At my high school prom many decades ago, the organizers chose Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” as the theme. I thought it was the most ridiculous choice, and I voiced it loudly. Why wouldn’t we change? Mention high school to any adult and very few would want to go back. Now with many years between that time and this moment, I have reached a point where I see more wisdom in the desire to stay just the way we are.
As the years pile on, life’s travails, challenges, and triumphs coat us with experiences. The layers add on and we become hardened and affected, for good and bad, by what we have learned along the path. For sure, we gain wisdom, understanding, and hopefully maturity. And yet we forget some of the truths we know about ourselves; what we like, what makes us happy, what gives us meaning. They get buried unintentionally under the layers of the years though they remain dormant, like seeds buried deep in the earth.
How many years did we all spend growing up? As some distant achievement we looked to the future to be grown up. There was much mystery in that aspiration because we couldn’t necessarily predict what we would turn out to be like. But then at what point does it change when we flip the switch and we turn to growing older?
Maybe the answer is in the growing part. Just as a seed grows from the root and develops and blossoms, so too should our root system remain strong. That’s our core. Uncovering the layers to rediscover ourselves, to find once again the essence of our being, allows us to celebrate that person we once knew. We are ever in the need of nurturing our own root system, our very core. Grow up or even grow old, just don’t stop growing; for that is just the way you are.
Elaine Zecher is a rabbi at Temple Israel, Boston. She chairs the Liturgy & Worship Committee of the CCAR. www.tisrael.org
