Absolved, remitted, cancelled

Yom Kippur begins at sundown tonight and continues until dusk tomorrow. It’s the culmination of the Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar, and the time for a sort of moral Spring cleaning—the Day of Atonement, when you’re meant to rummage through your behavior over the previous year, acknowledge your shortcomings with respect to your fellow humans, apologize (to those they’ve trespassed against and to God) and resolve to do better.

Then—having cleared the slate, so to speak—you’re good to go for another year.

Well, the deal is that God opens the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and inscribes your name in it, but doesn’t close-and-seal it until the end of Yom Kippur. You have those ten Days of Awe to get your ducks in a row.

In recent times, people have taken to issuing blanket apologies for transgressions, presumably in the hope that anyone who’s actually suffered at their hands will happen by at the time the apology emerged, and will catch it in passing. And, of course, SoMe has amplified this impersonalization of what should be a very personal act of contrition.

I have never subscribed to the one-size-fits-all approach to giving or receiving apologies, but that’s just me. I mean—in the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation, we’re meant to hawk up actual things we’ve done, say them out loud to the confessor and accept the penance we’re given. (Toughest priest I ever knew wouldn’t give you any generic Hail Marys or Our Fathers; no, no. If I’d been pissed off at my family, he’d tell me to go back and be specially nice to them. Killed me, he did.)

Protestants generally have no truck with confession and atonement. That may be because, being based on the teachings of John Calvin, they’re guided by the tenets of Predestination: God decided long before your birth whether you’re saved or damned, and nothing you can do here will change that. Therefore there’s not much point in calling out your transgressions, or promising to make amends—you’re headed where God sends you.

(Okay—there’s a lot of talk in some fundamentalist circles about repentance and forgiveness. But that seems largely to apply to Republican elected officials and some preachers who’ve been caught doing something that they can’t wriggle out of on account of the video and the forensic evidence. I take no notice of this.)

But I digress. This post is about Yom Kippur and the mindful inventory of one’s transgressions with a view to amending one’s trajectory in the New Year.

In synagogues and communities around the world just before sundown tonight, someone will be singing “Kol Nidre”, a call from the Ashkenazi tradition of Judaism. It’s a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew, declaring null any oaths or commitments made to God from one Yom Kippur to the next, and asking for pardon for shortcomings in fulfilling those vows. The idea, as I understand it, is to mitigate the sin of failing to fulfill a vow that might have been made rashly. (It also annulled any vows associated with forced conversion to Christianity, which was a thing for a long time.)

Both Al Jolson and Neil Diamond sang “Kol Nidre” in their appearances in The Jazz Singer (1927 and 1980, respectively). Johnny Mathis and Perry Como have also recorded it, which seems passing odd to me. But I’m giving you Cantor Julia Kadrain of the Central Synagogue (a Reform shul in Midtown Manhattan) leading it for Yom Kippur 5776 (nine years ago).

May your name be sealed in the Book of Life.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

 

Spores, music and food

These may be the last of the mushrooms for the season. They’re beside the W&OD Trail, a location where I’ve seen their ilk in the past.

This one reminds me of the little guy in "Tea", the Chinese dance in The Nutcracker, as depicted in Fantasia.

Dunno why, but I’m thinking about risotto. Mushroom risotto.

 

  

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

 

Cookiewise

So, there’s this chain of specialty bakeries called Crumbl Cookies. They have a store near me in the People’s Republic, in a nothing-but-eateries section of a local shopping center. I noticed it because it’s next to the place I patronize for kabob.

Last year I had a conversation about it with my physical therapist—I just don’t get how making one single thing can be the basis of a successful business model. (I also don’t get the lasting power of Nothing Bundt Cake, except they may have an advantage in corporate catering.) She said she’d tried them, and they were acceptable. But I’ve still never got round to going in to check them out.

A couple of weeks ago I got a fancy for the lamb and chicken kabob platter, so I trotted over to the shopping center and noticed this:

I wondered if they were going out of business, or maybe had a super big sale going on. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place that is entirely takeout this full, outside of maybe a Massachusetts ice cream parlor in July. And as I waited for my combo platter, I watched people streaming by with pink boxes—some quite wide and maybe an inch tall, and some the size of a box that would hold a couple of cupcakes.

Well, The Washington Post got wind of the raging phenomenon and decided to review the product. Turns out they didn’t much like it—too sweet and tending to be underbaked. Evidently that’s because of their size; by the time the edges are done and headed toward burning, the centers are still near-raw.  

But here’s the kicker: the cookies cost $6. Each.

Nope.

 

 

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

At last

Well, I saw my first one in the wild.

Not even impressed enough to veer 20 meters off the W&OD Trail to get a closer look.

Also—it was at a cheap-ass 7-ELEVEN wannabe. Whatever class it has is all low.

Hope he's not insured with GEICO.

 

 

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: brilliance

In these crazy times, we none of us are assured of anything. Aside from human-induced climate-related natural disasters, we’re surrounded by two major kinetic wars; worldwide cyber crime aimed at crippling infrastructure, healthcare and communications; the global rise of right-wing authoritarianism; and a presidential election here that pits a proven upholder of the Constitution against a convicted felon whose campaign relies on unprecedented lying and incitement to violence to support winning at all costs.

The costs to be paid by everyone but him.

Plus—I’m still being chewed to shreds by bloody mosquitos. In October.

My point is—no matter how battened down we think our lives are, we’re all one layoff, one aneurysm, one rogue Waymo or one batshit crazy True Believer away from everything turning upside down. So I’ve taken to trying to focus on the things around me—in whatever format they might appear—that remind me of the grace and blessings that do exist, even if they’re ephemeral.

Today it’s the hibiscus that my neighbor planted. (Y’all know how I love hibiscus.)

She gets actual sun (unlike my yard), and she recently set out a bunch of plants and shrubs, including these stunners. I don’t know where hibiscus originated, but these guys remind me of the colors or Mexico, or the Little India neighborhood of Singapore. Just in-your-face look-at-me vibrant hues. You just have to smile when you see them.

Today I’m grateful for my neighbor, her garden and these beauties. How could I not be?

 

©2024 Bas Bleu