There's tzuris ("trouble.")

And then there's gebrutteneh tzuris (literally "roasted trouble.")

My father, Louis Cantor, of blessed memory, grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household, and he taught me the difference between the two. Tzuris, of course, is a general term, which can be - and is! - applied to everything from a traffic ticket to trouble with kids to taxes. But gebrutteneh tzuris - well, that's the really serious stuff. The latter makes the former pale in comparison, puts it into perspective. I offer this linguistic tidbit as a away of explaining why the Ravenous Rabbi has been absent for nearly two weeks. There was lots of tzuris around home and shul, and that was followed by the roasted sort. And all of this in the week and a half before Rosh Hashanah! Of course, this is life as usual, isn't it? As I wrote in my sermon for the First Day of the New Year (luckily, I had written it before all hell broke loose):

"Our lives don’t follow a straight and unswerving path. Of course, most of us grow up thinking otherwise. We expect that our lives will unfold according to plan – our plan. But as the Yiddish saying goes: Men tracht und Gott lacht. “Man plans and God laughs,” or in the current vernacular: Life happens."

Later on I noted:

"In teaching about the Jewish life cycle, there’s a particular exercise which I’ve often done with adults. I ask people to take pencil and paper and draw a picture of their own life’s journey. They can use words. They can use shapes or lines or figures. Or not.

The results are as varied as the lives of the participants. But, believe me, there are very few straight lines. Symbols and spirals and scribbles, yes. But very few straight lines. Our lives are filled with detours, with stops and starts and surprises along the way. Men tracht und Gott lacht. We make plans, but God has other ideas. "

Yup, life happens. The challenge is to take it with some equanimity, to realize that the power to fix everything is mostly not in our hands and to just learn, grow and do some mitzvahs (good deeds) along the way. We're only human, after all.

Actually, that's the main message of Rosh Hashanah: that God is in charge and we are not. I confess that I have a problem with this idea. Not intellectually, but deep down, in my heart of hearts. I'm a fixer, after all. I don't like to throw in the towel. I don't like to give up control. I don't accept anything with equanimity! Still, I preach this line all the time. Mostly to myself.

Now the question is: what lesson do I need to hear on Yom Kippur?