Editorial notes: This post was found in ‘Draft’ mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 13/09/2016
A rabbi who was kind to me and who gave me hope before I could understand it, told me that we travel in circles, forever repeating our lessons with opportunities to rise ever higher. I reflect on my biography but instead see futile repetition of lessons, which culminate in shame and the free fall of frequent failure. Momentarily raising myself only to stumble further entrenched in those choices I’d regretted.
If only by use of geometric analogies, this looks to parallel the repetition across history and lifetimes, and within each year by way of the calendar of memorials and commemorations and chagim, and similarly by way of the reading of the torah every week.
The same rabbi told me, almost a year later. This (he was showing me the parashaat hashavua to give me insight into my life’s choices), this is happening right now.
I am not wise enough to be able to convince anyone that the Torah is a source of perennial wisdom. Others, wiser than me, have claimed so. Instead, I approach this parasha knowing that Hashem desires that I study this gift (of wisdom and redemption and possibilities of transcendental significance in a world that stumbles in unknowing darkness – is it helpful to term this world so: an existential unknown unknown bereft of any Archimedean compass? as an amnesiac about the field of dhamma, the battleground, amnesiac and blind and deaf, surrounded by the stampede of battle with a great weight in the hand). Even if it were only to inspire me as much as the Rorshach[I] prompts of the Tao Te Ching, that would be enough. Dayenu.
The haftarah sends a message of hope to those who have floundered in wretchedness.
אַל־תִּֽירְאִי כִּי־לֹא תֵבוֹשִׁי וְאַל־תִּכָּֽלְמִי כִּי־לֹא תַחְפִּירִי כִּי בֹשֶׁת עֲלוּמַיִךְ תִּשְׁכָּחִי וְחֶרְפַּת אַלְמְנוּתַיִךְ לֹא תִזְכְּרִי־עֽוֹד
and then
כִּֽי־כְאִשָּׁה עֲזוּבָה וַֽעֲצוּבַת רוּחַ קְרָאָךְ יְהֹוָה וְאֵשֶׁת נְעוּרִים כִּי תִמָּאֵס אָמַר אֱלֹהָֽיִךְ
בְּרֶגַע קָטֹן עֲזַבְתִּיךְ וּבְרַֽחֲמִים גְּדֹלִים אֲקַבְּצֵֽךְ
I am relieved to think that Hashem will accept me with mercy (which is among the 13 attributes recollected at these times), for I fear my own capacities and momentum of inspiration, for these, have failed me in my personal ventures time and again. And yet I am shocked to read that this has been a small rejection, unless I say to myself, “When I did so much wrong, and I chose so much that was harmful and signifying obviously noxious and terminal risk, how did I survive? Certainly not by my own capacities. That which I attributed to luck perhaps may be called the “smallness” of the withdrawal of kindness – for there was still protection that to others surely appears as dumb undeserved luck. I could be grateful that I even have the opportunity to be better because I have risked my life and being so often without care. That is sad. It is sad also that I say “could” because I have so little love for my life these days, that I struggle to be grateful for anything, when each hurt is surely deserved and sown, even (or especially) when hellish.
The Haftorah sends this inspiration: There can be a day when I will have no reason to fear shame, nor of being shamed, nor of recollecting my past as disappointment. Surely this possibility could be enough to inspire me to be better? For these fears currently hurt me, as my memories and self-awareness ignite a correctly aimed shame, albeit too often a hopeless – and thus on some level, self-excusing by reasons of defect and helplessness – shame.
[I] “The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects’ perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person’s personality characteristics and emotional functioning. It has been employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly. The test is named after its creator, Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. In the 1960s, the Rorschach was the most widely used projective test”. For further details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test.
