Choose Your Words Carefully

"The word, 'fast' for Yom Kippur means we don't eat, and we don't drink," my Hebrew teacher explained.  Not every Hebrew student in my class is Jewish.  Members of the class discussed fasting and how they fast.  With one student in particular the conversation stalled.

Student: "I fast except for a little water."

Teacher: "Then you don't fast."

Student: "No, the water, it's medical."

Teacher: "Okay.  You need to do what you can do."

Fellow Student: "He's fasting.  It's medicine."

Student: "It's a 99% percent fast."

Teacher: "We each do as we can, but don't lie to yourself, it's not fasting."

After allowing my initial feelings of inadequacy to fade, I concluded that the teacher was not confronting the student's definition of Jewishness, but instead his definition of 'fast'.  The dots I chose to connect might not be the same as others used, but they did use other definitions to maintain our connection.  My strongest links always had to do with language.

Words and their definitions matter.  Definitions and their interpretations matter.  I am an author and Jewish.  For both, the written word equaled endurance.  The written word connected me, held me and always brought me back.  For example, cheit / חטא, was typically translated as “sin” but, more precisely, it meant “to miss the mark.”   My reflection on Rosh Hashanah showed that for me this was absolutely true, not just this year but across my life.

The computer files I deleted, and papers I placed in garbage bags were deaths of sorts, but they were also compost.  Eraser bits and gray ash could float and settle in any direction, in all directions.  That was life as I lived it, except one was torn and the other chosen.  

Pogrebin quoted a 2013 Yom Kippur sermon by Sharon Brous.  The last line of these sentences caught, as it should, in my throat.  "If your narrative is choking you, or even just inhibiting you, do something about it." (51) 

I had started to do something (or some more) about it between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  I began with the idea of casting off, a nightly conversation with myself and between myself and my past.  I sorted and folded and let go. 

I moved beyond the simple ‘why’ question.

I ignored the question, 'what if I need this information?' 

I asked instead, 'do I even want a job that requires this information?'

Report cards.  Tests.  I didn’t need to ask the question, “What did others think of me?”  Instead, I focused on my own assessment.

My final Hebrew class before Yom Kippur, we watched a video about the Yom Kippur War and listened to “Lu Yehi”, written and composed by Naomi Shemer during the Yom Kippur War (1973).

The song was a symbol of the war and a hopeful prayer.  "Before the war, Naomi Shemer decided to write Hebrew words for the Beatles' song “Let It Be”. She did not like the translation of the song's name to "Shihyeh" which could be understood as “Whatever,” and thought that it should be given the name "Lu Yehi"."

Again, words mattered.

I opened my Morfix app and looked up לוּ יְהִי.  Per usual, Morix gave options.  

Let it Be

If only it could be

Somehow when I read them, the two ran together.  I released control.  Let it be.  I manifested.  If only it could be.

The difference between apart and a part is just some space.  Take some space because words matter.  Yom Kippur gave me that space.

On Yom Kippur, I centered my reflection through continued casting off.  Two key messages emerged connected. 

חטא

Often I held onto a particular item because someone else could like it or want it.  Yet, the item had already sat unsolicited for years or interactions had taught me (acknowledged or not) that this person was never going to want this item offered. 

לוּ יְהִי

My idea of neat timelines, for example the ten days between the two holidays, was not the point.  the work of casting off was my work not for these two holidays but for the entire year.

In the afternoon of Yom Kippur I sat on a guest room floor.  I slowly unwound a braid of t-shirt remnants.  When I had returned from Guatemala, I also attempted to cast off.  Not wanting to throw items away, I decided to weave from t-shirt cloth.  I had cut the t-shirts and braided them into a long strand.  This strand became a ball.  I kept that ball in my closet for almost ten years.  This past week I found an organization that recycles clothes.  That morning I had gone through a pile of t-shirts.  I had more space in the mailing bags and so I pulled out the cloth ball.  Here I faced a metaphor for my always holding on, for my holding on too long.

This ball was created from a need and a positive intent.  It was a strategy to start over, fresh and clean.  Despite those truths, the reality was that it wasn’t the right one.  I was never going to complete the project.  So, I sat and slowly unwound the entire ball, each braided t-shirt piece.  The true work of the year was a willingness to undo things that I had carefully done.

Here I could return to Pogrebin as she quotes revitalization.

“Jews re-enact their own death,” Yitz Greenberg writes, “only to be restored to life in the resolution of the day.”  It feels quintessentially Jewish to me: we collapse and then revive.  We beat ourselves up and then get back in the ring.” (53)

I could not finish unwinding the strand.  I spent the final hour of Yom Kippur Googling facts about the holiday and other people’s reasons for participating.  Each article reinforced an aspect of belonging that I wasn’t sure had mattered enough.

Sacrifice. 

Tradition.

History.

Strength.

Reflection.

Atonement.

I smiled despite my stomach's grumble.  Over the last ten years, Yom Kippur was an end all be all and a not at all when it came to my Jewish identity.  Without knowing the word, my first fast on Yom Kippur was an initial step into the idea of peoplehood. 

This year I had the words to define this for myself.