Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there were lots of opportunities for reflection and self-examination. I had a helpful reminder when I recently taught a workshop on recycling and reuse in fibre arts.<\/p>\n
I worked as an English, writing and adult education teacher when I was in my 20s, and I\u2019ve taught off and on ever since. Lately, I\u2019ve mostly taught fibre arts, but I enjoy teaching in general. Often, as we moved for my husband\u2019s academic life, I\u2019d give up my teaching job, uproot myself and try again in the next place we lived. It was a challenging situation. A couple of moves ago, I switched over to writing, editing and design, and only occasional teaching. Now it all has to fit in around my kids\u2019 needs as well, so I\u2019ve taught a lot less in recent years.<\/p>\n
My wake-up call came when I checked in at a teaching venue. About six years ago, I helped create the festival that hosted my workshop. First, the volunteer asked who I was and what I needed. I pointed to the class list and said I was teaching. The volunteers started chatting with me, \u201cOh,\u201d they asked, \u201cDo you knit?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell yes,\u201d I replied. \u201cI write knitting patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n
It went from there. They had no idea who I was at all. I explained that I had been a teacher at the festival more than once. It came up that I\u2019d written books on the subject and, if they couldn\u2019t take my class, as they were volunteering, they could download my designs online and learn that way.<\/p>\n
It continued when they rushed into my classroom five minutes into the workshop to hand out name tags. (They\u2019d forgotten them.) I smiled and said we already had them. \u201cOh,\u201d they responded, \u201csomeone else gave them to her!\u201d I had to smile back and say, \u201cI brought them myself \u2013 something I\u2019d learned from helping to start this festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
We live in an age of constant social media bombardment and self-marketing. If we aren\u2019t always in our profession\u2019s limelight somehow, it\u2019s possible that no one will know us; that anything we\u2019ve accomplished is irrelevant if we\u2019re not at the top of somebody\u2019s Instagram or social media feed.<\/p>\n
This encounter reminded me that, even if I\u2019m teaching, being paid and my bio is up on the website, well, I\u2019m a nobody like everybody else. We all put on our pants one leg at a time. We may think a lot of ourselves, and that\u2019s well and good, but is there any reason to think that? (In my case, not really!)<\/p>\n
From Selichot up to Yom Kippur is when we\u2019re supposed to focus on self-examination and make apologies. We make space and time to think about when we missed the mark and how we can do more. We have to reflect on whether we have run away from our responsibilities or failed in our lives. How can we do better at keeping our promises, and go beyond?<\/p>\n
On Yom Kippur, we read the Haftorah portion of the story of Jonah (Jonah 1:1-4:11). This is a hard story to hear and I always find myself with conflicting emotions. I mean, who thinks they can get a direct order from the Almighty and then take a boat ride in the opposite direction? Is it normal to get thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale? Not so much. (It\u2019s a whale of a tale!)<\/p>\n
Once Jonah gets to Nineveh, he does what he is asked to do \u2013 and the people respond. They atone. This doesn\u2019t please Jonah either. Jonah wishes that they were punished rather than forgiven for their previous bad behaviour. He wants retribution rather than compassion.<\/p>\n
Jonah is human, like all of us. He learns what it means, eventually, to lose everything. He is abased and despondent. It\u2019s miserable, but he learns a lot.<\/p>\n
After my class, which went very well, by the way, and was a lot of fun, I realized that I was pitying myself, like Jonah. I spent time thinking, I\u2019ve lost everything, nobody\u2019s heard of me anymore.<\/p>\n
Avoiding the great big pity party, I resolved that I should be grateful. I\u2019d had fun and earned money in my classroom. When others recognized me later that day, I felt grateful and tried to celebrate the connections I had made in previous years.<\/p>\n
For me, having twins and some health challenges has meant that I\u2019ve had to adjust my worldview. Like Jonah, I\u2019ve had to learn that I\u2019m just not in control. Instead of running away from Nineveh, I gave up some volunteer activities, work commitments and other things when I discovered that I couldn\u2019t manage it. Like Jonah, I can\u2019t blame others who flourished in the meanwhile. Jonah had to sweat it out in the heat, alone, to learn this, but here it is: we\u2019re not in control.<\/p>\n
Instead of feeling angry that we\u2019re not recognized or that Nineveh wasn\u2019t punished appropriately for its mistakes, let\u2019s turn the story around. It\u2019s great that there\u2019s a divine power at work who saves Nineveh and Jonah, and teaches him (and me) important lessons about compassion. I hope I didn\u2019t embarrass those volunteers.<\/p>\n
A little navel-gazing helped me realize what I needed for 5780: an increased dose of humility and gratitude.<\/p>\n
Joanne Seiff <\/strong>has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/em>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there were lots of opportunities for reflection and self-examination. I had a helpful reminder when I recently taught a workshop on recycling and reuse in fibre arts. I worked as an English, writing and adult education teacher when I was in my 20s, and I\u2019ve taught off and on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7282,1802,218,8302],"class_list":["post-33446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-gratitude","tag-high-holidays","tag-judaism","tag-lifestyle"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}