Dying Gates

    “This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses to you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live (Deut. 29:19).” It is almost the day of at-one-ment. So now it is time to ignore the Deuteronomist G-d's declaration and choose death. Blessing and curse are harder to distill from one another and I seem to blunder into them haphazardly anyway. One of the instances being how much free time I have had this fall.

    The prayers feel empty to me now and Yom Kippur is coming. Yom Kippur is coming is what I tell myself all year. It's actually a pretty good policy to live by. Apologize in the moment. Get up and do your best because you do not want to have any regrets when Elul rolls around. The Gates opened up ten days ago, like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole. Am I ready to be masticated and purged? Am I ready to die? Well, since the gates and the Book of Life are closing, it means that I must be ready to die. If I died right now what would I have left in the world behind me and what would I have earned in the world to come?

Narrator: [Tyler steers the car into the opposite lane and accelerates] What are you doing?
Tyler Durden: Guys, what would you wish you'd done before you died?
Ricky: Paint a self-portrait.

The Mechanic: Build a house.
Tyler Durden: [to Narrator] And you?
Narrator: I don't know. Turn the wheel now, come on!
Tyler Durden: You have to know the answer to this question! If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?
Narrator: I don't know, I wouldn't feel anything good about my life, is that what you want to hear me say? Fine. Come on!
Tyler Durden: Not good enough.

    In modern, liberal Judaism the vidui, the confession before death, has been reserved for the High Holidays. It is the single most Catholic sounding Jewish text I have yet to encounter. For example phrases like “my wicked deeds and sins embarrass me” are not common in Jewish practice. We're too busy to sit around flagellating ourselves liturgically. Other fun vidui times include before marriage, to mourn the loss of former self. And since Kol Nidre is my Jewish birthday, I would add it to the conversion process. I sustain a pretty healthy connection to all that I was before, but something still ended and those endings must be acknowledged.

The deathbed confession used to happen every night. Death was everywhere, surrounding us. Like domestic Vikings, we existed beside death with equanimity. Now death is compartmentalized. It is very other to us. When facing death, we all want a clean slate. So once a year, amidst Facebook statuses that blanket-petition forgiveness, we prepare to die.

    Some ethereal, heavenly host is perusing my book, ink is wet and ready to decide my fate. In one day, that will be written, the book will be closed and the gates will be closed and there will be no turning back. In that day, I will strip myself of food, of anointing, of color, of self. I will not wear the skins of the dead because it haunts me to think of how close to the flesh of a long gone animal I am.

    I have not read Psalm 27, heard a shofar, or apologized to anyone. Still, I died. When Elul started, I had recently destroyed myself and my closest friend in order to separate our lives. I was homeless and jobless. I am not quite over any of that. We have both endured so much pain. But G-d had to lay both life and death before us since neither can exist without the other. From a distance now, the ways in which my past was not working are overwhelmingly clear and I keep asking myself why I would maintain so many inconsistencies in my soul.

G-d seems to think that everything is clear: “Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it (Deut. 29:14).” G-d's an idiot sometimes. I hurt someone I love and it rips me up and maybe I can never make it right. I will definitely try to be a better friend this year, call my parents more often, donate to charity, and study more. But I also sinned against myself a lot and I will try to hit the mark on my own bulls eye as well. I try to live by regretting nothing, but still I hear Tyler Durden challenging me, “not good enough” and there's always room to grow. Change seems so much like death. And if you manage to confront it, it feels even worse. But if you can cross the gates and look back, maybe the life we were leading, dull and with closed minds and hearts, was the real death and it is only by dying that we may live.