Loss and the Days of Awe

Each year at this time Jews all over the world begin to prepare for the upcoming high holidays, or, as often referred to, the Days of Awe. Last year, one of my closest friends was killed in August in a bizarre traffic accident. As the Days of Awe approached, I became somewhat panicked about celebrating them with the community in a synagogue setting. I was still raw from the loss of my friend and was struggling to remake my universe without her and to come to terms with the ways in which losing her had shaken my faith.

When I woke up on Rosh Hashanah, I decided to stay home and write my way through to the other side of the holiday. I reflected on the three tenets of the Days of Awe: tefilah, teshuvah, and tzedakah. Traditionally, tefilah means prayer; teshuvah (literally “turning”) means changing or repenting; and tzedakah means giving to charity.

Tefilah (prayer) is particularly complex for me because I don’t believe in God as a deity. I believe that all things living and no longer living, seen and unseen, known and unknown, have spirit (or God-ness) within them. I believe a rock, a person, a cat, a tree, a bracelet have spirit (God-ness energy). I believe that all things and all beings, both seen and unseen, are inter-related and have an impact on one another. We are literally “all one.” Let me walk you through my version of tefilah. My tefilah is a threefold reflection: gratitude, blessings, and constructive visualization. The gratitude part is easy. I think about things and people I am grateful for in my life and I say thanks. The blessings part is about sending protective and supportive thoughts to those I love. I also send healing to those in need, including individual people I know (and some I don’t know), as well as the people of places in distress, such as the residents of New Orleans or the people who suffered in the December 2004 Tsunami. I believe that my thoughts and meditations contribute to a positive energy force that assists these people and builds miracles. Finally, I visualize change. This is the hardest part of my tefilah practice because it requires battle against doubt. I visualize changes I want to see in myself, such as the improvement of health issues or the ability to increase my competency in areas of my life that I find difficult. I visualize peace in the Middle East. I struggle every day when I do my visualization to believe in my heart that what I visualize is possible and will one day occur. If I am successful in this struggle, then perhaps what I experience is faith. I define tefilah not as prayer but as directed reflection.

Teshuvah (change or repentance) is often thought of as the heart of the Days of Awe. But I don’t think it is just for the holidays, it is an everyday practice. I am a work in progress. Teshuvah is inextricably bound up with daily tefilah, which, as described already, includes visualizing the changes I wish to see in myself and my life. Teshuvah is all about my constant striving to be a better person and to have a positive impact in the world. There is a popularized quote that, as near as I can tell, is best attributed to Hopi Chief Dan Evehema and it goes like this: We are the ones we have been waiting for. We have the ability to set in motion many of the changes we wish to see. I believe each of us has tremendous powers of transformation locked within us and that our creativity helps us recognize and utilize these powers. I define teshuvah not as repentance but as transformation.

As I reflected on tzedakah (charity), I realized that I associate tzedakah with giving money. And of course tzedakah is much bigger than that. I watched my mother-in-law, who had almost nothing, give away whatever she had to whomever needed it more than she. She took homeless people into her house to live with her. She fed and clothed everyone who came to her door hungry or cold. She devoted all her resources to helping others. My mother also dedicated her life to the service of others. She once bought a house and gave it to a struggling single mother of five whom she had befriended at her synagogue. Not long after the Six-Day War, she took in a Palestinian adolescent (a refugee from Lebanon) to live with us; and to this day he refers to her as “Mom.” I ask myself how my efforts at tzedakah can compare with these spiritual linebackers in my family and I know that I must change my whole notion of tzedakah. I am not a social worker. I do not have the means to donate much money. So I must seek ways to use my personal gifts to improve the lives of others in a manner that is appropriate for me and which matches my abilities.

My gift is writing. My job as a grant writer affords me the opportunity to raise funds for worthy causes that benefit children and families all over the country. In my travels through life every day, I see people making their own tzedakah contribution by being passionate, caring, and dedicated doctors, teachers, real estate agents, car mechanics, caterers, grocery store clerks, artists, musicians, bank tellers, booksellers, etc. These are people who love to help others in their role in the work world. I consider all of this tzedakah. Tzedakah is the dedication of one’s life and work and energy to using one’s gifts to improve the lives of others. That’s the most important contribution that we make. I believe that energy does not disappear, it goes somewhere; and for this reason we must make as much positive energy as possible. And I think that the positive energy that each of us makes is ultimately the only thing that endures in the end. I define tzedakah not as charity but as putting positive energy out into the world.

Traditional Orthodox Jews might not like the definitions of tefilah, teshuvah, and tzedakah that I articulated last year during my meditation at home on Rosh Hashanah. But I think that my definitions are fundamentally deeply Jewish, and probably not as far from the traditional concept of them as I might imagine. After spending the day at home and taking a moment to reflect on the true meaning of the holiday, I felt more grounded in my beliefs and more prepared to enter the new year with purpose. This year, as I look back on how I spent the holiday last year, I feel the presence of my friend who died. She has remained in my life in many ways both great and small. Last year, she kept me home to spend time with my own thoughts and to sort out my doubts and my faith. This year, as I read back over what I wrote last year, I realize that I did not “remake my universe without her” but discovered that my universe will always include her, in ways both seen and unseen.