Oh Look, A Nice Tree!
Free association. Is there such a thing? It's the middle of the night - the post time will be the time I started writing this, that's the time that gets put in unless you change it. Pirkei Avot states that if you are sleepless in the night and open your heart to wastefulness then you are "mitchayav benafsho." I think I was doing O.K. with my own translating till that last phrase. Mitchayav benafsho is generally translated along the lines of "you don't deserve to live," literally it comes out something like - you are guilty for your life. The idea is that it's really bad to be awake late at night (the word used is "ha'neior," which I think means not just being awake, but being unable to be otherwise). What I translated as "and open your heart to wastefulness" is "u'mefaneh libo lebatalah ," in the Hebrew, and is generally translated along the lines of turning your heart to "batalah." Batalah is one of those things that is hard to define but you know it, or think you do, when you see it - all this after after a few days in yeshivah.
I had kind of a freak accident last week/weak and am still recuperating. I passed out from dehydration. It was at a burial on 17 Tamuz. They say that the dangerous part about passing out is not the fainting but hitting the dirt. They - for once - are right. Everyone wanted to know what was wrong with me, getting all literal minded on me, trying to diagnose me, making me feel very old. I knew two things; I was dehydrated and needed to drink and then drink more (I was going to write another "and then drink more" - but it felt like overkill, so, aren't you glad I didn't.) And I knew that my ankle hurt in a way it never hurt before and that this was something to which attention had to be paid.
Here I am, Powerade in hand, foot still hurting. It's the middle of the night. I pray that I never open my heart to wastefulness. I pray for us all.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 3:27 AM
2 Comments:
I am sorry about your fall and especially about your ankle.
It's unsettling to be reminded of our physical vulnerability. And it's draining to be in pain. Feel better.
Thanks so much Anne for your caring and your good wishes. It really seems true that the fall is the worst part of collapsing.
Three years ago I was at a Starbucks with a friend (they happened to be having a sale on their CDs for crazy cheap,so I bought three - Neil Diamond's 12 Songs, Jack Johnson's Sleep Through The Static, and Jason Mraz's We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things (featuring I'm Yours) and an old woman was sitting at a table next to ours. It was outside and a wind came buy and blew lots of the woman's stuff away and she was having a hard time. I help gather her cap and napkins. She thanked me and said, "The body goes, take care of it." How true.
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