JEWISH INTEREST
October 2021
Federation Star
3A
Do resentments hold back your happiness? Aging Jewishly — What our traditions tell us about growing old By Rabbi Barbara Aiello
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hen I was a little girl, one of my greatest adventures was shopping with my mother. We were a struggling immigrant family, but my mother found creative ways to distract from situations that emphasized how little we had. Her endeavors worked for a while, but as I got a little older, it was no longer fun to go to Goodwill or The Salvation Army and “shop” for clothes. What used to be a great adventure, me with my Mama riding all over Pittsburgh on the streetcars, now became an ordeal of great embarrassment. I started making excuses about why I couldn’t go, and after a while, my mother stopped asking me. She’d just go alone. I remember one winter, when she came back from a “shopping trip.” She had found, she said, something brand new! “Look, a new winter coat!” And what a coat it was. Deep purple wool with a leopard collar, leopard cuffs and six leopard covered buttons, big as 50-cent pieces. A coat fit for a queen, I thought. And putting aside all of my uneasiness, I dressed myself up extra nice and wore my new coat to school. That afternoon, on the playground, one of the “cool” girls came over to me. I was flabbergasted and I thought, “This coat must really say something. Look who’s noticing me.” And notice she did. From halfway across the playground, she shouted, “That’s my coat.”
“Is not!” I responded with to do with me. Because, if great indignation. My mother the story of the purple coat bought it for me yesterday. It’s has any meaning at all, it brand new and it’s mine.” is this — what do we do “Well, it might be yours with those humiliations, now, but it’s not brand new. slights, embarrassments Look inside on the label. My and horrible moments that initials are right there.” we carry with us for years? So sure was I that my What do we do with mother had finally bought me the bad memories? Do we something new, I undid the think about them, hang on beautiful leopard buttons. to them and never let them Rabbi Barbara That’s when the “cool” girl go? Do we let our own Aiello told me to look down along the hem. purple coat stories fester into resentments She shouted, “See that label? My Nana that can last a lifetime? embroidered my initials right there. Go Are there situations where someone on, look.” hurt us, that have become vivid memories By now a group of about 100 girls of what someone did or didn’t do? Have crowded around me. OK, it wasn’t 100, it we allowed these memories to stay stuck was more like six or seven, but it seemed inside us, affecting our actions and evenlike 100. I couldn’t stand it. I looked tually defining our personality? down and there were the letters, R.W. I am now in my 70s and my purple stitched into the label of my coat. coat story happened more than 60 years I was humiliated and I can still hear ago, yet I’m still talking about it. Isn’t it them laughing. time to just let it go? For, if the new year is For weeks, I was furious, and I blamed anything at all, it is about new beginnings, my mother. How could she do this to and new beginnings can only happen me? For several days, I sulked, cried and when we leave the old baggage behind. gave her the silent treatment. My mother Imagine our parents and grandparents left me alone to blow off steam. Today, I trying to decide what to take with them cringe when I think of how she took a lot to America. If any of them wanted to of guff and ingratitude from me when she take every single thing they owned, they was doing the best she could. would have never left Krakow or Odessa But the new year question of the day or Prague, Vienna or Rome. But many has less to do with my mother and more of them did leave, as did my own family
members who carried only two suitcases and a shopping bag, but because they were willing to leave the past behind, had the emotional space necessary to start something new. It’s not easy, but it can be done. The High Holy Day cycle has passed, but there is still time to think about our own “purple coats” — those nasty upsets and resentments we’ve been carrying around for years. My mother hadn’t planned to harm me. That girl with the R.W. initials didn’t set out to hurt me, and even if she did, it happened more than half a century ago. The recovery community defines resentment as the act of reliving all those unfortunate conflicts of yesterday. We allow them to weigh heavily on our hearts, taking up precious emotional space and keeping us from living in the moment. As the sound of the shofar fades and the taste of the honey cake recedes into memory, we can move forward into a new year if we become willing to leave those slights, hurts and negative memories behind. For 10 years, Rabbi Barbara Aiello served the Aviva Campus for Senior Life (Sarasota, FL) as resident rabbi. Her most popular columns are now published in her new book, “Aging Jewishly,” available on Amazon books. Rabbi Barbara now lives and works in Italy, where she is rabbi of Italy’s first Reconstructionist synagogue. Contact her at Rabbi@RabbiBarbara.com
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