BADLY—TO THE BONE
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
This week my elementary Judaism leads me to Rosh Hashana, which starts this year at sundown on September 22. With Yom Kippur, ten days later, it constitutes the Days of Awe, and not all the awe is of the oh the lovely fireworks variety. Part of it is seeking out people you’d rather not talk to and telling them you’re sorry for what you did. In this rather rare case, there is a Right Thing to Do. I can get to the point of apologizing to other people fairly easily, but for myself I feel AWE, as in the depth to which you sunk this time fills me with awe. My cousin Lisa renders this ancestral Chotzinoff family message as YOU HAVE BEHAVED BADLY! It is my habit to allow these words to pulse inside my head like an all-night neon sign. On the other hand, I get a newsletter from Agudas Achim, the Austin synagogue we joined just last week. In it I found a very hip translation* of a poem by Nachman of Bratslav, the 18h century Chasid. I quote:
You know yourself too well to be fooled: `Even the good things I did,’ you say,
`Were all for the wrong reasons. Impure motives! Lousy deeds!’
Then keep digging, I tell you,
Keep digging,
Because somewhere inside that now tarnished-looking mitzvah,
Somewhere within it there was indeed
A little bit of good.
That’s all you need to find: Just the smallest bit. A dot of goodness.
That should be enough to give you back your life.
All this talk of digging made me think of a flimsy Wal-Mart trowel I should have thrown out years ago, because the only way I manage to plant anything is by clawing in the dirt with my bare hands. And I think: it’s better than planting nothing.
*by Arthur Green, dean of the rabbinical school at Hebrew College.
Celebrating Rosh Hashana without wine? Unthinkable! Below is a link to my sister Jennifer Rosen’s column about kosher wine, which will change your whole way of looking at the simcha meals ahead. But for now, suffice it to say that Mogen David and his cronies are gone, and no one misses them.