This End Up

Chasing the dragon:

One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I seek, that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon His beauty, and to visit in His sanctuary. ~ Psalm 27

Walt, in the comments below, suggests that in my "chasing the dragon" I am, in reality, chasing my tail. Having given this some thought, I disagree. I am chasing G-d.

I understand that all paths on this earth lead to G-d, whether conscious or unconscious. Yet I think that the beauty of revelation is that your life doesn't turn out in any way that you imagine when you're just treading the conventional path of hopes and dreams, a path that most people happily embrace. It's something else when you end up struck in no uncertain terms by the pull of G-d, and you know it is real and then your life, as I have written many times before, becomes no longer your own.

It isn't like you've given up your life to G-d. It's just that things happen to you, events take their course and you're basically yanked along, off the beaten path, because at some point there was a "yes" and some binding to G-d. So you end up following some mysterious Divine plan instead of the one you imagined for yourself. And all without the comfort of Abraham's G-d, who promised him so much.

The notion of "success" as we understand it goes out the window. You end up being what you were meant to be and having to live with its implications and consequences, which are considerable and quite grand. It is overwhelming and can be unsettling and intriguing at the same time. This is what the experience of awe is like. All of this, coupled with a destiny of obscurity.

So, if I'm in shul, davenning away, and suddenly and surprisingly I find myself in some other space where I've entered G-d's plane, a heightened, charged place of infinite freedom and possibility where you can really breathe, and can see myself through G-d's eyes, and what I see is that davenning is what I was meant to do, that is my sole reason for being, that is who I am, it throws one for a loop. I hadn't read that on the list of approved occupations.

What does one do with this sort of knowledge? It's not as if there is some secular blueprint for how to be uniquely what you were meant to be in the world. It's not like prayer as identity can be proffered on the world stage as something valid when we identify ourselves with our secular jobs and roles. I suppose one could say, "I meditate" "I contemplate" but that's pretty amorphous and insubstantial. I suppose one could become a rabbi or join a monastic prayer community in an attempt to legitimise one's identity to society or oneself. Other than that, there really are no other adequate descriptors. How does one tell: I was created for prayer.

Some say we were meant for praise, which indeed defines prayer beyond supplication. That's the beauty of Judaism for me, there is much room for praise. We begin in the morning with blessings. And we are expected to say at least 100 blessings a day. It takes mindfulness to a whole other level, and legitimises it within an acceptable and sane religious structure. It gives us words when we lack them. It directs us to the divine moment. All we have to do is know that this is what we seek, for to pray is to become praise. You become something else, you enter the flow, the realm of the Divine. It is a being at one with the boundless.

And it's not as if the Divine has not always been there. It just takes a change in consciousness to see what has always been here, the Garden of Eden. And if you've tasted that and seen yourself through G-d's eyes, why would you not want to chase what in essence is the ultimate reality? The mitzvot were created for just that purpose, as was prayer. They make all things right and good and true. In the midst of great suffering within and without, it is sanctuary and respite and the bliss of knowing. It keeps one focussed on what matters and gives strength to bear all things and do what is necessary. Torah addresses the ultimate reality in great detail and the psalms address the chasing.

On the downside, you may start out destitute, abandoned by parents, with no family, feeling displaced until G-d finds you**; I think it's safe to say that most people would find this too high a price to pay, but it isn't something willed. Then having tasted the good and the pleasant, you end up relentlessly and exquisitely sensitised to the venal and ugly and to evil. On their heels come an all-encompassing sorrow and hatred of evil, and an overwhelming desire, part selfish, part selfless, for everyone to see what you see. It's the promise of prophets:

The earth will be filled with the knowledge of G-d, like the waters cover the sea. ~Isaiah 11:9

What can one do, though, to make that happen? You toil in the dark soil of G-d with your chasing and deeds hoping someday the world is flooded with the knowledge of G-d. And at the end even praise ceases to be and you fade away and nothing will be left except the nameless work of your hands, the ultimate reality, here.

