This year...

Every year
comes Yom Hakipurim
and,
no matter what the year has been like,
cleanses
uplifts
clarifies.

Layers
of sin
of time
of worldliness
peel away
slowly at first
then uninhibited
I'm returning
I can see so clearly now.

As the light of dusk fades
the world is different.

Hear O Israel
Voices rise in a thunderous roar
G-d is One
Nothing else exists.

The truth fills the world
HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM
pushing out all else
HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM
I have vanished
HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM
to be but part of Him
HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM
The heavens are shattered
HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM
This must be the redemption
HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM
and I'm no longer scared.
HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM

The silence is absolute
it's almost over
my breath stops
this is it

As the blower raises the Shofar
I wait to hear the sound
I am certain is coming
The "Shofar Gadol"
will mingle with his
nothing else is possible
when the world is filled
with Truth.

The call sounds
it somehow adds to the silence






... and last year
once again
it ended.
And I left the synagogue
to find people
walking on the streets
as if nothing was wrong.






But this year
I know
just the same
that moment of revelation will come
and the Great Shofar will sound
and God will gather us in
because we're coming home at last
and the sound will be
like it was at Sinai:
Strong and growing
and not ending
too soon.

9/11/01: Where were you?

There are some moments in life that divide time irreversibly into "before" and "after." For anyone in our generation, 9/11/01 is one of them.

I'm leaving out the details. Although the whole scene is a mosaic of memory fragments, I'd rather avoid the risk of boring you and sacrificing yet another bit of my anonymity. So I am posting only one shard of the mosaic, a particularly sharp one. You can add pieces by posting your own story in the comments.

I was away from home at the time of the attacks. "Home" at the time was not far at all from Ground Zero, so I wasn't able to return until the next day. I was relatively young at the time and felt quite far away from my family, despite having been reassured that everyone got out OK. It was the kind of time when you want your father and mother close by.

I returned home on September 12, 2001 to a whole different world. The air was thick and gray, and I couldn't identify the smell except that it made me think of crematoriums and gas chambers (though of course I had no frame of reference for that either.) Every time I absently touched the subway handrails, my hands came away white with ash.

Finally, I arrived at my home, an island of familiarity in a changed city. As I approached, I noticed something on the door that seemed strangely out of place. It was colorful and loving.

"Happy Birthday, BasMelech!"

I had completely forgotten.

Hey,
Thanks for the invitation.
I would love to come for a visit now. I'm dying to see you.
I know you're waiting, and you've set aside this time for us.
But... I am just so embarrassed.
Last time, I enjoyed being with you so much that I thought I'd never be able to peel away. But since our appointment was ending, we at least made up certain arrangements to keep in touch.
Besides for that, I thought up a whole bunch of things I could do in between to make you happy.
That way, at least we'd have something to talk about next time we could really get together.
But now, as I'm already running late in getting ready for our upcoming meeting, I have no idea how I am going to face you.
Because, I'm ashamed to say, I didn't do a very good job on those things.
I mean, I did think of you... pretty often.
I just didn't act on it very much.
And sometimes, even when I did do something, it... got messed up.
So I'd feel kind of silly giving you that... y'know?
And I'm sorry I wasn't home when you called. I kind of, well, things got busy and... I'm sorry. I guess I should have called back. I mean, I know, but... whatever.

But G-d, do you know what I am going to do?
Since I really, honestly, do want to be close to You,
I am going to make a pretty hard sacrifice.
I am swallowing my pride
and dealing with the embarrassment;
accepting the searing pain of shame
and coming before You
humble
trembling
and empty-handed.
Here I am.
Please let me in despite the past.

Frum

Disclaimer: Some of you may be what-iffing, but-maybeing, and who-sayzing when reading this post. Please note that this and the below post were written following an actual conversation with a specific person and they are based on my knowledge of her character.
"I'm not what you would call frum," she said.
I didn't answer.

What would I call "frum?" Am I frum?
Am I frum because I dress similarly to many people in Boro Park?
Would I still be frum if I were in Meah Shearim?

If you'd believe me, I'd tell you that as I see it, we're very similar.
But you'd think I'm insincere.
You are absolutely, positively certain that I am judging you.
Yes, so judgemental, her type.

The reality is simply that we both have our strengths and weaknesses.
I was raised with some mitzvot that are now automatic, and there are some I have yet to learn.
Some midot come naturally to me, while others remain a constant battle.
I aim to do good, yet there are constant failures.
I make mistakes.
I'm still growing.
I believe you can say the same.
So who can call one of us "frummer" than the other?

How do you define "frum?" Please comment here. Muse continued below.

Journeys

Sometimes,
When reading the advice of people greater than me
I wonder...

Why bother?
Is he talking to me?
I am so far removed from that, it isn't even practical!

Then I remember...
We are all on a journey
to the same place.

We may not be at the same point
but if I make sure to stay on the same road
as those who are where I'd like to be
then I'm going in the right direction.

