Before Shabbat

The news continues to be like an ongoing soap opera, with one long cliffhanger after another. It all feels more and more preposterous. The future looks murky and threatening. It feels almost unbearable. I’ve said the Yiddish word ‘oy’ a billion times these past few years. Stop the world! I want to get off!
If we wanted, we could share our outrage over the disgraceful state of our world. We could count on all fingers and toes just how many things are wrong. We all carry more than our share of fear and anxiety over every minute of every day.
The first Gerer rebbe, Yitzhak Meir Rotenberg, once said something like, ” If you spend all your time reflecting on your failings, on evil and moral decay, then over time you become enslaved by evil and the whole world turns to ashes. Stir filth this way or that, it’s still filth. In the time I spend brooding about the world, I could be stringing pearls for the benefit of the Holy One.”
It’s hard to keep positive. It’s hard not to be in a permanent sense of indignation. And certainly, I’m not suggesting we ignore the social ills. We Jews have a job to do, to repair this broken world.
It’s a grey New England, early Fall day. The leaves are brilliant, glistening with rain, blowing in the breezes. I know in just a short while, the leaves will be gone, and winter will be here. But for right now, this very moment, I’m taking a moment to breathe and to give thanks. Yom Kippur has passed. Sukkot is coming. I’m still here, and if you’re reading this, well then, so are you!
At the end her beautiful, heartbreaking poem, The Thing Is, Ellen Bass writes, “You hold life like a face/between your palms, a plain face/ no charming smile, no violet eyes,/and you say, yes, I will take you/I will love you, again.
That’s what we do: we shake our fists, we march, we seek justice. But for a moment, we can open our arms wide and embrace the mortal, tired world.