but rather the loss of Hashem’s presence, the loss of our leader, our father, and our mentor holding us up.  But still, I had some sticking points. 

The story of Hashem claiming that because the Jews cried ‘false tears’ over imagined defeat they would cry for generations just didn’t sit right.  We were scared.  We were unsure of the future.  How could this kind and ever-loving G-d punish his people for their weeping?  And not only those that cried, but generations to come? It just didn’t fit.  It fit with the destructive and punishing G-d that some believe in.  It fit with the unknowable angry ruler who demands perfection, but it didn’t fit with my comprehension of G-d who loved like a father, and cared about even the smallest hairs on my head.  It didn’t fit with the Creator who yearned for joy and craved meaning for his children.  It just didn’t fit. 

And so, I would have crossed off Tisha B’av on the calendar, merely another Tuesday, missing the call for action that the holiday screams for. 

But today I glimpse a new snapshot of Tisha B’av.  Hidden beneath the facts and historic details lie the treasure of meaning.  There is another perspective, another interpretation, and another translation of the Hebrew that urges me to rend my clothes.  Hashem isn’t punishing the Jews for crying or fear.  They were distraught because they thought they were weak, believed that they would be destroyed, even though G-d had told them they would conquer.  Hashem is teaching us that our ‘false tears’ will be the cause of our destruction and downfall for generations, not because He is punishing us, but rather because we didn’t believe – didn’t believe in ourselves, in Hashem, in our gift of greatness.  We will weep for decades because of what we could have been, the missed successes and lost kindnesses.  Our own hands punish us, keeping ourselves locked in small lives, carving away glory with every doubt and worry. 

Tisha B’av becomes a Shiva for what could have been, grief for the happiness we turned away from, tears for the challenges we let our fears evade.  It isn’t punishment from the Almighty, it is self-induced suffering; a lack of faith, a declaration of ‘I can’t’ that results in our perpetual wandering, grieving with no temple as anchor.  And as always, I find the answer in a faith that I can’t always grasp.  Faith becomes the antidote to tears, belief that the net will appear if I step off the cliff unlocks my doubts and arms me for battle in life’s mountains.  Apparently, Hashem wasn’t so disturbed by the false tears as by the doubts in his assurances, the lack of faith in themselves over the belief in His promises.

And within this explanation, I find something to mourn.  I relate to ‘what could have been’, the squandered potential, and cast-aside greatness.  I am familiar with fears that dictate actions and destruction brought about by my own hand.  I infuse doubts into challenges and lean on worry to avoid success.  I have turns away from glory, spurred by my fictitious smallness, my idea that I wasn’t good enough, deserving enough, smart enough...wasn’t enough.  I ignored assurances from those who had gone before, and debated faith with my mentors.  I nodded at pep talks but chose to belief my own narrow eyes, opting not to try in favor of failure.  I too need to sit Shiva.  I too must grieve the lost years and buried happiness.  Suddenly, Tisha B’av becomes personal, a wake-up call to faith, a nudge to action, and a commandment to believe.  Tisha B’av becomes a whisper of confidence, tears shed and then left behind, with the option to live better, dream bigger, and snatch tomorrow’s ‘what could have been’s’ as today’s opportunities. 

This year I cover my mirrors and don black.  May next year my Tisha B’av require fewer tears and find us all living the lives we could have lived.   

Aish Film: Tisha B'Av: The Root of Destruction

It mocked me the first time we met

It mocked me the first time we met, white lace whispering insults of ‘not good enough’ and ‘superfluous’.  It emitted divisiveness, imposing a hierarchy of value that filed me at the bottom.  I saw it only as a barrier, forbidding me access to the holiness rising in male melody bent over the ancient scroll and offering prayers of gratitude.  It mocked me, this mechitza in the Orthodox shul, disregarding my prior torah chanting and leading of services at the Conservative synagogue I grew up in.  I couldn’t take my eyes off it, glaring while sitting in my plastic chair, murmuring ‘Hey, Count me.  Know that I matter.  Know that I too seek guidance and connection with the One Above.  Hey.  I’m over here.  Stop ignoring me through the gauzy barrier!’

