To Begin Again: A Journey Toward Comfort, Strength, and Faith in Difficult Times - Rilegato

Levy, Naomi

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0375400036 ISBN 13: 9780375400032

Casa editrice: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 1998

Riassunto

A female rabbi describes the dramatic impact of her father's murder on her and explains how individuals whose lives have been touched by tragedy can redefine their faith and rediscover the meaning and joy of daily life. 75,000 first printing. Tour.

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L'autore:

Naomi Levy was in the first class to admit women to study for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the first female Conservative rabbi to lead a congregation on the West Coast. She lives in Venice, California, with her husband, Robert Eshman, and their children, Adin and Noa.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

Resurrection

"Push!" I cried. "Push! Push! Push!"

Michelle held her breath and her face turned deep red. The baby's heartbeat was slowing. A nurse shoved me aside and fastened an oxygen mask around Michelle's face. "Push!" I insisted.

"Who's she?" the nurse asked, looking in my direction. "She's our rabbi," Michelle's husband Paul responded. The nurse thought he was kidding and laughed.

The doctor raced in and, without explaining why, ordered the nurses to quickly roll Michelle's bed from the birthing room to the operating room. Paul and I threw on sterile blue gowns, masks, and caps. I kept cheering "Push!" over and over again. My heart was racing. Something in the doctor's expression made me worry. Was the baby in danger? Was Michelle in danger? The fetal monitor beeped, the IV bag dripped, and the blood pressure cuff hissed, but to my absolute amazement, not a sound escaped from Michelle's lips. During the breaks between contractions, I recited prayers for a safe delivery and the health of the baby. Paul held his wife's hand, his grip conveying a loving calm.

One more push, then a miracle: the baby's head began to crown.

A few more minutes of excruciating pain, which Michelle endured in silence, and the baby pressed its way through the birth canal. Soon the raspy cry of a beautiful baby boy filled the air. A new life breath, a sweet fragile soul entered this universe.

As she held her child swaddled and safe, Michelle looked up at me. "I almost lost my life," she whispered. "I know," I responded. But neither one of us was thinking about the danger she had just come through. We were remembering another time. It was the day after Yom Kippur and I was emotionally and physically drained. It had been a grueling two months of preparation for the High Holy Days, but now they were over. I was relaxing in my study, still reeling from the previous evening. The service had been the most moving of my life. I had never felt such holiness in the sanctuary. The entire congregation had fused into a single voice of prayer. As I was reflecting on the experience, my intercom beeped. "There's someone here to see you, Rabbi," my assistant said.

I walked to the front door of the synagogue, still in a reverential daze, and there stood a woman with two black eyes hidden behind her dark sunglasses, a broken nose, bruises everywhere. I held Michelle's arm and led her to my study. She could barely walk. I was mortified. I had seen her just the week before at Sabbath services. Now, as she sat in my study, I could hardly believe this was the same person. Not knowing how to begin, I waited for her to speak, but she refused to look my way. She stared at the floor, and when she finally raised her face, she looked out beyond me as if I weren't there sitting before her.

She broke the silence with one word: "Why?"

I waited for more. And slowly she began to speak.

On the afternoon before Yom Kippur, Michelle had showered and dressed in her holiday clothes. She was on her way to a festive meal with her best friend. Afterward the two of them were going to come to synagogue to begin the daylong fast. She picked up her keys, locked the door to her apartment, and walked toward her car. Suddenly a man came up from behind and grabbed her. When she resisted, he punched her in the face, knocked her to the floor, and beat her. Then he picked Michelle up, opened the trunk of her car, threw her in, and slammed it shut. The engine started to roar, and soon the car was moving. It was pitch-black in that trunk and Michelle was terrified. Her entire body shook in fear. Where was he taking her? Was he planning to kill her? Would he dispose of her body in a place where she would never be found? All she could do in the blinding darkness was say to herself over and over again, "I want to live! I want to live!" The car stopped. The trunk opened, her eyes were assaulted by the stinging sunl
ight. He dragged her into the backseat. He raped her. And then he let her go.

When she finished speaking, Michelle remained silent for a long while. Then, from behind the dark sunglasses, she looked at me for the first time and quietly asked, "Where was God? Was God so busy at the Yom Kippur service in synagogue that God forgot about me?"

