Part V.
Note: who’s in NYC from Feb. 16th - 26th? Would love to say hi in person over coffee, if you’re around. Let me know (DM or just hit reply to this).
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It’s morning of Rosh Hashana, the Day of Judgment and New Year. Somehow, I’ve made it to 5785. Thank G-d. The gratitude is massive.
Three weeks off, unpaid.
Instead of failure, there’s endurance—willingness to build despite headwinds.
A new year means new discipline, resolve.
I take my son to synagogue. My wife and girls are coming later.
Because of money issues, I don’t have a seat. It’s fine - I always stand, no biggie.
We’re late, but not egregiously. Although it’s not about repentance, it’s the Day of Judgment.
As such, our deeds this day determine much ahead. No naps allowed, no fighting, no sharp words.
One thing I notice, all the students recognize me. I am no longer an outsider, an American nobody knows too well. Now, I’m a fixture here. The rabbis know me, all the workers too. My Hebrew’s gotten better, also. There is progress.
A guy out of the toilet’s wearing a white robe and packing heat. I can’t help laughing -- here’s a surgeon with a gun, huzzah. It feels an emblem of our times.
After I’ve washed the Cohens’ hands, my son approaches for their blessing. I cover him and me with my tallit and close my eyes. A startling image comes to me. A father has his right hand on his son’s right shoulder. In turn, his son’s hand’s holding his own son’s below, and on. I’m at the center of this line, with my son’s lineage indefinite. And on my shoulder is my father’s hand from heaven (without body), grandfather’s hand on his, and on Above. The clarity is lightning, sharp as day.
Around us, there’s a motley crew of tribesmen. Aside from locals, there are Frenchies, Persians and Italians, Russians, Argentinians, Brazilians. It’s no small thing to feel at home with all ours gathered in. We celebrate together, grieve together, laugh and dance and build. We know exactly why we’re here.
Three hours in, Judgment Day 2, the stragglers, once-a-year-in-synagogue folks filter in, crowding my standing space. Among them, there’s a clearly Russian gentleman looking lost. I point him to the proper page inside his prayer book and get back to my own.... I can’t help but examine him. He’s Homo Sovieticus, hunched over, making no eye contact. He’s got thick glasses, a faded gray t-shirt and ill-fitting jeans, a sweater wrapped around his waist. So woefully uncool, we called this, “Russian dresser,” in my childhood. I’m glad he’s here, his soul enough on fire to come this holiday, unlike so many others.
He seems super embarrassed to be here, by himself.
We start the Mussaf prayer, which is personal. Under my prayer shawl, I notice to my left, the man is inching closer, oddly, moving his leg into and out of the frame. There is just zero sense of personal space. And to my right, another guy is whispering his prayer right into my ear. To top it off, my son runs into me at speed, with love, almost bowling me over. So much for speaking to G-d.
The Russian guy is practically cartoonish. And yet, I want to shield him and protect him from the dirty looks; he’s my people. He’s old enough to be my father, but much younger than my father would have been.
I try to focus on the prayers, but my thoughts are drifting. Although repentance is for Yom Kippur, I can’t help thinking, I have done humility all wrong. It is a truism that the greatest fear we have (poverty, loss, abandonment, etc.) is always where we scratch and claw, avoiding. Yet, once we reach it, then we see the sky, simply because there is nowhere to look, but up. Far from humility, I have been arrogant and haughty in self-preservation.
The holiday is truly beautiful, surrounded by family and joy.
The Shabbat after keeps the good vibes going for the young new year.
Mid-afternoon, I lay down, in a solid, happy place.
I wake up from my sacred nap, refreshed. My eye mask slips.
Out of nowhere, a blackish wave descends. Guilt, shame, regret, utter contrition.
Maybe I really am a massive fuck-up. Straight-up and bona fide, no lie.
Maybe I really do suck badly at this thing called life.
