A New Year in Three Choices
I.
There is a Jewish custom to find verses in Torah that equal the number of the upcoming year. Each letter of Torah has it’s prescribed numeric value. And so the rest is simply the puzzle of carving out phrases that equal the year. And that aren’t nonsensical strings without grammatical structure. This custom was taught to me by Daniel C. Matt, the translator the Pritsker Zohar. Thankfully he posts a list each year of the verses and phrases that equal the year.
It’s 5781. As I scanned the list, I jotted notes about verses I liked. I decided to limit myself to Torah and not use the whole Tanakh. It can be easy to find verses that align with my social justice nature in the prophets or beautiful turns of phrase in Psalms. But I’m most familiar with Torah and I wanted a verse I could celebrate reading this year when it’s parsha arrive. Also I hate making decisions when there are too many good options. Any person who’s been near me at a restaurant with a big menu knows this about me.
I tried to think through the issues of my life, not just the Jewish, but the totality. I wanted a strong verse to finish 2020 on.
One jumped out almost immediately.
Genesis 2:18 “The human is alone. I will make a helper.”
I have a great deal of trouble accepting help. I hate my true vulnerability. While I am a sincere person when I share parts of my life, there are other parts I never discuss even with the people closest to me. I have tried to be a helper to others – to varying success – but I rarely want people to help me. Because when you’re a southern leftist trans/queer Jew living in Mississippi you learn to protect yourself and be charming. And I’ve spent years repeating those qualities to the detriment of my own growth.
I need helpers. I needed to admit I need helpers, people in my life who love me enough to be there with me. We all need them. I immediately chose this verse and then felt guilty about having not even read the full list.
Thankfully, I can choose more than one verse if I want. So I did.
Numbers 17:23 “It had brought forth shoots, and blossomed flowers.”
This verse speaks of the miraculous blossoming of Aaron’s staff. I loved the plant imagery, the fact that these almond flowers (the almond part doesn’t fit into our 781 total rule) are an ancient symbol of hope, one of the first signs of early spring and a flower that turns edible, it sustains us. The connection to plants also lept out as my connection to nature has grown substantially by working our household garden. Even better, I loved that I could interpret the verse as “He brought forth shoots and blossomed flowers,” because the Hebrew verb ending is the same. And nothing sounded more amazing, nothing more of a reach outside myself, than a year of blossoming, a year of sprouting flowers and shoots, a year of focused growth.
—–
II.
Another practice I adopted recently was the rolling of a d10 die with the first ten letters of the Hebrew aleph-beit. It was one of those random delightful finds at a small board game store years ago and I purchased it with no other plans than enjoying such a perfect little item for myself. It set in the decorated breadbox that is my Jewish shrine, amongst the clove perforated etrog from last Sukkot, the broken shards of my wedding glass, a silver Shabbos matchbox from my mother, the sleeve I tore when Ira died. It sat near my kiddush cup, every week my eyes rolling over it. Occasionally I’d pick it up and toss it just for the sensation.
Eventually, an idea sharpened and I begin rolling this die after havdallah each week. I would take the letter and free-associate – stringing Torah words, kabbalistic symbols, and midrash together in a stream of consciousness that would go throughout the week. It was a way of focusing my mind on my Jewishness, helping me weave connections like Sandelphon weaves prayer crowns.
For example, if I rolled a vav (ו)
I could think grammatically. The letter vav doesn’t start many words – the vidui is the only one that leaps to my mind. But grammatically it acts as a literal connector in sentences, the “and” in Hebrew. It also changes the tense of verbs when placed at the beginning, switching future to past and past to future. And so I could think about how we connect, how the connection changes us as the vav can change a words vowels. I might think about how the line between past and future is already so tenuous as we are creatures moving in time, contemplating and flipping between the past and future in our minds regularly.
Or I could find the first vav of the Torah – it literally connects heaven in earth – “hashamayim veet haaretz.” Or look in a dictionary for vav words, since I know so few immediately.
