Yom Kippur
Oct. 13th, 2005 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauraanne_gilmanToday is Yom Kippur, perhaps the only holiday of my youth I still observe (ETA: in conjunction with Rosh Hashanna). I do so not because it's the Holiest of holies, although it is, but because it's one that still has resonance to me.
While Rosh Hashanna is about seeing forgiveness and reconciliation with those you may have harmed over the past year, "Yom Kippur" itself means "Day of Atonement." But it's a very specific sort of atonement -- a coming to terms between you and God, directly, however you may determine and define God, for the sins you have committed.
For me, then, it's a reconciliation with the universe at large, the spark that creates and motivates and enlightens us.
Forgive us our sins, Universe, for we have been cold, we have been cruel. We have been unthinking, we have been selfish. We have been wasteful, we have been ungrateful. We have not paused to wonder at the act of creation in our daily moments, nor have we given thanks for the daily warmth of the sun, the cool healing of rain. We have mocked or scorned, we have not tried to understand. We have used compassion as a tool rather than a gift, we have used words as weapons. We have failed our good intentions, we have been slothful, we have been unwilling to change.
The list is long, for we are human. Forgive us our sins and omissions, whether or not they involve an act, whether or not they are known to us.
On Yom Kippur the Book of Life is closed and sealed for the year. May next year find us all in the City of Peace.
----
This is also the day I always, always set aside to remember my grandparents, the three who lived long enough to impact my life.
Grandma Gilman - slender, upright, stern and loving. My earlier memories of her are not one of tenderness, beause she was not a tender woman, but always flled with affection. My later memories are tainted by Alzheimers, the disease that left her bent over and bewildered, her once-direct gaze clouded and confused. The only kindness was that, at the end, she looked at me and saw a young cousin long dead and gone, and thought she was young again, rather than lamenting her age and condition.
The summer before Alzheimers became overwhelming, we went on vacation to Rockport, and I fell in love with a large stuffed, spotted cat almost as large as I was. She bought it for me, against my parents' halfformed protests. I named it Sir (don't ask me why) and loved it much. Sir was worn almost beyond velveteen by the time she had to be retired to where old stuffed animals go, but it killed me to let her go -- she was the last memory I had of my grandmother being really there.
Grandpa Shapiro - Traditionally and (it seemed to me) willingly overwhelmed by his wife and three daughters and late-in-life son, and yet solid and stubborn -- oh lord the man was stubborn. He lived as long as he cared to live, and when his body began to fail, to the point where he could no longer live on his own, he waited until his beloved Red Sox had won their opening day game, and then went to sleep and did not wake up. We miss him, but it was difficult to morn, after such a perfect exit.
Grandpa, for many years, owned and ran a coffee shop where he made donuts. Real donuts, not those Krispy Kreme abominations. My strongest memory of him was, coming in late one evening from the shop, after we had driven up to see them, carrying a dark brown cardboard box with grease stains on the outside. I can still taste the crunch of the old--fashioned, unfilled,cruellers he made, the taste that still, to me, says 'donut.'
Grandma Shapiro -- "Nana." Classic rounded-form grandmother, who never thought you'd had enough to eat, or enough pillows for your bed, or enough love in your life, but that she should and could and would give you more. Tough in her own way, a momma bear when it came to her family, and her family included anyone who came into her home and ate at her table. In the end, she was more fragile than any of the others, her great heart no match for an aging body.
According to a vague memory and family story, Nana once let my college-age sister and her boyfriend stay with them for a weekend, using one bedroom, because she felt that they were old enough to make those decisions -- but didn't want to admit to my mother that they were there, because god forbid my mother should know. (My mother knows everything, for those wondering, and found this all very funny).
I am a part of each of them, and they are a part of me. And I miss them, still.
While Rosh Hashanna is about seeing forgiveness and reconciliation with those you may have harmed over the past year, "Yom Kippur" itself means "Day of Atonement." But it's a very specific sort of atonement -- a coming to terms between you and God, directly, however you may determine and define God, for the sins you have committed.
For me, then, it's a reconciliation with the universe at large, the spark that creates and motivates and enlightens us.
Forgive us our sins, Universe, for we have been cold, we have been cruel. We have been unthinking, we have been selfish. We have been wasteful, we have been ungrateful. We have not paused to wonder at the act of creation in our daily moments, nor have we given thanks for the daily warmth of the sun, the cool healing of rain. We have mocked or scorned, we have not tried to understand. We have used compassion as a tool rather than a gift, we have used words as weapons. We have failed our good intentions, we have been slothful, we have been unwilling to change.
The list is long, for we are human. Forgive us our sins and omissions, whether or not they involve an act, whether or not they are known to us.
On Yom Kippur the Book of Life is closed and sealed for the year. May next year find us all in the City of Peace.
----
This is also the day I always, always set aside to remember my grandparents, the three who lived long enough to impact my life.
Grandma Gilman - slender, upright, stern and loving. My earlier memories of her are not one of tenderness, beause she was not a tender woman, but always flled with affection. My later memories are tainted by Alzheimers, the disease that left her bent over and bewildered, her once-direct gaze clouded and confused. The only kindness was that, at the end, she looked at me and saw a young cousin long dead and gone, and thought she was young again, rather than lamenting her age and condition.
The summer before Alzheimers became overwhelming, we went on vacation to Rockport, and I fell in love with a large stuffed, spotted cat almost as large as I was. She bought it for me, against my parents' halfformed protests. I named it Sir (don't ask me why) and loved it much. Sir was worn almost beyond velveteen by the time she had to be retired to where old stuffed animals go, but it killed me to let her go -- she was the last memory I had of my grandmother being really there.
Grandpa Shapiro - Traditionally and (it seemed to me) willingly overwhelmed by his wife and three daughters and late-in-life son, and yet solid and stubborn -- oh lord the man was stubborn. He lived as long as he cared to live, and when his body began to fail, to the point where he could no longer live on his own, he waited until his beloved Red Sox had won their opening day game, and then went to sleep and did not wake up. We miss him, but it was difficult to morn, after such a perfect exit.
Grandpa, for many years, owned and ran a coffee shop where he made donuts. Real donuts, not those Krispy Kreme abominations. My strongest memory of him was, coming in late one evening from the shop, after we had driven up to see them, carrying a dark brown cardboard box with grease stains on the outside. I can still taste the crunch of the old--fashioned, unfilled,cruellers he made, the taste that still, to me, says 'donut.'
Grandma Shapiro -- "Nana." Classic rounded-form grandmother, who never thought you'd had enough to eat, or enough pillows for your bed, or enough love in your life, but that she should and could and would give you more. Tough in her own way, a momma bear when it came to her family, and her family included anyone who came into her home and ate at her table. In the end, she was more fragile than any of the others, her great heart no match for an aging body.
According to a vague memory and family story, Nana once let my college-age sister and her boyfriend stay with them for a weekend, using one bedroom, because she felt that they were old enough to make those decisions -- but didn't want to admit to my mother that they were there, because god forbid my mother should know. (My mother knows everything, for those wondering, and found this all very funny).
I am a part of each of them, and they are a part of me. And I miss them, still.
