Who By Fire

I took a class field trip today to a Hindu temple, where devotees are celebrating the beginning of the 9-day holiday of Navratri. The holiday is dedicated to celebrating the power of the feminine divine, or shakti, who takes many incarnations.

Later I went to my local Jewish temple for erev Rosh Hashanah, which begins the ten Days of Awe in the Jewish liturgical year.

In both religious celebrations, the focus is on the power of God, but also on grace, in the divine gaze of the shakti and in the mercy of Adonai.

Most importantly, there is also an emphasis on tasting the sweetness of the present moment.

Zora Neale Hurston writes,

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

I've always loved that quote from Their Eyes were Watching God, which occurs at the beginning of the novel. By the end, you realize that in Janie Starks's life, whether the years have ended with question marks or periods matters little. The text of those years has a depth and importance that transcends the punctuation, and has brought her home.

On Rosh Hashanah, the liturgy requires that we ask questions. Questions are what begin and ultimately fill the books of our years, as our relationship with God is rarely a dialogue. Perhaps from an outside perspective, it would seem that we greet our years with honey because it makes them easier to swallow. In Judaism, however, the sweetness lies in the questioning.

From Leonard Cohen, a classic:




Happy New Year!