I could think kabbalistically: Vav is the sixth letter, standing for the sephirot Tiferet, the balance between mercy and strict justice where beauty resides. Tiferet is purple, is Yaavok, is the one-that-encompasses-six, is balance.
I could think of numbers: of the six books of mishnah or the six days of creation or the six branches of the menorah. I could look at a sixth verse of the week’s parasha. I could contemplate the 600,000 who left Egypt.
Essentially this practice can take up as much or as little time as I want and allows me to just have fun with knowledge, one of my favorite tasks.
—–
One of my least favorite tasks is dealing with my emotions.
This yamim noraim was intense in ways I have never experienced before and may never again. I cried at least once a day for nine days, a feat I can’t have done since I was a baby. I started crying at Rosh Hashannah, but didn’t fully hit stride until Kol Nidre. In a beautiful service, distanced and masked, less than a dozen Jews experienced Kol Nidre together and davened Ma’ariv. I started crying early and could not seem to stop. I cried while singing Kol Nidre. I cried chanting va’ahavta in the Shema. I cried clutching my partner’s hand because my heart was breaking for the world.
It has been for some time now.
As I would guess yours has too.
I cried because I felt like I had lost hope, that a part of my self had been further deadened by the world and especially by the recent fast-track rise in fascism. I cried because I missed this, being with other souls on Shabbos, on holy days, missed that inherent communal aspect of Judaism. I cried because I’m getting older and more fearful of the future. I cried through my turn reading a print-out prayer, my tears smudging the words.
We have only just recently prayed for rain and switched our annual plea from morning dew. Sukkot ends and we beat willows to the ground – and there’s nothing pagan about this at all – and then we pray for rain. But here I was already contributing to the rain, giving water to the death of my hope, moving my usual smattering of tears to a steady softening storm. An overflow of emotion welled up and would not stop flooding.
Truthfuly, I have long lived without hope. It never seemed something for me. I had hope for other people, for the world rarely, but little to none for myself. I was happy to live my life without this thing that seems to lift up, only to smash itself on the rocks. I sometimes wondered if I spent up my personal treasure trove of young hope on changing my gender and converting to Judaism – as if they were such large things that to do them required a lifetime’s store.
But at that moment during Kol Nidre I had no hope for anything. Everything seemed beyond repair. The world was a narrow bridge, the edge of a sword, and I wasn’t afraid. I was desolate. And no matter how safe and stable my life was, the world was falling apart and I was too.
—–
III.
As one last subconscious balancing act, I decided to choose one or two Jewish “ancestor” figures, letting their names simply show up as I prepared for Elul and the yamim noraim – the high holy days. I didn’t limit myself to time or Torah, just that they be Jewish.
Now as I live in Seattle, rain is already a constant presence, the topic of every conversation even with those not living near you. In fact, it’s probably more of a topic of conversation with them, convinced as they are that Seattle is nothing but a literal storm cloud. But the summers here can actually be dry. Stretches of bright blue days with not a cloud in sight are common. And so my housemates and I were talking about watering the garden and the little catnip plant that kept drying out, when I did what I always do with people I love; I told a story. I playfully brought up a Talmudic figure I enjoy, Choni the Circle Maker.
Choni the Circle Maker – Choni with a hard gutteral ch – lived back in the 1st century BCE. We have a few different stories about him, but the most well known is from tractate Taanit in the Babylonian Talmud. During a harsh dry spell, Choni drew a circle in the dust, stood in the center, and proclaimed to g-d he wouldn’t move until there was rain. When it began to drizzle, he blatantly told g-d it wasn’t enough! When it started to pour in torrents, he called out “I asked for rains of goodwill, blessing, and generosity! Not this.” And g-d listened. The rains softened.
Later as I was listening to Victoria Hanna’s Alph Beit, which features prayers for rain on Hoshannah Rabba, my mind fixated on Choni again. For no other reason than that second fixation, I chose him.
