Season 2

One evening when Wendi and I were knee-deep in boxes and our apartments looked near empty, it occurred to me that we were, in fact, moving - which I've done before. But this time around, I wasn't alone. My best friend and love of my life was coming with me – Charlie. My dog. And Wendi would be coming too…

But this move was different in other ways. While Wendi and I left Houston, our friends, and family, we didn't say goodbye for good - just see you all soon. Houston wouldn't be in the rearview, I said aloud often. Because it would always be our home. Our second home. You Floridians understand what that's like. But really. Whenever Wendi and I would get emotional about this big, new adventure, I would remind her and myself that this was just a new chapter. Or, as I like to refer to it, Season Two of The Wendi Show. Starring Wendi.  The Hollywood Hilbillies. Three's Company. Charles in Charge. I have more.

The same loveable characters, but a different location. Maybe even some new plot lines. New characters. But this wasn't the end. Not even of an era. Just the next chapter of our lives. Because every outstanding performance has acts, right? They have pauses. Set changes. Intermission to scramble for overpriced merlot. But the show isn't over. As it was explained to me once, we can't just "move on" with our lives, but we do "move forward." Some might refer to this as compartmentalization. But the good kind. 

Now, I know that word gets a bad rap. Maybe categorize is a better word. We categorize. Because categorizing the significant changes in our lives - good, bad, and ugly - helps us keep track. To follow along. And discern one piece, one chapter or episode of our lives from the next. Like Torah. And I don't just say that because I'm a rabbi. I don't compare everything to Torah. But this one works really well. 

The Torah is meant to be continually read and re-read. Constantly rolling. But it does have some noticeable stops. From the Book of Genesis to Exodus, you'll see in the scroll there's a gap. The end of a book. There's even a special prayer we say after finishing a book. But there are more than just these substantial noticeable gaps. There are chapters and verses in our Torah as well. This, in turn, helps us make sense of the narrative as a whole. The whole thing would feel like a run-on sentence without references and annotations. Without breaks. Without pauses. It all can get lost. Jumbled together. This is why it helps to have allotted breaks. Groupings of stories. Categories of laws. Because if there's one thing Jews love to do, it's organize! And how are we able to do this, you might ask? What innate ability allows us to take on this task? 

The Rabbis instruct us that "upon hearing the sound of the rooster," the indication that it's time to get up and recite the morning's prayers, "one should say: Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Who gave the heart [sekhvi] understanding to distinguish between day and night." [1]

Now, if you're living in Sweeden or Alaska, this isn't so easy. But the critical phrase here is the "understanding to distinguish." Our ability to separate and parse reality. It's not that there simply ARE categories of time called day and night. It's our act of distinguishing one from the other. "One of these Things is Not Like the Other." THIS, little ones, isn't like THAT. It's a skill that helps us. Helps us understand because our brains, well, at least mine, it doesn't always function at top speed, if you know what I mean. We need definition and separation to help us understand what's going on. And these aren't just as easy to spot as night and day; sometimes, we have to create them ourselves. 

This brings us back to Torah. Fun fact. The chapter divisions commonly used today were developed by Stephen Langton, an Archbishop. Langton put the modern chapter divisions into place around 1227 A.D. 

That division showed up AGAIN in Hebrew manuscripts and was adopted in Venice around 1516 - in the first printed edition of the Hebrew Bible. Okay, okay, Rabbi, but what about the original. You know, the Dead Sea scrolls. Surely that's the ultimate version. Well, some of the Hebrew versions popular today ARE considerably different from the Dead Sea Scrolls regarding formatting structure.

But however, they came to be. We have them now. Because we needed them. Some came from Moses on Mount Siani. And some. Well, we discerned for ourselves. Looking at essential verses like the Ten Commandments I spoke about last week, you'll see clear visual gaps in between each commandment. This space indicates a pause. A pause to understand. A pause that pushes the reader to take a second. Let it all sink in before moving on. But there are other spaces as well. At the end of an aliyah, a section of Torah being read, there's a specific tune for the last few words. And conversely, a sound that indicates the end. And another word that sets the beginning.

So what does all this mean for us? Well, the way I see it, while there are these big special moments like New Year that we all adopt as endings and beginnings, we can sporadically choose others as well. You don’t even have to relocate or move to have these. You can just say, as I did, this is Season Two. Because when you know that something has ended, you can begin anew. 

This week, let us appreciate the natural endings and beginnings but also find the freedom to manufacture a few of our own. Ones that help us see the bigger pictures. Ones that let us grow and evolve into the person we are meant to become.