The Festival of Light

I love Hanukah, the festival of lights every year its something new, every year has a different set of challenges. This year for me centered around the idea of exile because I’ve been living in the exile. It also was made hectic because x-mas was right in the middle of the whole thing, not a problem for most Jews but for me it meant running around for two days in the middle of Chanukah and lighting the candles at weird times. But it was wonderful getting to spend time with my family, convincing my mom and sister to say the prayers before lighting the candles.

The lights of the menorah are supposed to remind us of the candles in the temple, which in turn remind us of the light of the creation. They are a reflection of the reflection of the light of creation. Our tradition tells us that this light shone for twelve hours on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when they sinned the light was extinguished but not immediately instead god kept the light alive for another 24 hours in honor of the Shabbat. So that makes 36 hours, how many lights do we light for Chanukah? Thirty six, funny how it works out that way a friend told me that last night just as I was watching the lights I had lit slowly extinguish themselves.

I’ve always felt there was a certain power in the festival of lights, there is something hypnotic about staring into the flames. Now some of that may be a simple matter of evolution. Human beings relied of fire for survival it was what raised us above the other animals and kept us safe in a world filled with beasts that we infinitely stronger then us. We prevailed because they were afraid of the light; it gave us dominion over them. I don’t know what it is but like most of the very best parts of life words fail to explain in properly it just is. The specialness doesn’t need to be qualified its there. I was talking about this with a good friend who I hadn’t spoken with in something like six months last night. He actually told me the story in the story in the paragraph above. He and I shared an experience in Israel that defied all the normal conceptions about life. I did my best the describe it and reading the stuff I wrote from the time certainly brings me back. But does it really capture the experience? Hell no, nothing will, just like staring into the Chanukah lights. I looking to those eight bright lights last night and saw eternity, I saw the past, present and future together in one beautiful moment. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Shalom.

Silence

Usually when I commute into and out of the city during the week I listen to my ipod or read a book, it makes the fours hours a day I spend commuting easier to deal with and I feel like when I read a book that at least I’m doing something during hours that would otherwise feel wasted. Last few days I stopped listening to my ipod and tried to focus on my surrounding more. The slights, the sounds, the smells (yikes!) and it’s been a really nice change of pace. I find to often that people are always distracting themselves from reality. It’s like they just can’t deal with the present unless it is filtered though something. Silence is boring seems to be the implication here, or reality isn’t any good. Always a filter, always a distraction, this is a fatally flawed assumption and its just part of my generations increasing disconnect from reality. Even so this isn’t meant to be a lecture and I certainly like listening to music on my commute, music has the ability to lift me up after a long, hard day. It has the ability to sooth me and rocks me to sleep on the train in the early morning. So please by all means find things that make you happy, that make a sometimes hostile world easier to cope with but also make some time to be present to just enjoy the reality your in without any filters. Silence after all can be a beautiful thing. Shalom Alechem.

Keeping the faith

I’d like to start this post with a statement: I greatly admire baal teshuva’s i.e. people who grow up in the secular world and become orthodox. I am in awe of those people who find truth and decide to break with the traditions that they grew up with. It can be an incredibly hard thing to do. It requires strength and determination; it requires a reprogramming of ones mind and body. It is not an easy thing to do and I respect people who take a hard line, people who see the halakha as the path towards god. They are the keepers of our great tradition and without them Judaism would never have survived and would not be flourishing as it is today. Of course with that said I also have no respect for those in the frum community who see their observance as the only path to god. Who see their particular brand as the only true, only authentic expression of the revelation on Mount Sinai. Because anyone who does any serious scholastic research into the matter knows that it simply isn’t the case.

The Torah both written and Oral is rife with contradiction in my opinion that is its greatest strength within its own sphere its dynamic. For instance lets pose a question is god omniscient i.e. infinite or not? This seems somewhat straight forward god being everything is of course omniscient, encompassing everything that is was and will be. But in the Torah its not so clear and in the later works of the Rabbi’s it becomes increasingly vague. This is a huge concept and I have no desire to debate it now but it is a very real question, and it does not have a clear answer.

Another big question where Judaism is less then crystal clear is the idea of gods’ unity. The Shema, the most straight forward edict we declare gods oneness, gods completeness. I know I saw it everyday and believe it. But then what about the kabbalah (no not Madonna) I mean the real kabbalah. In it there is the concept of the sefirot which are the ten ‘qualities’ of gods being. Through them the creation is formed, they are the way that gods reveals himself in the creation. Doesn’t that split up god? Isn’t that a contradiction to the idea of the unity of the creation? I’m not claiming to have any real answers for these questions; I just want to present the idea that they are legitimate questions that Jewish philosophers have been asking throughout time. I want to impress upon you the idea that these are legitimate questions that all of us who go down this path need to have the courage to explore.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that for me, personally my time at an orthodox yeshiva these idea were never even brought up. I have no problem with people who insist that there is no contradiction between the ideas I brought up and the many other that arise. What I find troubling however is the suppression by some, not all that these are even legitimate questions to be asking. Because they are real and they need to be talked about and explored if not I think to many of us seekers will turn away from this path and not look back. And that would be too bad because Judaism has so many great things to offer. I don’t have the answers believe me I wish I did. All I know is we can not be afraid of ideas, we need to have the courage to face those questions and find our own answers and then have the courage and strength to go the way that our conclusions lead us. May we all merit illumination and the strength to find our way. Amen.

