A Plumbing Issue: Rosh Hashanah & Va-Yeilech

I am one of those people who believes that all physical symptoms have an emotional factor to them, so when my friend told me just a little while ago that she realized that her stomach issues are connected in some way to old trauma, I was not surprised (but I didn’t say “duh”).

Funny that I just finished dealing with a major blumbing issue—not in my body, but a real one, as in my kitchen sink was backed up and it took hours for the plumber to unclog it, to flush the pipes clean, only to go work on other surrounding apartments.

So it got me thinking; how might this all be connected to Rosh Hashanah and this week’s Torah portion?

We started the intense work of cleaning out, letting go, and returning, in the past month. We have been in a different stage of the pandemic in terms of decisions on how to meet for the holidays this year (online/in-person/a combo?), we celebrated the new year in a different way, perhaps—and Moses is leaving behind his community.

Yes, this week, Moses begins his last speech to his people, informing them that, at 120 years old, he is about to die, he is putting Joshua in charge from now on, he will not be crossing over into the Promised Land with them.

One last time, he tells them how naughty they’ve been, how impossible in their turning away from God and worshiping other gods—and that they will continue in their backward ways, and probably worse—because if they were that bad with him around, how will they be when he’s not? (Yes, he actually says that.)

Still, Moses reassures them that God will be with them; they will not be abandoned. They will not be alone.

The prediction that we, as a people, would continue to be difficult has come true. There’s even a chant, “Come, Come, whoever you are, Even though you’ve broken your vows a thousand times before; Come, come again.” We always get another chance to try again, and the somber atmosphere of Yom Kippur reminds us take our vows more seriously.

I’ve realized that our work at this time of year really is a plumbing issue, maybe especially now. We have so much to flush out of our systems: old traumas, newer traumas, communities we’ve perhaps left behind during the pandemic, whether we moved or saw new opportunities arise in the past year.

And we will continue to struggle with what it means to return, return again.

As a people, and I mean as a world full of people, we will continue to struggle with what it means to have faith in the each other, in humanity—and in God, which to me means believing in the inter-connectedness of all and the interdependence we have.

Because there is no escaping global warming and climate disaster; there are no safe mountaintops to retreat to, and the air we breathe circulates around the entire earth. If we don’t take care of the earth and each other, then we’re not taking care of the One.

If we focus on what divides us, then we are bowing down to the differences—those smaller gods. I really hope we can learn the lesson Moses so wanted us to learn: that there is only One.

So on this Yom Kippur, let us get to a deeper place of flushing out our traumas, flushing out our differences, finding what unites us, renewing our faith in humanity and our ability to heal each other and the world.

That’s what I’ll be praying for this Yom Kippur: a good flush.

Shabbat Shalom and G’mar Hatima Tov; May we be written in the book of life (wherever that book is—we gotta find it).