I couldn’t understand how these holy women were all okay with it.  How did they find spirituality in a room where they sat off to the side?  How did they get past the second-class citizenship that Orthodox Judaism imposed on women? How did they not hear the mocking?

I listened to the rationales, from my Rabbi, other women, and all of the articles I could find.  I noted claims of separation breeding increased focus, and additional space allowing room for meaningful connection.  I heard about how women aren’t second-class, but merely set apart, some vowing the female’s higher holiness excused them from certain rituals.  I listened and I learned.  But I wasn’t convinced.  It all sounded good, but as a perpetual student, I knew how easy it is to make an argument for any side, to convince the skeptic with big words and advanced knowledge.  I listened and still I felt its presence, always in my periphery, always reminding me that I was one step below. 

I missed the Saturday services of my childhood, the little girl braiding her daddy’s tallis to the soundtrack of Hebrew melodies.  I missed our family of four, sitting side by side, and the occasional honor of holding my dad’s hand as we stepped up to the bimah for an alliah.  I missed the feel of the torah scroll, and the thrill of chanting portions while wrapped in my Israeli tallis.  I missed the tradition of shul that I had grown up with.  But in truth, all of the things I blamed the mechitza for stealing were illusionary. 

How many times did we really all sit in shul? The lukewarm services offered little spirituality for my father, and most of my early years, we didn’t attend services at all.  My brother and I leaving to play outside or flipping through pages of the Siddur, counting how many left until we could head for the car upon the hint of ‘Adon Olam’, often interrupted the sweet minutes of family.  I missed the time together as a family, but it was devoid of holiness, absent of fulfilling prayer.  I missed a fictitious memory, and had to admit that I was longing for a storybook ending.  Yes, I loved reading from the Torah and leading services gave me a jolt of spirituality unmatched in later years.  Yes, I appreciated the equality and ability to stand and be counted.  But as for holiness or spirituality? I had no idea what I was missing.  We didn’t talk about G-d or discuss personal prayer.  We learned Hebrew words with no comprehension for meaning, sang songs for the tunes rather than grateful thanks or prayerful pleas.  I grew up with Judaism as a culture, filled with traditions and holiday rituals, but lacking in a stirring of the heart. 

So I learned to make peace with the mechitza.  I learned to nod with appreciation at the deepening its offered to my parents, the fulfillment that brims from their eyes in their newly religious lifestyle.  I’ve learned to be grateful for the walls of holiness and the tunes of meaning founding within this tiny Orthodox shul, and to count my blessings for the stronger connections we find as a family.  I’ve learned to lean against the mechitza, resting in its carved out space to find my own words, and speak from my heart.  I’ve learned to sense the caress of distance, and take advantage of the women surrounding me who teach me how to connect.  I practice letting go of politics and feministic outrage, leaving academia and ‘being right’ at the doorstep as I kiss the mezuzah and walk into the holy.  I let go of figuring it all out, and finding the best rationale for the position of women in shul.  I leave equality rants and childish ‘unfair’ cries to others, and instead work on finding what I came for.  I seek community, spirituality, guidance, and help.  I seek a sense of being heard, and prayers emerged from my soul.  I seek a Judaism that is more than rituals and hidden matzo, a Judaism that springs alive and draws me near.

It still stands, lines drawn down the middle of the room.  But instead of mocking, I notice the intricate lace patterns and the space it provides for spirituality to rush in. 

I Shall Not Fear

To the rest of the world, he was a rabbi and a scholar; a professor who penned hard-backed insights of Jewish theology and prayer.  But to me, Sam was the quirky family friend whom I immediately gathered into my circle, bestowing him with an honorary ‘Grandfather’ crown. 

Sam graciously accepted his adopted status, and fulfilled the Grandfather requirements with a stream of letters that followed me along my journey, reaching me amidst the dips of hopelessness and goading me to find faith when I reached for my white flag.  He was the one I turned to with questions of G-d and the afterlife, desperate to borrow some of his stable surety, eager to learn the tidbits that gave him the strength to live in a world that threatened to hit below the knees. 

