As if Struck by Lightening
In one of my identities, I am nearing the end of my term as synagogue co-president. The routine of sabbath attendance works for me as a spiritual practice as much as meditation or anything that allows us to slow down, calm down and focus. I sent a holiday to the synagogue membership this week. It seems apt to share it with you as well–
I understood that the exploding thunder and the flash of daylight as I walked to my car in the downpour immediately following erev Rosh Hashanah services was my mother telling me, Snap out of it. I’d never been so close to a lightning strike before. When I crossed Claremont Avenue at Midland a bolt hit the traffic signal at the corner of Park and Claremont. The asphalt trembled. I raced to reach my car. Stay away from under trees, I thought, the car is a Faraday Cage. If I can get to my car, I’ll be safe I kept telling myself. How I managed to remember Faraday Cage when I cannot remember the names of people whom I have known for dozens of years remains a question for another day.
I didn’t immediately recognize that the lightning was a message from my mother. It took some time and coaching to connect the dots. This erev Rosh Hashanah would have been my mother’s birthday. My first without her. She almost always accompanied me to High Holiday service, most consistently on erev Rosh Hashanah. Sitting by myself, husband gone 20 years this year, mother now gone, I was feeling pretty blue.
The rabbi had talked about blowing the shofar, and the sound of the shofar, and how the sound could be like tears, I started to feel a bit weepy. Then he told a Hasidic story about blowing a shofar that referred to one of the psalms. Here are the lines, I’ve made gender neutral, from Robert Alter’s translation:
Near is the Lord to the broken hearted,
and the crushed in spirit. God rescues. (Psalm 34:18)
That’s me, I thought, and that helped, though I still don’t believe in a supernatural god. But I am aware that my body is comprised of the same elements that were created immediately after the big bang, that in my way-overly-simplistic understanding of Einstein, the cells of my body are energy slowed way, way down. It doesn’t matter to me whether creation was intentional, whatever that means, or not. It happened. I’m here. We are all here. We are all part of this great endeavor we call the universe or universes, and, in a weird way, that comforts me.
The rabbi’s sermon on Rosh Hashanah picked up where he left off the night before. He focused on our synagogue’s theme for this year of mitzvah, our obligations to one another. For me that’s more about connectedness than duty. In his sermon he referenced Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s book, God is Here: Reimagining the Divine. Her book was part of my own summer reading, and her challenge to think about the religious metaphors we use is one I take seriously.
Back to my mom. After services I went to lunch with a friend. Since I had been scared out of my wits, I told her the whole lightning story. She said, Maybe your mother was
sending you a message. I know my mother was not literally sending me a message. She’s dead. But whenever I would get stuck in an unhappy mood or believe I could not accomplish something, my mother had a way of encouraging me to snap out of it and move on. I learned that from her. The lightning reminded me. That’s as much a message as any kind of message.
As part of my work during these Days of Awe, I am learning to forgive my mother for dying, to forgive those I loved for dying or leaving. It’s hard work.
The year begins again, I may do better.
May you each be inscribed in the Book of Life.
P.S. Please join the ALTE celebration on Zoom at 7 p.m. on October 17. The link will go out shortly before then. If you would like the link, email altetogether@gmail.com