Decisions

“God leads man where he desires to go”

“The search for god is the search for oneself”

I’ve been thinking about decision making lately, about how we ultimately dictate our own lives by the decisions we make, by the avenues that we pursue. This weekend I had a great Shabbat it was just a super fun, fantastic time. I agreed to take a look at Washington Heights with a friend I made in Israel, he thought it might be a good place to live, I was skeptical, its way, way up town, it’s close to the Bronx and I never imagined myself living there and yet it was a great time. The area fascinated me, it’s so young and religious and vibrant and yes it suffers from all the issues associated with religious communities. When I got home late Saturday morning I had to face the music, I liked it up there, I’m god willing going to move up there and maybe worst of all, I might be happy up there, yikes! So I had to let an old friend know because I and he had talked about living together and now that I had come to this conclusion I knew that I had just made the decision not to live with him. No way would he go for this. So I told him and I’m happy our friendship is strong enough that he took it well and wished me luck and told me he wanted me to be happy and I should do what I thought would make me happy.

This got me thinking, I get offers from this friend once a month or so. He calls me up and says “Hey some friends and I are going out to some club or bar in the city tonight… you should come.” Usually I decline because, well I just do. Yet when this other friend calls me up and says “Hey I’m spending Shabbat in the Heights this weekend, want in?” I jump at it, rearranging other plans so that I can do this. I don’t think I’ve ever done that for the first option. Realizing this makes me think about just how much our own decisions matter. After all I could have chosen differently. But I made my decision, and I continuing making it ever single day. It’s been this way right from the start.

First I went on birthright (a decision heavily encouraged by my mother), had an experience or two and came home and started to learn. I was the one who went to the book store and spent my (okay my parents) money on books. I was the one who looked for a local rabbi who I could talk to. I was the one who accepted his offers to come over for lunch on Shabbat. I was the one who asked him to give me something I could do everyday (it all started with saying the Shema). I was the one who first mentioned to him that I wanted to wrap teffilin. I was the one who used and continues to use it everyday. I was the one who made the decision to move to a Jewish neighborhood. I was the one who lost my job and took it as a sign from Hashem to go to Israel. I was the one who extended my stay for seven months longer then originally planed.

Am I making my point? It’s always been my decision and every single day I continue to make the decision to have god in my life, to talk with him, to do his work (as best as I know how), to follow his commandments (getting there). My parents used to talk about how the rabbis I knew were pursuing me, how it was all part of some plan on their part to ‘get’ me. But I was the one who kept asking questions. I was the one who pursued them, not the other way around.

We all like to blame others for the decisions we make, we all like to pretend that we’re somehow not responsible for our own decisions and actions. This is false, I struggle with my Torah, I struggle and I struggle and I struggle. But ultimately it really turns me on. It gets my brain going, I could easily make the decision to go out with my friends instead of going to a lecture, or whatever the decision is and sometimes I do. But in the end the decisions are mine based on what I like and I like this Torah business.

It took a long time for me to admit. It felt in many ways for me like coming out of the closet (I would imagine, not having actual first hand experience in this matter) to be able to stand up and say yes I believe in god, yes I think the Torah is the truth, yes I’m going to continue pursuing this until I get some answers that make sense to me. But I’ve made my peace with some of these things and everyday I remake the decision to continue. These are my decisions because I’ve searched for them, because I desire to continue and that’s what I’ll keep on doing.

Shalom Aleichem