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I've been working out for a while now -- close to a year, maybe? -- which isn't so impressive in the greater scheme of things, or at least it isn't so impressive when you're a normal person, but considering I belong to the muscle-less minority and, for the first 30 or so years of my life, my greatest caloric expenditure was bobbing my head to They Might Be Giants songs, this is pretty notable. If I do say so myself.
I'm really proud to have a new short story in Prime Number Magazine. Here's the beginning of it, and the rest is right after that little link on the bottom. It's kind of about the last real person still left in New York City.
So in the gentile world there's this festival called Halloween, and it's based on a pagan festival but we've pretty much reduced it to creepy lights and candy corn.
But Ellen decided to do a special episode, and that Google Assistant thingy that I write had a little guest-starring spot.
My flash fiction piece "11-6" was just published by Heartwood Literary Magazine at the Low-Residency MFA at West Virginia Wesleyan College. I feel like I've written 4 or 5 pieces that all spin out of visiting the Big Bang Theory set, and you can't really tell it from the piece, but I think this is one of them. It's definitely about moving places with only a modicum of confidence (and slightly more divine faith, but not much) and having your life revolve around your job.
Here's how it starts.
I flew into and out of San Francisco in a day a few weeks ago. Did I tell you about it? Maybe not, it was a bit of a secret.
By far, the weirdest/best thing I found was an exhibit of famous typewriters at San Francisco International Airport. In the middle of the jetlagged night, it felt like the most important thing I'd ever seen.
Over the 10-day period between the Day of Remembrance and the Day of Judgement, when our ephemeral lives and eternal souls swing in a delicate balance between life and death, there are certain things we can do to ask our Creator not to give us the soul-whupping we deserve. (Or maybe just the whooping I deserve. It is entirely possible that you, reader, are a better person than I am. Hell, I’d bet a few Eternity Points on it.)
So we take the most common prayer that we say all year, the Shemoneh Esrei (Literally “the 18,” the thing we recite three times each day, morning noon and night, even though it’s actually 19 prayers and not 18 — long story, I’ll tell you some other time) and we throw a bunch of new gloop into it. Some of it’s new lines, with new tunes, that comes in between the existing paragraphs. Other parts are remixes of the existing text. All of it catches us by surprise, throws us for a loop, makes us question our routines and our habits and what we think is normal….
Oh, let’s just jump into it and get started. Whether you’re ready or not.
You’ll deal.
Zochreinu l’chaim
讝ָ讻ְ专ֵ谞讜ּ 诇ְ讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐
This is addressed to G-d; we are talking to G-d.Of course. G-d created the world, every time we open our mouths it’s going to G-d; G-d sees all; G-d knows all; one of the first stories in the Torah is Adam & Eve trying to keep a secret from G-d and, of course, failing. There is no question of whether or not G-d is listening; G-d can’t overhear anything because G-d hears everything, right from the assumption it’s being spoken aloud. Then: why pray? (Because sometimes we need to ignore everyone else and talk only to G-d.) But also: that means everything we say is a prayer.
melech chafetz b’chaim
诪ֶ诇ֶ讱ְ 讞ָ驻ֵ抓 讘ַּ讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐
So why the alternate form of address? The plural object, the command form? We are not asking G-d, we are telling G-d: Remember us! We created a new name for G-d for just this occasion. After the standard opening, the one we use every day, where we address G-d by a slew of titles and panegyrics and names and adjectives turned into names (G-d of Abraham, G-d of Isaac, G-d of Jacob; the Almighty; the Great; the Stringent; the Awesome), this one-line interjection takes the prayer and swings it for an unexpectedly sharp about-face: Remember us! and then Our King who desires life! As if G-d forgot G-d’s own name, G-d’s own role. We are being chutzpadik here, people. But not undeservedly so: This is our life. It is hanging in the balance. We need to demand it. A Chasidic tradition around the New Year: Everyone bakes honey cakes. When you go visit someone, you don’t ask for honey cake. That would be rude. You don’t sit around politely waiting for honey cake to be offered. That would be pretentious (if you expect it to be) or it would be thinking poorly of your hosts (if you assume they haven’t made any). You demand it: Gebt mir lekach! we are told to demand of them. Give us cake!
v’kosveinu l’sefer hachayim, l’maanecha melech chayim.
