I know about four people who've been hit crossing the street. One of them, in particular, nearly bit the dust and do you know what she said was the worst part? The recovery? The six surgeries it took for her to recover? Nope. That after, with two broken legs, a concussion, half of her face bonked in, a broken pelvis, a broken collar bone, broken ribs, a collapsed lung and with blood everywhere, a crowd of people stood there looking at her, and not one person stopped and sat with her and said, "You're going to be okay." I know, I know, we live in litigious society, and we're all afraid of getting sued. I get that. I don't want to get sued, either. (Though, how funny for someone to try to sue me. They'd get like a pen, a jar of spicy mustard and a can of cat food!) We also live in a world with very real epidemiological concerns like HIV/AIDS and administering first aid without, say, gloves could mean handling contaminated blood. But, you know what? Big deal. I'd still go sit with an injured person until help arrived. I really would.
One winter, I slipped on icy stairs, skinned my knee and sprained my ankle. Nothing major, but, still, uncomfortable, right? I hit the ground, the contents of my purse went everywhere, and my ankle hurt. Scrambling to get my purse put back together and to get to my feet, no lie, three people snarked to me. Three people! "Get out of the road, clutz!", "We're trying to walk here, lady!" and things like that. Rude! Not one person stopped to help me pick anything up, not one person noticed a bloody knee and a hobbly foot and said, "Hey, are you okay?"
I had my big ugly car accident a few years ago, and I was in and out for a bit, but one thing that sticks out so clearly to me is coming to and feeling a set of hands belonging to a witness to the accident, a truck driver who climbed behind my seat somehow and held my shoulders to the seat with his forearm and patted the top of my head while holding my head to the headrest with his hand. To this day, I remember exactly what his hand felt like on my forehead and I remember that he wore Polo cologne. No lie. I remember that clear as anything. He wasn't thinking, "Ew, that woman might be sick, I can't touch her. I might get HIV" he wasn't thinking, "I don't want her to sue me". He saw an injured person, a human being, with the front half of a car in her lap and was a stand-up guy.
I've overheard some dreadful conversations in the last couple of days and I'm not feeling so solid about people today. I'm starting to worry we suck so hard that we're lost. I keep thinking about that beautiful thing Margaret Sartor said on my other blog the other day when I interviewed her: "I believe that compassion is a kind of power and kindness may be the one virtue that can save us all — if it’s not already too late." And, I believe that so hard that it almost makes my chest hurt. You guys, that sentence is my religion, my world view, a summary of everything I really believe in.
So, as we begin our steps into the month of Elul, as we begin to ready ourselves for the High Holidays, let's just keep these things in our minds as we go about our days. Let's keep kindness and compassionate behavior sit in the forefront of our minds and see if we can be better.
7.31.2007
7.24.2007
Tisha B'Av
"Tisha b'Av asks us to stop distracting ourselves, stop putting a good face on things, stop focusing on the bright side and actually allow ourselves to be aware of how much we can hurt. It demands a willingness to face suffering. It insists that there is theological and spiritual importance in the reality that our lives contain pain. That facing what hurts is a necessary prerequisite to the spiritual work of discernment and transformation that we are called to do. On Tisha b'Av we're supposed to see what hurts." (The Velveteen Rabbi)
I heard a rabbi say once that maybe we should consider not observing Tisha B'Av a day of mourning, but rather a day of remembrance and celebration because, he said, had the Temple not been destroyed, Judaism wouldn't be the onus-on-the-individual, home-based thing is it today.
Well, he has a fine point, but there's a whole lot more to Tisha B'Av than the Temple. Temples. On Tisha B'Av, we were also expelled from England in 1290 by King Edward I, Germany declared war on Russia (kicking off WWI) in 1914, Hitler ordered final preparations for the Final Solution in 1941, the first transports reached Treblinka and we started getting exterminated from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, we were kicked out of Spain in 1492, an El Al flight was shot down over Bulgarian airspace in 1955, the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994, the Gulf War started in 1990, and in more recent years, some folks have tacked on the bombing of Hiroshima... I mean, hello. Tisha B'Av is bad vibes central, it seems.
Of course, I often wonder what would happen if we decided, just made up our minds, that it wasn't a vortex of ill anymore. I mean, what if we sort of kept mental vigil all day on Tisha B'Av instead? Not that even the best intentions can prevent tragedy, per se, but, well, negativity can certainly invite misfortune and sickness and such, so it couldn't exactly hurt, right? Anyway, I digress.
Or do I??
Because, maybe it's not just me. Many are thinking about another very large idea, too. Lately, Tisha B'Av has been observed by a few folks like a stop/reflect/face what is unfortunate/think about your role in it all kind of Jewy Earth Day. Which, I have to admit, I rather like. It's owning up to your role in environmental matters and allowing yourself to admit guilt and such, but it's also a moment to stop and reflect about what changes could be made to make your role a more positive one. What's bad with that?
For about 2,000 years, a lot of Jews have marked Tisha B'Av in combinations of the traditional mourning practices of sitting on or near the floor, fasting, denying yourself luxuries or even many basic comforts, really making yourself feel the affliction, with the thought that feeling the affliction affects personal growth and change and healing.