My other ancestor choice was more fraught. After weeping through Kol Nidre, my partner Molly was trying to comfort me, to let me talk through why I couldn’t stop crying. As it often is during a moment, I couldn’t explain it head-on. It was all so overwhelming. Anyway, how /does/ one announce to a loved one that you’ve lost any shred of hope?
I hiccuped and bubbled, trying to stave off the tears, when I landed with Nachshon – a minor Torah character with some famous midrash. Our midrash tells us that the just-escaped people were trapped at the edge of the reed sea with Pharoah in pursuit and the water unparted. While everyone else was panicking and gripped in terror, while Moses talked to g-d, Nachshon just started walking into the water. Whether calmly or vigorously, whether he was brave or scared or both, he just strode into the sea.
Because there was no other choice.
Miraculously, the waters parted as Nachshon got deeper, some say just as his nostrils touched the water. Some even say the waters may not have parted if not for Nachshon. But I, I felt like I was drowning. I felt like we were all just walking eternally into the water of this chaos, begging and hoping beyond hope it would part and we might walk upon solid dry land. Hell, most of us would even take a swamp compared to the inundation of this year. And because I came to Nachshon in the midst of my despair, I chose him as another ancestor to lead me through the year.
—–
On the end of Shabbat Shuvah I rolled the die. I threw from my right hand, hoping for metaphorical mercy and abundance. I focused all my love and desperation into the roll, wishing for some shred of understanding.
It landed on zayin.
My mind lept immediately to the sephirot Netzach, the seventh sephirot of ten – associated with Moses – how it’s a place of power and action, a site of endurance. I recalled that it is the location of love that seems presented in harshness or restriction. I remembered how on the sephirot map shaped like a human – the yashar formation – Netzach represents the right leg forward.
And suddenly I came to a realization. These subconscious choices were all the same. they were all tied inextricably together and that through them I saw my year’s path.
I have spent much of my life one-foot back, trying to balance before I even lost my footing. I have put practicality before my deeper hopes and wishes. I have protected myself from disappointment by refusing to share my self fully. And this year has been nothing but a desperate balancing act for an entire world, trying to keep one foot back while on a tightrope over death. It’s understandable we’re all trying to stand in place with such a charm below us. And I simply can’t anymore.
—–
On Yom Kippur, I faced an internal death. I lost all hope – in myself, in the world, in every atom of humanity. I felt as if death could come and I would leave quietly. And after 26 hours of no water and no food and no touch, after curling up under my blanket and crying out as Jonah “You cast me into the depths! I am sinking to the base of the mountains!,” after surrendering up my hope, I went into our yard to pray Ne’ilah. I still wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I just wanted to curl back up and never open myself to feeling again. The gates were already shut. Why would I call out to open them? But still, I called to the sky the whispered words we stole from the angels “Baruch shem kavod.” And I yelled the final verse seven times “Hashem is g-d. Adonai hu haelohim” before just letting my shofar blast slowly bleed out.
And after, I breathed in the cooling night air. I saw the moon coming back, growing more full since Rosh Hashannah. I carefully pulled a small cherry tomato from our garden and ate it, breaking the fast. I begin crying again. A dam had burst, and I cried in happiness and pleasure at such a small perfect thing.
—–
My death – even the real one, much less this symbolic one we are all supposed to experience on Yom Kippur – will mean little to the world. But while I am here, I want it to be for good, for life. I want to put my foot forward into the world. And if the only hope I have is a small tomato grown with my somewhat fickle attention, it will be enough.
I have found a place beyond hope. In this latest breaking, some of the final fortresses I built around my heart so long ago tore open and now I can’t rebuild them. The me with that terrible necessary power is gone. And so now?
With no hope and the fortresses down, I need helpers, I need other humans who will remind me how beautiful this can be, could be. I need to blossom and put forth shoots, my own flowers into the world – I want the dead staff of my hope to bloom again.
I must be Choni, demanding our blessings, refusing to leave and refusing to stop until the healing rains come. I must be Nachshon, stepping into the sea, backwards towards the future with no knowing that a miracle may occur. We can’t wait for the miracle. We must make it ourselves.
eish zarah 