"Once"-or twice: Watching a movie through the lens of teshuvah

Last night, the lovely Irish movie Once was on television just when I was in the mood for something to watch. (I sorely miss Netflix streaming here, but haven't yet figured out if there is a local alternative.) I decided to watch it for a second time, and in the process realized that both this and the last movie I watched ("Trust," with Clive Owen and Catherine Keener) offer wonderful examples of teshuva: the work of repentance/forgiveness/self-forgiveness that this season requires of us.

Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen Once, and want to see it and be surprised, you might want to skip down to the final paragraph.

At the start, this movie looks like any other "girl meets boy" type of story. Two attractive, working class people meet on the streets of Dublin, where he sings for a living after working at his father's vacuum cleaner repair shop and she roams the high street selling flowers and magazines. Immediately they begin to share their passion for writing and performing music. Sparks fly between them, but at the same time they discuss the sorrow they feel over failed relationships. 

His ex-girlfriend has moved to London; nearly all of his songs are about his longing for her, and his anger at how she betrayed him. Her estranged husband, the father of their toddler daughter, still lives back in the Czech Republic; she came to Dublin with her mother and the baby.  Even as the nameless duo becomes increasingly drawn to each other, they push each other about whether it's possible to repair their broken connections. They do this by sharing music, and by talking, and by meeting each other's families, and by writing songs together, and by not acting on the physical attraction between them.

In the end, they create art. With her encouragement and gumption, they secure a bank load to make a professional recording.  They also prod each other to attempt to rebuild their past relationships. One senses that he goes forward because he loves his ex, and is willing to forgive her having cheated on him. She on the other hand, is perhaps ambivalent about the man she married because of an unplanned pregnancy---but she is certain that she wants to try to make it work for the sake of Ivonka, the baby girl who is the only one of them whose name is mentioned. (The other two are just listed as "girl" and "guy" even in the credits.)

True teshuva, teaches the RamBam (Moses Maimonides) is when we find ourselves in a challenging place in which we've stood before and erred, only this time we correct our past mistakes and do the right thing.  Once offers a picture of such sweet possibilities of that. Too often movies that highlight the sexual attention between young, attractive people result in some sort of love-triangle that is trite and boring in its complexity. This movie is about simple strength derived from friendship, and how such a relationship between artists can result in beautiful music.

 

Though my parents have abandoned me....

In Psalm 27, which tradition teaches us to recite every day during the month of Elul, we read:

 כִּי-אָבִי וְאִמִּי עֲזָבוּנִי;    וַיהוָה יַאַסְפֵנִי.  

Even as my father and my mother have abandoned me, the Holy One shall gather me in.

Today is Labor Day in the USA.  On Labor Day, 1982, my father died suddenly at the age of 54. I knew that he was young, but back then I had no idea just how young it was---for him, for my mother, and for my siblings and me. My mother only lived for 9 more years after that, so by 1991 I was already living with that feeling of parental abandonment that Virginia Spatz discusses in her blog, A Song Every Day:

http://songeveryday.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/you-will-gather-me-in/

How does the Holy One gather us in, we adult orphans who have been abandoned by our parents, either literally or figuratively? What does it mean to sing out to the Divine: "You gather me in?" Me, and not us---yet isn't gathering something that happens to a collective of people or things? Can an individual anything be "gathered?"

I suppose that we can be gathered up. That is to say, we can be taken in, as individuals, but when we arrive at the place of comfort, that must be others there, right? Perhaps that is how the Holy One gathers us when we feel abandoned by our parents. 

This is the way I have always understand the importance of saying Kaddish. It is also why I've never resonated with the minhag (custom) of an entire congregation rising for Kaddish. Of course, if an individual feels the need to say Kaddish for the 6 Million, or for people who have died in a recent catastrophe, or other very valid reasons, that is an individual's choice to be gathered into the community of mourners. But when every single person rises, the rest of us don't know who is feeling the particular grief of mourning, or the sadness unique to the anniversary of a loved one's death...and cannot feel the comforting wreath of being gathered for that brief moment by the community and therefore, by the Divine Presence.

Now, I understand the Yizkor (Memorial Service) that we say on Yom Kippur in a new way. For 40 days prior to it, we recite Psalm 27. We feel a bit lost, wandering in the wilderness, wondering how even at the age of 40 or 50 or 60 we can find our way without our parents to guide us. But we also remember that the Holy One does not simply rescue us or comfort us or save us or any of the other verbs attributed to God in Pslams or liturgy.  We are, specifically during this period, gathered in. We are not doing the difficult spiritual work of these Days of Awe alone.  And whether our parents are alive and well and we have good relationships with them, or whether they live, but we are estranged from them, or whether they have passed on.....we are all gathered in. And when we recite that Yom Kippur Yizkor (and I always invite everyone of all ages to attend that service), we become one community: the living, the souls of the departed, and our individual memories of them. 

It is Labor Day in the USA, and I hope that my father, Jerome J Lillian, is resting in peace. Likewise I hope that his brother, my uncle Dr. Marvin Lillian--who died at a similar time, in 1991--is resting in peace.

 כּ