Purim to Equinox to Pesach: Getting Up and Shaking Off

A few days before Purim, I read a blog post describing the holiday as “Jewish Carnival.” I hate describing Jewish holidays as “Jewish [NAME OF CHRISTIAN OR SECULAR HOLIDAY HERE].” Purim celebrates a specific event where Persian Jews turned the tables on their persecutors. It’s not “Jewish anything” except Purim. Still, the comparison to Carnival made me notice something that is similar between the two, and I’ve been thinking about that ever since: both are holidays of excess leading into periods of limitation.

Carnival, a holiday of drunkenness, gluttony, and general costumed debauchery, rolls directly into Lent, a period when many Christians up something dear to (and possibly bad for) them for forty days¹, and Catholics in particular have periods of complete fasting and abstaining from meat. A month after Purim, a holiday of drunkenness, gluttony, and general costumed debauchery, comes Pesach, when Jews are commanded to give up leavened goods for eight days.

Paganism – at least my branch of it – doesn’t have anything like that. We move from Imbolc, celebrating the early-season fecundity of domesticated animals (depending on who you ask, the source of the word means either “in the belly,” referring to pregnant farm animals, or “ewe’s milk”), to Spring Equinox, celebrating the balance between darkness and light and the arrival of Spring (the eventual arrival of Spring, in our neck of the woods). Pagans are not, by and large, people of privations, especially not at a time of year when the natural world is waking up and bursting forth with new life. And yet for me, at least, a sort of “shaking off” does happen at this time of year. 

I’m essentially a hermit from mid-December through mid-February. I might attend a couple holiday dos in the Winter Solstice/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa holiday constellation, but otherwise, if something’s not necessary to my life or livelihood, I don’t leave the house for it. 

I make no apologies for this. This period of rest is essential to keep me going the rest of the year. But when spring comes (or at least looks like it’s thinking about coming), it’s time to release not just my hermitude but the complacency that can come with it. 

In the middle of writing this post, I actually left my house, voluntarily, on a Thursday night, to attend a rally for the celebration and protection of trans lives organized in response to the brutal attack of a trans woman not two miles from my house. Overcoming Winter Hermit inertia took a lot of pep talks. But it’s essential to me that I show up for my communities when and how I can, and I knew it was time to shake off sleep and complacency and get ready to re-engage in the fight.

So as we move from Purim to Pesach, Imbolc to Equinox, Carnival to Lent, or whatever we observe at this time of year, let’s celebrate waking up and giving up something that holds us back from full participation in life and community. Although we acknowledge the discomfort the sacrifice brings, let’s stay focused on what we gain – and what the world can gain – in return.

Blessed be.

¹ One year while I was in college, one of my Catholic friends wanted to do a big community service project during Lent – “taking on” rather than “giving up.” Her priest said no; to “count” for Lent, she had to give something up. At the time it seemed ridiculous, but these days I have a better appreciation for the importance of sacrifice in this context. (My friend still did the project. She said she was giving up a certain amount of time with her friends, which she just happened to fill with a community service project.)

Image description: a white banner reading “DEFEND TRANS LIVES.” “Defend” and “lives” in black; “trans” in blue, pink, and white. The backs of some people’s heads are visible beyond the banner. It’s snowing, and everyone is dressed for winter weather. Photo by the author.

As If it Were the Last

Yom Kippur was last week, and I found it trickier to integrate into my Pagan practice. While Rosh Hashanah has several lovely rituals that felt easy to respectfully adapt, Yom Kippur is literally 25 hours of fasting and asking God to put away the smitey stick for another year, which jars with my beliefs about sin and the sacred. Also, the Yom Kippur machzor is approximately 20 billion pages long and includes stuff like the men thanking God that they aren’t women. So I took a while to find my bearings with this holiest of Jewish holy days.

I remembered something Rabbi Anne Brener says in her incredible book Mourning and Mitzvah and dug out my copy. It took me a minute to find the quote, but it was well worth the search. Rabbi Brener writes:

On Yom Kippur, traditional Jews wear a kittel, the white garment in which they will one day be buried. They recite the Viddui, a prayer of confession similar to the one recited by a dying person during the last moments before death. During the period preceding Yom Kippur, Jews are expected to put things right between themselves and others, as if there would be no other opportunity for such repentance.

See, the idea is that during the Days of Awe, God records every living person’s fate for the year to come and then seals that fate on Yom Kippur. And while some say that sincere repentance on Yom Kippur might sway God to change your fate, others argue (it’s Judaism, folks; theological debate is pretty much the name of the game) that All Decisions Are Final, and that the reason to atone on Yom Kippur is that, if you’re fated to die in the coming year, you want to face that fate with as clear a conscience as possible. As I read Rabbi Brener’s words, my observance took a shape: how would I live if I knew this was my last year of life?