The actual examples in the mussar books don't relate to me so well, but if I read and learn from them I can make sure to take steps that will put me on that path.

Bon voyage!

How Different am I Really?

(Not to be confused with "How unique am I," a possible topic for another time)

It really makes no sense to post this here since to my knowledge only two of my readers know me in real life. So this is more of a muse than a question, for the sole reason that I am too chicken to ask "real" people. Maybe it will even be a bit of an eye-opener for some. Or should I say "ear-opener?"

Some background is in order:
I am hearing impaired.
Perhaps it is one reason why I enjoy blogging better than live socializing.
Thank G-d it's only mild.
I've gotten along OK without hearing aids (...so far)

Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing.
Whether things would have been different if...
But that's besides the point.

Sometimes I think that I think of hearing aids as a "quick fix." Another of those things that we lost souls are prone to convincing ourselves that everything will be ok if___. Who says? **(note to the blissfully unaware: hearing aids do not cure hearing loss.)

Today I don't know what got into me, but I asked a pretty awkward question.
We had an event at work. At the end, all the kids were hanging around being noisy while the teachers stood around chatting. These situations are not ideal for me. It's difficult for me to focus on the speaker and read lips in the kind of setting where several people are talking at once and there's a lot of background noise. I kind of assume it's hard for anyone to hear when there are 200 young children partying in the same room.

Later.
I was with one of my coworkers, a teacher with the most wide open heart you can imagine, very warm and non-judgemental.
And I asked her... I was really curious...
"When everyone was hanging around together earlier... Could you actually hear what people were telling you?"
I'm not sure what I was expecting -- hoping?-- to hear.
Well, of course, I have to concentrate on the person who's talking... If I look directly at the speaker, I can usually make out what they're saying even with so much going on.

As you with the normally functioning ears have probably assumed already, she didn't even understand my question:
"What do you mean, could I hear them?"

"I mean, when it was so noisy in the room, and the other teachers were all talking together -- you could hear what they were saying? Clearly?"

To make a long story short, just imagine the rest of the very short, uncomfortable conversation and you'd probably be about on target. And this, with the one person in the world that I felt OK asking.

I never realized how different things really are for others.
To be able to hear things more clearly than I, I knew others could do.
But so easily that they don't even realize they're filtering out other sounds?
Wow.

Wow.

Sometimes I wonder how different I really am.
Most people don't know about my difficulty.
Is that because I've been so successful at compensating, B"H?
Or maybe they just think I'm spacey, slow, not paying attention to them?
When I give a wrong respose, what do they think, they who don't know that I heard them say something different?
When I talk too loudly, do they think I'm unrefined?

Sometimes I feel like I'm doing all right.
But inside, there's always that nagging anxiety:
Maybe I missed something.
Maybe that's not what he said.
Maybe they're looking at me differently.

How normal am I really?

Labels, the sequel

{The only label suitable for a child}

The Honor of a Princess: Modesty

Sorry, this is b"n the last of the princess posts, but I couldn't resist, it was the perfect title. (Kol kvudah BasMelech pnimah)
IFT posted about tsniyus, a while back so I don't have the patience to find it and link you directly. Anyhow, this is my response, I don't think it's typical, and it's something I feel very strongly about, so please give it a few moments:

Instead of focusing on creating tsnius guidelines that are updated with each new trend that comes out, educators of Jewish girls need to take up the issue from two angles, both but no more:

1. Clearly defining the halachot of tsnius. The girls need to know where the line is drawn between rebelling from the school rules and breaking Jewish law. As it is in all BY schools that I know of, this line is very fuzzy as a zillion rules are thrown at the girls from all directions. Give them the laws clearly. You can make your own suggestions or school dress code as well, but there should be a clear differentiation, we must empower our nishei Yisrael to make informed choices.

2. Infuse them with the pride of a Jewish woman. There are levels of meaning behind the laws of tsnius that would make anyone proud to wear them. Give them a sense of purpose, mission, (I do mean besides supporting a kollel boy! This is way overemphasized, nice though it may be, a Jewish woman needs to have her own identity independent of her husband. Especially since at the time when these concepts are being drummed into the girls most of them will not be getting married for quite a while. But I digress.) We need to give our girls the strength to stand tall in the face of their challenges, and this won't happen by telling them a long litany of what they shouldn't and aren't.

Through a combination of those two curricular goals, along with plenty of siyata diShmaya, perhaps we will be able to prepare our girls to make appropriate tsnius choices without suppressing their feminity.

Personally, I find it difficult to fathom that after about a decade of this vicious cycle (in which lower levels of modesty and more rules chase after each other so frenetically that it's impossible to tell anymore which is the cause and which the effect) many major, respected mechanchim continue to stuff more and more rules down their students' throats, even as these rules are repeatedly defied. Don't they understand that their system isn't doing it?

I'd love to hear your reaction to this view, and whether you've heard anything along these lines before. I wouldn't think it's such a chiddush except that it's not happening.