Rosh Hashonah

It’s Rosh Hashonah and I know I should go over to the synagogue but I’m having a little trouble with my relationship to God this year and I can’t seem to get moving. I know some of my more spiritual friends will read this and give me a lecture on faith but let me tell you something: I perform an act of faith every day. I get up.

Rosh Hashonah is traditionally fraught with superstition for me. “The Gates are open!” “The Gates are closing!” God is listening! Repent! Apologize! I’ve gone to temple with the idea that if I just showed up and prayed hard enough, if I was a good person and made sincere attempts to treat people well and apologize to those I had wronged, if I just tried to let go and lighten up, God would hear my prayers and send me financial security. If there is a God, that is. Well, isn’t God supposed to be listening every day? My hairdresser only works two days a week. My doctor is out of the office on Thursdays and weekends. But God? Where does God go when it isn’t Rosh Hashonah?

Why is there this mass panic to get to synagogue during this Holiday? Have you ever tried to get online during peak hours? Perhaps God is overwhelmed during the Holidays with all these prayers and people who He/She hasn’t heard from since last year crowding into the synagogues. Perhaps it would be better to stay in this nice cozy bed until Monday and pray then.

No. I throw myself into the bathroom, dress quickly; grab a cup of coffee and a piece of toast because I know that even though I am already late, this service is going to go on for a lonnnnng time. My husband looks handsome in his suit and I put on the dress I planned to wear when I thought it would be 70 degrees. It is 50. My son couldn’t be pried into the synagogue but that’s okay. Like crutches, perhaps he doesn’t need it. Perhaps he’ll return when he has a child. I did. And now that he’s grown, it seems less pressing.

I spend 20 minutes looking for the tickets that I know we received in the mail but which have vanished into thin air. We go without them. We argue for a good part of the drive; it is stress that is becoming hard to ignore. Both parking lots are full so we drive down the road to park. I notice that, even though we are late, we don’t have to park as far away as last year and I wonder where everybody else is. As we start walking, half a dozen cars dash into spots beyond ours. Maybe they couldn’t find their tickets either. This is only the second year that our country synagogue has bothered with tickets and people don’t quite know what to do with them. Since we don’t have to buy them in the first place, I guess their value is in question. We take out our tallits that have been in the drawer since last year and notice their mildew scent. Do these get washed or dry cleaned? I have two: one was my father’s and one belonged to my grandfather. I don’t know which is which but I always debate which one to bring with me as if I’m bringing the person. I say the quick prayer for donning the tallit which, fortuitously, is written on the edge because, simple as it is, I never remember it, and I step in to the synagogue. I hear the song “b’rosh hashonah tikatevun, u’vyom tzom kippur, u’vyom tzom kippur, yehatevun…” and I am in tears. Why? I have no idea! I want to run away but I want to find a seat. I want to feel enveloped but I feel disenfranchised. If God is everywhere then why am I in this building? If God hasn’t heard my prayers or, if He has and has simply decided to ignore them, or if He isn’t ignoring them but has placed them low on the list of priorities that need to be attended to, things like Global warming, genocide, terrorism, etc. then why am I bothering? The walls and ceiling feel like hindrances to true communication with a divine force. And I suddenly think of cyberspace and frequencies and wonder if this is what they mean when they say God is everywhere and in everything. Is God the Internet? Is the internet God? I think of that ad for a home security system, wrapping the house in endless streams of zeroes and ones. Is cyberspace the what we mean by an infinite Universe? I cannot fathom limitlessness.
Back on earth, the Torah portion is about Sarah and how she gets Abraham to evict Hagar and Ishmael once Isaac is born and this infuriates me! I have a stepson. I love him! I love his mother! Sure she’s my husband’s ex-wife but that doesn’t make her evil! She’s a great gal! How different would this world be today if Sarah had embraced those two people and made them part of their family? Would there be an Arab-Israeli conflict? Would we have found something else to argue about?

I spend the day upset. I am tired of struggling. Too many foolish, selfish people get to make the rules and I cannot admire them. I cannot pray about them. I cannot place my future in their hands. I cannot see that I have any choice.

I go to the gym and sweat until my limbs feel like jello. I follow the pacer on the computer screen of my exercise bike, tuning out all thoughts except “keep up!” I hurt all over but I keep going. I just keep going.

L'shanah tovah tikatevu. May you have a good year.