Broyges

Broyges

Broyges can be a throttling, unsettling kind of silence in an atmosphere so thick it seems impenetrable.  Broyges can also be an argument that blows up and out of control throwing those nearby into a nightmarish frenzy.

Broyges begins with pettiness.

One of my favorite anecdotes is the first time I was called to be a counselor for a floundering marriage. From the time they both awoke in the morning until sleep carried them away in the blackness of night, husband and wife would pick at each other to pieces. Explaining the torment across my office desktop, I asked them to give me an example of how their fights began.

After a pause she blurted out, “He never closes the toothpaste cap!”

I had to keep myself from falling off the chair from laughter. How ridiculous!  And yet how tiny pain grows into mammoth malignancies.

I am familiar with two distinct types of broyges.  One is when is when it concerns family, the other friends.

With family there is no escape. We scream, we yell. We level invectives and charge at our family members with epithets. Some of us become rabbis giving long pious monologues on truth and morality. Others silently sulk through the house with a deep, dark cloud hovering about them.

Who will swallow their pride first? Who will give in and break the impasse?

The one who broods  -- the so-called stronger one -- or the other whose body is laced with fierce indignation while mutely except in the anguish of their spouse or parent?

Either the family will dissolve or someone will attempt reconciliation.  The one who opens the door a crack and allowing for healing at the risk of sacrificing their own pride is the stronger and the bigger of the two.

With friends, estrangement is much more common and difficult. We do not have to see the drooping corners of their mouths at breakfast time.  We do not have to share the same toilet or attend the same parties. “These,” we say, “are not worth the pain or risk to the ego in order to remedy.” So friendships come and they disappear.

Some of is treat family like friends—we alienate and chase them away to the West Coast or to another continent.  Some of us confuse friends with family and fight with them as we would our own blood and then with a full heart make up with them later. Most of us, however, fall in the middle.

And these dark months of winter we have an opportunity to reflect upon our lives and the people around us. Staying indoors against the harsh winds of winter and yet bolstered by the soothing glow a warm home, we have a chance to renew and read discover love. He is a moment to invite a friend over to share the joy of the Hanukkah lights with us.

This is an opportunity to renew the vibrancy of a life that has known too much broyges.