I'm better today but yesterday...

I had been in a mood, stuck not at a crossroads, choosing between between the tried and true and the "path less travelled." I chose. As I wrote tdown my thoughts, I was on a train, headed to New York, torn between two temples: the one based mythology but where my history told me I should be, and the one that feeds my imagination and mental health. A place that a very bad playwriting teacher once said was where "you just make shit up." The Theatre.

It was Erev Rosháshonah. Notice the accent mark over the 'a', a sure sign of my heritage. I say it the Yiddish way, not as modern Jews say the more literal Rosh Ha Shonáh, the Head of the Year. In the past, I would know exactly where I belonged on this day. Whether it was at my grandmother's table or my mother's, I would be with my family. There would be a round challah on the table followed by gefilte fish, homemade lukshun soup, a brisket or chicken. On the second day, when we were flush, the main course would be replaced by a stuffed Crown Roast. Crowns are significant during this holiday. There'd be Honey Taeglach, what the Italians call Strufaleh, for dessert, and I would be surrounded by family. 

So, when did it stop, and why?

Even when one rejects the mythology... Perhaps "rejects" is too strong a word. Recognizes the mythology: that's better. Even when one recognizes the stories you grew up with as mythology, the stories endure. There is an almost sentimental attachment to the things you can't possibly believe in a literal sense but that come up to bite you when the calendar says, "The Gates Are Opening." For a moment, as the stations flick past the moving train, you wonder, is God really watching me? 

My husband says I don't need anyone else to make me feel guilty; I do it so well myself. He's right. But is it just guilt, or the sincere desire to belong to something other than myself? At these moments, I beat myself up for having abandoned the practices of my heritage and raised children who don't even consider them as important. I watched a video yesterday of my cousin's Bat Mitzvah. (I'll call her "J" so I don't get lost in pronouns.) I saw the joy in J's parents' eyes as they hoisted her up in celebration of this Rite of Passage. I heard and saw my grandmother, mother, father, aunts, uncles, cousins, so many gone now, beaming with pride as this first child of a new generation entered adulthood according to Jewish tradition.  I laughed, cried, and regretted that my son will probably not know the joy we all felt, the joy I felt when we celebrated at his Bris, (That was exactly 37 years ago today on the Jewish calendar) his Pidyon Ha'Ben when my cousin, who should have been a Rabbi instead of a businessman, accepted silver dollars in exchange for my baby boy to keep him from a life of dedication to the Temple in Jerusalem, (oh, the stories!), and thirteen years later, as he blew us all away with his reading of the Torah, delivered a remarkable speech and then danced in to the party like the King of the World.

How did I let it all get away from me? Why was I on this train?

I think I was on the train because a family dinner doesn't work when the family is gone; when the cousins are 3000 miles away and your children walk other paths. You might want to insist they come but are afraid you'll just make them mad. There is no joy in a dinner that is only an obligation and it's a hell of a lot of work, so I don't do it. Besides, it is imposible to find Honey Taeglach in Newtown. Instead, I watch the stations pass the dirty window of the train. I get to the play reading and meet several other Jews who have chosen to be here and we share our embarrassment, our loneliness, acknowledge our pasts, and our happiness at being together.

I don't really believe there are gates opening and closing, that the next ten days will decide who lives and who dies in 5785, that praying vociferously over the Days or Awe, the Days of Repentance, will change anything. I believe you have to be an ethical person all the time, not out of fear but because it is right. Still, I will go down to the river this afternoon and cast some bread upon the waters, not because I think it will cleanse me of my sins but because it makes me feel good. And since we really don't know... one can never be too careful.

L'Shanah Tovah.