** Compare with The Varieties of Religious Experience

Chasing the Dragon

And so it goes...

I've felt hugely ambivalent about trying out one more venue for High Holy Days. Last year, I finally made it to Jewish Renewal services for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. The room was serviceable and small. It was clear that this little community was quite tight-knit. As in all religious communities, some were welcoming and some were frightened of, or indifferent, to strangers. In such a small gathering it is not difficult to feel a cliquish atmosphere.

Let's talk about bliss. In such a gathering it is possible to notice that people are more expressive according to their needs. There was one fellow who certainly was in another world, of meditation, of connecting with G-d. Reminds me of the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple in Pacific Palisades where you walk these serene, harmonically beautiful grounds dotted with closed-eyed meditators, their faces radiant.

There was a lot that I could relate to, the world view, the emphasis on all those good and free form hippie ideals, metamorphosed by Judaism. But, eh, the liturgical nuts and bolts were too chopped up and jarring for me. No flow. Well, not my kind of flow.

I love the traditional form. My beshert ('I would die for him') composer is Bach. When I enter that experience, life becomes organised, sublime- intensely focused, and preternaturally lucid. There is endless play within the form; it allows for the free channelling of passion (I'm listening to the Brandenburgs as I write).

And that's what I love about the traditional service, the traditional prayers and their seemingly rigid form- infinite play within the familiar- like a gossamer structure cradling all thought and feeling- the ultimate safety net.

The Jewish Renewal version I experienced had a wonderful, thoughtful rabbi, yet a liturgy that was pieced together mainly from the Reconstructionist prayer book (which I love- I often use it to daven) and other bits and pieces in fits and starts, using odds and ends and mucho commentary. The services emphasised a lot of group acknowledgment and world unity, rather than a focus on liturgy. I find it difficult to stay within a meditative frame of mind when group interaction is encouraged (and the bleeding davenning is interrupted! by arbitrary commentary!).

It was there that I learned that though this kind of service did not fit my needs, I could see where it did fit the needs of others. I am not into beating drums, chanting anything outside of Hebrew chant, incorporating non-Jews into the service on Yom Kippur (or actually, most elsewhere in services), or a cheery ('upbeat') environment on the most solemn, gravest day of the year. But that is me.

Bliss. I have seen bliss not only there and at the Fellowship Temple. When I was just learning about Judaism, and experiencing my first services which happened to be at a Conservative shul, I noticed bliss. It was so unexpected and fascinated me. Not induced bliss. The Torah scroll had been carried through the aisles and was handed to the lucky man who got to hold it for the duration of the haftarah. I saw bliss. For the first time ever. In the face of some average, colourless Jew who just sat there, cradling the Torah as if it were his child. No fireworks, no bells and whistles. Yet, pure bliss.

This is what I love about Conservative/traditional services- the quiet bliss, unobserved. Not a goal. In effect, a gift from G-d. G-d's favour. G-d shining his countenance. And a whole lot of passion and love. In most ways, restrained, internalised.

The psalms are fraught with chasing the dragon, in its most elemental form- pursuing the bliss. In this case, the bliss is the experience of cleaving to G-d. Most say that this is not possible, but in my experience it is. The Song of Songs is a perfect example of the love between God and human beings- the endless longing and desire to be together. So many dreams.

If you have ever stood before G-d and suddenly known yourself and your place in the cosmos, then you have experienced some kind of bliss. If you have received comfort or a feeling of well-being from prayer or the psalms, then you have known bliss. If you have felt G-d's presence then you have known bliss. If you have been touched by the kindness of a stranger, then you are no stranger to bliss.

My "chasing the dragon" consists mainly of wanting to be with sympatico Jews. To that end, I spent an hour's journey, mostly by hard-seated bus, to be with any Jews who were willing to daven on the second day of Rosh Hashana. I went nowhere yesterday. Renovation in the apartment above me and its brutal effects the entire last week pretty well laid me out flat mentally. The irony never ceases to amaze me- that I long for quiet contemplation and am surrounded by 'noisy abundance' (Hirsch) to the nth degree.