The Kids Table

I wake up everyday, I go to work, and I sit at work all day doing whatever comes across my desk, rinse and repeat. I’m trying to tell myself that I’m acting responsibly at the moment. That saving money and living simply is the prudent thing to do. With so much uncertain playing it safe is the right course of action. I’d rather not be acting like this. I would much rather be looking for an apartment, after all in these times it isn’t so hard anymore. But I just can’t bring myself to do it. I just don’t have a clear enough picture of the future yet. I know that we never know what is going to happen in life and ultimately the only certainty that exists is uncertainty but still… Being responsible is not always fun, right now what it means from me is I’m stuck, stuck with four hours of commuting every day, stuck living with my parents in the suburbs, stuck living in a place where I have no friends around and stuck in a life that’s not really my own.

It is not the one I would choose for myself. By the time I get home every night, I’m tried I don’t want to expend any effort to do anything, that’s just the reality and now that its getting colder and colder, and darker and darker that instinct really kicks in. Everyone hibernates during the winter time. As a case study for this I’ll cite my budget from two years ago. When I lived in the city last I kept an excel spreadsheet with all of my income and expenses, it helped me stay on budget, spend less money then I made, and also helped me cut down on unnecessary expenses. During the winter months, even with the inevitable holiday spending required I put away a lot of money every single month. During the summer months I broke even every month, just barely over the three ‘summer vacation’ months, when I was going out constantly with friends. When it’s cold outside people just want to relax and not go places, when it is beautiful and warm everyone wants to go out all the time. So it is not just any one single factor that’s been limiting my activities.

Even if I was on my own I doubt I would be doing anything all that exciting. So I’m acting responsibly and doing what I can to lock down this job, to save money and give myself a bigger cushion. I’m replacing the money I spent in Israel and trying to give myself more leeway for the future. But it’s not always easy, some days saying that to myself doesn’t make me feel any better about my current situation. But I’m getting there, I’m no the right track, I’m acting like an adult not a child. You spend your whole life trying to get to this point, and in one of the great ironies of life you spend your whole life trying to sit at the adults table at parties and when you finally get to the point where your sitting with the adults you look back at the kids table and say wait… its wasn’t so bad there… I don’t want to sit with the grownups, this table is boring the kids table it fun, let me go back there. But it’s too late and there is no point in looking back.

Treasure

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

I read that line in a book and it has become an instant classic for me. I have since I was around ten years old been collecting quotes. In fact I have a huge word document filled with them. When ever I’m reading a book or hear a particularly good snippet I usually write it down on a piece of scrap paper and it goes into the file. Its interesting reading it now going though the childish quotes, the classics, no ones I’m almost ashamed of now but won’t delete just because, you know they ended up in there somehow so it feels wrong to take them out now. I can track my intellectual progression though that document. One of the funniest trends is the initial slew of quotes about god being dead or whatever to quotes about mystery, aimlessness, agnosticism, etc. To quotes being more centered around dharma, god, Judaism and beyond, its fun to see the elasticity of my thoughts over the years; in my time collecting quotes I’ve added a lot of quotes from famous people but never has there been one from the new testament I always stayed away from it long before I ever started reading the Torah.

So I was a little surprised when I found out that quote is from the new testament it can be found if your curious in Matthew 6:21. I had an internal argument with myself if I should or could even include in my list. Finally I decided this: I don’t care where it comes from, if it’s a good quote if it resonates with me then it must be included. Bound by my own sense of intellectual honesty and freedom I have to be open or whatever comes across my path. I mean it is just a beautiful idea where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. It’s a meditation; it gives a human being something to think about. And I for one can always do with a good meditation. I love concentrating on the words of a phrase or idea, I love giving myself some quiet time in which to think, to really think and be quiet and see where my mind takes me. I find that doing that with a direction can lead me to greater clarity. So I thought I would share something that’s helping me find clarity at the moment. Clarity or death!

Riverside Park

Yesterday I had one of those quintessentially New York experiences. I had a moment that in my experience you just don’t get anywhere except the Big Apple. So I get up to stretch my legs in the mid-afternoon like I do almost everyday I usually wander around Morningside Heights, take a walk through Columbia University, or up to the Jewish Theological Seminary to do some people watching or I stop by the local bookstore which is a fabulous spot to peruse. In short it’s a nice break from the office in the middle of the day. Yesterday I did not feel like dealing with anyone so I wandered over to Riverside park, much like every other little park in the city its tranquil and beautiful, you can look up and see the big building surrounding you while you take in a little bit of nature. So on my walk I saw the most amazing thing, there was a big red tail hawk just chilling in the park. He/she was eyeing the squirrels running around like a, well like a hawk I suppose. So for the next ten minutes I was treated to the sight of this amazing bird trying to catch a meal he/she was completely aware of my presence (I was standing no more then 20 feet away from it) and didn’t seem to mind. I really felt like it was just me and it.

Some moments in life defy explanation. They defy all that we think are real and that for me was just such a moment. I mean I grew up in the country where there are actual woods and forests within reach, for all the wonderfulness of the New York City park system it will never be the same as real wilderness. Even in the middle of Central Park where all the city noise is absent it still smells like the city you can never completely escape that fact. But for those few moments I really forgot where I was I’ve observed birds of prey in the wild before, I spent my entire childhood in the creek by my house but never have I gotten so close to something so wild. Growing up when ever anyone would ask me what kind of animal I would most like to be I would always, always say a hawk(or a tiger) I’ve had a fascination with them ever since I read My Side of the Mountain as a young child. They have always represented pure freedom to me, the ability to get beyond all that restricts us, all that binds us to this earth.

I’d like to say I thought about all these things when I stood there quietly watching that amazing animal. In truth I thought about none of those things. I thought about very little, I just tried to experience without qualifying, without assigning an arbitrary meaning or context to the situation. Because the experience itself was enough, it doesn’t need anything to make it more real to me then it was. Even writing this isn’t necessary except that I wanted to share the experience with others. I know that no one will truly be able to understand that experience and selfishly I’m glad it was just for me and that’s enough.