I kept silent. I didn't want to offer her any platitudes. Searching my mind for answers, I found that I had none to offer. All I had were questions. Just the night before, at the concluding service of Yom Kippur, I had felt so complete, so whole in my faith. In the sanctuary that night, all of us who were there had chanted, "O Lord our God, have mercy upon us, watch over us, grant us a good life in the coming year." Yom Kippur had ended with such words of hope. I had left the synagogue and returned home filled with the conviction that it was going to be a good year. A year of strength and health. But as I sat beside Michelle the very next morning, all I could think to myself was, "Why did this happen? How could God have let it happen?"

We both sat in silence for a long time, then Michelle said, "Yesterday was also my birthday." What a strange and horrible coincidence. I said to her quietly, "And you lived to see it." She replied, "But I'm not sure I want to be alive. I don't know if I can carry on."

Michelle was overwhelmed by so many horrible feelings. She felt betrayed and abandoned, violated and petrified, angry and dirty and ashamed and alone. She was silent again for a long while. Then she asked, "Can we pray the Kol Nidre?"

Yom Kippur was over, and the time for praying the Kol Nidre, the opening service of Yom Kippur, had passed. According to Jewish law, there is a very precise time when the Kol Nidre may be said. The service must take place before sunset on the eve of Yom Kippur. On the other hand, as Tevye the milkman loved to say, there is always an other hand. In this case, I believed that God would accept the prayer regardless of its late date.

I stood up, took Michelle's hand, and helped her to her feet. We walked slowly into the pitch-black sanctuary. I turned on the lights and pulled out two prayer books. Then I opened the Holy Ark, carefully removed a Torah scroll, and placed it in her arms. She grasped it like a child clutching her mother. We stood side by side on the pulpit, the two of us alone in the large empty space. She swayed gently with the Torah in her arms, while I chanted the words of the Kol Nidre. We were both trembling, and as we stood there, an eerie feeling came over me. Usually the Kol Nidre is a service of repentance. It is a time when we beat our breasts and ask God to pardon us for all our sins. But in the sanctuary that day after Yom Kippur, I could have sworn that it was not Michelle who was repenting. It was God. It was God, I imagined, who was beating a breast, who was praying to Michelle for forgiveness.

By the second repetition of the prayer, I could see a calm settle in Michelle's face. At the third repetition, the tears came pouring out of both of us. And when we could cry no more, we returned the Torah to the ark.

When we got back to my study, I wondered to myself whether there was something more I could do. Was there anything I could say to take away her pain? Were there any words to describe how much I wanted to help? Then she said to me, "I always thought that God was my protector. I guess I was wrong." I told Michelle I didn't believe that God had forgotten her. I said that I firmly believed God was with her, even inside that dark trunk. I said, "If God could prevent all tragedies from occurring, then there would be no tragedies. I don't believe that's in God's hands." She said, "Then what good is God?"

The question stopped me short.

Being a rabbi means I am asked questions every day of my life. Some questions are easy: What time do we light Sabbath candles this week? Or, how many Jews make up a prayer quorum? But most of the important ones are unanswerable. I used to have a running joke with Sam, the sexton at my synagogue. Every time a question arose, he knew how I was going to respond. He'd ask, "Rabbi, what should we do about such and such?" And I'd say, "Sam, what do you think?" Then he would start to laugh. He'd say, "A rabbi is supposed to have all the answers." "Sam," I would reply, "a rabbi is supposed to have all the questions."

People have asked me so many impossible questions. Is God punishing me for my sins by striking my child with this illness? Should I keep the baby or should I have an abortion? Should I leave my wife? Should I divorce my husband? Does prayer have healing powers? Can it cure my cancer? Should I tell my wife about an affair I had, or would it be better to keep it to myself? Do I have to forgive my father for abusing me? Is there any way to repent for having killed two people while driving under the influence?

But by far the most difficult question I've ever faced was the one posed by Michelle: "What good is God?"

Dozens of responses raced through my mind. Then I thought about my own life and my own struggles with God. I realized that this was not the time to defend or explain God. This was a time to offer comfort. We hugged long and hard, then said goodbye. And I thought: There are questions that can never be answered properly with words. The answers are not matters of logic. Nor are they about philosophy or theology. Each one of us carries a question for which there is no answer. Why is this world filled with such ugliness and cruelty? Why did my loved one have to die? Why must I suffer? What are we to do with these painful questions? Where should we be searching for answers? Will we ever find them?

Many people assume that because I am a rabbi I spend my days trying to explain why God created a world that is so full of tragedies. I don't. I can't. Nor have I ...

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• Editore: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0375400036
• ISBN 13: 9780375400032
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 267