I never sleep until 11:00 a.m. Ever.

Well this past Shabbos I did.

The only problem was that I didn’t know I was missing a very important shul event at 9:00.

One that only takes place (hopefully) once in a person’s life. A chassan being called up to the Torah.

It was a Shabbos sheva brachos for close family. But as Ashkenazim call the groom up the week before the wedding I had no idea that Sephardim call up the chassan during the week of sheva brachos.

So when I rolled into the house of the bride and groom at 11:30 where everybody met after shul I was bombarded with “Where were you? We were all looking for you!”

Ever wanted to cry but you had to hold it in because you’re over 40?

I had to do some serious instant inner spiritual and emotional work.

You really blew it this time comes the first thought as I make my way to my seat. Okay but you didn’t know; what can you do? was the second.

But why didn’t you know? Why are you always in the dark about things? Still I’m not a bad person just because I didn’t know Sephardim call the groom up after the wedding. I plead innocence but I’m still embarrassed and self-reprimanding.

But I shelve it and go on.

I sit across from a well-groomed woman social work professor fromCanada.

She also acknowledges my absence in shul that morning.

At first we’re kind of short on words.

I try to warm up the situation when we get up to wash hands.

I can’t remember now exactly what I said but she laughs.

I feel like maybe I caused a slight chillul Hashem in her eyes by missing the main event and I want to redeem myself at least in my own eyes.

“You know” I say “it’s so interesting how a person can actually live in denial about a thing until he’s ready to work on it.”

She’s in social work after all and what bigger topic is there in psychology than denial?

She kind of looks at me trying to figure out why this lady who slept through the main event is bringing up this subject.

“There were years I couldn’t clean the way I wanted but I was able to deny its effects or its existence. I really didn’t even see it because I wasn’t ready or able at that time to work on it.”

She nods social-worker style.

“And sometimes I think it’s not a bad thing” I add.

“It’s interesting you’re talking about this” she says. “It’s actually a needed thing.”

She tells me about a Shabbos group in her community where they go to different homes once a month and how she’d just given a dvar Torah on this very subject.

Barriers down. New friends. But I can’t hear so well because someone’s started a song and they’re banging on the table. There’s one relative I’ve noticed who loves to bang on the table.

“Anyway we’re talking about denial” she says more loudly “and this is exactly the point I spoke about by comparing it to the Red Heifer the parah adumah.”

I bring up the idea of how denial for example can save us or destroy us. The same thing applies with the parah adumah that just as it’s capable of purifying us it’s also capable of making us impure at the same time.

We discuss how there are paradoxes we cannot understand in life. How the fact that we’re not supposed to understand everything is in itself purifying and healing.

I think how gentle acceptance of ourselves and our faults is the first step to reaching those well-stocked shelves full of denial.