Wow, what the hell. Why on Shabbat, of all the times?
It’s not the wine and whiskey from the lunch that’s speaking, either.
How did I get here?
Fear. Fear of being poor, ironically. A fear of looking bad, fear of sliding backward. Afraid of being forgotten. Fear of wasting my life—ten thousand job apps, couch-sitting, endless gigs. Childish, but ingrained.
Why am I in the kitchen? For re-education and correction and repentance. Boy, do I really need it, clearly.
What was I really so afraid to lose? The arrogance, the shitty, two-faced bosses, poor alignment, trauma and PTSD, being stigmatized by “neuro-normal” people (cringe), the false respect from peers, the lack of self-respect?
What I have lost is for the best.
For much too long, I clung to an outdated picture of myself, some crappy, 2-cent caricature.
As if I had some status that was worth safekeeping, an identity I had to hold to keep legit.
Which status was that, looking backward? Before the Soviet Union, my ancestors were innkeepers and traveling salesmen. Sure, some were even wealthy, doctors, engineers, as well, accountants. Mom’s a biologist and father was in physics. I have a grad degree, as does my sister. So f*ing what?
Maybe the very things that gave us “status,” made us “soft.”
Here In the Holy Land, so many of us immigrants do work far different from the past. Some sweep, some cook or clean. Some get re-trained, a few get into “high-tech.”
I’ve seen my neighbor -- former product manager at Yandex -- now a paramedic. He and his wife do massage therapy, as well (she’s a psychiatrist). In our community, a lot of Frenchies do all sorts of gigs -- delivery, selling insurance, imported foods and so on.
During the holidays, A. offers me to join him for guard duty at some concerts (not much labor; just look scary). A friend of his checks electric meters a living (lots of walking).
Nearby, two minutes’ walk from us, the last (post-Soviet) wave walks, stooped, between the stores. They suffered this, but worse - no jobs, professional disaster, third-world country. Now, they are plagued by crypto scams and spam.
Ours is another story, waiting to be written. This time, things will be different, with AI and grit.
And then, of course, there is the gain from this. Perhaps the love from the community -- the fellow immigrants, the “weirdos,” auto-didacts, career switchers, independent thinkers. Who would have thought to find them here?
The most important gain is in the home. There is respect, both self- and from my wife and children. I went and *did* the thing, despite my wounded pride and massive baggage. That’s worth everything.
In Hebrew, lehem (bread) has the same root as loham (fighter) and milhama (war). We all fight the war for bread each day. At least, inside the kitchen, we are the ones who give the bread to others.
One morning, sleepless, I see it clearly: simplicity is happiness, with few expectations. B. expects little—knows I won’t stay long. Best to serve G-d and help our fellow men. Problems come from crazy expectations. Strip life down, find what matters, then build.
This is the message I keep seeing all over LinkedIN. People are posting that they’re desperate to work to feed their kids, will lose their home soon if they don’t.
It’s not just HR folks - although it clearly is a theme - but truly every industry. A line of top execs from Wall Street, CMOs and others message me each day, asking for referrals. And then, there are the corporate escapees who’ve simplified their lives and found their peace - at least for our consumption, NFL players starting farms or going into nursing, people living through their cancer, money issues, post-divorce and on. We cheer through likes and exclamation marks, but really fear that we are next to fall.
The whole veneer of work life’s barely hanging on while we complain about AI, the president, the shutdown. No one is safe. Everyone’s frenzied for coming changes they can’t predict. Gigs will not save us, but enslave us.
For now, the kitchen’s where it’s at. It isn’t much for sandbox, refuge or a parking spot, but it has witnessed my reanimation.
I -- we - will survive this. We have survived *much* worse than kitchen labor, garbage wages, insufficient sleep and oil stains on our clothes. Same goes for all the other problems, too. Indeed, the wars, high prices, the collective losses, the bureaucracy, sandwich (de-)generation and house poverty are *our* problems.