Erev Yom Kippur Reflections

After a long morning putting in time studying for the boards, I decided to beat most Israelis to the chase...and take a bike ride.

To those of you who have not had the pleasure of spending the Holiest of Days here in the Holy Land, you might need to be informed that while the more religiously inclined of the Israeli population spends their Yom Kippur in the Synagogue, praying and hoping to be "sealed" in the Book of Life, the "Chilonim," or secular Israelis are out riding their bikes.

Why?

Well, because no one drives on Yom Kippur, so the streets are clear for all sorts of recreational activities. "But why does no one drive on Yom Kipper?" is the logical question to ask. Well...I'm not sure. I'd like to say something such as, "The Holiness of the Day is so pervasive that even the Jews who are the most removed from religious practice feel that mundane activities such as driving just don't feel right." Maybe I'd add---riding their bikes, breathing the fresh air, and meditating on the beauty of this country and it's bike-riding people is their way of communing with G!d. Who am I to say that sitting in a cramped synagogue, being hungry, my legs tired from standing-sitting-standing-sitting all day is more of an effective way of achieving forgiveness?

So it was with these thoughts that I took a brief bike ride, though I'm not quite sure it was even remotely similar, because riding on the roads here WITH cars makes mountain climbing feel like a safe, relaxing walk in the park. I was not only thinking about the authentic-Israeli-Yom-Kippur-expereince, but also taking into account this past year and looking ahead to the next one.

I realize (and apologize) that I have been terrible at keeping this blog updated in the past year, but I it was not out of laziness or even being too busy (though it was a factor) that this occurred. Really, my second year of medical school was a year of intense study, which did not permit me much time to experience much outside the confines of the medical school library and the few places I knew I could retreat to for Shabbat---thus, I didn't really have much to share about my "Israel Experience."

In fact, things were becoming so monotonous and not-blog-worthy, that I finally decided that, if I was going to be studying this hard for the rest of medical school, I needed to better surround myself with the things that I considered important---including a functioning Jewish community, friends (outside of school), and access to good schwarma. I found all of these things in Ahuza, the community up in the Haifa mountains, to the South of the Carmel---where my friend Shmuel lives. And, as luck would have it, Shmuel's roommate (Natan) had gotten engaged and was looking for someone to take over the lease when he leaves.

So here I am now, sitting in my new apartment, breathing the thinner, mountain air of Ahuza, and getting ready to go enjoy a pre-Fast meal with one of the many hospitable-to-a-fault families that reside in this neighborhood (ok---there's no such thing as hospitable-to-a-fault...but, if there was, many of these families would qualify).

In the past two weeks, I started my Internal Medicine rotations, which have proven already to be an intense learning experience, where every day is full of the possibilities of both gathering in large amounts of the most important medical knowledge and wisdom to be a better doctor. Every moment presents an opportunity to learn, both technical knowledge from the doctors and nurses who work in our department, and undefinable---yet much more important---wisdom from each patient. I feel that the past two years have been working up to this, and it does not disappoint.

This past summer, I got to spend more time at home than I have since almost the beginning of college. It was wonderful to see everyone I was able to see, spend a few Friday Night dinners with my family, and to get to beat in pool-basketball a few times by various family members. It was exactly what I needed to face the challenging year ahead of me.

This next year will not only be full of externally learning about medicine, but also attempting to learn more about myself and discovering which field is best suited for my unique (....ok, strange...) qualities, strengths, and weaknesses. I also can look forward to taking my USMLE's (Nov. 9th), the visit of one of my brothers (and hopefully the others as well), working on my Hebrew (and possibly Russian and Arabic), and balancing this all with my personal life as well.

As I finish this off to go start getting prepared for Kol Nidre, I wanted to share a beautiful thought on forgiveness that I heard from Rabbi Klapper (with whom I studied the summer before starting medical school). The idea that "forgiveness out of love", which is the highest ideal of forgiveness that we can achieve, can not only completely remove the taint of sin and mitigate the punishment thereof, but actually turn that sin into virtue (as claimed by the Rabbis in the Talmud) is a challenging one for many reasons. One camp---which believes that all of our actions are pre-ordained and only the choice to "fear G!d" or not is decided by our free well---reasons that we can turn our sin into virtue simply be realizing that what we did was not sin at all, but actually part of G!d's larger plan. This is disturbing mostly because it denies any consequences for our actions, among other inherent problems.

Another camp---which believes in the inherent creative ability of Man to recreate himself---argues that when we achieve true forgiveness from G!d, we are like a new person. While this does burden us with more responsibility, it fails to fully explain why those old sins are not just left to be parts of our "old self", but instead become virtues.

The idea that Rabbi Klapper presents is, borrowing from both of these ideas, we can look at the world as a series of opening and closing doors of opportunity to better ourselves, improve the world, and become closer to G!d. Thus, the highest ideal of forgiveness would be the realization that the sins of our past have been done and cannot be changed---they have closed some doors---but, more importantly, they have opened others avenues of redemption. The worst thing we can do is dwell on our past mistakes, and ignore the opportunities that we now have---sometimes precisely because of those mistakes.

I hope everyone has an easy and very meaningful fast, and may you be sealed in the Book of Life for the year to come.

Yours,

Michael