A few years ago, a small group of Jews in Safed used some of these mourning practices, but instead of mourning the things we're taught to mourn, the things we always mourn, they decided to mourn the "Temple of now", Earth. Their reasoning for this action was pretty sharp. See, in 70 CE, when the Romans destroyed the Temple, the sages don't really blame it much on the Roman Empire, but on corruptions of the society of the times.
So, this group in Safed saw a parellel, and went for it, deciding that the environment suffers because of many similar corruptions. Greed, hatred, lack of compassion, excessive material value and the like. Not a bad call, really.
And, I wonder, too, about the word "mourning" sometimes. I think it can be a little overwhelming. I mean, it sounds so dramatic and huge and showy, when grief and sadness are really quite personal and private and certainly can't be conjured up on command. But here's the thing-- ritualized reflection is really just like a template for processing. It's a coatrack to hang out things on, come inside, relax, think, and work some things out. And, and, and (this one is key) a deliberate focus lets us sort of give ourselves permission to feel whatever it is we're feeling or to think whatever it is we're thinking and prevents grief from becoming denial or apathy.
And that's a pretty good thing to bear in mind in just about any area of life. So, Tisha B'Av this year, to me, is a tiny reminder to stop and listen to myself, to see silver linings, to try to accept situations as learning experiences, a reminder that whatever an observance means to me, and whatever I glean from an observance or a practice on any given year is not only okay, but ideal because it means I'm not doing things by rote but I'm thinking things over and creating my own brand of the highly life-applicable and thoughtful Judaism that resonates with me, and, most importantly, it reminds me not to dwell on the negative or unfortunate but certainly not to avoid anything life dishes up, either.
So, yeah, while Tisha B'Av is about misfortune, it seems to show up with a certain amount of hope and reflection attached to it, too.
I heard a rabbi say once that maybe we should consider not observing Tisha B'Av a day of mourning, but rather a day of remembrance and celebration because, he said, had the Temple not been destroyed, Judaism wouldn't be the onus-on-the-individual, home-based thing is it today.
Well, he has a fine point, but there's a whole lot more to Tisha B'Av than the Temple. Temples. On Tisha B'Av, we were also expelled from England in 1290 by King Edward I, Germany declared war on Russia (kicking off WWI) in 1914, Hitler ordered final preparations for the Final Solution in 1941, the first transports reached Treblinka and we started getting exterminated from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, we were kicked out of Spain in 1492, an El Al flight was shot down over Bulgarian airspace in 1955, the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994, the Gulf War started in 1990, and in more recent years, some folks have tacked on the bombing of Hiroshima... I mean, hello. Tisha B'Av is bad vibes central, it seems.
Of course, I often wonder what would happen if we decided, just made up our minds, that it wasn't a vortex of ill anymore. I mean, what if we sort of kept mental vigil all day on Tisha B'Av instead? Not that even the best intentions can prevent tragedy, per se, but, well, negativity can certainly invite misfortune and sickness and such, so it couldn't exactly hurt, right? Anyway, I digress.
Or do I??
Because, maybe it's not just me. Many are thinking about another very large idea, too. Lately, Tisha B'Av has been observed by a few folks like a stop/reflect/face what is unfortunate/think about your role in it all kind of Jewy Earth Day. Which, I have to admit, I rather like. It's owning up to your role in environmental matters and allowing yourself to admit guilt and such, but it's also a moment to stop and reflect about what changes could be made to make your role a more positive one. What's bad with that?
For about 2,000 years, a lot of Jews have marked Tisha B'Av in combinations of the traditional mourning practices of sitting on or near the floor, fasting, denying yourself luxuries or even many basic comforts, really making yourself feel the affliction, with the thought that feeling the affliction affects personal growth and change and healing.
A few years ago, a small group of Jews in Safed used some of these mourning practices, but instead of mourning the things we're taught to mourn, the things we always mourn, they decided to mourn the "Temple of now", Earth. Their reasoning for this action was pretty sharp. See, in 70 CE, when the Romans destroyed the Temple, the sages don't really blame it much on the Roman Empire, but on corruptions of the society of the times.
So, this group in Safed saw a parellel, and went for it, deciding that the environment suffers because of many similar corruptions. Greed, hatred, lack of compassion, excessive material value and the like. Not a bad call, really.
And, I wonder, too, about the word "mourning" sometimes. I think it can be a little overwhelming. I mean, it sounds so dramatic and huge and showy, when grief and sadness are really quite personal and private and certainly can't be conjured up on command. But here's the thing-- ritualized reflection is really just like a template for processing. It's a coatrack to hang out things on, come inside, relax, think, and work some things out. And, and, and (this one is key) a deliberate focus lets us sort of give ourselves permission to feel whatever it is we're feeling or to think whatever it is we're thinking and prevents grief from becoming denial or apathy.
And that's a pretty good thing to bear in mind in just about any area of life. So, Tisha B'Av this year, to me, is a tiny reminder to stop and listen to myself, to see silver linings, to try to accept situations as learning experiences, a reminder that whatever an observance means to me, and whatever I glean from an observance or a practice on any given year is not only okay, but ideal because it means I'm not doing things by rote but I'm thinking things over and creating my own brand of the highly life-applicable and thoughtful Judaism that resonates with me, and, most importantly, it reminds me not to dwell on the negative or unfortunate but certainly not to avoid anything life dishes up, either.
So, yeah, while Tisha B'Av is about misfortune, it seems to show up with a certain amount of hope and reflection attached to it, too.
