On Death

Rough week for the kids. First, we received an email Wednesday night from the Boy's teacher, informing all the class parents that sadly, Bob, the class guinea pig, had died. Fortunately, the Boy took this news fairly well. Then, last night on the drive home from synagogue, we were delayed in traffic for quite some time due to a dead deer in the middle of the road. The Girl took this one pretty hard, and I spent the better part of the next hour explaining "deer heaven." Some of her questions were pretty classic, i.e. "what does it's soul look like?" "why didn't the whole thing go to heaven?" etc etc. And to prove the old adage that bad things (i.e. death) come in threes, this morning we woke up to the sad and untimely news that Joe the Siamese Fighting Fish, was officially a floater. His death ironically comes on his first birthday.

Rest in peace Bob, the deer, and Joe the Siamese Fighting Fish.

All of these deaths come near -- or in the case of Joe, on -- Yom Kippur (which is today) which is the most holy of all the Jewish holidays. Rosh Hashana, as I noted previously, denotes the Jewish New Year and is the point in time in which G-d opens the Book of Life and determines who will live in the coming year and who will not. Of course that's an abbreviated description; it's also a time for introspection and asking for forgiveness of past transgressions. But on Yom Kippur, the Book of Life is officially closed, so in essence it's a last chance for us to ask for absolution and forgiveness from The Man Upstairs..

So while clearly Bob, the Deer and Joe weren't fortunate to be inscribed in the Book of Life, I hope all of you -- again, both Jewish and non-Jewish friends alike, are inscribed in the Book of Life this year and many, many, many years forth. And that goes especially for the "cancer crew": Nana, CrazyMama, JT, and anyone else who's out there that I don't know.