Changing — Like Language — in a Catastrophe

Language evolves through the crucible of catastrophe.

I learned that in real time in 1991, when I was in Israel during the first Gulf War. Although the uncertain terror of Saddam Hussein’s aerial dispatches quickly yielded to inconvenient middle-of-the-night sirens, the era did feel catastrophic. For me, my peers on gap years and the entire country, we were at war. And we spent our nights in sealed rooms, protecting ourselves from chemical weapons with which the Iraqi scuds might be tipped.

Before the Gulf War, in Israeli idiomatic Hebrew, the adjective אטום (atum) was commonly appended to the noun ילד (yeled, or boy) to refer (rather insensitively) to a child with some intellectual disability. A “sealed child.”

But nine months later, that two-word phrase took on new meaning. There was a significant baby boom in Israel in the fall of 1991. Israelis, up in the middle of the night, facing potential death, chose to cherish and produce new life. And so, yeled atum came to refer to a child conceived in that sealed room.

Language transformed. But not just that. The transformation of the language codified something larger than letters, something the society had experienced and achieved — extracted hope and vitality and light from muck and darkness and fear.

The Jewish people have learned and taught that there can always be laughter and life — even and especially in the face of unspeakable horror. But to live and to laugh amidst that horror does not diminish it — rather, it renders the horror markedly less horrible. Life and laughter cannot bring back the victims of war or shuttered businesses. But they can be one of the buoys that keeps our heads above stormy waters.

Life and laughter can be one of the buoys that keeps our heads above stormy waters.

2020 has been catastrophic for many reasons. But COVID-19’s specter looms the most ominously. There is no way to look back upon this year and ameliorate it with magical thinking. The losses of life, well-being, livelihoods and the societal fabric we relied upon are incalculable and mostly irreversible.

But there also has been beauty in 2020. We all have been witness to countless examples of good people mustering strength and fortitude when circumstances conspired against them. I have been uplifted by how people I know (and people I don’t) have transformed this year’s sense of being atum, sealed, into glimpses of being free, liberated and soaring.

My own minor example of this has been how a schedule both more onerous and more flexible, combined with the urge to break out of quarantine, has gotten my rabbinic tuches on the bike more than ever before. As many people know, biking, which I just picked up about nine years ago, is a balm in my life. It brings me to the salty air of the beach. It gets my body moving, heart racing and calories burning. It bonds me with a dear set of friends, relationships burnished somewhere between Playa del Rey and Palos Verdes. It gives me a reason to get up early on a Sunday, squeeze in rides within the smallest of windows and challenge my own physical abilities.

COVID-19, for all its treachery, has been a boon to me and my biking group. We found its appeal at paces we previously never would have considered. And it allowed us to extract life, beauty and health from a miasma of despair, confinement and hovering illness.

I leave 2020 not only gratefully alive — and more grateful than ever before — but perhaps living in the healthiest body that has ever encased this soul.

Somewhere in the late summer or early fall, when I saw the miles pile up on my Strava account, I realized that pushing my previous annual high of 2,700 miles to 3,000 or even 3,600 miles was insufficient. 4,000 was in reach. A couple of extra rides to Terranea, an inaugural century and plenty of early morning rides did the trick. And with three days to go in the year, I have eclipsed 4000 miles.

I have no verbal or etymological schtick to consecrate this achievement. Nothing as profound as heder atum to yeled atum. But it feels as monumental as that did then. I don’t mind saying that I am proud of myself. And I am proud of all who have, in ways minuscule and gargantuan, forced order and goodness and life upon this landscape of loss and devastation.  There have been gems glistening all around us. The woman who lost her job and found a new one; the college or gap-year student who gained unexpected time with family; the Jews (and others!) who have found Zoom prayer across time zones and communal boundaries. The examples abound if we search for them.

So as 2020 dissolves into 2021, ask yourself how you created your own yeled atum. What beauties have you birthed, and witnessed, this year? What did you open within this extended sealed room?

Happy New Year to all those who transformed, like language, in the wake of tragedy.