God, Dog and the Meaning of Life - A D'var Torah from Past Years

I turned 60 this year, a notable accomplishment marked by great family joy, personal self reflection and an accelerated schedule of colonoscopies.  In the world of numbers, while 59 was a prime year, that is one that can only be divided by one and itself, 60 lends itself multiple divisions (30X2; 15X4; 5X12…..). Thus, these past months have provided me with an opportunity to divide my years and look at my life in stages or segment; for example, those spent single and those spent married, and those spent without children and those spent with.  And without question, the second halves of these life stages have been far more rich, rewarding and meaningful than the first.  On this coming Jewish New Year, as we collectively reflect on the years that have passed  and plan for those to come, I send my wishes that  each segment your life that awaits you is richer, more meaningful and more filled with peace and joy.

In this context of life and its segments, I ponder another division in my life and reflect that the second thirty years of being a dyslexic have been much more pleasant than the first. Two words, two glorious, life altering words that have brought me from great darkness into light and from despair to destiny account for this life transformation.  Those words; ‘spell check’ .

Spell check has transformed my dyslexia from a real disability to more of a nuisance.  I continue to reverse numbers, mistake my left foot for my right and compensate for my continued writing challenges by limiting my hand-written communications to brief, terse messages: “Hello – am fine, David”.  I have come to delight in dyslexic jokes, my favorites being the “dog” “god” variety e.g., “Untied Church of Dog” and the one about the paranoid dyslexic who always has the unsettling feeling that he is following somebody.

I have come to understand that the vestiges of my dyslexia have left an imprint on my world view, my weltanschauung, (bless you spell check) that provides for and, perhaps, encourages perceiving the world in a different way – reversing things, turning things around.  That in a wink of an eye we can transform ‘god’ into ‘dog’ is perhaps a good thing.  God and our understanding of God is now available for further reflection, for reshaping and rethinking.  That one may have the unsettling feeling that he is following somebody is a good thing. Our world would be a profoundly better and more peaceful place if collectively we were more reflective about whom we are following and who we venerate as leaders and heroes.  Political and social change represents the “dyslexic-ing” of the social or political order.  In the sphere of science, in transposing space and time, Einstein demonstrated that he was, perhaps, greatest dyslexic of all.

We dyslexics see a world that is slightly different and sometimes a bit mixed up.  We are, at times, a confused lot, reversing numbers, mistaking our left foot for our right and, of course, advancing new innovations in spelling. But our message that reality, or at least our perceptions of reality, can be plastic, that we have the capacity to reverse and reorder our understanding of our worlds is a good thing – perhaps a necessary thing.

The upcoming High Holidays call for all of us to be open to dyslexic-like reflective flexibility.  What/who is our God? What does God ask us to believe? How does God guide us to act?  How does our God enable us to live a life of meaning, a life that makes sense?  Who are we following?  What values do these individuals advance?  Is the organization, the city, the nation and the world that they envision and that they seek to build one where people are treated with greater humanity and one where peace and harmony can reign?   In the coming year of 5773 let’s celebrate the dyslexics around us and the dyslexics within us and, together, use this capacity to see the world in different ways and to create a better world together.

Love and best wishes for a happy, sweet, healthy, and slightly altered 5773.

Lama Sukkah Zu???

Just a brief fortnight ago we were tossing Cheerios, Wheat Thins and Wonder Bread in to the oceans, creeks and estuaries, watching our sins float away or be consumed by bloated ducks.   Five days ago, Jews around the world twirled chickens and roosters around their head in another symbolic expiating of sins.  (I’m sorry, but wouldn't causing the needless suffering innocent animals be considered sinful?) I checked the Chabad online site and found the following phrase among the guidelines for Kaparot: “One cannot do kaparot with a "used" chicken.”  Another e-commerce idea down the drain.

Just when we thought Judaism couldn’t get any stranger Sukkot arrives. The building supplies come up from the basement or the garage and lie on our decks like a grotesque erector set – metal poles or wood 2 x 4’s; canvas wrapping or plywood panels; bamboo stalks or mats.  Have you tried navigating 30 pound bundles of 10 foot bamboo pole through the kitchen without knocking over the Mr. Coffee machine or displacing the toaster?  Impossible.  Hours are spent assembling.  Instructions, if they ever existed were lost 7 years ago in the last move.  It is the Ikea assembly project from hell. Forget Avraham, Izhak, Yaakov, Yosef, Moshe, Aahron and David – send me Bob Vila. Of course, the minute the sukkah is completed it starts to rain. Down here in Atlanta, Indian summer will be initiated with temperature and humidity that hovers in 3 digits and our Sukkot will become suburban sweat lodges.  Up north, an early winter will set in early with a cold front raging from Canada.  Chicken soup will freeze in bowls; matzo balls will turn into matzo meal icebergs. 

We go to shule the next day and walk around with long palm stalks and $50 lemons.  Seven days later, the sukkah parts are returned to the garage, the palm branches sit in the garbage and the etrog rots on the counter. 

I so love Sukkot. It is irrational, illogical, unreasonable and unproductive.  And thus, it is so important. We spend our days with metrics, outcome goals and billable hours.  We sit in traffic and, while our cars inch forward, we talk on the phone with clients or bosses. We check our email as we head for bed and as we rise in the morning. Even our recreation becomes task-like – we “workout”.  We don’t stroll, we power walk.  We acculturate our children to this driven lifestyle early on: Music lessons follow ballet lessons follow soccer practice field hockey practice and soccer practice.  Our children no longer play - they compete. In the midst of our focus and driven lives, Sukkot reminds us that among the keys to a purposeful life is to find moments to be purposeless. 

And when the Sukkah is complete and the first night’s meal is over, we sit sipping tea – or perhaps something stronger. Faint stars twinkle through the skach.  The canvas walls offer a sense of protection as is we are wrapped in peacefulness.  We are beyond the reach of the TV.  We have ventured past the boundaries of our wireless internet.  Perhaps we dare to turn off our iphones. We stop, we breathe.  We chat with family and friends. If children cannot be with us we recall times when our they were young and we made paper chains or strung Cheerios, cranberries and ziti noodles and draped them over and through the bamboo poles.

Purposefulness will return in the days ahead, but for now we embrace holy goofiness, and divinely inspired irrationality.  Enjoy!!