Coming Back to You

You may be wondering where I've been. Or maybe you're used to this already. In any case, it's aseret yemei teshuvah, so I'll just jump right into the hard stuff.

A friend of mine wanted to talk about teshuvah recently. It bothered her, she said, that the people who spend the most time in shul beating their breasts and feeling guilty are the ones who need to do it the least. I agreed. That’s why I always feel so crappy this time of year, I told her. All these Jews who are so much more pious than me are waking up early to pray and repent, and here I am just going about my life, barely doing anything at all.

That wasn’t what she meant, though. She was thinking of all the Jews who would be eating ham sandwiches on Yom Kippur, and wondering why she had to deal with all this guilt, when in the general scheme of things, she’s a pretty decent Jew.

After she left, I admitted to DH that I see things pretty much the same way. I know we're not perfect -- me, DH, my friends -- but I really don't think we're bad people. I always find myself thinking this during the high holidays, as I mumble my way through all that self-deprecating liturgy: Overall, I'm really a pretty decent human being.

“Then why do you always get so depressed?” he asked.

Depressed is probably too strong a word, but it’s true: I do get moody around the High Holidays. What I feel crappy about, I tried to explain, is that I don’t feel crappy enough. With all those hours of prayer designed to induce guilt and remorse, you can’t help feeling remorseful if you don’t feel remorseful.

The problem is that I just haven’t figured out where I stand vis-à-vis halakhah and morality. I think I understand how this process ought to work for a very pious Jew: He or she might, for example, be overcome with guilt for missing the proper time for prayer on various occasions over the past year. The road to teshuvah would be clear: confess, pray for forgiveness, and make a concerted effort not to oversleep any more. On the other end of the spectrum, if someone were, say, involved in an adulterous relationship, she might be likewise overcome with guilt (or at least, she ought to be). And the proper path would be equally clear (if somewhat more difficult): Repent, break off the relationship, and so forth. But what about me? There are lots of things I could do if I wanted to be “frummer.” I could keep kosher more strictly, for example. But that would interfere with my relationships with various family members and non-Jews, and even if halakhah does warrant that, I’m not convinced that it’s the right thing to do. On the interpersonal level, I could try to be kinder and more generous, but I’m not sure that’s the right thing for me to do either. It so often seems to result in my making promises that I don’t keep, in abandoning people who don’t need me, and in resentment on all sides.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s nothing clear for me to work on. Keeping commitments I’ve already made is an obvious one. I could also be more attentive to my loved ones and try to “be there” for them, even if I can’t always meet all their needs. But that’s hardly enough to keep me occupied for five weeks of breast-beating including a twenty-five hour fast.

So that’s where I am.

On Turning Around

I have several explanations (excuses?) to offer for this long hiatus. One is the start of the academic year. Another is preoccupation with holiday preparations, and the interference of the holidays themselves. A third is my recent activity on Kosher Blog.

Yet another reason for my failure to blog is that I've been trying to write about teshuva (repentence, or more literally, "turning back"), and that isn't easy. Everything I've come up with has either been too personal to post on the internet or too trite to be worth writing at all. Instead of blogging, I've scribbled in my dead -- I mean, paper -- journal, prayed (half-heartedly, as usual), whined, and cried a little. And I'm still not sure where I stand.

In addition to the holidays, a good deal of my energy lately has been focused on a weight-loss program, called, coincidentally, the "Turn-Around" plan. I've had moderate success in spite of this month's feasting and fasting (equally problematic, from a weight-loss perspective), and that has lead me to wonder whether I might be able to apply dieting principles to other areas of life, to overcome the various obstacles to the changes I'd like to make.

As difficult as weight loss can be, however, I've found that it isn't nearly as hard as teshuva, especially for someone who's approach to yiddishkeit isn't purely halakhic. Changes in my body are more easily quantified than changes in my soul (I use the term loosely). How can I measure improvements in my relationship with God and my relationships with others? I know they're not as healthy as they should be, but what can I do to change that? There's no simple formula, like "eat less, exercise more."