I wanted to the feel the grand solemnity of Rosh Hashana, the Day of Judgment. I wanted to chant the words with other Jews; it doesn't get any better than that. Yes, you can do it alone, but at this time of year, the Days of Awe, that small personal remembering and teshuvah somehow don't evoke shades of that smoking hot time at Sinai.

I had vacillated about today, whether to try a service at Chabad. Chabad in Los Angeles was my first, glorious experience of davenning High Holy Days and the passion and aliveness left an imprint, I think. The ad, here, seemed very welcoming and I didn't have to pay or be a member which is a whole other story. In addition, in desperate times, I really don't care about the mechitza- that issue is for the privileged.

I travelled on a bus that goes through the most desperate area of town- junkies, drunks, homeless, all over the streets, some stretched out, on the sidewalks sleeping; seedy hotels, squalor you can only imagine. For half the way my seat partner was a very stinky guy who clearly had not washed in a long time and slightly smelled of alcohol and tobacco. I fear bedbugs (which are actually rampant in my part of town). Other denizens looked hard, ashen and strung out.

I finally made it to Chabad and may I say that I thank G-d they had a store front window. The room was about the size of my very small living room, with about 5 men. There was no mechitza that I could see, and why should there be at this point? Five men, that's it, not even a minyan though of course Jews seem to forever live in Jewish Standard Time.

Disappointment. Huge. Heavy. Grave. Brain dragging disappointment.

Again.

Not to mention that I wore pantyhose and a dress! Which almost killed me.


What's new?

I could have stayed home and davenned instead of dealing with the noisome, loutish city, I thought. Do I score brownie points for making the effort, I thought.

The light sabers of ambivalence clash again.

All the while I am grateful to Chabad for providing the only other High Holy Day alternative besides Jewish Renewal. Somehow, they both rise higher in my estimation than all other streams because, in my opinion, in this case they are living Torah purely. Hello, membership/money junkies! You're missing the mark. You ought to be ashamed.

I chase the dragon. I never realised it until now that I have experienced bliss. But it's not true bliss without my fellow Jews, I find; the bliss gets amplified and just seems so much truer. I want, long, to be with other Jewish souls. And like the poets and psalmists have stated, once you have known bliss, you want to return. I think that is what teshuvah is all about- to return to that state of grace, that intimate cleaving to G-d. It's not really a high for it carries a serious price. And it seems to sometimes need other Jews to make it sublime.

I pretty well have lost all hope of ever having a normal Jewish life. It is ironic and sad. But there you are. G-d works in mysterious ways.

A belated Shana tova to my aggravating, mysterious and wonderful, lovely, storm tossed and most beloved sea of Jews.

More Cowbell

Mourning the destruction of the temple

This has been the fitting conclusion to the slow and agonising death of a once vibrant Conservative congregation: "Guess what?! I've got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell!"

The recipe is simple: Take one LARabbi™ who killed himself, throw in a sweet pinch of interim rabbi who held the place together in mourning, toss in a carefully hand-picked permanent rabbi who gets kicked out after a year for characterological "defects", add a big dollop of a board executive who rarely if ever attended religious services, throw it all into a pot of bitter tears, and mix everything thoroughly with one self-centred, ambitious, manipulative glam loving cantor with a cold hatred of traditional Judaism/liturgy... of Judaism.

Anyone who actually cared about the soul of the temple who tasted of this concoction has retched and tossed it out. It sickened them and so they have been leaving. In droves. Not the ones who had some quibble with a personality or rule, but the hardcore, diehard spiritual strength and centre of the congregation. People who have given decades of their lives in genuine caring and support. We all know who they are, in any congregation- the ones who are involved in services and festivals and learning and teaching and supporting on so many levels. The ones we can count on. Even if we don't know them personally.

