BLAME

Bereishit.

In the beginning.

I love beginnings. They are challenging, but creation and “the beginning” is exciting, isn’t it? I think that’s why I’m a morning person. Even when I am so exhausted that I feel like I can’t get up I still would take the morning-with its newness, its freshness, its chance of starting over on the right foot- over any time of the day.

We begin the Torah with a beginning and we understand that Torah gives us the opportunity to become anew each and every day.

That’s beautiful.

***

It was one of those mornings or was it an afternoon or an evening? The past three weeks is a mishmash of cooking, standing, serving, eating so I can’t remember what time it was of the day. It was a difficult moment. One where I wanted to give up and go back under the covers, close my eyes and begin anew.

A moment of motherhood with, yes, all of its blissfulness and

all of its beauty and all of its hardness. I always seem to analyze and replay the episode over and over in my head.

How can I do things differently? How can I be a better mother? A better transmitter or messenger in life’s journey? How can I look at things with better eyes? And do you know what I concluded? Sometimes, it’s just plain difficult and it’s got nothing to do with me…it’s Chava (Eve)!!!

You laugh, but I am not joking.

There are certain things that are beyond my comprehension. Certain things that have to do with different gilgulim (lives-incarnations) and different tikunim (spiritual corrections). Not everything is explainable or logical at least not in a way that we can see. You don’t always take one and one and get two in this world and you know what, for me at least, that’s comforting.

The woman sitting next me knows who I am and so she, eight

months pregnant, asks me question after question. How to alleviate this pain and take care of that complaint. I with pleasure give her tips and advice and then I say, “Try whatever you connect to, but you also have to know that in the end of the day you are pregnant, accept it!” Once again, we have who to point the finger…to Chava…or is it not pointing the finger, but merely to explain?

Explain?

Let me explain.

I now find myself on a journey. Mid-life crisis? Not at all, mid-

life discovery. I go back and look at the beginning, not to point the finger and to blame. No, to understand so that I can be more compassionate and to take responsibility to change. To go forward. To start a new beginning.

Adam, made a mistake and he pointed the finger to blame.

Ingratitude and running away.

And the man (Adam) said, "The woman whom You gave [to be] with me she gave me of the tree; so I ate (Bereishit 3:12)."

So what is Adam’s tikkun? What is his role? Look at his name. Adam, from Adama-earth. Adam has to work, and work hard to refine himself, cultivate himself. He needs to invest time, effort and energy. He needs to work on himself (and Adam is mankind, not just “man”). And he did and we do and that’s beautiful.

And Chava? What was her reaction to the situation?

And the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent enticed me, and I ate (ibid 3:13)."

Didn’t she do the same thing? Didn’t she try to blame? Look at the words closely. She doesn’t try to throw the blame back onto God. She just explained how it happened and admitted what she did. To what she did there were consequences and yes, we still pay the price, but look at her name. What is her role, her mission? Chava-life.

Her mission is life (and yes, it’s her and him together).

Her mission is to go back to the beginning and try to find the source and then move forward and start anew.

I don’t have any sources for these thoughts, but I do pray that they are illuminating and true.

***

What a whirlwind of a week. Going from holiday to kind of back to normal. I don’t know where I worked more- washing clothing, coming up with lunch and dinner while staring at my empty refrigerator, or in the clinic.

Each woman who came I wanted to cry after they left from their challenges and their sorrow.

Life is hard. Somethings we can understand and somethings

we can’t. Somethings are logical and somethings are not.

What can we do? Let go a bit of our quest for logical explanations? Do the best that we can with what we have? Accept, try to find the source and move on? Take responsibility and work on ourselves with time, energy and effort?

How about live? Believe that we can start anew? Connect to the…BEGINNING.

Yes, let’s start new.

Good Shabbes!! Many blessings from Jerusalem,,

Elana