One guy has a large one that he needs to pull in because he’s king of the stonecutters or something and the other guy mocks him because he only has a few little rocks to pick up. But this guy that mocks the other guy, see he spends forever trying to clean up all these little rocks, whereas the other guy just spends his lifetime trying to pull the big rock in. The one guy gets to make it in heaven with 40 virgins and the other guy spends the rest of eternity trying to clean up all these little rocks. Gabriel laughs in his face and orders circumcisions for all the goyim just cause. I think. Like I said, my memory is hazy. The story is a parable for the process of repenting that Jews go through at the end of each year, ten days from the start of our new year culminating in Yom Kippur – a day of remembrance where we fast and stand and pray a lot. This year’s process for repentance went, basically, like this: If anyone has a grievance they would like me to address they should send me a request through official avenues stating the action and reason for the apology they wish to receive. If God deems their grievance to be genuine and relays that information to me within a reasonable timeframe they can expect an apology to be delivered at some point between the 16th and 26th of this month along with a courtesy copy of the latest Jerusalem Post... Time is of the essence. That right there is a contract. Now, I don’t understand Hebrew, but I can read it, the way it sounds I mean. Which meant that for many years I would read the Hebrew part of my prayer book, unknowingly endorsing something immoral I don’t entirely believe in like asking God to smite the bodies of my enemies (read: Iran) or giving charity to the poor and sick. Awful. It’s also meant that I’ve stayed ignorant
So as it turns out I’m supposed to think of things I’ve done to people over the year. Here’s five occasions when I think I may have been in the wrong. 1.Took candy from a baby I was walking in King’s Park one day when I saw a grossly overweight woman pushing a baby in a pram. In its hand it was trying to grip a lollipop that its mother had given it in replacement for a pacifier. I snapped: I stole that coca-cola chup-a-chup, admonishing the mother for abusing her child before sticking it in my mouth citing my fast metabolism and adding, “judging by yourself your child won’t be so lucky.” Actually fuck it, I’m not apologising for that – I saved that kid’s goddamn life. 2.Called every student politician at UWA a very rude word “I voted one for Rajdeep and nothing for anyone else because the rest of you are all cunts!” Is what I was overheard saying by numerous UWA student politicians. And by overheard I mean screamed loudly in front of the entire cast of student reps at the close of polling, including both Presidential candidates. The conundrum here is that what I said was fundamentally true. Some of them will even admit it in open conversation, and the ones that don’t lack the self-awareness to distinguish reality from the tangential world that gets developed every year around election time. I’m not a totally staunch person, I stick my tail between my legs every now and then, but I’m sure as hell not going to apologise for being sincere. 3.Said mean things about Steve Jobs after he died Seriously though, he didn’t even donate most of his money to charity. He spent the end of his life in a pointless manic pursuit to get Samsung to pay for ‘stealing’ a patented product, assuming that he can place a monopoly on the concept of the smart phone.
4.Stole someone’s subscription the Australian Israel Review Here at the Pelican we have an unexplained subscription to the Australia Israel Review. No one knows who started it. Despite this I’ve never found the time to read it: While educating yourself on the nature of the conflict in Israel is something that most Jews do and should do in their lifetime, I’m preferring to stay ignorant for now. In fact I’ve read very little but sports news for several months now, such is the debilitating nature of my work. Come to think of it, it might have something to do with all of the other misdirected mail we’ve been receiving this year. When Israel finally attacks Iran, then I’ll have the urgency to really study up this subject, but before that happens I should probably tell Goodman, S. of Yokine that we’ve been getting their mail for the last few years. (Her son just made partner at a law firm in New York. Mazel Tov!) 5.Went to Air Nightclub At the end of a night where a group of friends (I have those, kind of) insisted on wearing suit jackets and drinking overpriced shots of whiskey we came around full circle and ended up at Air, a cold, sterile night club that keeps a plastic sheet over the edge of its balcony, presumably so that no one can jump to their death from the sheer horror of it all. Out of my element, furious about a two dollar charge to hold my suit on a rack only to be told when I removed it to go outside briefly that I would need to pay another two dollars for them to hold it again, I became overwhelmed with the whole place and walked around laughing for 15 minutes like I was a character in The Hour Glass Sanatorium. I’m sorry Josh – Never again.
Josh Chiat
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The system works because it relies on others to tell me what I’ve done wrong. And no one ever does that to anyone unless their Jewish. And I don’t actually know all that many Jewish people so I thought I was off the hook.
He treated his wives pretty badly and his kids even worse. But then occasionally I would look down at my jittery malfunctioning ipod, or my brother’s longlife low-function macbook, and realise what great, often poorly constructed things that man produced for everyone. However, that doesn’t overrule the fact that he was kind of an arsehole, and dying of cancer doesn’t make you not the Locherbie Bomber (an extreme analogy but still), so no soup for Steve.
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What I do remember is that there was this guy, oh wait, there were two guys. And the archangel Gabriel – I think it was Gabriel, though I don’t think that’s a particularly important part of the story more a quirky fact about the sort of judgmental fuck Gabriel was. Anyway Archangel comes up to them, says they gotta pick up some rocks they left in a field.
of many of the finer points of the prayers. One thing I stumbled upon this year was the requirement that I seek repentance for things that I think of myself. Which just completely blew my whole system apart.
13
There’s an old proverb that was told by a Rabbi of mine when I was younger. Or maybe it was at the Jewish Day School I frequented until I was ten years old. Or maybe I read it in a newsletter. Or maybe I heard it on an album by the Jews for Jesus collective. My memory is not good.