And it was, in the middle of the night

As Douglas Adams wrote of his protagonist, Arthur Dent, in Chapter 8 of So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish:
He almost danced to the fridge, found the three least hairy things in it, put them on a plate and watched them intently for two minutes. Since they made no attempt to move within that time he called them breakfast and ate them. Between them they killed a virulent space disease he'd picked up without knowing it in the Flargathon Gas Swamps a few days earlier, which otherwise would have killed off half the population of the Western Hemisphere, blinded the other half, and driven everyone else psychotic and sterile, so the Earth was lucky there.

I like that passage because it reminds me of strange hypotheses I had occasionally as a child, wondering if I had been immortal until I had eaten celery, or if turning right instead of left had saved me from some hideous disaster. I've always been addicted to the idea that a given moment, action or day might have unusual significance, which I could know if only I were a little wiser or more perceptive.

This idea survived my childhood; I still attach significance to the memories of nights preceding significant changes in my life: The night before I married the esteemed Rebbetzin, the night before I began as Rabbi in Rhode Island, the night before my job interview in Allentown (ah, the Ramada at the Malls in Whitehall – definitely not recommended, at least as it was in late 2000). Those were times of real change.

And then, of course, there were "nights before" when I thought something might occur, but that foreshadowed nothing at all – nights before plane flights when I wondered whether something might happen en route, moments during birkas hachodesh (the synagogue blessing of the new lunar month) when I thought this might be the month when I sold a manuscript, times when I bought a Powerball ticket and considered what would happen if this really was it.

This post is more than just a personal musing, though, because it strikes me that this idea of significant "nights before" is a central message in "ויהי בחצי הלילה, And it was, in the middle of the night," the Pesach Seder song which recounts watershed events from Tanach which occurred in the middle of the night. Rescues and vengeances and messages of portent for individuals and nations impact with shattering force at the apex of darkness, the moment when the balance tilts toward dawn.

I believe one of the themes conveyed in "And it was, in the middle of the night," is that every night has a middle of the night, every night is a potential "night before", every night can usher in salvation. ויהי ערב ויהי בקר, there is evening and then there is morning, and a new phase of Creation is struck.

To the Jew, every night can be more than just a joining of days, can in fact be a bridge between the mundane past and a glorious future. What remains is for us to capitalize on the opportunity… or to eat the three least hairy things in the fridge, anyway.

The Optimism of Do-It-Yourself Plumbing

Everyone Needs Therapy posted an article here entitled Denial of Aging, a heading which guaranteed it would catch my geriophobic eye. She described a relative’s insistence on self-reliant plumbing in the face of advancing age.

I, too, inhabit those shores of de Nial. I am terrified of aging. I’m not old by anyone’s standards (except those of my children, of course), but I can’t tolerate the idea that aging has removed my ability to do anything, even the most mundane task. Until last year I mowed my own lawn with a push-reel mower, and stopped only because I don’t have the time to do it often enough to keep the neighbors happy. I go to the gym regularly and insist on lifting weights rather than doing a more sane treadmill routine. I try to read signs from blocks away. And so on, and so on.

But, for me, it’s not really about age. Aging is but one of many factors that cause me to insecurely wonder if I still-have-it/ever-had-it, such that I feel a need to prove I can do it - whatever it is. Along with aging, I can count Failure, Competition and even Boredom as prime movers motivating me to bang my head against a wall, waiting for the wall to give in.

It's a basic need to overcome obstacles, to feel Accomplished. More than ambition, it’s self-validation: I will feel more worthy when I achieve X. And it's an optimism that convinces me I can.

So if something comes along to make me feel like I can’t do X – signs of age, failure at a task, evidence that others can do X, etc – then I feel compelled to try X, even when the effort is not only futile but actually borderline self-destructive.

I have a Materials Science textbook at home, and I try to read a couple of pages each day. Why? Because after seeing Iron Man, I wanted to prove to myself that I could understand cool engineering stuff, too. I’ve cooled off a bit in the past few weeks, but wait until The Dark Knight comes out…

I have a Bar Ilan CD ROM library of the latest vintage (a gift courtesy of my shul at our most recent shul dinner, thank you very much!), but I am loathe to use it to search for passages in gemara, Tanach, Shulchan Aruch and basic sefarim; it feels like relying on a crutch when I should be able to do it myself.

And, yes, I try to do my own plumbing. And deck-staining. And a few years back I did my own repair and paint job on my car’s fender. All to prove something to myself.

I don’t actually consider this a bad trait, as long as it’s kept within healthy boundaries, as long as the word “borderline” continues to preface “self-destructive,” as long as other people are not harmed by my own need to do it myself, in my own way.

Just the opposite, this trait reminds me of the importance of Optimism in Judaism. We are taught to be optimistic about mashiach, we are taught to be optimistic about our own ability to repent and become righteous, we are taught to optimistically dream of a better world, and then make it so. Avraham, Yaakov, Rachel, Yosef, and so on, we are a nation of dreamers.

So whatever it is I’m denying, I’ll just keep on denying it, thank you very much. But if anyone knows the number of a good plumber…