I look outside my window, past the buildings and the rivers and the people, so many people. And over the rooftops, shining in defiance of the black night sky, are two lights - two pillars of white nothingness, fighting the emptiness below them.
It is, after all, September 11.
And just the sight of these two bright columns brings me hope. They unleash emotions I did not know I felt. They represent hope, a future, something to be had in light of the bleak reality of the day. They call out to all who see them - I'm here! Don't forget me!
They say, blatantly, it is time to start anew, to move on, to rebuild.
Some message. It sure hits home.
And so, with the light of those two faceless pillars guiding my research, I think through the year past - the highs, the lows, the in-betweens. What made me happy? What made me mad? Where was I comfortable? What brought meaning?
So much to figure out. I once thought I'd already worked it all out... so wrong I was.
I remember, one Shabbat eve, I stood in a dining hall with friends long-since gone their own ways, and debated לשם שמיים the ins and outs of the world - what was right, what was wrong, how do we move forward.
And my argument was that there was no right. There was no path. There were no boundaries. But my Islander friend found this uncomfortable. And so we debated. Debated what it meant to be "post-modern." What it meant for you to be you and me to be me. And I knew so adamantly that I was right. But maybe not.
Maybe he had some truth himself as well. Maybe this world can contain "truths" and certain paths. Maybe pluralism, the idea for which I fought for for so long until it blew up in my face, is actually just a disguise - a disguise for other ambitions, a cry for acceptance, an appeal for change. Maybe "post-modern" is just an ideological charade. Maybe all these ideas that I thought were the crux of everything I knew and cared for are actually no more real than the two beacons of light in the night's sky - moving, life-changing, but, in the end, substance-less.
Because, in the end, what maters is what will be built in their place, the physical facts on the ground where people will live, where people will work, where people will play. We can talk all we want about ideas, but in the end, the physical realities of life are what will live on throughout the ages.
The burning columns of light, then, are something like the shofar blasts coming all too soon - they break apart the silent calm of the ordinary, and leave an imprint in the minds of those who hear them; but do they spur you to action? If the shofar is sounded but it does not open the gates of heaven this year, then was it worth being blown in the first place?
So I take all of this in, sitting at my desk, looking out at the almost-dark night's sky, and attempt to asses where to go from here. I look at the year ahead, and wonder where it might lead. On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed. The decisions will be made, with or without me, all too soon.
But today, tomorrow really, is a new beginning. היום הרת עולם! The slates are wiped clean. What happened before no longer matters. What does matter is where to go from here. What does matter is what we make of the world that we have today. There is a time for remembering what was, a time for pillars of light in the sky, but the focus must be on what will be.
And today, on the last day of 5767, I am ready. Ready to renew. Ready to try. Ready to stumble. Ready to be written. I am ready for the orchestra to begin its ensemble. Ready to go, ready to be, ready to live. Ready to succeed.
Let's roll.
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