I found myself in Woodstock this morning, at shul with Elise, listening to Rabbi Aura’s beautiful recitation of the Torah, and of course feeling Maya’s presence deeply. I could envision Maya on the bema, reciting her d’var Torah just over a year ago. I could envision her in the sanctuary, listening intently to the Rabbi, and I could envision her in the social hall, mingling with kids and adults awkwardly, eager to get home. After service I went in to one of our favorite stores in Woodstock, and envisioned Maya and I there a few months ago looking for gifts to buy for Elise. The same in the local coffee shop, bookstore, and the hippie clothing store we loved to visit. I am drawn to these places, like I am on some kind of autopilot, drawn to the pain and sense of loss it evokes, and also to the joy it brings back. I am not really seeing things; I cannot quite put it into words. Every place Maya and I have been is infused with her presence. Everywhere I go there are such powerful associations. It is not that I expect to bring her back by revisiting our old haunts. It is like I am still hanging out with her, my sometimes unwilling sidekick; somehow she is still there with me, present in the absence. How can I hold those both at the same time?
Maya at the bema, November, 2014.
At service we sang “Elohay neshama shenatata bi teorah hi.” Of course I have no idea of the translation, so I rely on the commentary to help me. The notes explain this to me as a description of the voyage of the soul, from the “everlasting stream of life”, into the human body, and then back to the “continuum of being that is the sum total of all transitory lives.” Isn’t this what I am grappling with? Maya is gone, but not. She no longer laughs with me, walks with me, smiles at me, makes fun of me, teases me. But she is here. I feel her presence just the same. Again, how can I hold those both at the same time?
I remember this from Rilke, and hope I can live by it, each day in it’s own time.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Outside the Woodstock Jewish Congregation
Maya gave me a great gift by asking me to play the role of galila at her bat mitzvah… to dress the Torah. I have never held a Torah, and barely have gone to temple. Learning to do the ritual properly from Rabbi Aura was so moving. When she asked me to open the doors of the Ark, it was as if all the generations of Jews in my background were speaking again… Maya somehow connected me with the stream of sacredness that I had forgotten. In all the many hours we spent together, she always thought to offer generosity.