Sins

It’s Yom Kippur. I seem to be spending so much time at my parents’ house lately, and here I am again.

The holiday began tonight (Wednedsay night) and it ends 24 hours later at sundown. A few days ago, our rabbi’s father died. I can’t imagine what it’s like to go through such a tragedy on top of everything else that’s been going on, and especially at this time of year, given that he’s a rabbi and has to lead services. Ugh. But he performed admirably tonight.

I’m really not into it this year, though. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar; through prayer, we’re supposed to atone for all our sins of the past year so we can be inscribed in the Book of Life, and we’re supposed to fast. But I really don’t feel like focusing on my personal transgressions at a time when an enormous sin has been committed upon us by others. My psyche feels a little more fragile than usual these days, and beating up on myself seems rather unhealthy right now. I don’t even know if I’ll fast the whole time. Under Jewish law, if you’re ill, you’re exempt from fasting. And I think we’re all a little ill these days.

Last night I had a horrible nightmare.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve occasionally told people, half-jokingly, that I’m going to move to New Zealand and become a sheep farmer. Well, in last night’s dream, I was sitting in some library in Hawaii, and I heard that there was the threat of a chemical attack in New Zealand. I wanted to investigate, so I crawled through a doorway to New Zealand. I found myself on a grassy expanse outside the library, except I was in New Zealand. There were police officers walking back and forth on the grass, inspecting it. Suddenly, an automatic sprinkler system turned on, and water started spraying up from the grass, but the nozzles were also expelling these stringy white particles. I started running away in terror, as fast as I could, trying to hold my breath as I ran, but I knew I had no chance and I was going to die.

Then I woke up.

It was about 5:30 in the morning and it was still dark out. At first I felt a jolt of relief at realizing it was just a dream. But the relief turned to fear. I felt like I’d woken up into a waking nightmare. This doesn’t feel like one of those things that will “never happen.” Like everything else that used to seem impossible, this now seems possible. As with many people, there are certain types of modern scientific warfare that scare the hell out of me right now. You know what? I honestly have doubts that I’m going to make it to old age. I now fear that a huge chunk of the human population is going to be annihilated within the next few years. The only perverse comfort I have is that if I die in such an event, I won’t suffer alone. And I hope I die with little pain.

Buddhism is seeming incredibly attractive to me lately. I’ve always found it appealing, but lately it seems even more necessary to believe in it. Death is comforting. Being alive isn’t all that significant. It’s just one small part of the grand scheme of things.

Later in the morning, I opened the New York Times and read this editorial, which sort of made me feel better and sort of didn’t.

What did make me feel somewhat better was this op-ed piece by Stephen Jay Gould.

…in this moment of crisis, we may reaffirm an essential truth too easily forgotten, and regain some crucial comfort too readily forgone. Good and kind people outnumber all others by thousands to one… in what I like to call the Great Asymmetry, every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness, too often unnoted and invisible as the “ordinary” efforts of a vast majority.

The human race is good at heart. I honestly feel that inside each person who wants to commit horribly evil acts, there is a salvageable section of the brain that respects human life. I believe that each of these people, in theory, can be convinced that human life is worth respecting. I will never stop believing in the power of rational discourse to solve problems. I know that sounds idealistic, but idealistic does not mean impossible. I will never give up hope that everyone has some good in them. People are not evil; they have psychological motivations for their acts. Overwhelm someone with kindness, and there is the possibility — not the certainty, but the possibility — that the person can change. It’s implicit in being human.

To those of you that wrote me regarding yesterday’s entry, thank you. I haven’t had a chance to write anyone back yet — sorry about that — but I appreciate your messages, all of them.

In other news, the Blog Twinning Project is pretty interesting. (Howdy, pardner.)