wrinkled and holy like parchment paper

On Yom Kippur, when I had a lull in concentration, and no matter what I tried I couldn't focus on anything other than an old sci-fi movie, I started to think about the influential people in my life. I thought about my grandmothers and grandfathers, parents, aunts and uncles, teachers, in-laws. The only thing that stuck in my head was the texture of their skin. Holy holy holy skin, wrinkled and paper-thin.

It occurred to me then, and though it is something I've said and written in the past I understood it then in a new and deeper light, that the essence of being a Jew is being simple. Simply keeping to the laws and traditions, year after year, day after day. Your soul is always holy; infinite and holy. But in the persistence of Judaism your flesh, especially your skin becomes holy. And in that moment I understood that children are new flesh, with years and years of investment ahead in order to reach that same holiness of skin that Grandma or Sabba carry with such grace.

It is no wonder then, that the Tikkunei Zohar teaches that the skin is the organ that represents Malchut. (God's Kingship, the Word of the King)

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