Residual Effects

I dreamed that I was in a horrible accident and that I didn’t realize that I was still alive. There were piles of bone and flesh and sinew. And I was pulling ribcages from my mouth, like so many fishbones. I had to face all the people I had died with, but I thought I was facing all the people I had survived with. I spoke with them, spent time with them, comforted them. I was then told that these were the people who had died, and I became stunned, with my mouth agape. One of my friends who had lived told me then to return to the land of the dead in order to spend time with them before coming back to the land of the living.

And then I was walking, using a cane, visiting an old sagely rabbi. I gave him my shawl, and he thanked me, and it was Shabbos. And he offered me more protection from the rain, but I only took my baseball cap which was sitting on his stoop, and we then parted. And I think all of this was a play. And it was about being counted among the Jewish People even if you are a scoundrel. And I attempted to set up a table for myself among the others at the Shabbos party, and the cups and wineglasses were dirty, and the drash was incredible, and I didn’t care about the food. I thought about the sons of the survivor I saw last night; all of them frum, with beards, smiling with many children. And they all looked wholesome, but I knew they’re just people; because that survivor said that all goyim are rasha’im, and I think he’s wrong. And so I ask, did all his sons learn the same lesson from him?