In the Beginning of wisdom

I love autumn, I love waking up before the sun and feeling the cold seep through the windows (please check back with me in a month and a half when I’ll be cursing out the rain, sleet and snow that follows here in the great white north) autumn brings with it the annual cycle of holidays and a lost month of September. It was truly a crazy month and now I’m sitting and reflecting as I tend to do asking myself what did I learn? How did I grow? I’m not sure I have clear answers to anything most of the time. But these holidays and the way they are arranged do give a person the chance to spend time reflecting on themselves and on the year that was.

This is what I learned: I’ve grown a lot. Last year I had trouble following the services. If I got lost in the prayers I’d have to wait for a Kaddish or ask someone next to me where we were in order to get back on track. This year I could find my way back fairly quickly, I was even the one keeping many of those around me at the right spot. This is largely to do my command of Hebrew getting much, much better. I still have a long way to go on it but I’m getting there. Sometimes it’s hard to see but I realized this month that I can read fairly well even if I get nervous when reading out loud or for a crowd. That goes along with this observation: I’ve become more confident in my observance. I’ve learned when it’s okay to tell people to get off my back and when I need to accept a push or a prod. It hasn’t been easy. I still fight with my Rabbis and with my old friends and family seemingly about everything. There are still misunderstandings and tensions because I’ve made the choice to move from my old secular existence in the pursuit of an observant life. But it has its rewards as well.

Like experiencing for the second time the rapture that goes with making it through Yom Kippur, the ecstasy of the Neliah service at the end of the day when we trust that our prayers and confessions have been heard and accepted. I also built my first sukkah and was delighted to get to invite my neighbors to dwell in it with me (even if we did get rained out). Finally last week the final farewell for this holiday season came with Simchat Torah and with it the adventure of finding a new minyan, and the experience of feeling really connected with a new group of people. Getting to dance with the Torah with less inhibitions then I did last year and praying that next year I’ll truly be able to lose myself in the experience and dance like David HaMelach did before the ark as it was brought to Jerusalem without inhibition.

To top it all off I was called for the third aliyah to the Torah on Shabbat and I went up there with confidence and lead the minyan. That was the moment when it really hit me. For the last year I’d been struggling with taking a leadership role in my new community. In most situations I’m very vocal and assertive when I want to be but while starting the process of teshuva I’d become more reserved. Much of it had to do with feeling like a stranger in a foreign land wanting to feel at home but knowing that I was not. I used to dread being called up to the Torah so nervous and afraid of messing up the blessings that accompany it. But the other day I stepped up and just did it. It was a wonderful feeling and very affirming to feel with certainty in that moment that I do belong. That the work I’ve put in despite my knowledge that I can do more and do it better is paying off. It’s a blessing one I hope I can remember each and everyday of this new year.

Leading an observant Jewish lifestyle (as I now can safely say I do) has given me a greater appreciation for the sacredness of time. That I can’t just throw it away and that I should always be using it to get better. Taking so much time off this month, especially at the beginning of a hectic school / work time has had an even greater impact. For now we, the Jewish people decend to Egypt like our ancestors of old, as we will soon read about in the Torah. Not until Pesach will we again block off so much time for the sacred, for that which is eternal. May we all be blessed this year to learn and grow and look back at ourselves next year at this time and appreciate how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go. L’Shalom.