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An old, mended shirt meets Psalm 71:9

9/25/2016

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      It is said that a few days before Rosh Hashanah, in the month of Elul, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev was standing at his window late one afternoon.

     A cobbler came by, looked up at the window, saw the rabbi and called out, “Have you anything that needs mending?”
      “Anything that needs mending?” echoed the rabbi. “But the evening will soon be here. How will you finish the job before dark?” 
      “Rabbi,” said the cobbler, “there is still enough light. While I have light I can still do some mending.”

      “And so it is with us,” said Rabbi Levi Yitzchak to himself. “The Day of Judgment is almost here, but while there is still time we can do some mending.”
                                    From Sefer Zichron L’Rishonim: Remembrance of Those Who Came Before.
                                                       Authored by Rabbi Chaim Zvi Teumim, zt’l (b. 1878) 

                   
                                                   *

I often shop at Goodwill stores for gently-worn clothing.
I like the soft hand of old fabric against my skin, the faded colors, the cloth’s lack of ego.

One of my favorite purchases is a man’s white cotton shirt, long-sleeved, over-sized
with no collar, like a Bengali kurta, the perfect top to throw on in the morning and wear, with baggy jeans, around the house in total comfort. I bought the shirt about fifteen years ago for 99 cents, and considering the garment had already served someone else for who-knows-how-long, and considering how often I’ve washed it in scalding water with bleach, it’s no surprise that the shirt began to show wear and tear. I recently noticed a few holes in one sleeve. Some fraying around the cuffs. But this shirt is an old, much-loved friend, and one does not abandon old, much-loved friends.
So I took needle, thread, a few quilt scraps, and began to mend.

Now. 

Based on the charming little intro story about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and the cobbler, you could (logically) think this shirt business is a metaphor, my not-so-subtle segue into: Elul is a time to mend broken relationships, make good on broken promises, patch up misunderstandings, repair, repent, return to the right path, or in any way possible fix last year’s screw-ups. A logical (as I said) assumption, but wrong. My motive, and my metaphor, is much more self-serving.

Like the shirt, I’m old. 
Like the shirt, my husband and friends (or at least most of them) are also old.
But, in case you hadn’t noticed, we ain’t dead yet.
So there, too.

Consequently, though I’m in favor of using whatever light - whatever time - we still have to mend our ways, I’m less interested in breast-beating confessions and far more invested in what (for me, at least) is the through line, the theme, the motif that runs from the first day of Elul to the final shofar blast on Yom Kippur.
 

Shema Koleinu. 

Yes. I’m talking to You, God.
Also to those young twerps, texting and tweeting in their Ray-Bans and corner offices. 
  

Shema Koleinu. Hear our voices, Boss.
      Al tashlicheni le'et zikna. 
      Kichlot kochi al ta’azveni.
        Do not cast me off in the time of old age. 
        
When my strength faileth, forsake me not.

True, that old shirt is worn and patched and mended and threadbare,
but it still has value and I’m not ready to give it up, Big Fella.

Get my drift?


                                                                 Ozzie Nogg  copyright 2016 






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Ki Teitzei & 72 Mitzvot, including: How to Deal with the Captive Bride, a Lost Ox and Home Owner’s Insurance . . . 

9/18/2016

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Before entering the Promised Land, please read the State of Canaan Driver's Manual.

Deuteronomy 21:10-14 
​

When I was in high school, I used to sneak down to the gym after classes to watch the wrestlers work out. Anzalone. Salanitro. Radicia. Vacanti. Mancuso. Digilio. I had crushes on all those lithe, nimble Italian boys. I loved their black hair, dark eyes, swarthy sweaty muscles and the way they grabbed one another in forbidden places. I fantasized that a Digilio or Vacanti would snatch me one day from the lunch room and carry me to his house in a part of town I’d been warned against by my parents. In my fantasy, in that house with crucifixes over each bed, my captor waited patiently while I permed my hair, painted my nails, ditched my orthopedic oxfords for purple stilettos and, for a month, lamented my former life while eating pepperoni pizza. But then, for no apparent reason, my captor lost interest and kicked me to the curb. His mother, bless her heart, gave me a jar of her homemade Ragu Bolognese to take with me, but she only understood Sicilian so there was no way I could explain that pancetta, even uneaten, is nonetheless tref.

