Dybbooks: When Possessions Possess Dusty Dreams
Like a modern lyrical Cassandra, the songstress Marina Diamandis sings:
“If you are not very careful
Your possessions will possess you
TV taught me how to feel
Now real life has no appeal
(Lyrics from Marina and The Diamonds – Oh No!)
And as I sit on what passes for a bed, rather two folding camping pads on top of each other and a light sleeping bag on top of those, I see the truth of her words manifested around me. After months of scrolling YouTube and TikTok, thinking for myself and sitting with my emotions without countless opinions actually feels like myself again. One opinion I heard recently nonetheless was the catalyst behind my reevaluating all the possessions around me, a statement from Dan Senor on Yael Bar tur and Chaya Leah Sufrin’s Ask A Jew podcast.
Dan was talking about juggling too much and dropping the ball on all of it or at least on the balls we juggle that relate to the people closest to us and those that we love most. I’ve been trying to juggle so many versions of myself that I haven’t just dropped the ball, I’ve become surrounded by the detritus and debris of lives I once fantasized about living yet never fully committed to and instead let compete with each other so that none of those versions thrived in reality.
Recently I unfairly snapped at a friend to try to give me a sticker that said, “It’s a good day to read a book.” Staring at my bookshelf of barely-touched books, I realized it hadn’t been a good day to read books for quite some time. If anything I’ve only read three memorable books these past few years. The Torah, though some weeks I’ve skipped, I continue to read, reread, and write about it. I’ve read and reflected on Rabbi Jeremy Markiz’s slim tome of Jewish meditation, the excellent A Better World Is Possible. And I’m in the process of rereading Ms Nili Salem’s modern book of teshuvah entitled Awesome Blast as the holy month of Elul draws closer now that the month of Tammuz has begun and the paradoxical month of Av looms. At best, it’s been a challenging day for reading books ever since the Internet became increasingly accessible to me over two decades ago; yet being chronically online is not even the main issue.
These being the books that I come back to time and again despite struggling to reengage with reading, I’ve come to understand that these books represent something inherent in who I’ve always been. The untouched books on my shelf are dusty dreams that weigh me down more than uplift me, dreams that I can let go of without guilt in order to make space for the life I continually return to. None of the books that I’m not reading are bad books, just representations of roads not taken.
Even my favorite science fiction book (Joan Slonczewski’s A Door Into Ocean), which I have two soft cover copies of and one hardcover copy of, hasn’t been reread for years. Truth be told, while I have read several science fiction books in the past year nothing about them stayed with me aside from my rereading of Melissa Scott’s Dreaming Metal likely due to our current cultural obsession with artificial intelligence. Also collecting dust on my bookshelf are partially-read books on programming robots, martial arts, Israel, Judaism, yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, not to mention more topics like seaweed and cooking in storage. Mostly untouched regardless of how interesting, good, or useful they are; not a collection of ideas, just possessions taking up room while also making me feel guilty I’m not juggling more as if each topic is a child I’m somehow neglecting instead of an optional interest competing for my time and energy.
Where I live, the congregation of Temple Beth Sholom does it’s best to contract a rabbi who commutes in order to provide services roughly every month and a half. I attended the most recent Erev Shabbat services this past Friday, which are the last services until late Av or Elul, and were Rabbi Len Zukrow’s last services at TBS. I have not been a regular congregant, yet Rabbi Zukrow and the TBS community have tried their best to keep me from committing arson (figuratively) on my entire life; I haven’t quite managed a controlled burn yet so much as a struggle to recover from burnout.
In the past I’ve had a hard time singing in services, not out of a lack of desire to sing. I found myself singing without fear and realized that this felt like living. Yes, learning about many things is always interesting and lends perspective, but of all the paths I’ve tried walking only Judaism is the one that brings me closer to joy and to myself even as it gets more challenging. As it gets more challenging, it also gets easier and more inviting. Judaism is not a possession anymore than a person is, nor is it a back-biting dybbuk. And though I love reading Torah and love arguing about it more, it’s not the knowledge or even the wonderful reading. It’s closing that distance in leaving those many possibilities behind without guilt so that I can embrace who it is that I am.
When I first started planning aliyah about two years ago, part of what excited me about it was the way I’d prepared to move to Los Angeles in 2009. I got rid of almost everything I owned and got on a train in Chicago with a backpack and a suitcase. I had enough room to also bring a few jars of homemade cucumber pickles that I decided needed turmeric, these ended up becoming a favorite of my then dash uncle, my beloved aunt’s ex and the father of my favorite cousin; for next year’s reading of Behaalotecha I’ll have to make better pickles and yes watermelon and their rinds can be pickled just as cucumbers and onions can. Pickles are not the point, it’s seeing all of this stuff and realizing I’m not juggling anything, it’s mostly untouched baggage from dreams I’m setting aside to make room for the life I’m starting to live.
Reconnecting to Judaism from having been raised in near-total disconnection has been a struggle. It hasn’t been a process I’ve enjoyed or trusted until I started to realize that even though the world is far from a safe place, the Jewish community is as safe and secure as a gets for me. It’s not always comfortable and it’s not always discomfiting growth either. Sometimes it’s just home and whatever house I’m in. And it’s also how I come to realize that I am actually capable of healing common growth, change, and the feeling of belonging I’ve sought that anchors me in the endless contexts where I don’t normally feel that. Though if God truly is in everything in all places, the idea of where we belong is too often defined by limiting human expectations.
Letting go of old dreams to dream something new is not tragic. Leaving one house to come home is not running away especially when we can always return to visit. Dispossessing yourself of unneeded possessions is an unburdening. It’s not juggling, it’s the first of many steps towards returning to what really matters. It’s not giving up so much as setting things down in order to carry what I could have been carrying all along; not possessions, but a faith-based in love, life, acceptance, and belonging based not in geography but a particular songlike spirituality.
Still, saying goodbye even to books I never finished and some books that I never even started is still like saying goodbye to friends. We don’t always know our friends any more than books we’ve only read the cover of, yet that doesn’t make letting go any easier. The nice thing about books is that I can find them again, since the words are the essence as the bill of a book from my local library reminds me as the librarian informs me I’ve returned a book damaged that I have to pay to replace. The nice thing about books is that they can be reacquired just like some dreams can be revisited, so letting go might just mean a dream returns to reality in our lives when the time is right.
So now I have two large boxes of books to sell and more to give away. I didn’t get rid of everything, but I did narrow down what I had to what is most essential. Now a day at a time, one thing after another gets sorted to sell, donate, recycle, or chuck until what I possess no longer weighs enough to possess me. A lightened life, the ease to dump the dybbuks off my back, to dare to dream again by carrying love in my heart instead of being loaded down by the dust of pasts and presents never truly lived.