Sam knew from heartache and words of pain flowed from his lips.  He was fluent in the laments of unfairness and toiled with the haze of sickness and grief.  Behind the published chapters and rabbinic lectures were tears of a desperate father pooled by his feet.  He too had a daughter he couldn’t save; a daughter trapped in the maze of a disease resistant to band-aids and kisses.  He understood the sorrow of a child in pain, mute to pleas of help, powerless to soothe her anguish.  All of the lectures and learning, wisdom and training couldn’t be stirred enough to deliver the comfort of a cure.

I never met his daughter, but her presence lingered under his skin, a love-tinged sadness that accompanied him on his travels.  He wrote me life’s details: new projects and classes, book tours and summer plans.  He wrote of his support, his belief that there was a G-d who was waiting patiently, by my side until I was ready to grab hold.  He wrote of the clash between roles, struggling with the picture of who a Rabbi was ‘supposed’ to be and his private struggles. He erased the notion of “Aha” moments where we romantically find G-d, and spoke about the sanctity of ordinary, the elevated triumphs of a life well lived, the holiness in the mundane. He urged me to locate my spirituality, to see the miracles involved in simply getting out of bed.

Just as I adopted him as Grandfather, Sam adopted me as surrogate daughter; also sick and in pain, a daughter with an illness that might be fixed with the right formula of healing words. Beginning belated letters with apologies, he offered his maps with highlighted routes to G-d.  Rather than pontificate on a Higher Power who would swoop down with a magic wand, he put forth a different twist.  He wrote about a police officer that had been in a hospital during a mass casualty, able to save a patient by holding a torn artery in a crowded ER. Sam taught me to hold my own artery to stop the bleeding.  He instructed me to pick up my hand and apply pressure, knowing that G-d had brought me to this place and stood beside me, guiding my hand. 

I would have preferred a magic wand.  I wanted faith without duties, saving without action.  I wanted the “Aha” moments, the light bulb dawning of being carried into health.  I wanted a religion absent of obligations, a G-d that provided not only the cure but also the motivation.  I wanted the prayer book Creator who cured the sick and rose the dead, allowing me to wallow in my misery until the miracle occurred. 

I read his words and stifled my guilt, craving unconditional support rather than tools and steps to take.  I resented the obligation, didn’t want to admit that my illness was treatable in a way that his daughter’s would never be.  I resented the pleas to keep trying, keep working, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  I was tired of doing what was hard, choosing right over easy, toiling at a health that crumbled at my touch.

I knew he was right, backed by years of wisdom and fatherhood.  I knew Sam loved me and would have waved his magic wand if he could; curing, not only his daughter and I, but also the buried demons that tore at his soul. I knew he was right, and yet I did nothing.  I wasn’t ready to hear his lesson, hadn’t taken the pre-requisites that allowed me to access holiness or stand in faith.  My teacher was here and I was absent, wandering the halls with loneliness, lost in the manipulations of my mind.  And yet, his lessons were planted, seeds of hope and belief sprouting up unannounced years later.

We lost touch over the years, letters spaced further apart until I realize that it’s been at least five years since I wrote to him.  I don’t know what his days look like or how his daughter is doing.  I don’t know if he has managed to grasp holiness amidst the daily shuffle.

But I do know that I became ready to hear his lecture. I do know that I persevere in faith and continue to pick myself up with a guided hand.  I do know that his wisdom wasn’t lost, but rather filed away until I was ready to hear it, a spark within dark years.  I do know that there haven’t been “Aha” moments or magic wands and yet, I have learned how to reach out my hand and locate the blessings in my life.

To the rest of the world, he was a respected professor, Rabbi, and scholar.  To me, he will always be my adopted Grandfather: wise and compassionate, patient and loving. To me, Sam will forever be the one who taught me my Jewish abra cadabra, the phrase that I repeat in darkness: Adonai Li v’Lo Irah.  The Lord is with me, I shall not fear. 

5th Commandment Gold-Medalist

“Honor thy father and thy mother”

— Ex. 20:12a

I thought I was a 5^th commandment gold medalist.  I though that I excelled in being respectful and loving, always grateful as I strove to be the daughter I imagined he wanted.  I thought I had this one down, as I brought home straight A’s, nodded with automatic agreement and censored my differences in efforts to please. I laughed at his jokes no matter what and adopted his life rules as my own, checking off items on my “Good Daughter” packing list.

