I, more often than not, have trouble on Yom Kippur staying focussed. I like the ceremony of Kol Nidre on the evening of the holiday and almost never miss it. In the morning I have more success than later in the day staying with the goals of the day. But the holiday is a fast day so by the time early afternoon comes, I am often dwelling on how long it will be before I can eat.
Often what helps is that I am in a book. When I am in a book I will spend time in the afternoon reading whatever it is that I am reading. Reading helps me think. While a novel is not prescribed on Yom Kippur (probably is forbidden) it does good things for me beyond filling up hours. I'll read something and that triggers a thought and before I know it I'm engaged in some introspection. A problem this year is that I am not in a book presently. And, of course, to make things more difficult there are no synagogues open. I did later in the day watch services from both Buffalo and Cincinnati which were excellent. These were Reform services with much in English so that made it more valuable to me. Besides the English, the services were well thought out and likely more choreographed than they would otherwise be. I found the readings very meaningful, especially the end of the Neilah service in Cincinnati.
Around mid day, well before I travelled by computer to Buffalo or Cincinnati, I played a dvd I had taken from the library. Around twenty years ago I read what is one of the top twenty, maybe top ten, books I've ever read, American Pastoral by Philip Roth. I found out around a month ago that there was a movie made of the book, so I borrowed it from the Waltham public library. And around noon I watched American Pastoral. (A shout out to the Waltham public library--the people there during this pandemic are trying very hard to provide books for the community in a safe way. Very pleasant and helpful under what are trying conditions).
If you want to read the book or see the film you might want to skip this and the next paragraph. A young man named Seymour Levov is nearly perfect. Handsome, intelligent, considerate, and an outstanding athlete. He is a high school hero, goes off to fight in World War II with the Marines and returns healthy. He falls in love with a woman who is intelligent, considerate, from humble beginnings and beautiful. She represented the state of New Jersey in the Miss America pageant. Theirs is a perfect match. He inherits his father's glove factory and considerately manages the facility being kind, as his father was, to the workers. The business is successful. The couple buys a beautiful home in the country. They are wonderful beautiful people.
However, they have a child who becomes a revolutionary and maniacal in her activities. The child leaves home after a bombing and the parents fear their daughter might have planted the bomb which killed a neighbor. The couple is emotionally ripped open because of the events. The book/movie describes how these actions by the daughter and her disappearance--which were not brought on by parental negligence--destroy two wonderful people.
It was a good movie to see on Yom Kippur, a day of atonement. Jews are taught to practice tikkun olam--not only to look within and clean up the debris that accrues in our souls, but to look at our society and work toward making our world better. But sometimes it does not work. Sometimes you can be a wonderful soul and be socially conscious and practice Tikkun Olam as a matter of course, but some things happen. There is an impediment of someone else's making that gets in your way. Often times the impediments that appear to be of someone else's making are self created, but in the case of Mr and Mrs. New Jersey, something out of their control affected their lives.
It's a test. Cleaning out the debris that you've accrued, and working towards repairing the world (tikkun olam). My take aways today, at three score and ten pushing three score and eleven, are these: sometime the debris that you think someone else created is stuff you've created; regardless of the crud in your system and the crud surrounding us, it is our job to work and work to make it better. And if we think we have problems, maybe we should consider what happened to Seymour Levov.
And now, as the sun sets, I am ready to eat. Whatever is being made downstairs smells heavenly.
Happy new year. Apples, and honey, and joy to all.
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