The People of the Conversation

I have my ups and down’s here but it’s the conversation’s that I live for. – Joey

I came up with the idea for this post (and cited that quote) in the first few weeks I got here and since then every time I’ve sat down to write it nothing has come to me. But now is not just every time. Over the last two weeks or so I’ve been struggling greatly, I’ve felt lost and confused, unsure of why I’m here or what I’m really doing. I suppose its natural but knowing that what you’re going through is healthy and good for you in no comfort at a time when you’re so frustrated you just want to pack up your bags and head for India, or Nepal or Amsterdam, or home.

Luckily for me that frustration is beginning to lift. And that is due in no small part to the power of conversations. Jews it is said are the People of the conversation, we thought out the ages have always been questioning and pondering and looking for true meaning in the universe. Rabbi Yom Tov Glazer told my class a story a while back about when he was in college, he had a huge exam and he put off studying for it until the last minute. Finally in desperation he went to the library the night before the test and started studying. Somewhere along the line he started talking with some other kids and they talked all night about the meaning of life and existence. And afterwards he was so excited by it they talked all night and into the morning and when he looked up and realized what time it was he realized “oh my gosh, I’m going to fail this test.” So he called his mother and told her all about this amazing conversation he had, had and he was so excited and then of course he mentioned “but I’m going to fail this test I have, I don’t know any of the material.” And she said to him “don’t worry about it, because life is about conversations like that.” And its true that’s what life is about: searching and wondering and dreaming and exploring the deepest darkest depths of the universe. It’s what we live for.

So as I mentioned I’ve been struggling and in the course of that struggle I’ve come to some important conclusions. One is that before I decided to come to Israel and Yeshiva I put aside a lot of big questions that I still had no resolution on, questions like the god given nature of the Torah and the implications that answer has on how one lives their life. After a few months of being here and being immersed in a Torah community and coming to understand a Torah community in an intimate manner, those questions came flaring back. And so the conversations started, class became less important. A now close friend of mine Ari and I who I only really knew casually before embarked on a conversation with no real end about the true nature of existence at every moment we had it went on and on and on. And it has no real end, because at the end of the day you’ll never have one hundred percent resolution, if you knew anything for certain you’d lose your freewill, you would cease to have the ability to make decisions and then you’d me nothing more then a servant to whatever the truth was. In biblical terms if we knew with absolute certainly we would be like the angels who have no choice but to serve the will of god.

And so I’ve begun to move forward, it certainly hasn’t been an easy time for and I don’t expect it will be easy in the future me and Ari my companion throughout all this are still no closer to answering the question of the divine nature of the Torah then we were two weeks ago. But positive things have come out of this I talked with many people about my class schedule and made a few alterations and worked something out that I believe will help me accomplish my many goals here. I also defined my goals at yeshiva more clearly, and there are I’m sure numerous other benefits I can’t even see. I still have many doubts and questions and yet this frustration, this as Rabbi Zalman my Rabbi in New York put it frustration = inspiration + pain. Both frustration and inspiration get you moving, get something accomplished and you’d like to do it without the pain but as long as you’re moving you’re getting somewhere. And hopefully at some point you’ll gather enough information so that you can use your logic to make rational leaps of faith. You’ll never be able to make the cliffs so close together that they’ll touch but if you work hard and honestly search god willing you’ll be able to see the other side.