Saturday, September 15, 2007
New Year Meditation, Plus Can I Even Call Them Cookies?
Hey welcome back and Happy Jew Year to each and every one of you. My new year festivities consisted of two main activities: cookin’ and congregatin’. For the former, I found a provocative recipe for special traditional Rosh HaShana cookies (to be enjoyed during this festive season) – a thick heavy dough, cooked by being boiled in simmering honey and sugar (seasoned with ginger). Can I tell you? As great as it sounds, it just does not taste that special. Think “taffy-ginger paste balls.” Whets the appetite, eh? Plus, if you take your eye off the pan for one goddamn second, it boils over all into the underside of your rangetop. And honey’s just as easy to clean off a neglected rangetop underside as you’d expect it to be.
Then again, we went back to Chochmat HaLev for services and they were, as always, delightful and uplifting. At one point they were chanting a prayer simultaneously in Hebrew and English, almost the same tune, and it got right into my head till I didn’t know which language I understood and which I didn’t. There was a swingin’ combo on stage, the traditional trio of female canters, and lots of colorful clothes and people everywhere. It was, in a nutshell, reviving, and the centerpiece was, as always, Rav Avram’s drash (dharma talk). At the risk of overstepping my bounds, here are my notes of what he said during services, so you can get a whiff of the sublimity as well:
“Shana,” as in “Rosh HaShana,” means both “year” and “change.” Change is the only constant in our lives. Change can result in deep depression, as when it comes as a result of illness or cruel realities. But Rosh HaShana reminds us that change is joyful and brings blessings!
Our vehicle to realize this is the prayer, “Veyahavta,” with its admonition that we love with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds. This implies all that we are, including our joy, and even our playing. There is great joy in doing something, anything, purely for its own sake and for the fulfillment of being the agent through which it happens.
For example, in school we learn many useful and important things – our curriculum is chosen for practical reasons. But while it is important to study for a good reason, it is holy to study for the joy of studying!
There is nothing more serious than play. Life is very serious and death is even more so, but if that were all there was to it, the Torah would be a path to renunciation – but instead, it is a path of joy.
Life makes no sense. That’s why the Torah makes no sense. It tracks from moment to moment well enough, but it doesn’t really hold together properly. But that makes it just like life itself – tempestuous and difficult and boring and thrilling and joyful – and now it’s time to embrace all of that.
A duck goes to a bar (on Rosh HaShana). He asks, “Got any duck food?” The bartender tells him “No, and I really don’t like ducks so get out and don’t come back.” The next day the duck comes back. “Got any duck food?” The bartender gets angry and yells, “No, and I never want to see you here again!” The next day, the duck returns and asks, “Got any duck food?” The bartender, furious, bellows at him, “I’ve got no duck food, you don’t belong here, and if I see you here again I’m going to nail your floppy webbed feet to the floor! Do you understand?!!” The duck leaves, but returns the next day. He asks, “Got any nails?” The bartender says “No.” “Got any duck food?” - We must move forward with caution, but persistence!
Life is a mystery to be believed – not a problem to be solved. It has no solution.
Moishe the Ganif (thief) hides out in a yeshiva (religious academy) – but he can’t really keep up. He’s funny and popular and gets along well but the work is beyond him. In frustration, he takes a walk into the wilderness and stumbles across an abandoned synagogue, and in that crumbling wreck he finds a Torah scroll. He sits before it and begins to pour out his heart: “I’m terrible at this! I can’t read, I can’t reason, I can’t remember, and I can’t even pray! All I’m any good at is playing the fool – dancing and joking and clowning around! But believe me, I’m good at clowning around – let me show you!” Moishe did not realize that he’d been followed by the Rosh Yeshiva (leader of his school), who watched from seclusion as Moishe began to caper and cavort, juggling, telling jokes, even dirty ones… The Rosh Yeshiva was becoming incensed as Moishe disported himself ever less respectfully before the holy scrolls, until he saw – and it’s a story, maybe it didn’t happen this way but it’s the way they tell the story – until he saw the Torah scroll itself begin to rise up, swing and sway, and dance right along with Moishe the Ganif, and both of them were completely filled with joy.
Our work is never done.
Our play is never done.
That’s the message the spiritual mentor of my congregation set as the focus for his devotions during this season. I might as well glom onto it for good measure. This coming week I’ll have one more overnight trip for work and then it might settle down enough for me to get through the rest of everything I need to accomplish by the end of the month, by which time it all needs to be accomplished. Meantime, I’ve got some sticky pasteballs to choke down. Come on, blog peoples – they’re gingerlicious! Oh forget it I’ll eat’em myself. May your new year be as sweet as they are, and significantly less pasty.