Human Provocation

if the Blessed Holy One can doubt creation, surely we can too

“This human being whom You wish to be created is bound to provoke You.

If You are not slow to anger, better for him not to be created!”

Zohar 1:205a

There is often something magical about engaging in Torah. As I opened the Zohar on a tired, tired morning and found myself stumbling across this line, it was exactly what I needed to see at that very moment.

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In this passage Zohar haKadosh is describing a conversation between Torah and haKodesh Baruch Hu. Occasionally this wonderfully mysterious book will morph inanimate objects¹ into speaking roles. It is a part of its magic. If we can’t have this kind of fun with our Torah, what is the good of it?

Instantly I related it to myself. But how could I have the hubris to replace the Blessed Holy One with myself? Not because I am deified (god forbid) but because we are all created in the image of the creator². Therefore anything that demonstrates the flawed, human-like middot of the source of all life can equally be applied to ourselves.

In my 40th year in this body, we were blessed with the addition of a baby to our little family. It has been incredibly fulfilling and undoubtedly the greatest challenge of my life thus far. He is now a beautiful, healthy and happy child. But also extremely demanding and effortlessly able to push every single one of my buttons. No matter how evolved spiritually I might feel, he can return me to the rawest and most volatile version of myself. The one that is not so unlike him.

Occasionally I will catch myself ruminating on whether I have made a huge mistake. Not so much because I miss my old life (sometimes I do) but because I wonder if I am capable of being the parent that he needs. The one that I want to be for him.

Up to this point in my life, I did not want to have children. It wasn’t a strong aversion, but I did also not have any significant desire to procreate. I was quite content living for myself, working on my endless projects and mostly connecting with others in more physically removed settings.

In recent years, the trauma of family estrangement made the idea of creating new life an even more distant possibility. Why would I want to bring a child into such a dysfunctional lineage? They would be sure to inherit the woes that I have been burdened with. Would it not be wiser and kinder to end this lineage with myself? It felt somewhat of a noble cause.

During teshuvah though I began to feel the pangs of longing for something more.

“Teach them to your children”

Shema Liturgy

Whilst rediscovering the meaning to life, now there was something worth passing on. Even in the midst of intergenerational trauma, a pandemic and all the troubles of being a human - and a Jew on top of that - there was something so precious in this life that had returned. I wanted to give new life a chance. A chance to succeed, to experience joy and mostly to just live - on its own terms.

Now - several years later - the idea has become a reality. A very real reality, complete with all the screaming and chaos and miscellaneous mishegas that is now our everyday life. Sometimes I am living in a near constant state of provocation. The old life that had such beautiful moments of peace and stillness is a distant memory.

I am often not slow to anger. My unhealed places have been ripped open for my child to see, baring my inadequacies. Incapable of being the parent that I hoped to be. Of course it is now too late to reconsider and I am in desperate need of the healing work - that I largely paused for this new life phase - in the midst of the experienced insanity of life that I am currently living.

The future literally depends upon it.