The Spirituality of Reading Glasses

A few years ago, I was in shul for the long hours of the Rosh HaShana davening when something strange happened. I was using my favorite machzor, purchased in Jerusalem, which had a crisp dark font on the thinnest paper, making it a lightweight and clear volume. But on this Rosh HaShana, for some reason, it seemed that  the letters had blurred and shrunk! I was confused at first and then I learned that if I moved the book further away, I could see the words more clearly. I guess that would be a great metaphor for something, but at the time nothing came to me. 

For the next few Rashei HaShana, I stretched my arm further and further so that the book remained at a comfortable decoding distance and then I finally decided that enough was enough. I broke down and purchased reading glasses. To be precise, I purchased 20 different reading glasses- all on various sales from amazon. There were very thin ones, large round lenses, and funky patterns on the earpieces. I left them strategically all over my house and got used to using them for everything from laundry tags to recipes to magazines. 

Then, the next Rosh HaShana arrived and I happily took my old machzor and my new glasses to shul. The glasses changed my Rosh HaShana experience. Without reading glasses, my mind could wander. I could look up and see what my neighbor was wearing or how many families purchased matching dresses for their daughters. I could look around and take note of who was crying or in concentration or who looked like they were inattentive. Sort of like the “mi bamayim, mi baeish” list, but a little more petty. 

I quickly learned that with reading glasses, I could do no such peeking. If I looked up and around, my vision got fuzzy and I felt slightly dizzy. I could have done the glasses swoop so I could check out the others, but my + 1 eyeglasses were also a plus. I did not need to look around, because I could feel and hear the community all around me, and everything I needed to look at was right in front of my face. 

Fast forward to the midst of a pandemic, and I had to be mindful of my fogging reading glasses balanced over my mask in the chilly outdoor tent that was my shul’s new home. I switched from my favorite round pair to narrow pince-nez types so that I did not have to take them on and off- reducing my newfound focus. Now my inner focus melded with the outer one; that we were all balancing the introspection of being attuned to our machzorim and also supremely aware of the community around us as we unified in praying for the health and well-being of all.

Recently, I learned a new frame for thinking about problems; we could look at them through a telescope or through a microscope. Both have value. This is the essence of my reading glasses question on Rosh HaShana. With them on, the words in front of me are clear, I can dive deeper and deeper into a phrase, a word, or my own thoughts in microscopic precision. Then, I can take off the glasses and look around- up at the Torah or the swaying congregants, and that is like the broad and distant view of the telescope. I can zoom out even further, thinking of all the other worshippers in the shuls in the area, and even beyond Baltimore’s boundaries to all of klal yisrael. The magic in these particular lenses happens when we can hold the telescope and the microscope In the same view.

This year holding the balance became paramount. The world around us looks frightening; the  news of ballistic missiles launching into Israel, our people running for cover, terrorists on the loose, protests and AntiSemetism, amped up security…. but then there is an inordinate sense of pride in being a part of our strong and caring nation. Our nation, our Torah, our prayer, our Creator– and our caring for each other are all nitzchi; eternal. We are the eternal people and even as the red alerts sound and our young soldiers are on the front lines, we have the capacity to embrace the pain and tragedy together with  the good and noble; the immediate and the eternal, the particular and the universal. Some of us can accomplish this feat with just our own eyes, some of us need a slight adjustment-  like +1. 

נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר