Jewish Holiday Reflections

Viewing The Days of Awe

Illness and disability lend an altered flavor to the Days of Awe. We taste the honey, but before we can savor it on our tongue, our teeth crush the apple’s tartness and we are left with the endless duality that is our life. When everyday activities are a struggle, when necessary routines and medications threaten to become a focus and center of our lives, it is hard to pay attention to the still, small voice.

One year, as I listened to the Rosh Hashanah liturgy from my bed in the Intensive Care Unit, I wept. “Who shall live, and who shall die?” was a very urgent and real question for me. In my passion to find that place of acceptance and wholeness – the peace, the shalom – that will allow me to continue despite – despite everything, I am constantly turning back to God. It is the only choice I have that I am free to make regardless of disability. In making that choice, I am eternally equal with everyone else; I am whole.


© Debbie Perlman, Flames to Heaven: New Psalms for Healing and Praise. Rad Publisher. Reprinted with permission.

Reprinted from The Outstretched Arm: Volume 3, Issue 1, Fall 2000 with permission from its publisher The National Center for Jewish Healing. www.ncjh.org

This article is provided to you by the Twin Cities Jewish Healing Program.
Through the wisdom and traditions of Judaism, The Twin Cities Jewish Healing Program offers comfort, hope and strength to people experiencing loss, life challenges, illness, dying and grief. For information about our resources and volunteer visitors, please call 952-542-4840.