Learning and Living Jewish Wisdom: Moving forward on My Life Journey
May 30, 2024
Today is Day 236 that the Israeli hostages are in captivity.
Bring them home!
Life is beautiful, banal, and cruel. We have all experienced moments of each since they broadly cover the human condition. It’s the balance that makes life unfair.
This weekend, I watched the interview with four mothers of the five young Israeli women in the recently-aired video as they were kidnapped and brutalized by H-m-s. Another opportunity for more cracks to the heart because of casual evil, and an overwhelming sense of injustice and helplessness. Empathy for these women and their daughters is too hard to experience because how can I, a mother of daughters who are safe, who are living their undisturbed lives, even purport to comprehend what these mothers—and their daughters—are going through? But they are in me, which feels like a duty I have committed to.
A few hours later, my daughter and her boyfriend came over for dinner. It was early evening on a beautiful spring day in Oregon. We sat in the backyard around a big table, enjoying the food that I cooked over two days, eating and talking about our week, planning for the next week. During pauses we watched the occasional hummingbird feed on the flowering bushes in the back of the garden. Later, I realized that this was the first time that I had anyone over for a meal since before Covid. The last time was brunch with my Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom group. (SOSS is an organization for Jewish and Muslim women to meet as friends, learn from each other, and work toward acceptance and understanding.) I still have hope in connections made around plates of food, though right now that feels like a band-aid when heart surgery is needed.
With all the videos I’ve watched, and articles I’ve read, and essays I’ve written about antisemitism, Jew hatred, and anti-Zionism over the years, after October 7th I decided that I need to do more—to be more. Learning and awareness are important, but I need to figure out how to stop feeling like an observer.
Almost eight months after that apocalyptic event, I’m acting in a new way: focusing less on me as an isolated individual, and more on me within a Jewish journey. In this space, I plan on sharing some of the lessons and ideas that I learn that resonate with me. To learn from a tradition, a people, a religion that has survived and thrived, in often intolerable conditions, is to honor those who came before, and to learn from the richest, soul-touching, thought-provoking ideas that can inspire me to be a light—to keep me focused on what is essential to continually work on myself to, as I recently read and am absorbing, “show that I am deserving of the Divine Presence.” This seems to be the worthwhile goal.
Trust the Divine Presence and do good; dwell in the land, and be nourished by faith. (Psalm 37:3)
Love this my friend.. here’s to the journey 🙏🏻💕
Posted by: Gwen | May 31, 2024 at 11:06 AM
Toda. Know that you are one of the people who are on this Jewish journey with me!
Posted by: Laura of RTOAW | May 31, 2024 at 12:30 PM
Laura, that is a good Psalm to commit to memory--very good instructions for life. I look forward to continuing to learn from the wisdom you will continue to impart.
Posted by: Margaret | June 01, 2024 at 04:01 PM
Margaret, Thank you. I appreciate that you are part of the conversation that leads to the wisdom.
Posted by: Laura of RTOAW | June 02, 2024 at 07:22 AM