As You Like It: Day of Atonement

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed and I am sitting in Temple once again asking God’s pardon for my behavior during the past year. Things are slightly different this year. Last year we joined my mom at her place of worship; this year she came with us to our service at Temple Beth Abraham. Since we’ve joined TBA, we’ve gone through the gamut of holiday experiences. The first year we placed Mariel in the babysitting room and Lisa attended children’s services. Soon enough they were both attending young adult services. And finally they sat with us in the “grownup” seats.

Through their college years, if they couldn’t come home for the holidays our numbers would shift from four to three. Then finally it was just me and Steve. One thing never changed though — we’ve always sat in the same seats, row FF on the aisle, toward the back in the social hall.

Our sanctuary can hold about 200 people, which is fine for regular services throughout the year, but on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there’s a full house, so we open up the dividers at the back and add twice as many seats in the social hall. This year was different for us not only because mom joined us, but also because we exchanged our seats for ones up front in the sanctuary so that mom could be a bit more comfortable. Strangely enough, it changed my perspective as well. When you sit at the front of the class you pay more attention to what’s going on.

This year has been stressful. There’s never a moment to un-hunch my shoulders, relax and think. I’m in constant motion, up too early, running too quickly, asleep too late. Sitting in Temple with Steve and mom, listening to Rabbi David, I was forced to keep still. Forced to think, listen, and remember why I live the life I do.

In his sermon on Yom Kippur, the Rabbi spoke of two Hebrew words: Yesh and Ain. Both mean one thing in their secular, everyday use and another in the spiritual world. Everyday Yesh means “there is” or “I have.” Everyday Ain means “I don’t have” or “nothing.”

But when the philosophers speak of Yesh, they mean all the ridiculous material trappings of the world that we bog ourselves down with — the “stuff” that George Carlin used to talk about that we constantly buy to keep ourselves from feeling nothing. The philosopher’s Ain means “nothing” just as in the everyday world, but this “nothing” allows you to be empty and open to the spiritual everything — so empty that you finally have the room and the space to think and to concentrate on what is truly important. And as I sat there I realized that I was guilty of filling my home, my closets, my mind, my life, with a whole lot of worthless Yesh.

I’ve become afraid of the silence that comes with sitting still, and so I have filled it with busyness, with running back and forth, with lists and must-do actions. I don’t know if it is the fear of failure, the fear of getting older and not having the time to accomplish everything, or perhaps the fear of death itself. I tell my students that one of the chief precepts of the Jewish faith that I hold dearest is Tikkun Olam — repairing the world, leaving the world a better place than how I found it. Perhaps I’m afraid of not being able to do enough repair work in the short time that I have left.

It also seems strange to me that even as I try my best to repair the world, it is becoming even more hostile to me as a Jew. According to a press release from the ADL:

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Massachusetts increased by approximately 16 percent in 2010 according to newly issued statistics from the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents. The league’s audit counted a total of 64 incidents in Massachusetts during 2010, a rise from 55 over the previous year. The Massachusetts results mirror disturbing statistics showing anti-Semitic incidents remain constant nationally. “ADL’s audit shows that anti-Semitism is still a contemporary priority,” said Derrek L. Shulman, ADL Regional Director in New England.

But on this Yom Kippur I try to forget the world that hates me for being Jewish. I try to concentrate on the Yizkor, or memorial service when we come together to remember our departed friends and relatives. For me, the heart of this service is the prayer at its beginning. As Rabbi Jacob Philip Rudin writes, “Yizkor is for letting the music come back softly and sweetly. Yizkor is to hush us and to heal us.”

The memorial service prayer tells us that:

Each person is like a breath,

Our days are as a fleeting shadow.

In the morning we flourish and grow up like grass,

In the evening we are cut down and wither.

So teach us to number our days,

That we may get us a heart of wisdom.

Mark the person of integrity, and behold the upright,

For there is a future for the person of peace.

Peace. Ain. Nothing. The quiet hush that brings us the strength to ignore the hatred and to continue repairing a bit more of the world each day.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Oct 19 2011. Filed under As You Like It, Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.