I also shifted the focus of my observances to allow self-compassion. I wanted most to acknowledge the harms I’ve caused myself, the Earth, and other living beings, made what amends are possible, and figure out how to do better from now on, rather than just keep focusing on what a terrible person I was for having messed up in the first place. This clashes somewhat with the traditional mood of Yom Kippur, but my therapist was proud. 😀

Tuesday evening I cast my circle and performed a very pared-down version of the evening service, tweaked to align with my naturalistic beliefs (all my Psalms, for instance, came from the incomparable Earth Psalms by Angela Magara [Z”L]). I wore as much white as I own (I don’t have a kittel, but making one is for sure on my to-do list now) and a fringed shawl that, while nothing like a tallis, fulfilled a similar role in keeping me focused on my obligations. I started Wednesday morning with a shortened version of the morning service and read the book of Jonah as instructed (anyone else think it has the weirdest ending?). Wednesday evening I undertook a short meditation where Spouse and I sat in a sterile medical office while a doctor told me that I had Madeupenitus and had, with or without treatment, exactly one year to live.

Then I opened a spreadsheet on my phone. Not the most sacred act, I know, but in no time flat I had 30+ items under “things I would do if I had a year to live.” Once the spreadsheet was filled in, I went outside to complete the (once again, highly abridged) Neilah, the service that closes the Yom Kippur observances, and to open my circle.

No, I didn’t fast; I didn’t feel right taking the day off from work, and I knew better than to try to put in a full workday while fasting. Maybe some year. We’ll see.

On Thursday, when I had more time and a bigger screen, I opened my spreadsheet and split the items in it into two columns: Do and Hold. That is, I want to do some of these things now, prognosis or no prognosis, while others will wait until that (heh) deadline is staring me in the face. Some people would say that if I would do something immediately if I knew I were dying, I should do it immediately now, but that isn’t always practical or desirable. For instance, if I knew today that I absolutely only had a year to live, I would buy a plot in one of our local green burial grounds. But I won’t do it without the prognosis, because I hope to live long enough that one of my preferred options – conservation burial or natural organic reduction (human composting) – has become legal and viable in my state. Don’t worry – my Do list has plenty to keep me busy in the year to come, whether I kick off before next Yom Kippur or not.

And there you have it: all the Yom Kippur that’s fit to print. While the actual ritual is still very much a work in progress, I feel confident saying that I will observe this holiday again in the years to come. Assuming my name’s in the Book of Life.

_{Image description: a brown shofar on a marble surface. Photo by slgckgc via flickr}

A Naturalistic Pagan Casts Their Harms on the Waters

Before my parents got married, they made a deal: they would raise daughters Christian (Mom’s faith) and sons Jewish (Dad’s). I have many feels about this, most of them cranky. I was AFAB, so I grew up Christian, and I felt like I wasn’t even supposed to notice Judaism, beyond lighting the chanukiah every year and having the odd dinner-table debate about how to milk a chicken.

Now that I’m no longer Christian or a daughter, I feel pulled to reconnect with that erased part of my ancestry. I have -0% interest in converting, but I’m slowly and cautiously integrating small bits of practice and culture when I feel I can do so in ways that respect both Judaism and my own beliefs and values.

The Days of Awe – the period spanning from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur – feel especially resonant to me. I find something powerful in the idea of a time of year set aside for honestly and compassionately assessing myself, acknowledging my shortcomings and committing to doing better in the year ahead. I also experience it as mirroring a similar period of reflection between Fall Equinox and Samhain (a period that often encompasses the Days of Awe).

So both nights I lit a candle and recited a naturalistic Pagan version of the Rosh Hashanah blessing that would surely have raised many an ancestral eyebrow. Yesterday at lunch (couldn’t quite get my act together to do it Sunday) I ate apples with honey to bring more sweetness into my life. And yesterday after work I stood at my current favorite spot along Nahar HaMississippi and prayed my own tashlich, ridding myself of the immobilizing guilt of the year’s wrongdoings. I don’t have a shofar, but maybe next year I’ll honk my recorder a few times.

And that was my Rosh Hashanah observance. Most of my Jewish relatives might’ve looked askance at it, but it felt right to me. In the days to come I hope to review and revise one or more of my end-of-life documents, look for ways to “re-up” my social and environmental activism, and spend as much time as possible in contemplation and experience of awe and humility.

Shana tova 5783! Here’s to a sweet year on this sacred Earth. Blessed be.

_{Image description: 8 apple wedges on a blue plate. A jar of honey is just visible on the table behind the plate. Photo by the author.}