“My whole life’s a lie” she gracefully sighs.
Pause.
“Pretty much from the moment I wake up in the morning till the second I drop my head onto the pillow” she adds as a finale. “The other day at the job interview they asked what I studied in college. I told them acting and dancing. And they asked ‘What do you do with that today?’ And I said ‘I act happy and dance a lot.’ ”
“So what’s wrong with that?” I ask innocently believing if you act something you can ultimately internalize it. That the good of the outcome depends on for whom and what you do it.
“So this morning I woke up at about four thirty ” she tells me. “I couldn’t sleep. I danced around the kitchen for about an hour. I feel so uncomfortable in my life like I’m walking around in shoes that are too big tripping all over the place. I fall from step to step get up brush myself off do a few more steps but end up back on the floor.”
What’s really wrong here? I asked myself.
“I don’t know where I want to get to ” she continues. “I’m a mess.”
“Why do you think this has to do with lying?” I ask.
“I don’t think I know ” she says. “I call it the Rivkah Imeinu syndrome. I convince myself that it’s all for the sake of Heaven.”
She pauses.
“But when I move aside the curtains I bought that I said cost $400 when they really cost $4 000 then I see that I’m not really so holy.”
Pause.
“And most of my lying and swindling aren’t for G-d but for my own desires.”
“My lying and my swindling” make me immediately think of Lavan and how those people in the Torah aren’t there just to teach us about how to deal with others but to confront the swindler that lives within our own souls.
“And all my kids watch me lie over and over again. I even tell them to lie ” she tells me. “It’s such a mess and I don’t even know where or how to begin to clean it up.”
I think what to say.
What comes to mind is how sometimes there are all kinds of unnecessary bags stuffed into the bag cupboard and how the mess looks scary and untamable … and then I throw out a handful of bags and there’s not much more to do.
But that’s not the point here so I throw out that thought. It may be a truth but nothing to do with hers and we have to remember who and what we do things for.
“Why do you think you lie?” I ask.
There’s a silence while she thinks.
“Because I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of not getting what I need ” she says.
“Of what you need or what you want?” I’m asking myself as well.
Another long silence says she knows the answer and so do I.
“I danced around lies for years ” she says. “But it gave me some kind of energy. One lie led to another like pirouettes but I kept saying in the back of my mind Sheker has no legs sheker has no legs.”
A swallow.
“I have to make decisions based on honesty on truth. Then I won’t keep falling and failing. I have to keep the focus on that I am dancing for G-d.”
Isn’t it focus that makes all the difference for the dancer? —