Rather than mastering the 5^th commandment, I shattered it. Along with “You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me” and “You Shall Not Steal” (Exodus 20:1-17) Instead of honoring my father, I made him my Higher Power.  I elevated him to heights that doomed him to failure and then blamed him when his humanness poked through.  I read his tractates and prayed for his favor, leaving no room for hectic mornings, crabby comments or inattention born from exhaustion. I stole his humanness from him, erasing his rights to make mistakes and learn his lessons.  I stole his space to be irritable or frustrated, adopting any hint of anger as my fault, because at least then I could fix it, be better, and replace the smile on his lips.  I stole the necessary growth that accompanies fatherhood, supplying the answers I thought would please him most and omitting life shards to avoid disapproval. I created my own heartache, disappointment fueled by my deity dressed as dad.  No parent can provide constant approval, praise, love and affection.  And yet, I kept bowing at his feet, confident that this time I had learned how to be the daughter he wanted that would be rewarded with unconditional praise.

My good intentions paved our rocky road as I locked myself into a perfectionist prison with self-destruction as my cellmate. I tried for most of my thirty years to be this fictitious “Good Daughter” and I failed.  I wrapped my honor with love and tied the respectful bow.  I sent cards stuffed with accomplishments and pictures tinged with gratitude.  But all the while, I slapped him from behind with anguish and worry, teetering on the edge of life, killing myself with my worship.  And every time I heard his anger that masked his fear, I stepped up my efforts to achieve my goals: Make Dad proud.  Make Dad happy. Be the perfect daughter.  And so the merry-go-round went: each choice I made for him, each step I took to please, brought scarring side effects edged by desecration of myself.

It seemed like a choice between distasteful options, between being a good daughter and being healthy.  I thought that choosing life meant losing my father’s love, disappointing him, and hurting him further.  I thought that I just needed to try harder to honor him, and it didn’t occur to me to change my definition or return my father to a mortal state until recent years.

The truth is that I underestimated my father while suffocating my self.  The truth is that he hung the “Good Daughter” medal around my neck at birth, which came without accomplishment requirements or submissive prerequisites.  The truth is that all I had to do to merit his love was to choose life.

My ‘Good Daughter’ criteria and my goals aimed for his approval were not only superfluous but was actually damaging.  It wasn’t a two-dimensional child that he desired, but a daughter to hug, debate with, learn from and advise. 

It took me too long to understand that disagreement can spark connection, and mutual respect flourishes amidst individual strength. I earn more smiles with individuality than mindless agreement, more approval when I stand my ground and follow my heart. I honor my father when I speak out and respect my father by painting my own dreams and splashing them with vivid efforts.  I obey the 5^th commandment when I pick myself up after falling, and learn lessons from failure. I still appreciate my father’s wisdom and seek his counsel often.  I still cherish his engaging spirit and find comfort in his arms.  He offers me stable support and a resting spot, but has learned that, despite his best efforts, he can’t provide a shelter from life’s storms.  As I lower my dad from his precarious pedestal, I discover that it’s in his humanness that I find the father I was missing, the father worthy of endless honor. I learn how to obey the 1^st commandment as well as the 5^th, with new definitions and a path to wider faith.

I still turn toward his smile and cherish his hand to hold. I still revel in his approval, but am able to breathe without it. I have learned that I am a good daughter just as he is a good father:  simply by loving each other and reaching out for connection.

It turns out I am a 5^th commandment gold-medalist every day that I choose life, practice kindness, speak my soul, and live with joy. I honor my father with a human lens, and delight in the blessings of family. It turns out that I don’t have to choose between honoring my father and honoring myself.  I am lucky. I have a father who allows for differences while offering hugs and who understands that disappointment and love aren’t mutually exclusive, that anger can coincide with love.

 I count my blessings as I fulfill the 5^th commandment, lucky that I have a father worthy of honor.