I have found this phenomenon in minyan as well. Not all of us know each other on a personal level but the unspoken bond is there and the strength is there and when hard times come it is the only place to be, even if you never talk about it. To me, coming together at minyan is the purest form of Judaism and all that Judaism was meant to be. Those who attend regularly, in my little minyan, want to be there. Although as Conservative Jews we are also obligated to pray, this minyan has always been about more than duty. In its finest sense:

Prayer is the continuation of prophecy, and the fellowship of prayerful men is ipso facto the fellowship of prophets.~ Rav Soloveitchik

Almost everyone in the congregation who truly was a pillar, has disappeared, particularly after the current rabbi's firing. The temple has lost a lot of members with more losses to come. When the previous board presidents got together to brainstorm ways to stem the hemorrhaging and offered their services to the executive, they were told that they had no valid standing and their offer of help was summarily dismissed. Every president I had known in the past had been religious in a good way and heavily involved with the temple community. This cannot be said for the present board. I had spent a time on the board chairing a committee, so I had gotten to know the players quite well.

This was a congregation in crisis from the moment that my rav died by suicide. Since that time I've been a firsthand observer of the butterfly effect, of how the ripples of this single act have flowed outward in ever and ever increasing circles, like shock waves without end. At his funeral, almost 1000 people attended with barely a day's notice. When we were asked to stand up if he had personally touched our lives, almost the entire crowd rose. Now the circles cannot be stopped. I am convinced that his suicide did have some influence on a young man who also killed himself.

Will these ripples ever come to rest, I wonder? Will they ever end? Because we're not looking at the present only, but future generations, all from this one abortive act. It is devastating to return to what was once your spiritual home and sanctuary and discover it a barren wasteland where, finally, and indeed, G-d has left the building. On reflection, this is what it must have been like to lose the great Holy Temples and experience the utter devastation and disintegration of the Jewish people that followed. And there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I went to his grave and raged at LARabbi™. What else was there to do? I see so clearly the great panoply of events that led us to this moment. In my case, I lost my first and only spiritual home- it was my Great Temple- and I even lost my minyan. Most of the regulars are gone. Apart from the beginning blessings, my minyan was gutted beyond repair, with a total loss of preliminary prayers- over in 25-30 minutes on a slow day. Stopping to recite a passage in English or telling us the meaning of prayers, ye gods. There is no way to retain kavannah with a bunch of stops and starts and no way to create a meditative space, which is what davenning is at its very best.

The dumbing down of services continues. Some happy singing, and a lot of talking at. Which brings me to the villain of this piece- the cantor. He's a show biz, Broadway type who spent his youth in yeshiva and came out a miserable, bitter anti-Jew. It's a job. He hasn't a spiritual bone in his body. His voice is uninspiring and adequate. He's a big ol' skinny tanned unctuous smoothy. Like a snake. I could go on.

When LARabbi™ died he was there to pick up the slack (and get a raise). Yeah, he knows Hebrew which I think must have been the only requirement. He changed services to reflect his interests. Which happened to coincide, it seems, with a bowdlerised version of Reform (Reform services are so much better). Liking the sound of his own voice, he destroyed the liturgy by hacking off chunks of passages and interspersing it with his fulsome "teaching" minute by minute, hour by hour, usually aimed at middle school minds. We get to hear show tunes like those from Prince of Egypt and electrified instruments during Shabbat services.

When the permanent rabbi came on board, Old Scratch (the cantor) dug in his heels and managed to erode that rabbi's position and influence; he surprised and shocked me, when I saw him, through his behaviour, diss the rabbi on the bimah during Shabbat services. In keeping with my own instincts, I tend to believe those in the know that it was the cantor's concerted effort that largely led to the rabbi's ouster. While there is a lawsuit brewing, the cantor just signed a contract for another year and is picking up the slack (with a raise). Out of this whirlwind, the cantor is the only one still standing.