讜ְ讻ָ转ְ讘ֵ谞讜ּ 讘ְּ住ֵ驻ֶ专 讛ַ讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐. 诇ְ诪ַ注ַ谞ְ讱ָ 讗ֱ诇讛ִ`讬诐 讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐
This is followed up right away by another demand: Write us in the book of life! I mean, while we’re being demanding, might as well not ask for just one slice but the full cake, right? But then the question really should be, why not ask for that straight up? If we want life, ask for life.
Rosh Hashana is the Day of Remembrance. For better, for worse. It’s a day when the prayer service gets transmogrified from 2 hours into 5, a day when it’s nearly impossible not to have flashbacks to horrible, embarrassing and devastating moments over the past year where you did what you shouldn’t have, didn’t do what you should, often things that are not so horrid as stabbing a man in the bloody chest or making love to a wooden idol in public but instead baiting a friend into buying you a drink or yelling at your kids for stupid shit (and it is all stupid shit). That’s our burden. That’s our shit to remember. What we are saying to G-d is, we’ll remember that shit, you remember the other shit—the good shit, the perfect shit, the moments where all might not be right with the world but it’s good enough, where we were grateful and said thanks for an unexpected blessing or where we were about to explode and held ourselves back. Every woman I didn’t sleep with, and there are nearly 3.5 billion in the world, rather than the one I did. L’maanecha melech chayim. Dear G-d, always look on the bright side of life.
Mi kamocha, av harachaman, zocher yetzirav l’chaim b’rachamim.
诪ִ讬 讻ָ诪讜讱ָ 讗ַ讘 讛ָ专ַ讞ֲ诪ִ讬诐. 讝讜讻ֵ专 讬ְ爪讜ּ专ָ讬讜 诇ְ讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐 讘ְּ专ַ讞ֲ诪ִ讬诐
The first two words are cribbed from an existing poem, one Moses and Miriam recited when they charged through the parted Red Sea: Who is like You? Because nothing is so Jewish as celebrating your redemption from slavery with a rhetorical question. It’s a nice rhetorical question, for the most part, not emphasizing G-d’s amazingness (since we mentioned that extensively right at the beginning) but G-d’s uniqueness. Also emphasizing our relationship to G-d. When you love someone more than anybody else, you can list of a Roget’s slew of adjectives (breathtaking, brilliant, blue-sky bootylicious) but all the best love songs are some variation on Ain’t nobody like my baby. And this is my favorite thing about religion — good religion, anyway, not the oppressive kind: everyone’s take on G-d is different because everyone’s relationship with G-d is different. Who is like You, G-d? Nobody, that’s who.
But there is some common ground, and some common through-line that connects us all or guides us in our own individual relationships, and that’s what prayer is. Av harachamon, Father, the one who has compassion for us. Rachaman officially means “compassion,” but it’s more like sympathy, seeing each of our problems and our cases on its own. And then it’s more like empathy, because G-d doesn’t just try to feel what we’re going through, G-d’s been through it too. The praying. The distractions. The memories. The original experiences of the memories we’re flashbacking to.
And then the final hammerswing of the conclusion: zocher yetzirav, remember Your creations. We belong to You. We are Your fault. Everything that’s good we do, we owe it to You; and every mistake we make is a result of Your Creation as well. It’s weird that it’s yetzirav, the third-person “G-d’s creations,” and not yetzircha, “Your creations,” and I’m not sure why. Maybe someone with better grammar than me can explain?
Hamelech hakadosh
讛ַ诪ֶּ诇ֶ讱ְ 讛ַ拽ָּ讚讜砖ׁ
Here we go. The catch. This one takes me by surprise every time I read it, the reason why the title of this is Additions and emendations and not just additions. While the first two special beseechings were new lines inserted into an existing text, this is a fake-out, the usual blessing ha-el hakadosh morphing into hamelech. El is one of G-d’s names, one that denotes stringency and anger, which we’re replacing with a more kind, gentle, and flattering name, King.
It’s weird — or, more accurately, an anthropological divergence — that, in Jewish theological literature, being a king is almost always a good thing, even though in the Bible the position of king was granted as a reticent condescension to the Israelites (not a good thing), and in post-Biblical times kings were often the ones who carried out pogroms, forced conversions, and the “Jew tax” (also not good things). But here, G-d being King is G-d being good to us. Ruling our lives and making our lives better.
