It\u2019s not that everyone is someone important at IKAR, my synagogue; it\u2019s that everyone is someone.<\/p>\n
At the end of February, I showed up for Shabbat services, mostly because honoring our friends\u2019 fiftieth anniversary was important to me, even though I\u2019d stayed away from shul since my complicated knee injury around yom kippur. It seemed strange, because we\u2019re hardly ever there, when Melissa asked us to take the fifth aliyah. I\u2019m nobody, <\/em>I said to myself. I also had visions of my knee buckling at the bimah, of falling down in front of everyone. I said, \u201cMaybe just Steve. I don\u2019t know if I can stand that long,\u201d and Melissa looked disappointed, but she nodded.<\/p>\n After Steve\u2019s aliyah, when the rabbi made some comments before the sixth, she spoke only of me. She craned her neck around to see where I was sitting and she spoke of Refuah Shlema for me, of complete healing. That was what the aliyah was for. For me, before the congregational Misheberach: for blessing, compassion, restoration, and strength in body and spirit.<\/p>\n I can still barely sit with this realization. But I\u2019m not anyone, <\/em>I thought, and that just isn\u2019t true at IKAR. Anyone who knows me also knows how hard I worked in that moment to stay present, to stay mentally and emotionally with myself in that room full of people pointedly wishing me Refuah Shlema by name. I was stunned. The urge to crawl into the earth, to hide, was strong. It is hard to tolerate being seen. I was being seen and offered love. I don\u2019t know how to accept love, <\/em>I thought. I recognized a distant urge to self-harm, a primitive way to down-regulate strong emotions. But this is not threatening, I can stay here. <\/em>So I stayed present. I allowed what couldn\u2019t possibly be mine, with a little disbelief and with deep gratitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s not that everyone is someone important at IKAR, my synagogue; it\u2019s that everyone is someone. At the end of February, I showed up for Shabbat services, mostly because honoring our friends\u2019 fiftieth anniversary was important to me, even though …<\/p>\n