Some people are trying to salvage what's left. Some are bitter because they perceive others as disloyal. Others force cheeriness on us saying it's time to meet members' needs which usually means a dumbing down, and always a cut in liturgy. Some think that singing simple catchy tunes will raise our spirits and bring in hordes. Most think that it doesn't matter about the rabbi, that it's the community that matters, the members, the congregation; we've seen how well that's worked out, haven't we?

Once I went raging to LARabbi™ about the congregation and he said, "You have a real love-hate relationship with this place, don't you?" I did, but I didn't understand, until I began listening to how people perceived the place. The largest argument has been for community and that's all that matters. In fact, the new president's vision is in restoring the community. They fail to see that without the spiritual/religious element, it's just another chavurah. Where is G-d in all of this? It deems itself a religious community only because it has a synagogue as its centre, not G-d; it is simply another sociological structure.

I didn't fully understand how they could make that mistake until I picked up Rav Soloveitchik's The Lonely Man of Faith. Here, the two Adams of Bereshit in the Torah are seen as representative of the respective essential natures of human beings: one is "majestic", that is, creative and utilitarian, and the other is "covenantal", committed to G-d; both are valid. To be wholly human means to have this dialectic of two natures raging within you. The lonely person of faith is a convenantal faith oriented human being who struggles to integrate the utilitarian and covenantal within themselves and into a covenantal faith community; this, unlike the majestics, includes the experience of G-d.

If you take a look at most of our religious institutions, so many of the shuls, this holds true- they are largely religious communities, but not covenantal faith communities. They are, indeed, "religious cultures" where faith has its uses and its message changes with the times. So, without the informed participation of covenantal faith types, the cultural edifice becomes weakened and crumbles into disarray, or ossifies.

Notwithstanding that Western man is in a nostalgic mood, he is detemined not to accept the dialectical burden of humanity. He certainly feels spiritually uprooted, emotionally disillusioned....Yet this pensive mood does not arouse him to heroic action. He, of course, comes to a place of worship. He attend lectures on religion and appreciates the ceremonial, yet he is searching not for a faith in all its singularity and otherness, but for religious culture. He seeks not the greatness found in sacrificial action but the convenience one discovers in a comfortable, serene state of mind. He is desirous of an aesthetic experience rather than a covenantal one, of a social ethos rather than a divine imperative.....

His efforts are noble, yet he is not ready for a genuine faith experience which require the giving of one's self unreservedly to G-d, which demands unconditional commitment, sacrificial action and retreat. Western man diabolically insists on being successful. p. 98

I really hate the word "sacrifice" but what I think Soloveitchik means here is essentially a humility, a sacrifice of the ego, an acceptance that the ultimate power is G-d and that we depend on G-d for everything. And without people like that informing the structure, the centre cannot hold. Without a rabbi who also informs the culture as my beloved LARabbi™ did, you get the poseurs and destroyers- you get the cantor. Without an executive that cannot see beyond the immediate, you get more of the same, and the cantor who counts and hoards success at the expense of everything else. This trickles down, like suicide, even to minyan. And to me, who stopped going to services, and finally could no longer bear to go to minyan and who has now lost my only spiritual community; the chances of encountering another one are nigh improbable at this point (and not for lack of trying).

I had to step back and give up on trying to fix it, since I don't live there any longer. In the big picture, I realised my time or influence there was pretty much over, since there was barely anyone I knew left. In the bigger picture I hope that the place will self-destruct and rise from the ashes, such is the cycle of things- ever Jewishly hopeful.

But meanwhile, I knew it was over when I endured the cantor's commentary on the passage in the Torah regarding the Shema and the wearing of tzitzit. He was speaking to a predominantly non-Jewish bar mitzvah audience. He likened the tzitzit to cowbells. That Jews wore tzitzit like cowbells to remind them of the commandments. And all I could imagine was a bunch of Jews in a field wearing a big, clanging bell around their necks. Talk about a death knell! I was mortified that non-Jews would see us depicted in such a manner. It offended my sensibilities on so many levels. It was crass and discordant. Cause yeah, according to him and the executive, they and the shul have a fever and what we need is more cowbell.

