Shaken, Not Stirred

L and I were in an accident on an LA freeway, last Shabbat. At 60 miles per hour it is hard to grasp that all 3 of us, from two vehicles, survived intact, with no one else involved, but we did. For me it was akin to watching a pool shot, watching the ball miss the pocket (i.e., missing crashing head on into the wall), bank, and bounce back into traffic, rolling out of control. The other car (SUV), that is. It fluttered on 2 wheels and ricocheted. While we were minding our own business in the slow lane.

My life did not flash before my eyes. My thoughts were disappointingly ordinary- I was especially irked at the looming inconvenience if we crashed. Thoughts of sick kitties, and a big chunk of time gobbled up in this disaster filled me with annoyance There was no time for fear, and that, I feel, is a total gift from G-d. L (my heroine) finally had to put on the brakes when it was clear that we would not miss the SUV, and we crunched into it, met at our respective corners, and we all survived. By the way, the SUV was looking to rollover but it came to a dead stop as we did. The execution was a dizzying cosmic display while the laws of physics, in simple truth, stood as witness to beauty and deliverance, of the logical and scientific kind. G-d resides in physics.

I was shaken afterwards, physically, emotionally, though neither driver was. Perhaps that was because they had to concentrate on keeping control while I had nothing to occupy me but the slowly unfolding scenario before me. The other driver stated later, in insurance talks, that she was a Christian and she is convinced tht angels surrounded her, and I can't disagree with her because she should have been so dead. I was shaking and shaken and I wondered what it all meant. It was dramatic, this experience, but perhaps a little diminished by the fact that so many highway accidents happen each day, and because we came out of it without any visible injury.

I relived it for a couple of days, and I cried. When I cried, it felt like awe. It felt like I, and everyone else, had been plucked out of danger by The Hand of G-d. You go into another space, for a while. And everything is so beautiful.

So, I was expecting a revelation. Expecting something to change. Nothing was happening. Meanwhile, I attended Sunday minyan and mentioned my ordeal to LARabbi™. I asked him (and I was quivering) if I could say the "blessing for getting out of danger". He pointed out that to "bentsch (pray) HaGomel" (thanksgiving for deliverance from danger) one needs a day where the Torah is read. Okay, the next day was Monday, when traditionally the Torah is read if we have a minyan. Oh, yes!

And these are the words:

hagomel l'chayavim tovot shegmalani kol tov, "who grants favor to the undeserving, that He has shown me kindness"; and the congregation responds: mi shegmalkha kol tov hu yigmalkha kol tov selah, "He who has shown you kindness, may He deal kindly with you forever" (O.H. 219:2). Guide to Jewish Religious Practice

On that day, preliminary prayers sported no minyan, but by the time of the Amidah, all was copacetic, coalesced. I can't begin to describe the relief, the comfort, the warmth that flooded through me, in knowing we had a minyan, even though most of the attendees were strangers to me. I was honoured with an aliyah, I said the blessings over the Torah, I bentsched HaGomel. And then somehow everything fell into place, somehow everything became complete, okay. The agitation fled. The world had righted itself.

In minyan I reconnected with the the self I knew. Was anchored. And filled with gratitude. I cannot begin to stress how completely healing this was for me- a refuah shlemah. LARabbi™ spoke last night about sukkot- fragile, evanescent shelters that are our lives- spoke about 9/11 and how those icons of America's power, the twin towers, ended up being so fragile, and so vulnerable. So it is with trucks and with SUVs and all the armour that we imagine protects us.

Later, oh, drama queen that I am, damn, I was not stirred. I have been waiting for great revelations given the grandness of the encounter with death, and they have failed to arrive. Can anyone help? I find myself not particularly stirred by this encounter with death and life, knowing full well that it was G-d that made all the difference. Life goes on, and I am forgetting. I go on, as well. I am rather thrown by it all.

Is that all there is?

And yet, I suspect, that G-d had a message for me, even though I feel so dense. And yes, I believe we can be so blessed.