I really thought I'd seen EVERYTHING until.....

The Israeli Rastafarian walked in....
He had dreads down to his waste....
I assumed he was Caribbean ....Haitian or Jamaican or something....
And then he began speaking Hebrew !!
And I said, "WHAT ??!!"
OK, fine....whatever....
But here's the thing....
The guy was hired (by me!) to do a job in my house....
NOT to be my friend or my buddy or anything like that....
Just to do a job in the house....
And he had....mmm...How to say it ??
a kind of ARROGANCE about him....
a very UN PROFESSIONAL approach toward me and the job, etc.
And it made me think about cultural differences.....
about whether we are TAUGHT from our experience,
or whether this kind of PERSONALITY QUIRK is in our DNA....
or whether it is SIMPLY CULTURAL....
Whether living on a LIVE BATTLE FIELD forever makes one HARDENED.....CYNICAL....
and whether this hardening comes across as something like ARROGANCE....
because I'm PRETTY SURE that his MOTHER did not teach him to behave in that way....
Well....
Speculating is all....
SHABBAT SHALOM...

My Dad, (Zichrono Livracha), used to say....

"You know, Tobala, you can pick an apple from the orchard...
And it can be the most beautiful, shiny, red apple that you've ever seen...
But when you take a bite out of it...
It is ROTTEN to the core..."
I think that this metaphor holds true for people as well...
They can be BEAUTIFUL and SHINY on the outside...
and really pretty DISGUSTING on the inside...
So...
How do we KNOW beforehand ?
How can we PRECLUDE ourselves from falling for the RED, JUICY exterior ??
The answer is really very simple, my friends....
ALWAYS.....BUT ALWAYS....
go with your FIRST INSTINCT....
That REAL, TRUE, first impression...
the one buried just BENEATH the impression that you WANT to have...
It will guide you precisely and accordingly to TRUTH every time....

They were scattered and strewn all over the floor....

her thoughts, that is...
To the extent that, one could actually SEE them !
lying there....askew....
She remembered the great GURU....HER GURU....
saying that one had to learn to HARNESS...
to pull and tie everything together....
so that it would all become ONE, STRONG, UNIFIED force of ENERGY...
so that...
with a great deal of practice....
one could eventually MANIFEST those ideas, thoughts, concepts...
into FULL BLOWN ACTUALITY....
And so....
she would become the vessel through which this power of manifestation...
Her POWER....
would flow....unabashedly......
And so it went....

Well.....

Did she jump too quickly ?
Definitely NO !!
Did she jump AT ALL ?
Excellent question, Watson...
Were men disposable ?
Un necessary ??
NECESSARY ??
What about LOVE ??
What about LUST ??
What about 'one night stands' ??
What about NO night stands ??
What about Nightstands next to the bed ??
Haunting, yet SUPERFLUOUS questions....
nagging,,,,,nagging,,,,,
at her 'ALREADY FULL' BRAIN....
The chicken or the egg ???!
Really ??

She was CAUGHT in a web of spider's silk...

woven extremely tightly in certain spots....
and so loosely in others,
that one could almost FALL THROUGH the vacuous spaces..
SPIRALLING through the atmosphere, as ever...
a MAZE really....
of DESIRES and REALITIES and POLITICAL  hoo haa....
of RELIGION and CHILDREN and TRADITION and SHOPPING MALLS....
and RED APPLES with honey...
And the thing is....
If she turned ONE WAY....
If she OPTED toward a side....
the OTHER could simply disappear....
And so...
she continued, clumsilly, to straddle the line between the two worlds...
She was, in essence, SWITZERLAND for the day......

It occurred to her as she awoke on this rainy 'pre YOM TOV' morning...

that FINALLY....FINALLY....
she was headed in a 'favorable' direction....
Well...
'Favorable', actually,
 would've been too innocuous a word to truly encapsulate the essence of the direction ...
Perhaps ETHEREAL....
No....No....Way too ANGELIC and ARROGANT ....
She was headed in a direction of  'HONOUR'...
Yes...
Honour and Beauty...
Not the superficial kind of beauty ....
But REAL BEAUTY....
inner tranquility....mysticism....LOVE....
 She missed her Father, (Zichrono Livracha), so much during this High Holiday season....
Do Jews call  it a SEASON ???
Hmmm...
Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) DID !
Right ??
In any case, He had been a TRUE man of GOD......(Her Dad, NOT Kohelet!)
Well....Kohelet too....LOL
Her father had so embodied that faith....that pure belief....
And so...
Enough meandering for one morning....
Her mind was CLEARLY 'all over the place' !!
She'd have to harness all those scattering thoughts LATER......
and off she went....
UMBRELLA in hand......

(continued) The GOOD news (in the scheme of things!) was that she was in her own home....at very least !!

albeit sleeping on the sofa in the living room...
in the wine stained, green dress...
The place was a MESS...
knocked over glasses...some kind of confetti or ticker tape or something....
a pizza box...
a man's suit hung on the bathroom door...
WEIRD...
Why couldn't she remember anything?
As she began to awaken, she wondered if there was perhaps STILL another person in the house...
NOT a comforting possibility ...
She went to the kitchen, got a big knife out of the drawer...
(Better safe than sorry, right ?)
And she crept , with some modicum of stealth, (hard to be graceful with a hangover!)...
down the corridor to her bedroom...
AND..........
THERE HE WAS !!

She was STILL wearing the green dress....

The green dress from....uhhh....LAST NIGHT ??
Wait !!!
How had this happened ?
She could barely remember her name !
Let alone, last night !
I mean...
What ??
A BLACKOUT ??
She didn't even DRINK !
EVER...
And after a FAST DAY ??
What ??!
The dress was stained with what appeared to be red wine...
Damn it....Where had she been last night ?
The shul....the break-fast .....
and then WHAT ?
This was disconcerting, to say the least....
She put her hand into the pocket of the dress....
and she felt a folded paper of  some sort...
It was a note...
It read, "I Can't Wait!"
????

And we FAST....

and we 'empty out'...
and we reflect....
and we beg for ATONEMENT....
We are so sorry for our indiscretions....
We are wholly mindful of our mistakes...
And....
We take stock, so to speak....
inventory...
"checks and balances"...
We determine the weight and depth of our hearts on the measuring scale of "moral veracity"...
Or rather...
GOD does....
And we beg for FORGIVENESS...
And we PROMISE to be 'better' than before...

But what of our GOOD DEEDS ?
Do we MENTION those as well ?
Is it ALL based on our NEGATIVE ACTS ?
Can we be HUMBLE while still being AWARE of our own, innate GOODNESS ?
of our KINDNESSES ?

Food for thought on this NON FOOD occasion...
Wishing you ALL a SAFE and MEANINGFUL YOM KIPPUR....