Here I Am
- Erin Conway
- Aug 24
- 4 min read
All books have final chapters, but some have a harder time saying goodbye than others, extending into acknowledgements and afterwards. My Jewish Year does include an ‘another’ last chapter, but Pogrebin’s real final words belong to Shabbat. Shabbat was not the holiday that engaged me the most–perhaps something for me to continue to reflect on for my own wellness–but I accept Shabbat as a ‘last’ chapter because it is unending in opportunity. The entire point of the Jewish year’s journey is that once started it circles back. Shabbat is the most immediately circular of all the holidays; we only wait seven days, not hundreds, for its return.
In her chapter “Shabbat Landing,” Poegrebin used words like “comfort”, “consistency” and “home”. Shabbat was an end without end because it’s an ‘always.’ It was the constant. Consistent. She had reminded her reader, doing may need to come before feeling, understanding, believing–for the universe and for ourselves. In “Shabbat Landing,” Pogrebin searched for a type of closure by moving from a Rabbi’s quoted question, “Why am I doing this?” to her own, “Where did I end up?”
I didn’t have to close my eyes to see my copy of My Jewish Year atop the shelf where it had rested since it was delivered at the end of last summer. The longest time the book remained there unopened was just after its arrival, the gap of weeks between when I bought it and the beginning of the Jewish year on which I would soon accompany Pogrebin. Throughout August, I waited. I stared at its spine from a distance. Sometimes, I allowed my fingers to sweep across the smooth raised letters on the cover or against the grain of the pages' edges. Still, I waited. I resisted pressing too fast, starting early, moving just to move, being … me.
For most of August, Dad asked, “Don’t you have Hebrew class?”
“No,” I answered. I can take the final level as many times as I want, but I am now able to find my own conversations.
“But you’re not sorry, right?”
“No,” I paused. I added, “It was the first time I had a Jewish community. It was nice, and I connected with Ofir in other ways. We talked about how it was hard to learn. That things can sound so good in your head, and still not come out right.”
He continued looking at me. With his diminished hearing, I’m not sure he heard me, but that is not the important part. That is not where I landed.
I considered posting this blog on Rosh Hashanah, because it would mark one year, exactly. I love symmetry and matching and everything just so. Still, I couldn’t shake the gnawing that this piece deserved its own moment. Looking at My Jewish Year today, its position changed, slightly. It sits between the shelf and a new book, The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman. From a stack of publishing titles, this was the one I purchased. (Just as from a stack of 120 Jewish titles, I purchased Pogrebin’s).
While first tempted to skim quickly through those chapters, I hesitated. again. I recalled how for her first chapter Pogrebin dug back into weeks prior that she had never known were the prelude to the new year. That was this week, and a few before and after, the next year of blog posts, my next year, my writing year. So I notice before I understand, before I believe, and then …
Maybe space had always been the answer before continuing. I plucked Pogrebin’s text from underneath Friedman’s, and read the final section. I was ready to move beyond the question, “Where did I end up?” At the bottom of the second to last page, she quoted Moses’ response to the voice he heard emanating from the bush burning in front of him.
“Here I am,” he said. And he’s not the last.
Hineni.
Chapters can’t help but read as if one was written right after the next, but I wondered how much time went by between these two kinds of ‘lasts.’ It took me time, but with time I too was able to say, Here I am.
Hineni.
I considered the space it took, the spaces I created, the spaces I opened, to be able to say that phrase, in Hebrew.
Here I am. Hineni.
I considered the space it took, the spaces I created, the spaces I opened, to be able to live that phrase authentically.
Space. I knew the answer to my question of where I landed needed separation from what’s next.
I put Pogrebin’s book back on the shelf, understanding its position was more than storage, it was a statement of something I decided I was. Now too, The Business of Being a Writer professed the same.
With this post, I celebrate for the first time, instead of vacillate between, two new years celebrations at the end of summer. I posted this final reflection of My Jewish Year for my birthday. Next year’s series based on my reading of Friedman’s text would celebrate Rosh Hashanah. The gap between was intentional space.
In critique groups some liked to remind others that they only had so much space on the page. It was a way of saying be clear, but also a way of holding the writer accountable to saving their space for what was most important to say. In the final space left on her pages, Pogrebin quoted words from Leon Wieseltier in her 2005 interview: “Sooner or later you will cherish something so much that you will seek to preserve it.” (291)
I believe this to be as true of what you are, as who you are.
Hineni. Here I am.
My Jewish Year Series
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