The Blessing of the Unanswered

I have been prayed for more times that I know. There were blessings I requested two years ago, sending an email to those I loved: “I am struggling and trying to do something different.  Because so often I find myself not knowing what to ask for or which direction to turn, I wonder if you would be willing to write a prayer for healing that I might use until I uncover my own words.”  January 21, 2008

Six months later, I was unaware of the words being spoken, prayers offered, the fervent pleas for my life. There were circles of women, all strangers to me, who gathered to recite Tehillim, Psalms, on my behalf. Rabbis in Israel who murmured my name as they bowed at the Western Wall.  My Hebrew name, Dafna Ariel bat Moshe v’ Miriam appearing on the list of members in need of healing. There were forwarded emails and urgent calls wrapped around the globe as a community of Jews united in their efforts to save a child.

I am no different than most.  I tried everything else first.  I went to doctors, to therapists, to friends. I tried pills, meditation, yoga, and hospitals. I read books and asked questions, consulted experts who promised to fix. I looked everywhere else first because it didn’t cross my mind. Prayer was for Saturday mornings and lighting the shabbos candles, but as a method for healing, it seemed like a waste of time.

There is a difference between forming words while bowing at the appropriate moment and meaningful prayer. I could read Hebrew but I didn’t understand a word. Reading the translations left me indifferent, dark shadows versus flames of being heard or strength located to hold me upright. I had no idea where to start, how to uncover holiness, or even if I really believed my appeals would be heard.  But like so many who wander the midnight streets, I was willing to try. 

So I asked and I received.  I gathered pages of prayers written by family, friends, those I loved, and those that loved them.  I sifted through words of healing, painful petitions and knee-bended supplications, generous donations of soul anchoring me to this world. I was the beneficiary of faithful strangers, pleas recited in circles, songs sung for life.

The question is how do you measure success? Is there a prayer expiration date? Was breathing a passing grade? Does the fact that six months later prayers for my life were once again being circulated, this time against my tired wishes, mean that the earlier prayers didn’t work? Were unanswered? Or is it possible that the response can be discovered in the help offered, shoulders rested upon, tears cried? Is it possible that the earlier prayers I sought were answered with the prayer circles that came later? That the result is found in still being alive six months later?  What accounts for my pleasure over puppy kisses this morning? Are you willing to give all of the credit to experts and medication and therapy? Will you praise Hashem as the healer of the sick? Is the answer somewhere in between?

And for whom were the prayers? I can close my eyes and beg for what I think I need or for your health or her sanity, but I am too small to see the ripples.  The answer that I really require might have nothing to do with my friend and everything to do with my connection with the Holy, my connection with my soul.  Maybe my pleas are answered by the arms that carry me when I tire, by the friends who listen to worries, by family who show up even if I am absent. Perhaps the prayers of years ago were answered as balm for the praying, back door answers bolstering those who bore the burden of fear.

I cannot understand the power of prayer and I cannot judge the answers.  I do not question the whys of my journey or demand explanations for pain.  As a single leaf, I am blind to the magnificence of my oak tree.  I do not know for whom or how or why.  I do not comprehend the power of voices rising together, or the potency of ancient words to cure.  I can’t convince you with remote prayer statistics or research study data.  But I do believe.  And perhaps the prayers were answered in this: I finally found my own words.  I found my own prayers.

I learned how to lean on ancient blessings and communal words. I learned how to locate the holiness in the spaces between, and how to read the verses of the heart.  I practice caring less about specific words and more about the quest for connection, the desire for the holy. I learned that it is in the praying I find my G-d, that I find myself. I learned that hugs are blessings and hands are answers.  I found the sanctity in laughter and the holiness in family.

I still don’t know how prayer works or when my prayers will be answered.  I don’t always know what I need or for whom to pray.  There are times my words become rote, hollow letters strung together, and times when I doubt.  But I show up anyway and each morning I say a prayer of thanks.

 

Thank you for blessing me with unanswered prayers. Thank you for not giving me what I asked for as I begged for an ending.  Thank you for responding to the plea behind my words, for knowing the answer I needed was resilient love instead of a burial plot. 

Thank you for blessing me with unanswered prayers.  Thank you for life. 

Subscribe by Email