Back to Life

There are few things that get on my nerves.  However, one thing that always bothered me is when people would say that watching tennis is a bore.  And if they’d humor me and watch some of the game with me, they‘d want to talk during points or get up right before a crucial juncture in the match. The gall of such people! Can’t they appreciate the unique form that each players uses? Can’t they appreciate the shot selections, angles, and movement of each player?  It can be a thing of beauty.

                 Obviously, from my perspective, their lack of- we’ll call it respect- stems from a lack of appreciation for the details.  What they are watching and what I am watching are two entirely different games.  I see variety, where they see sameness.  I see genius, where they see luck.  And consequently, the way I treat watching the game- with rapt attention and respect- is vastly different than the way they treat watching the game.  This prosaic example can be applied to any field and its experts.  A curator sees a Mona Lisa vary differently than I do, and a cosmologist sees a very different sky than I do.  The difference?  Details- they know how to appreciate how every detail is important and plays a crucial function in creating the brilliant sui generis of the form. 

                Whenever there is a lack of sensitivity, the term we use is quite appropriate.  We say we are ‘deadened’ to the thing. If standing in front of a Van Gogh, I say in front of a curator,’ why are these globs of paint worth so much’, she would likely turn red with anger, pucker her lips in disgust, and say, ‘you fool, you have to be dead not to be appreciate this’.  In a certain sense, she’d be exactly right.  Her whole vitality resides in the angry brush strokes of Van Gogh:  their angles, shades, and texture ignite a passion within her.  On the contrary, for the pedestrian art viewer, it is globs of paint and, after a few of them at a museum, the inclination is to take a seat and a nap.  With this in mind we can begin to understand what are job is on Yom Kippur.

                In general, we didn’t ‘mess up’ in a big way this past year.  We didn’t scam the world out of billions like Madoof, and we probably didn’t violently abuse anyone this year, and we probably may have never  been furiously mad at anyone this year.  Everything we did wrong was vastly more subtle, and to our sensibility, even largely out of our control. How can you not wake up late once in a while if you’re tired?  How can you not get a little agitated when somebody shows up ten minutes late to a meeting?  The reason why many of the little transgressions in our lives show up is because of our sensitivities.  We are not gauged to think that a little anger, a little late is a problem unless we really stop and think about it long enough to realize that, yea, could’ve done better there if I really tried.  However, this is where repentance comes in.  Repentance is the realization that every aspect of life is important.  Why?  Because G-d is one or, to put it differently, all is an aspect of G-d. 

In other words, the more we become connoisseurs of life, the more those little details are treated with a touch more sensitivity, rendering them a big detail, and then we treat them properly - we become curators to our own existence.  It is becoming alive in a real way through an increase in sensitivity to the spiritual side of life which is rapt with detail.  Life and death in Judaism are not defined by a failing body; they are defined by a soul that is alive or dead.  Does our soul pick up all the greatness and detail around us (As the 'rituals' of Judaism beg of us)?  After all, why else would repentance have been created before the world?  Did G-d expect us to sin?  Maybe.  But more than that, the real idea of repentance is not to bang our chest and read out a laundry list of sins.  It is to realize there is always another level of sensitivity I can reach, another level of life.  The fact that G-d created repentance before the world means that G-d made a world where we can always grow and develop to no end- and He expects us to.  So this Yom Kippur, it is time to enter the book of a good life and start to appreciate the details of our actions, for that is exactly where a passionate life is.  Enjoy the service and lay out a blank canvas for the new Year.