Roots
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Roots |
Going Home Going
home has many meanings. The
connotation attributed to these two words can carry a good feeling of returning
to one's roots - going back to Mom and Dad where it’s comfortable and
relaxing. Security and acceptance is
there, no pretenses have to be used. It
is where the person belongs, where he (she) finds solace.
It can be a place where the person experiences peace where he finds
comfort to be him (her) self. Songs
have been written about the two words, the concept, the joy, the ecstasy of
letting go of a harsh and punitive world. It
is a place where rest exists and hard labor ceases.
There is solace in the words themselves.
Individuals can look forward to return for respite after a day’s work.
They are able to leave their stress behind. In
a religious sense the term Going Home means leaving the mundane life and aiming
to be in heaven where the end of life leads us:
where we are in eternal “rest”, where we meet our deceased families
and friends, where G’d exists and all is beautiful, peace, love, and
happiness. Most religions have the
belief that if you have been a decent, upright and righteous person you will be
rewarded in the afterlife. If not
your fate will be otherwise.
It is contrary to one of the quotations from William Shakespeare’s
JULIUS CAESAR: “The evil that men
do lives after them; the good is oft
interred with their bones.” In our
Jewish religion it is best to practice as
many of the “karyagim” 613 Mitzwot as possible to be considered for a place
in the “gan eden” (heaven). There is also the fifth commandment, which
demands you to “honor thy mother and father so that you may live long on
earth.” In the German language and
culture there is a poem which assures you a path to G’d if you adhere to the
directives of decency, loyalty, and righteousness”: “Musst immer treu und
redlich sein bis auf das kühle Grab, dann weichst du keinen Finger breit von
Gottes Wegen ab.” There is a Negro spiritual regarding the next world.
It deals with the Negro slave who is finally released from his miserable
worldly existence in which he looks over Jordan and what does he see:
“a band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home.” The
word home may have a connotation which does not always have the same meaning and
may produce anxiety for some folk who are removed from their own surroundings
and are because of illness and/or old age transferred to a nursing “home.”
There is the phrase when a person is very ill or about to leave this
earth he is told that soon he will go to his “heavenly home.” In
our religious literature we learn about Noah, whose home was on a boat where he
brought with him various species of animals in order to spare them from
extinction and/or annihilation. There
are many kinds and types of homes and songs that have been devoted to them.
There is the song about the beauty of home which are loved by a certain
class of folk: “Home, home on the
range, where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard a
discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day." Let
us hope that our Jewish people will forever have their home, which is safe,
peaceful, and free of anti-Semites, where they can live with their loved ones in
freedom and equality with their neighbors. Lehitraot. Dr. Ursula A. Falk is a psychotherapist in private practice and the author of several books and articles. |
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