Rabbi Batsheva Appel
Writer and activist Terry Tempest Williams relates that her mother’s dying bequest was her journals, which came with the request that they not be read “until after I’m gone.”
Afterwards, Williams describes finding the clothbound journals neatly filling three shelves exactly where her mother said they would be. Williams hesitated; it seemed to be an invasion of her mother’s privacy, despite her request. Eventually, she made herself a cup of tea and sat down to read, expecting her mother’s thoughts about life. She opened the first journal to find out that it was completely blank. In fact, all the journals on those shelves contained only empty pages.
Williams describes that moment as wanting to hear her mother’s voice and only encountering silence.
I remember my sadness for Williams when I first heard this story and my compassion for her mother. Recording our thoughts requires reflection and vulnerability to face the blank pages of a clothbound journal.
“Days are scrolls; write on them what you want to be remembered.” – Bachya ibn Pakuda
At the High Holy Days, God reviews our unique Book of Remembrances, containing all our deeds from the past year, and signed by us. Those pages are never blank. The moments that we remember and the ones that slip by; our successes and our failures; our acts of cruelty and acts of kindness all are recorded. Ibn Pakuda prompts us to consider how we are filling our books as we live our lives, and what will be recorded there.