{"id":1257,"date":"2016-09-13T17:28:28","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T17:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2016-09-13T17:28:28","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T17:28:28","slug":"the-fate-of-september-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1257","title":{"rendered":"The fate of September Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blue-sky\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s one of those sparkling September days. \u00a0The sky soars, saturated with rare blue. \u00a0The glinting particles in the atmosphere catch light and shimmer – you might imagine you\u2019re by the Mediterranean. \u00a0A specific event in history might have upended that, though, making you remember that ecstatic morning, that mile high sky,\u00a0 one of the \u201cbest days of the year\u201d before airplanes hit the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n

That horrible day can\u2019t own these luminous days. \u00a0 They keep on coming, yesterday and today from somewhere beyond, making addicts of the \u201cnow\u201d trouble over ideas of significance underneath and beyond single events. \u00a0We get the significance in bursts.\u00a0 In the age of terror, bursts of joy are served up on our platter.<\/p>\n

It would be gauche to ask for sustained happiness – almost stupid, leaving a bad taste in the mouth. \u00a0 How arrogant to think we could get away without pain!\u00a0 Endless happiness has the taint of things we shouldn\u2019t have, of secrets we shouldn\u2019t know the language of the gods and birds.<\/p>\n

While happiness is a condition Americans still believe is their birthright, joy is a different thing. \u00a0Joy doesn\u2019t blot out awareness.\u00a0 Instead of smothering other realities the way happiness might, joy exists side by side with fear, anguish, mourning, as Jonathan Sacks, the British rabbi, recently wrote.\u00a0 As it bursts through the consciousness, it illuminates fragility.\u00a0 The awareness of terror sharpens love of these days – just as impending winter age and death made the popular \u201cSeptember Song\u201d always potently bittersweet.\u00a0 We are seasoned now with the shadow of towers and terror. \u00a0 Attention is what is required, and in that, in attention itself lies beauty. \u00a0The point is not that everything be happy or beautiful. \u00a0As the\u00a0Torah so often commands: \u201cSee!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s one of those sparkling September days. \u00a0The sky soars, saturated with rare blue. \u00a0The glinting particles in the atmosphere catch light and shimmer – you might imagine you\u2019re by the Mediterranean. \u00a0A specific event in history might have upended … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68,499,498,69],"class_list":["post-1257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-september","tag-world-trade-center","tag-rabbi-jonathan-sacks","tag-september-song"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-kh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1259,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}