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So let's see -- today I picked up some special CDs for Mickey and got one jammed in my car's CD player before even getting it home to him. Then I broke a chopstick in there trying to dig it out. Yesterday I bonked my head on something, and today I have a bruise on my forehead. A couple of days ago while I was driving I hit a rock, got a flat, bent my wheel, broke the hubcap. Right before that I screwed up a plan with some friends, not once but twice, making a ton of aggravation for everyone involved. Now I just can't get over being embarrassed and mad at myself. Grrrr. Crank crank crank. I couldn't be in a cruddier mood.
All this just a couple of days after Fran's Simchat Chochmah and the Kabbalat Shabbat the night before, both adorned and uplifted with that glorious music by Liz and Beth, Fran and Roger's daughter and daughter-in-law. Right after all those words of love, all those sweet tears, all those delightful friends and relatives coming here from all over the place to honor their dear friend. And just a week after the bliss of Tu B'shevat, where we ascended the Tree of Life and ate from its fruits. Ascension, harmony, ecstasy. And now just listen to me crab crab crab.
But actually I have to crack a smile even while I moan and complain. I find myself daydreaming back to a wedding I did last summer. The bride and groom, dear friends of Mickey's and mine, are two well-know and well-loved ecstatics. And they said they wanted me, of all people, to officiate, because they said they wanted some "grounding." Well, okay… After the drums and the chants, the tambourines and rose petals, I gave my wedding sermon. I had four little gifts, I told the hatan and the kallah -- one for each of the "four worlds" spoken of in kabbalah. The four worlds -- or emanations of the Divine -- start at our end on the material plane, move through a "world" which corresponds with emotions, then another with the intellect and a fourth and highest "world" corresponding to what we often think of as spirit or pure being. (We just explored the Four Worlds on Tu B'shevat.)
I can't quite remember the thinking behind my first three little gifts (there was a piece of toast, two Tylenols, five bucks for a latte and a newspaper -- feel free to mix and match as you understand…) But the gift for the Fourth World -- the world of atzilut -- Divine Oneness, wholeness, I remember well. I had collected some of the hair from the drain of our shower and neatly wrapped it up. Because, as I told my beloved wedding couple, you might think that the highest state is when you're ecstatic -- but actually the most ordinary moment can be the one closest to God. You might just be picking the hair from the drain of your shower -- and be a little late, a little aggravated, a little whatever -- and that could be the most perfect moment of life. Just think about death, for example -- and how much you would love to have your deceased loved one right here with you cleaning the bathroom.
It's all the same -- that's what I keep thinking about now, even as I crank and crab through these last couple of days. All of life is life. It is all a blessing and a gift, whether I am breaking chopsticks into my car radio or chanting in bliss. "The essence of everything is joy," said Rabbi Nachman someplace or other. Years ago I xeroxed that line into the various paperback siddurim that I put together, placing it right before the amidah. I see it all the time, and I always love it. Just tonight, at the shiva minyan for Ellen's father, David Saxe, we began our amidah with that line: the essence of everything is joy. Even the act of mourning a wonderful person has at its essence that life of that person and the love and connection and meaning of that life.
So it's great to pray and sing myself into that delicious flow of God-ness, where everything feels like, well, like Everything. It's also great to have a fabulous meal or a brilliant conversation, or a hot sauna on a cold night or to see the Milky Way. But it's really great as well to be driving along and to hit a big rock and get a flat tire, or to clock myself on the forehead or to be slightly irritated about a jammed CD. It's all the same. It's all life. It's part of everything, and the essence of everything is joy.
Even as I'm writing these words, I am thinking about people I care for whose last couple of days or months or years have contained real sorrow and loss, not just flat tires and embarrassments. I remember a time in my life when I was so sad that I felt like I had no spine, like I couldn't even stand up. I wouldn't wish to repeat those days, in the aftermath of a huge loss (but I will again someday, I know, I know…) But I also remember a little undertone in those days of something kind of breathtaking, a kind of awe -- something so cold and crisp and acute that it had its own beauty. And maybe even something like joy. I can't say it for anyone else, but I can admit it for myself.
Still and all, most of my life is more about hair in the drain than about catastrophic loss. And so most of my task is to find the essential joy in the ordinary and even slightly unattractive times and places of my life. I imagine putting a frame around just such a hair-in-the-drain moment, a flat tire moment, and to say, "This moment is the most perfect moment of my life." Or, "This emanates from the World of Atzilut." Or, "God is in this scene." Or, "The essence of this is joy." And actually it comes pretty easily, more often than not.
I'm sitting here at my computer, after the shiva minyan. It's after 11:00 at night. I should have had this written yesterday. I'm sleepy, and I have other things to do before I finally crawl off to sleep. Grrrr. Yawn. But I'm smiling. The essence of this little task -- writing this column -- is all of you, our life together, the honor of getting to reflect on that life in your company. The essence of the late evening is a full day with many parts, each a little tiny story that I got to be part of. There's rain on the roof (and it's not even coming through the ceiling…) This is the best moment of my entire life, because I am thinking of all of you, and I am about to crawl into bed with Mickey, and it's raining, and what more could I possibly wish for?
- Rabbi Margaret Holub
© 2009 Rabbi Margaret Holub
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Updated 01/30/2009 (rge)