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November 5, 2014

By Baila Drucker


I I just returned from a short visit to Israel.

I spent the entire week and a half in Jerusalem; doing little and just being. Jerusalem has always been more of a character and less of a place to me. She beats to the rhythm of my soul, and there, somehow, in her frenetic, restless embrace, my pulse slows to her steady, centering pace.

Being there is restorative; not so much in the relaxing sense, but more in that it reorients me. Urges me to new levels of clarity and circles me back to the truth at the center of it all.

I love walking down the streets of my beautiful city, imbibing with all of my senses the multihued richness of her spirit. It’s such a magnificently cacophonous mash-up of sounds and smells, old and new, cultures and times, sacred and profane.

It’s inexplicable really. The way Jerusalem manages to encompass so many seemingly conflicting realities. A place so utterly peaceful while so overtly militaristic. Steeped in tradition and history and simultaneously right at the cutting edge of modernity. In the shadow of death, yet burgeoning with life. Diehard, religious zealotry side by side with passionate secularism. Opulence alongside destitution.

It is this quality about Jerusalem that most draws me to her, for I too contain so many apparently conflicting parts. I am absolutely enchanted by the esoteric yet seduced by the earthly. I am incessantly driven to action and also constantly drawn to sloth. An undeniably social creature and a loner. Tough as nails and remarkably tender. Rebellious and traditional.

Just recently an old friend commented on my paradoxical nature, in the gentle way that only good friends can. He reflected, “Y'know, you're so weird. One minute, you're rock 'n roll-Baila, and the next minute you're mommy-Baila.”

Living with these parts has generated a lot of distress for me over my lifetime as I endeavored to resolve the conflict by choosing between the two opposing forces. I've made many life changes in an effort to eliminate the conflict by positioning myself closer to one extreme or the other.

What I've learned, to paraphrase Jon Kabat-Zinn, is that wherever I go, there I am. I, like my city Jerusalem, am by nature, in conflict. Perhaps my work is not to resolve and eliminate the conflict, but to embrace and accept it and try to live in peaceful, or maybe more appropriately, chaotic coexistence.

I am reminded of a bizarre parable that is cited in the Talmud in tractate Bava Batra. The scholar Rabba bar bar Chana depicts an entity that is positioned atop two mules, each of whom is on opposite banks of a river. The entity is hopping back and forth between the two mules as it pours wine from a goblet in one hand to a goblet in the other.

Shrouded as it is in clouds of figurative speech and metaphor, I do not presume to understand the true meaning of the parable. My visceral perception of its message, however, is that it portrays an individual's desperate, flailing attempt to cope and live with opposing and conflicting inclinations and tendencies. And it is indeed a crazy, hectic dance and a constant effort to maintain balance, center and integrity.

I believe this is my path to redemption. Marsha Linehan would call it the dialectic, holding opposing ideas. Not to resolve, but instead to dwell right within the precarious paradoxes.
 

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