Old/New World Discourse: Elul is for sifting

Elul is for sifting. A year's harvest of deeds come ripe in this season and our work is to separate our fine choices from our coarse ones. Thereafter, it is possible either to filter our vulgar choices or to rid ourselves of our predilections to enact them.

Habituation is tough. Even if we are Blessed to be aware of which of our behaviors are undesirable (a movement that does not, unfortunately, always take place), it is far more difficult for us to want to change, and then to actually change, than it is for us to realize that change is appropriate.

No matter how important it is to slough away certain tendencies, parting with our bad habits requires energy as well as spiritual rigor. Some of us have the wherewithal. Some of us have the exactitude. Few of us, consistently, have both.

Plus, there is the problem of separating desirable deeds from their opposite. Far too often we tend to junk the good, but unpopular choices, in favor of retaining or seeking widely held, but ultimately less preferred, ways of living.

As a case in point, consider that most middle aged mamas are regularly recalibrating their positions. Such folk are constantly shifting among family responsibilities, work responsibilities, community responsibilities, and self responsibilities. A balance that works for one life phase fails in another. Our white hairs grow not from crises but grow from exhaustion. The problem is not always knowing, or being confident in using existent knowledge pertaining to, which priority to place in front of which other.

In my case, for instance, if I build up arguments in my writing, my loved ones urge me to pen deconstructive texts, or, to spend less time writing all together and more time preparing their favorite meals. If I accede to my family's demands for their favorite delectables, I regret not responding to my editors. If I provide my loved ones with a combination of defrosted soup and factory-made schnitzels, yet meet writing deadlines, I am nonetheless fraught with Jewish Mother Guilt.

Further, if I am busy making verbal snapshots of life in Jerusalem, but members of the shidduch circle with whom I associate, organizers of the neighborhood food gemach where I make donations, or friends with impending smachot who I try to help, want my attention and I politely tell them that the mitzvah of parnassah has to supersede other concerns, I likewise experience remorse. Analogously, the nights I conduct my writing workshops inevitably become the preferred nights for Hebrew ulpan (yes, I am still struggling with the indigenous tongue) while the days that I elect to lecture on nonfiction become the days I could have earned "big money" consulting for a small business.

It is not the case that the problem is a lack of goodness so much as it is the case that the problem is a lack of heuristic for selecting among kinds of benefits. The ethical dimension of this issue is that folks confronted by it, including middle-aged mamas, either forget to be grateful to having to choose among good things, or forget what is foremost in their personal value systems, for that part of their lives.

Certainly not harming one's self or others is essential. Surely, avoiding that pitfall is not easy. Prayer helps. Support teams help. Friends are invaluable.

Having established a functional, even if temporary, guide for making decisions, the next move is to make shuva for behaviors that fall outside of those parameters. Next time, I'll remark on dilemmas concomitant to cooking when ought to be working, working when one ought to be praying, and praying when one ought to be chasing after children.

Little Smile:

Be careful of what you write! This summer, when an electronic space published a piece of flash fiction I wrote, both the editor and I missed a mechanical error. Specifically, I used an upper case instead of a lower case to refer to a type of bird, i.e. I wrote "Crows," instead of 'crows'. Later, to my amusement, my fiction was referenced not only in literary URL, but also on the URL of a rock band by that fowl name.