                                            *



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Deuteronomy 22:1-3 

Yesterday, while walking down my suburban street, I come upon a goat gone astray. Granted, this is no ox or sheep, but still - a lost goat can’t be ignored, either. So I put a rope around the creature's neck, walk her to our house, take construction paper, a magic marker and make a dozen posters that read FOUND. LOST GOAT.
I put my cell number on the poster, plus a picture of the goat, and then drag her behind me while I tack the flyers on phone poles and trees in the neighborhood.


On the way back home, I find a lost ass, one red flip-flop and a car key.
Obviously some fellow(s) lost this stuff, but after schlepping back and forth with the goat, I’m tired and don’t give a rat’s patootie about finding the owners. Sue me.   


So far, no one’s called to claim the goat. I named her Zlateh, an homage to I.B. Singer who would consider the events in this story perfectly normal.

​                                                                                       *

   

    


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Deuteronomy 22:8  

Our next-door neighbors are getting a new roof.

From my window I watch the crew
working up there,
lithe and nimble,
ripping up old tarp,
tacking down new shingles,
dancing to Juan Gabriel’s voice
crooning from their boombox.
Queridaaaaaa, cada momento de mi vidaaaaa, yo pienso siempre en ti mi vida mira mi soledad.
​
“Please be careful,” I want to shout
​across the yard. “Don’t slip.”
But they only understand Spanish,
so there’s no way I can warn them
against the potential danger of falling
​                                                                           in love.



                                           *

                                                                                    copyright 2016  Ozzie Nogg



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Eeyore and the Cities of Refuge

9/11/2016

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Once upon a very long ago time, three towns on the far side of the Jordan River - along with three towns in the Land of Canaan -  were designated Cities of Refuge to which any man who accidentally killed his neighbor could flee and live, safe from vengeful relatives of the dead.
   

Obviously, our heroine is no murderer. Still, she seeks a hide-out. A City of Refuge. Well, not an entire city, but a private place she can crawl into and yank over her head, where she can lament and repent the fact that last week on Rosh Hodesh Elul she spaced off two chances - Friday night, Shabbos morning - to say Kaddish for her father. And then, on the third and final chance, she pranced to shul Saturday evening (with Big Red playing at home, let’s call this decision her personal Hail Mary) and discovered (S*U*R*P*R*I*S*E) not enough souls for a minyan. Well, duh. What did you expect, cackled her fearsome inner-Judge. Even Abraham couldn’t find ten good men to save Sodom. And you, pip-squeak, you thought ten people would skip a Husker ball game to bail YOU out? Hah.

Our heroine’s guilt is size XXXL. Out of proportion, certainly, to the size of the missed Kaddish that Poppa would surely forgive. But the gaffe adds another page to her Annual Jewish New Year Catalogue of Custom-Made Miseries and Judgements.
Weepy, bummed out, huddled inside Eeyore’s Gloomy Place, Rather Boggy and Sad,
our heroine puts on her hair shirt and reads the inventory of her indiscretions:
for being an impatient wife and overly-needy mother, I apologize. For being Bubbie the inquisitor/sermonizer, I apologize. Turning to the Why Did She/He/They Have To Die? section, our heroine moans like she’s the only one ever to have loved and lost. By the time she reaches the page titled A Friend Who Said She’d Call But Didn’t, and the Waddaya Mean It’s Not All About Me section, our heroine is white with rage, totally pissed. Oooooo, them there bad mad sad boo-hoo scratchy shirts look mighty snug, Toots, chides our heroine’s inner-Judge. Didn’t you swear to lay off the hot fudge? Better add LACKS DISCIPLINE to your catalogue. Awwww, well. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Heh, heh. Heh. 
 
Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, wrote, “The court is obligated to straighten the roads to the Cities of Refuge, to repair them and broaden them. They must remove all impediments and obstacles. Bridges should be built over all natural barriers so as not to delay one who is fleeing to the City of Refuge. Miklat, miklat - refuge, refuge - must be written on sign posts at all crossroads, so the murderers should recognize the way and turn there.” For Hassidic masters, Elul is considered a refuge in time. Time for us to clear and repair every possible route so those who have done wrong – accidentally or deliberately – are cut some slack, find a sanctuary in order to reflect on, and make amends for their actions. A system that works for our actions, too. 

Which brings us back to our Heroine.
​She’s not stupid.
So why does she put boulders, chuck holes and detours in the path to forgiving herself? Why can’t she tell her inner-Judge to shove it?


