How Far Down the Rabbit Hole?
I so enjoy the process of selecting readings for my Wednesday night Room to Write group. I think about it for days, in a mulling kind of background noise way. Then at some point, such as a few minutes ago, I go over the bookshelves in my office or at home, seeing what volume catches my eye. Today it was Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy. The one I chose for us offers multiple possibilities. I know what I have in mind, but the best part is not knowing how each person will respond, where the prompt will take her.
I love these words, from her poem To the young ones who want to:
The real writer is one
who really writes.
I just ate a grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough. So good on a day cold enough to feel more like January than mid-November. I'm working from home for now, since I'll be going to my office later.
This morning I had a tutoring session. There's something I wanted to write about: The gabbai. This person has multiple roles in a synagogue, but the one we talked a little about today that spoke to me is that the gabbai stands next to the Torah reader, with a book where the reading is written with vowels and trope marks (as opposed to the words in the actual Torah, which have neither), following along to correct the reader when they mess up.
Not IF, when. That's the part I loved.
Even the most learned and experienced rabbi has a gabbai standing there. To me, there is something so positive, so deep, so loving about this communal approach to religion, and I can't but help see it as a representation of how we also see ourselves in life, in a broader sense.
We will mess up. All of us. Every last one. It is absolutely inevitable. Knowing we have someone on standby, somewhere prepared to catch us and help us pick back up where we stumbled, is so very different than being up there all alone, exposed, without a safety net.
Where and how can we be this for each other, beyond the bimah (the place in the synagogue, usually elevated, where the Torah is placed and read each week)? How would it shift your approach to difficult situations, relationships, or conversations, if you knew someone had your back? What would that look like? There are so many implications here, some simple and some undeniably complex.
Talking about it a tiny bit with Diana today helped me understand why I always feel strangely soothed by the way a small collection of people stands up there during the Torah service. It's like we're saying, "Hey, this is something that's really important to us, so let's make sure we have coverage since all of us are imperfect humans and we really care about doing it justice."
I have learned my short Torah reading for my bat mitzvah, which isn't until the end of May. Now what?
How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? she asked.
All the way down, I said, laughing but also completely serious. And to think I considered dropping out.
As if.
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