This evening I’m inspired to write about Yom Kippur by the authors of two blogs I regularly read: The Individual Voice, and Writing Under a Pseudonym. Judging by their recent posts, these writing virtuosos are both (apparently) Jewish and both were likewise inspired to write about Yom Kippur by the weight of the holy day itself.
I’m grateful to have come into the world of blogging, however late, because of writers like these. When I think about the privilege of reading and therefore learning from others who live in different places and have such different life experiences, I’m reminded of the children’s worship song, “Deep and wide, deep and wide, there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.” In this case, that fountain is the fountain of blogospheric knowledge, and into that fountain I’m dipping my cup. Thank you two writers for your wonderful water.
The reason I took the time to read through these two particular blogs on Yom Kippur, and took even more time to think and research a post that will probably be read by very few people, is that I was impressed–even awestruck–by the wholeness I saw in what the authors probably thought were mere musings or ramblings. In the acorn, the tree.
My thoughts about the Day of Atonement this year began on Yom Kippur, when The Individual Voice wrote this:
For today, all day, in temples and synagogues all over the world, there is the endless repetition of this horrible prayer about how God decides TODAY not only whether you will live or die this year, but how exactly you will die, of fire, flood, disease, whatever. [. . .] To me, Yom Kippur, a Fast Day, has always been Selection Day. I don’t honor it. I don’t honor a God who uses the same methods of selection as the Nazis.
I admit I had never thought about any metaphorical connection between the selection of Jews for the ovens and the selection of sinners for the fires of hell. Even as I write these words, the starkness of the parallel is striking; I can see why Tiv (that’s what I call the author of The Individual Voice) would see it that way. Years ago, I might have rushed to the defense of God, who (of course) wouldn’t need it. Now, because I’m sincerely interested in Tiv and others who are actually aware of what they think and feel, aware that they’re alive, and struggling to become more and more whole (at least, that’s how it appears to me)–now, I let her be my teacher. Because of Tiv, I think about what it means when God selects people. Does He do the selecting, or do we select ourselves? Have I really examined my beliefs and their foundations, or, as has been so often the case in my life, have I merely accepted without thinking the doctrine that was taught me?