Seasons of Dryness

So, it's been since May that this spiritual dry period began, and it still continues. I can't even believe I'm using the word "spiritual". I still can't commit to asserting that I actually have a contemplative practice.

I haven't found a way out of the dryness. Sometimes I become lazy because nothing is happening.

I don't know how to describe it; it's not as if I expected anything to happen. If I could find words, I would say it was a bit like living in a state of grace when I prayed. I felt connection to G-d, felt G-d's presence. The shield of Abraham was a reality, 24/7.

Not that I don't feel G-d's presence now. It's just different. I don't know... was I in a state of bliss before? I don't think so. But it felt like an elevated state. Now, it is no less an extraordinary state because it doesn't feel ordinary, just indescribable...unexpected...unknown. Unformed.

I distressed over my lack of practice and connection for months even though both occur, unevenly, in fits and starts. It's been a hard year, very hard, but I hung in there. That is different; even though G-d was slaying me I remained faithful so maybe that's something. After all, I chose this covenant.

Last month in prayer, feeling the connective lack, I suddenly realised that there was more to my life than prayer. There was still ritual. There were the mitzvot, large and small, unannounced, throughout my days...and suddenly I grasped the big picture, felt a little more connected. I'd become so focused on what wasn't going right that I lost sight of the whole, and what was going right in the midst of my distress.

I can't tell if I am being too hard on myself. I have no idea if I am on a path or not. I don't know if I am just dumb or slow or missing the point or everything is as it should be. I just don't recognise this experience as anything but frustrating and yet, I have no true idea of what is.

Limning that question are unexpected moments of ultimate compassion for creatures and events, an absence of judgment, as if seeing through G-d's eyes. Another fringe of moments when the world is alive with personality, a tree, a flower, even a cloud...transformed. There are moments where everything shifts and I see and experience differently...moments of G-d, just not in the way I am used to.

And the miracles continue, of healing, of things getting better or, once in a while, of going my way (diamond rare), of the inflow and outflow of kindnesses and friendship...of seeing miracles for others as well.

This all must create something, must weave some wondrous cloth I am too blind to really see.

I feel guilty.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong

Approaching prayer is just boring. And I feel guilty for that as well

I don't know what to do.

My inner life sucks.

...Doesn't it?

The Duckless Summer

© Barefoot Jewess

The usual duck models were not available for this photo shoot.

Dog Days

© Barefoot Jewess

The dogs were happy to oblige.

Reporting on G-d II: Tisha B'Av, Mourning Ground Zero

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15)

Him? "Him"?

No, there is no "him". I don't remotely believe or experience G-d to be separate from me- G-d suffuses everything. Everything is G-d. The pain, the blood, the joy, the delight. There is no question in my mind.

As for Job, who can stand here and say their story is akin to his? That notion is rather daunting and humbling. Perhaps it's just that we can relate. We may not be so extravagantly prosperous, but maybe we've known extravagant happiness and blessing and suddenly it is all snatched away, in ways we never imagined. Job's story is related so compassionately.

In that tale, the Satan, G-d's familiar, is directed to afflict the soul in whom G-d has tremendous confidence. We see Job as a man who mindlessly clings to ritual and doing all the right things that he thinks have brought him the great rewards of prosperity. Well, I am not sure how many of us can relate to that part. In fact, I think it is G-d's confidence in Job's core soul that allows Him to risk such material and emotional devastation on Job's life, even though Job simplistically believes right acts lead to reward.

It turns out that shaking a fist at G-d and standing his ground is Job's real style, his core nature and soul. In the face of everything, he finally declares: Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Or, "yet will I argue with Him".

I've observed G-d for quite some time, now. And rarely really reported on the phenomenon. I read Psalms and discover a pattern: that the Psalmists are always experiencing G-d and/or trying to get back to G-d and the experience. I discover another pattern in Shaharit, the morning service, that addresses an awesome encounter, a description of that encounter, and the desire to remain within that experience; and having had that encounter, to live in hope of it and of G-d's grace and favour, to be suffused with that supernal light which is hoped for, wished for, craved, longed for, and which you can't buy, bargain for or will. It's all about returning to G-d. Over and over again.

