2nd night

Doing It Right

A lifelong perfectionist, the desire to do it right has paralyzed me in almost all of my affairs. The concept of ‘doing it right’ was a big stumbling block to engaging with Judaism. If I couldn’t say the prayers correctly or practice the rituals exactly the way they had been done throughout history, I didn’t feel I had the right to do it at all. When I talk to some people, especially from an older generation, about my passion for translating the traditions to be applicable to our lives or shifting the rituals to ones we feel we have time to practice I can see them recoil a bit. Am I ruining judaism?

When I juice vegetables, my concoctions are all health and no taste, so I end up not drinking what I made and tucking the juicer away in my cupboard. If I can't do it all the way, I'm not going to do it at all. If my choice is to practice an homage to something beautiful and valuable, a form of a ritual that connects me to a goodness outside of myself and a culture I was born into, a moment of mindfulness in the spirit of how it was traditionally practiced, I can’t imagine a god who would tell me that was evil and I should rather abstain from having any connection at all. That Old Testament god may have, but perhaps in 2020CE we have all, god included, developed more compassion and relaxed our binary conception of right and wrong.

Here you see I have lit three candles. I lit them during the day on the fourth day of Hanukkah. I wanted to light candles for every day of this holiday and I missed yesterday. When I had to chose between holding myself to a standard of perfection or taking the religion and it’s practices into my heart in whatever shape they came, I went with the latter and let the light of self compassion wash over me. It’s okay to not be perfect. I love myself anyway. My best is enough because my intentions are good and I am always striving to be better. The concept I have of a loving god cradles me as I write these words and tells me I’m correct. I wish for everyone a concept of unconditional love that accepts them as they are in this moment as well as holding the possibility for them to grow into all they are capable of being.