by Ruchi
This week is my son Moishy's 17th
birthday. Which means his bar mitzvah was 4 years ago. Which means
this week's parsha is his bar mitzvah parsha. Which deals with what
used to happen, back in the day, when a person chose to gossip. He or
she would get a spiritual skin ailment, which could only be healed
through the Jewish priest's diagnosis and a spiritual rehabilitation
process.
Once there was a fellow in the shtetl who came to his Rabbi. "Rabbi! I gossiped. What can I do? How can I repent?"
"My son," the rabbi replied, "bring me a
feather pillow." Which he did. "Now scatter all the feathers in the
wind." Done. "Now, my child, run and gather all the feathers, and put
them back in the pillow!"
"Rabbi... how can I possibly do that?? I don't even know where the feathers have flown to!"
"This is right. And that is the lesson.
When you release gossip into the world, you have no idea to which
corners of the earth it will fly. Is repentance even possible?"
Update the analogy. If the pen is mightier
than the sword, what about the laptop? When you release something into
space, can it ever be retrieved? What about forwarding an email
without permission or bcc-ing someone on an email where private
information is wrongly shared? What about sharing an unflattering photo
on Facebook? Can repentance ever be done for this? As a good friend
of mine puts it, can you unring that bell?
The birthdays of my children are moments
for me to reflect. Part of the wistfulness of birthdays is the stark
jab in the ribs reminding us that time is passing and that we will never
be that young again. The irretrievability of those moments hurts,
because there are some bells we just can't unring. And with our kids,
we often wish we could go back and redo that bedtime, that conversation,
that year.
One of the advantages of having a lot of
kids is it sort of gives you that chance. No, you can't redo your
17-year-old's 15th year, but you can be smarter about your next child's
15th year. Instead of regretting the years you wished away, you can be
more appreciative with your current pre-schoolers - because you know,
for reals, how fast it goes (since you didn't believe it when everyone
told it to you the first time).
This is all good. Because although
irretrievability feels sad, it's good. It spurs us to a greater urgency
in getting it right, holding it tight, and keeping the goal in sight.
