Elul Day 26
Dear Elul Writers,
Deep in the symbolism of the yamim noraim, these days of awe that are headed our way, is the metaphor of a Divine writer. Over and over again throughout the season, we ask the Holy One to write us in the Book of Life. It is ridiculously anthropomorphic, but the idea of a Divine hand, quill and ink at the ready, is still quite powerful. We return to it, because, try as we will to be the authors of our lives, it can often feel like someone else is doing the writing. Yet, as someone who likes to write, who uses the creative process to understand and unpack my own experiences, I am drawn to the Kadosh Baruch Hu as a writer because it feels like such a validation. By writing, the logic would follow, I am living b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of the Divine.
Yet writing, like all creative practices, is challenging and wearying. It gives me some solace in those moments to imagine God not just as a writer, but as a tortured writer, frustrated by the process of turning ideas into words on the page. I mention this here because, for those who are journaling in response to these prompts, we are confronted with the problem of conveying in words, feelings and thoughts that are full of life within us. There are very few who describe this aspect of writing more expertly and more deftly than the novelist, Ann Patchett. In her book This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, she talks about the ongoing loss and pain that is part of the creative process. She writes:
The journey from the head to hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write — and many of the people who do write — get lost… Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words…I never learned how to take the beautiful thing in my imagination and put it on paper without feeling I killed it along the way. I did, however, learn how to weather the death, and I learned how to forgive myself for it.
Prompt
All of us are involved in the creative process during this season of return. As Rav Soloveitchick taught, teshuvah, at its core, “is an act of creation– self creation.” In any creative act, whether we are writing or drawing, collaging or quilting, or, even creating ourselves anew, we will likely “break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination” for an imperfect product. On this 26th Day of Elul, I invite you to consider how you can weather this loss. How will you learn to forgive yourself for aiming for one spot, and, inevitably, landing somewhere else? The journey from our aspirations to our real lives is perilous, but engaging our wild and unbounded imaginations is part of what makes this season so compelling. What can you imagine for yourself this year?
On the subject of creativity, I want to offer my deep gratitude to the Jewish Studio Project for being my partners in this project, and, in particular, to Candace Goodwin for her help and her wisdom (and her patience on the days when I was feeling like a tortured writer).
Shabbat shalom,
Jordan