Our heroine doesn’t need a City of Refuge.

Our heroine, like old grey Eeyore, just needs a hug.


                                                                                                    copyright 2016 Ozzie Nogg





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Teshuvah on the Interstate

9/4/2016

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The wheels on the bus go round and round, 
and we’ve arrived at the month of Elul.


Twenty-nine days in which to think about where we’ve been this past year, the wrong turns we've taken,
and recalibrate our personal GPS so it gives us the best route to follow in our journey during the New Year.


My Poppa had a unique global positioning system.  
Read all about it below.


Stay well.
Stay safe.
And K'tiva VaHatima Tova.

You should be written and sealed in the Book of Life
for a good year.

Oz





​Just as a robin heralds the coming of spring, Poppa’s tallis – newly washed and flapping
on the clothesline – announced the coming of Rosh Hashanah.

Standing in the yard, Momma would give the tallis a final once-over to make sure she’d washed out each stain accumulated during the past year. Satisfied with the job she’d say, “Now. If only getting the shmutz out of our lives was this easy.” 

                                           
                                          * 

The run-up to the Jewish New Year offers us a chance to do significant spiritual housecleaning. We’re told to examine our souls, take stock of our deeds and review the way we’ve lived our lives in the past year. If we’re willing to take a hard look at our dirty laundry and toss it out, we’re then given a clean start and the opportunity to head in the right direction. 

And so, spurred on by good intentions (or, it could be argued, by fear that doom is nigh) we spend the weeks before the New Year’s arrival trying to settle past wrongs, repair family feuds, bury hatchets. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper we rush to our synagogues and Temples, beat our breasts, repent and ask forgiveness. We promise to practice teshuvah -- to return to the right path -- in hopes we will be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year.
 
Yet, when we’re lucky enough to be granted more time, it's ironic how much of this precious gift we waste by procrastinating. We delay our teshuvah until later. Our resolutions gather dust. We put off saying I’m sorry or I love you or thank you. And often, by the time we do get around to saying those things, it’s too late.

My Poppa understood the perils of procrastination. Like the Hebrews who made haste out of Egypt, Poppa fled the shtetl in a shot. This ability to turn on a dime served him often and well, but never better than on a long-ago car trip. 

                                                                    *

Early one summer morning, Poppa, Mamma, my little brother, Michael, and I, piled into our white Pontiac and headed out of Omaha towards a family reunion in Minneapolis. Poppa was at the wheel, Momma sat beside him, and Michael and I were in the back with a cooler of deviled eggs, a bundle of Batman comics and The Good Earth, my book of choice at the time. As we pulled out of our garage it began to rain, and the windshield wiper’s rhythmic swish swoosh, swish swoosh, matched the measured tempo of Poppa’s driving as he maneuvered the neighborhood streets and steered the Pontiac through downtown, over the Missouri River bridge and onto the Interstate.
 
Swish swoosh, swish swoosh. Cows, silos, rows of corn slipped by, the miles and hours, too. Hypnotized in my corner, I crawled deeper and deeper into The Good Earth where Wang Lung and Olan, side by side, now plowed midwestern fields, their red paper-dressed gods recognizable in every Iowa scarecrow. Swish swoosh, swish swoosh. The road continued past barns (no, they were Buddhist temples) and chicken coops where hens laid deviled eggs. We drove for pages through famine, locust and the Chinese Revolution until Michael, yawning, bored with Batman, squinted out the rain-streaked window and asked, "Does everybody go through Missouri on their way from Omaha to Minneapolis?"

Momma, in a panic, screamed, "Oi, Gottenyu. We’re going the wrong way! We must have taken a wrong turn in Des Moines. So, Alex, when we come to the next exit you’ll get off and turn around."

But that form of teshuvah wasn’t Poppa’s style. Instead -- right there on the Interstate -- Poppa shifted gears, lurched over the median and headed back in the right direction.

Into our wide-eyed silence, Poppa explained his actions, calmly and with logic.

"Where is it written that you have to wait for an exit to turn around? The exit, after all, could be very far away. It could take a very long time to get there. And furthermore, how would you feel if -- when you finally did arrive at the exit -- it was closed."
​


                                                 
                                                           originally published in Joseph's Bones: a Collection of Stories
                                                                     written and illustrated by Ozzie Nogg copyright 2004









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