havel havelim, hakol havel
Oct. 20th, 2008 08:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupIt's funny how things happen at a time when they should.
For the past week, as Jews do at this time of year, I've been taking all my meals in a little hand-made booth in the backyard. The walls aren't supposed to shake in the wind, but they do. The bamboo mat roof falls down every night.
I've been building other houses in my mind. I'll show them to you someday.
So I chanted the first chapter of Ecclesiastes in shul the other day. I love Ecclesiastes for many reasons, but most of all I love it for telling the truth about life, the truth that you start to learn when you're young and that life teaches you again and again. That this world isn't about fiery angels and cherubim floating around the sky. Instead, it's that what we work on in life, the houses we build, the little projects, are just so much whistling in the dark. We tell ourselves we'll be happy if we just accomplish x. We curse at our fate for not accomplishing the x. But we know that we've said that before, we got the x, and before long we ended up right where we started. The house was built in the wrong place, or at a time in life that's different from now, and whatever it is, we're not satisfied. Whatever the thing is we want most of all right now, we know in the long run will either let us down or be forgotten. But we still need to try. Maybe this time... but the trying is all there is.
We also say psalms (Hallel) that are my favorite part of the liturgy. I love them for their direct Hebrew and I love them for being poems of triumph that also acknowledge the shakiness of triumph. I will keep my faith, even though I said, I am greatly troubled; I said in my panic that all men are deceitful. The honesty to it. We're doing the best we can, here. We're trying. Every rational instinct is to bolt. But we're going to make it.
I feel as low as I've ever felt right now. But even that feeling. That's fleeting too.
For the past week, as Jews do at this time of year, I've been taking all my meals in a little hand-made booth in the backyard. The walls aren't supposed to shake in the wind, but they do. The bamboo mat roof falls down every night.
I've been building other houses in my mind. I'll show them to you someday.
So I chanted the first chapter of Ecclesiastes in shul the other day. I love Ecclesiastes for many reasons, but most of all I love it for telling the truth about life, the truth that you start to learn when you're young and that life teaches you again and again. That this world isn't about fiery angels and cherubim floating around the sky. Instead, it's that what we work on in life, the houses we build, the little projects, are just so much whistling in the dark. We tell ourselves we'll be happy if we just accomplish x. We curse at our fate for not accomplishing the x. But we know that we've said that before, we got the x, and before long we ended up right where we started. The house was built in the wrong place, or at a time in life that's different from now, and whatever it is, we're not satisfied. Whatever the thing is we want most of all right now, we know in the long run will either let us down or be forgotten. But we still need to try. Maybe this time... but the trying is all there is.
We also say psalms (Hallel) that are my favorite part of the liturgy. I love them for their direct Hebrew and I love them for being poems of triumph that also acknowledge the shakiness of triumph. I will keep my faith, even though I said, I am greatly troubled; I said in my panic that all men are deceitful. The honesty to it. We're doing the best we can, here. We're trying. Every rational instinct is to bolt. But we're going to make it.
I feel as low as I've ever felt right now. But even that feeling. That's fleeting too.
