Complementary Pieces

Deborah and I get together with our music coach Bill every so often. Bill is so phenomenal because he can play both of our instruments well. He recently gave us four new pieces to play.

I can’t say that I was bowled over by my part of any of the four. It seemed uniformly dull and uninteresting. When I got together with Deborah to play today, she said the same thing of her part. But then we actually played the four pieces and were simply blown away by how beautiful they are. It was as though putting the two parts together worked some sort of magic. So for us the big dilemma is now what gets priority. There is a limit to how much anyone can work on at one time.

Maybe this idea of complementary pieces extends to relationships as well. Danny (Temple Micah’s principal rabbi) recently said that he and Toby (our new female rabbi) find strength in their differences. Although David and I think alike about many things, our complementary taste in things like music results in a much greater variety.

The Haftarah reading for Sukkot is from Ecclesiates. One verse says, “Two are better than one.” A good lesson for many aspects of our lives.