Both At The Same Time

It’s Adar and I’m writing a paper on grief. It’s not as if I want to be writing a paper on grief (or on anything!) but there you go. And that’s kind of how it is a lot of the time. Happy + sad. Two minim in one bag.

 

It’s Purim and I want to be celebrating it with my husband. Except I don’t want to be married to any of the guys I dated already. Except I do. Except I know I really don’t. Except I wish I could have been. Or, just, I want to be married now and I know it’s better for me that I’m not.

 

I’m older than I ever was and I’m blessed to have the freedom to make a career change that makes so much sense for me.

 

I’d rather quit my job and it’s funding all the things.

 

I’m grateful and yearning. I feel joyful and trapped. I am powerful and fragile. I believe anything is possible and I’m out of ideas.

 

And the thing is, feeling any one of these things doesn’t mean I can’t feel another. I just have to find a way to make peace with feeling both. This is called dialectics, the ability to hold two opposites as equally real and equally valid without devolving into either/or black-and-white thinking.

 

I think one of the themes of Purim is opposites. Boruch Mordechai, arur Haman…V’nahapoch hu…And I think the dialectic of Purim is abundance and need. Giving shalach manos, donating to tzedakah, visiting the lonely and being poshet yad – putting out our hands in tefillah, asking Hashem, waiting for His shalach manos. Both at the same time. Two minim in the same bag. And it’s going to be great 🙂

 

P.S. I once heard a nice vort on the words in the megillah, “emor lamelech” – tell the king. These words are referring to Hashem as the King. When we daven on Purim, we don’t ask Hashem to do things, we have permission to tell Him to do them.

 

May your tefillos be answered l’tova! A very freilichen Purim to you!