According to one tradition, beynonim, those whose actions in the preceding year tip the scales neither on the side of good nor on that of evil, have until Yom Kippur to earn a favorable verdict. Though the beynoni's sentence is "sealed" on Yom Kippur, it is finally "delivered" only on Hoshana Rabba, until which point the Almighty may still render it void. Since I never finish anything on time, I like to think of this tradition as offering me an "extension," a chance to make some of the changes I wanted to make by Yom Kippur but didn't. Most of these changes are somewhat amorphous and therefore difficult to implement, but at least I can spend one more week focusing my energy on making them happen. And, since we don't have a Sukkah in which to entertain guests, this time I won't be preoccupied with pot roast.

As a final note, I'd like offer my apologies to anyone I've hurt or offended, either in person or on the web. May we all earn a favorable verdict.

Words of Torah

Before beginning, I'd like to request forgiveness from any of my readers whom I've hurt, offended, mislead, misrepresented, etc. I will try to use this medium responsibly in the future. I wish everyone a sweet new year and a gmar chatima tova.* To all who will be observing Tsom Gedalia tomorrow, I wish an easy fast.

Now, to the point: I'm not very good at giving divrei torah (sermons, essentially). Shiurim (study sessions), I can do. I am always pleased to be asked to teach a mishna on Shabbat morning. But ten-minute speeches on the Torah portion can be really tough. How am I supposed to engage the text and make a point that's religiously meaningful to contemporary Jews in that amount of time?

My particular problem is that I feel the need to present the peshat, or plain meaning, of the text as I understand it. I have no problem with midrash, medieval exegesis, or modern Jewish philosophy. The Torah can be interpreted in many different, interesting, and (I concede) legitimate ways.** But my way is to start with peshat, which for me means interpreting the Torah as an ancient Near Eastern document. Other approaches make me uncomfortable, at least when I'm the one speaking.

I do believe that studying the Bible in its original context can yield insights that are meaningful to contemporary Jews and Christians. However, this approach is not conducive to producing sound bites. Speaking on the High Holy Days is particularly challenging, since I am not addressing the usual Jewishly literate crowd. No, I'm addressing the usual Jewishly literate crowd plus about 100 others. Their conception of Judaism may actually be affected by what I say. To make matters worse, these people are smart. I can't talk down to them. They won't tolerate logical leaps. It's horrible.

I shared these concerns with a friend, after having written a speech for the second day of Rosh Hashanah with at least two glaring logical disjunctions. She said, people will have other things on their minds. They won't be worrying about whether the d'var torah hangs together. I should be thinking about keeping their attention, making a point, and wrapping it up before they drift off.

So that's what I tried to do. I made a few jokes, glossed over the leaps of logic, and escaped the bima as soon as possible. My basic point (in case you're curious) was that the story of the binding of Isaac isn't fundamentally about obeying God even if it seems immoral, but about obeying Him even if it hurts terribly. There were a few references to Levenson's Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, and I managed to stuff in a quote from Micah and a few lines about gemilut chassadim, "sacrifices" that benefit our fellow human beings. A few Jewish education types seem to have genuinely liked it, and I didn't notice anyone averting their eyes from me afterward, so I guess it went okay. I got some practice speaking before a large audience, and discovered (yet again) that I could use a lot more practice. I also learned (yet again) the Number One Rule of d'var torah delivery: keep it short, and people with thank you.

* I don't know how to translate this phrase. It expresses the wish that God evaluate the listener (or reader) positively and reward him or her with a happy year. The theory behind the saying is that God issues something along the lines of mid-term evaluations on Rosh Hashanah and determines our final grades on Yom Kippur. I guess I don't mean it literally.

** See the VR's sermon on the Binding of Isaac (which is much more polished than mine).

(I hope Naomi Chana doesn't mind that I've been using her footnoting technique.)