Play the Highlight Reel, Rachel

In my ACA meeting the other night, one of the members spoke about a team he was coaching who had been on a losing streak. He had the team members lie down on the grass, heads touching each other in a circle, and he said now close your eyes and create a highlight reel — think of winning and what that feels like and what happens as the crowd comes down from the stands to cheer you and being handed your trophy and really feel into what that feels like.

Each game, before they went on the field, he would huddle and tell them to play the highlight reel.

I was thinking of the nonbelievers I have met recently as I created my highlight reel – the ones who don’t believe in this woo woo technology. Everything has an explanation. There is no mystery, no agency in what happens next.

I’ve been in a real dilemma lately – I thought I had found my anchor into my Judaism, keeping the traditions that still move me, while creating my own traditions to include a more expansive view of my spirituality and Judaism. This is what I was discussing with Adam, my therapist, who is also Jewish. He is one of the few people I am able to speak to and say things like, “It really bothers me that there are so many Jewish names on this Epstein list.” To which he responds, “Yes, we have spoken about that in my congregation.”

I also say things to Adam about the conflict of having an orthodox upbringing and yet not being able to reach back into it for the wisdom I desire right now, I want to speak to someone I respect, who respects our beliefs, about not being able to abide what is happening in Israel (no more than I can abide by what is happening Russia or here in the U.S. of A). I want the Israeli government to change, to change profoundly, to espouse the Jewish traditions I uphold – tikkun olam – to show the world the beauty in Judaism, not this ugliness that is so broken, it is nameless – a chasm into the soul.

I want the kernel of my Judaism to grow and stretch beyond dogma and embrace the best of what my culture has taught me. But I suffer from this image that is being played out on the international stage, bereft of humanity. Warmongers. Avarice.

I went to Israel as a young woman, with a group of other teenagers, and there at the wailing wall, I opened my prayer book, stepped towards the wall and crammed the paper prayers for my loved ones into the crevices of the ancient cracks, and right as I began to step back to pray, a bird shit on the open pages of the sacred text. Here’s where my woo woo comes in – if you are a nonbeliever, you would think I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I beg to differ, because I’m fully into woo woo and subscribe to the superstition that getting pooped on by a bird is a sign of good luck, fortune, and a positive omen that I have been chosen and blessed. I don’t make this stuff up – this is a superstition across many cultures and I inherited many ancient ones in my DNA.

In Italy, they believe it is good luck to step in dogshit.

You could say well there is so much on the streets there in Italy, but I would tell you this: if you step in dogshit and think instead, this has ruined your day – that’s on you, pal.

The other night in ACA, another member told of a dream that led to a connection with her dead grandmother. She had a nightmare calling for her grandmother to help, and then the next day, she helped a woman, her grandmother’s age, who was wearing a necklace with her grandmother’s name on it.

All this to say, I’m going to play the highlight reel, the one I have now created – it is a success story of where I am now – and the now could be anytime, present or future – and my reel asks: have I written that book, put down my pen, met a lover, transitioned the Hall, moved away? – and answers: more will be revealed, know this, wherever you find me now, there is love.