Hamelech hamishpat
讛ַ诪ֶּ诇ֶ讱ְ 讛ַ诪ִ砖ְׁ驻ָּ讟
Just when you hit a rhythm of the regular prayers, the liturgical writers go ahead and screw with you. Hamelech is the third prayer. Then we get the usual prayers, the usual prayers, and smack in the middle — #11 — melech ohev tzedakah u’mishpat becomes…well, this. The usual blessing, Blessed are You, G-d, the king who loves tzedakah and justice, becomes just justice. (Mishpat is a more congenial, gracious, judge-everyone-favorably kind of justice, whereas the other {and more kabbalistic} word for justice, din, belies a harsh, this-is-the-way-it-is justice.) More, we don’t want G-d’s justice to be dependent on the amount of charity we give. We just want it to be given.
V’kosuv l’chaim tovim kol benai verisecha
讜ּ讻ְ转讘 诇ְ讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐 讟讜讘ִ讬诐 讻ָּ诇 讘ְּ谞ֵ讬 讘ְ专ִ讬转ֶ讱ָ
Every time I say chaim I remember (memory again) we’re asking for life. And when we say l’chaim, we say it means “to life!” but that’s probably a bastardization of the text induced by Fiddler on the Roof. We don’t drink alone, we don’t say to life, we say to lives, everyone’s, kol benai verisecha. This one is short and direct and pleading: Give us life!
B’sefer chaim, bracha v’shalom, u’parnasah tova, nizacher v’nikasev lefonecho, anachnu v’chol amcho bais yisroel, chaim tovim u’leshalom.
讘ְּ住ֵ驻ֶ专 讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐. 讘ְּ专ָ讻ָ讛 讜ְ砖ָׁ诇讜诐. 讜ּ驻ַ专ְ谞ָ住ָ讛 讟讜讘ָ讛. 谞ִ讝ָּ讻ֵ专 讜ְ谞ִ讻ָּ转ֵ讘 诇ְ驻ָ谞ֶ讬讱ָ. 讗ֲ谞ַ讞ְ谞讜ּ 讜ְ讻ָ诇 注ַ诪ְּ讱ָ 讘ֵּ讬转 讬ִ砖专ָ讗ֵ诇. 诇ְ讞ַ讬ִּ讬诐 讟讜讘ִ讬诐 讜ּ诇ְ砖ָׁ诇讜诐
And then I think about what life really means, and why I want it so bad. I’ve done good things with my year. I’ve lived a complete year. One way or another, G-d has forgiven me for my transgressions of the past, or at least G-d’s forgiven me enough to get me to this point, one complete year and one more Rosh Hashanah under the belt. This is our last ask, the final insertation and the last mention before we shut the laptops of our prayers and let the screen go dark until the next prayer period, and so in one final flurry of typing we cram it all in. Blessings and peace. Good work and good money. Maybe these are the things that really count, the things we can’t do without or at least the things we don’t want to worry about, so we can worry about the stuff that’s more important.
But what is important? We keep saying life, life, life, and I, like Ayala, have had Tishreis where I couldn’t even convince myself with my praying. I’ve never not believed in G-d, which I know is weird, but I have gone through long dark periods where I don’t believe in myself. As much as this part is about the torrent of requests, maybe it’s also about listing how many things we need. Things both exact and nonspecific, things like money (that I don’t really want to think about but can’t do without) and things like blessings.
And who’s really in control of a blessing? Not the blessed but the blesser, and if I do believe G-d knows what’s good for me more than I know myself, then I can put that power in G-d’s hands, I can remember — memory once more — that it’s already up to G-d, that my Creator can give me the blessing to live or the blessing to die, the blessing to stick with my awesome but impermanent good job or the blessing to have no money and lots of time. The blessing to not know what’s coming before you. The blessing that every fate is both the best and worst of fates, and the blessing that, no matter how hard you pray, your fate is not altogether in your own hands.
Give us blessings. Give us peace. We start and end this part with peace — peace between us, for sure, but also peace inside us. And we sandwich it and surround it with requests for blessings. Remember it and write it before you, for me, for us, for all Jews, a good life, a peaceful life, because our life is in Your hands.
Amen.
Image by Erwin Gerodiaz.