Sometimes, I feel as if I'm on a treadmill. The "getting back to G-d" treadmill. Crap happens. I turn to G-d. Crap happens again and I turn to G-d. Even when I think I'm being faithful, doing the right things, crap happens and I'm back to square one. Or lately, back to ground zero. I have to ask myself at some point, is this that damned Buddhist wheel of suffering? Am I not getting it? Am I not understanding?

And then Tisha B'Av comes along. I remember, once, reading Eicha, The Book of Lamentations, and fasting, all by my lonesome and being struck by the thought of there being no G-d, no cosmic meaning in my life. As I've mentioned before, the realisation filled me with utter terror, as if I were torn away...violently rent from the source of Everything.

Ask me if I am not relieved to have Tisha B'Av descend upon us this Saturday night? I may feel as if I'm on a treadmill, but it somehow brings relief, becomes a touchstone. I have so much to howl at this year, and Lamentations is as ground zero as you can get. I will grasp at any holy verses that capture the essence of our tender, vertiginous lives and the nightmares that petrify our dreams. They are as real as all the hope and glory, and they are as much sanctified.

No one can answer why bad things happen to good (or innocuous) people. Any answers I have ever read have always created a limited god, a god of our projection, a god of our personal understanding, touted as the god. No. There is only mystery, and perhaps a spark of great unfathomable love, if we are lucky. A love that encompasses the good and the bad, because, in the end, it is all good.

Feh. In my raging pain it remains cold comfort; I want my friend back as she was, I want some shred of remembered happiness with no cruel unabiding centre.

Still, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15)

Go figure.

Not Fade Away

This blog has always been about the spiritual/religious journey. It has been about discovery. Sometimes it's about Jews, sometimes it's about my life which I deem not my own but belonging to G-d. The latter has never been a choice for me, it just happened.

My best friend, L, the love of my life, yes, the love of my life even though some man in my life should be my bashert, has Multiple Sclerosis. It's been ten years since we met, and 5 years since she was diagnosed. She is the only family I have.

Her symptoms are not so physical, contrary to what most people experience or know. Her fatigue has grown over time but she lost 10 IQ points when she was assessed 5 years ago. yet her brightness remains unabated. She has difficulty with her memory, difficulty with tiredness, difficulty with initiating anything. Lately, in my experience, she has difficulty with empathy and seems indifferent to the latest symptoms. She has changed, not for the better.

Where does this leave me in my journey? I'm losing the one person with whom I was actually happy. It's not like she died. She's just fading away. Which is far worse than death.

Where does this leave me in my journey? I don't ask this because it's just about me, but more so, it leaves me confused. As to what do I do? How do I manage this, in a divine sense, when she shows indifference? And why, G-d, why, did you fashion the person I love into someone who is fading away from me?

I've had ten years of true love. I am so grateful. But I'm mourning.

Meanwhile, life continues. It just does.

And I don't know how to approach G-d on this. Since G-d came through, my life has taken an ostensible turn for the worst- aloneness, poverty, humiliation, betrayal, deprivation. I have imagined my life so differently, if I had only chosen safety and security. Material benefits have sucked, no matter what.

Since that seminal moment, life continues to be a challenge and not of my choosing. I am astounded by how endlessly rotten it can be. And yet blessings of an untagged sort, do pour in. Go figure.

I want G-d to make my best friend okay, or at the very least, come back to me, yet I know it will never happen. But I keep praying for her healing. Because it's what Jews do- live in hope. And because even though my encounters with G-d these days are not a happy happening, even though my spiritual life seems arid and wasted, so dry I want to spit, I tussle with the Big Guy, asking questions, demanding answers. I want to know that in the midst of all of this crap, divine love rains down. That, even in the midst of my anguish, the questions and love never fade away.