I learned about balance while tuning my violin.
After hours of practice, changes in temperature and humidity, and day to day wear and tear, the strings stretch and contract and need realignment.
With thumb and forefinger, I apply firm but gentle pressure, and rotate the tuning peg up and down; intentionally ringing the string out of tune–too flat, then too sharp, dancing on either side of the desired pitch, feeling for the boundaries of ‘in tune.’ I wiggle the peg back and forth until somewhere along the route between sharp and flat, I hit the sweet spot. I can feel that ‘in tune’ string vibrate through my whole body. It’s blissful, and all the sweeter because I know what it is to be off key.
From years of tuning my violin, I learned that finding balance requires stepping off balance, stepping out of comfort zones, off key, into complexity, and feelingly finding our way back home.
I hear an echo of this tuning in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: “For the simplicity that lies this side of complexity, I would not give a fig, but for the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity, I would give my life.”
As we tune, attune, and atone this year, may we never shy away from the off-key nor the complexity, always listening for the sweet sound emerging from the dissonance.
Jessica Kate Meyer is a prayer leader, storyteller, musician, rabbi, and Director of Prayer Leadership at Hebrew College in Boston. hebrewcollege.edu
