So I hope everyone had a meaningful Yom Kippur, and an easy fast. Surprisingly my fast went by super quick--didn't even get sick. Spent many hours in shul, contemplating the whole premise behind Yom Kippur. G-d judges us, decides who lives, who dies, who is "successful", who is not... If you believe it, it can be both frightening and upsetting. Frightening in the sense of how will I be judged. As Roth put it, "will I make it out on the other end?" Upsetting thinking about life in those terms. Someone dies, how can you possibly sit there and think that it was as a result of something they did? First half of services were tough for me. Kept thinking about Kenny. It hasn't even been a year since he passed away, and it definitely still doesn't seem real.
Something Roth said helped a lot, made me able to continue with services, rather than sitting outside crying and trying not to think. She told this story about when a baby in her community passed away. Totally tragic, a 7 month-old. How could a baby so young, who had barely lived done something that would merit its death? Her Rabbi offered a Kabbalistic interpretation to help people understand. He said that people are here to fulfill a specific task, and that's it. That task could be curing cancer, or it could be something as seemingly "small" as impacting someone who impacts someone else. Still a bit hard for me to swallow, but it helps. Made praying easier. And then I read the part about dying "before their time" or "at their time." Putting that together made so much more sense. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but it helps. It's going to take time. Sometimes I feel like it just happened, sometimes it feels like its been ages.
On a completely different note, Roth invited me to come to her parents' house in Boston for Succot. Spur of the moment, I went online and booked myself a ticket. And while i'm going out East, I'm going to go to New York for a couple days. Meaning if you'll be in Boston or New York for the beginning of Succot, we need to play! Shavua Tov!
