Emes

Note: This was written three days ago, even now looking at it I'm not sure how much of it I mean. Which is not to say that as I was writing it, it wasn't the truth, it was and to a large extend very much is. But I've also realized how little I actually know about anything. And how much coming home has scared me and in many ways warped my perception of the world. Truth be told I'm not sure of anything at the moment.

August 14^th 2008, eleven days until I return to America, the last week or two has been extremely hard saying goodbye always is. But for whatever reason this goodbye seems particularly painful. I’ve seen and done and experienced so much in the last ten months, I hardly remember the kid who left New York thinking this would be a three month adventure. Now almost ten months since I left the shores of America for this frontier on the edge of the world I’m ready to go home. Maybe that’s what makes this goodbye so hard. I know that I’m ready for something else yet I don’t really want to say goodbye. I know I still have so much more left to learn, so much more to grow and I know this is the best place to do it. And yet I’m ready to leave and I don’t ever want to leave. Israel is home, my heart belongs here and it knows it. My soul has exploded here and I know it just won’t be the same at home. I’m going back to a place where I’ll be an extreme minority, where I’ll be forced once again to reevaluate my life, what I stand for and what I’m willing to endure for those beliefs. No I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic, yes I know I’m speaking emes, truth. I feel like at the present I’ve resolved what I need to resolve, save one precious, tender, mysterious problem. I’ve otherwise closed every door I’ve opened since I got here. Yes I feel like I’ve found closure with my life here. Except of course for one gaping hole in that door, it’s why I’ve had so much difficulty writing lately. Every time I sit down to write it inevitably pops up in my prose. Like with so many things in life it’s a girl thing. George Carlin famously does a sketch about this remarking “why did we bring a car to the moon? There might be women there!” And so it goes. It’s such a simple thing you’d think, but of course we all know its not, emotions can be deceiving and your heart and eyes will mislead you, they’ll turn you astray. And without them life would not be worth living the mind, and the soul would be empty without our emotions to move them. To carry them away, to make us feel invulnerable and yet to leave us so very vulnerable, I have a lot of trouble with that I’ve heard from more then one person that I talk and talk and talk and yet they’re not sure what exactly I believe. I think that’s a little much I’m certainly not a closed book and I’ve often a little to open about what I’m thinking about everything. I do after all have an opinion about everything as I’m often told. And yet I have an issue making myself vulnerable. And that’s where I am right now, I have eleven days until I leave Israel and I have a girl who I haven’t talked to in a week, a girl who I believe I may have something special with. It’s difficult to say, but it’s what I believe. I believe that the connection I feel when I’m with her and even when I’m not is not typical. That is to say it’s unique, special and I’m leaving. I’ve thought about it from every angle, picked it apart, held it up and still I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to admit that I feel this way. I’m usually so sure of my emotions; I usually trust my instincts, my intuition. And now I’m not so sure what if I’m wrong? What if given my statement above that I feel like I’ve resolved most of what I set out to do here, I just don’t have anything else to occupy my considerable brain power. What if my memory is faulty, what if, what if? That perhaps is the worst part for me, so many what ifs the biggest one being of course what if I put myself out there and there is nothing there what if I’m wrong? I think I’ll just have to deal with those what ifs I don’t know what else there is to do. After all what if I ignore those feelings? What if my what ifs, aren’t what ifs at all. What if my feelings are right? That what if might just be the scariest what if of all.

Tisha B'Av

Tisha B'Av is here and I'm hungry already. 10:15am is the time and I'm 15 hours into a fast that still has ten hours left to go. I haven't written much this month, its been sort of a crazy time. The last week feels like a month has elapsed and my head is spinning, or maybe thats just the hunger getting to me. On Tisha B'Av Jews all around the world mourn the loss of the second temple. The mourning period started three weeks ago and all culminates today. There are many restrictions as to what we as Jews can do during this time. We do this to create or re-create an energy / feeling of mourning. And its lived up to its label I can't say that its been an easy time. With all holidays we're supposed to actually feel the event itself. According to Judaism time isn't linear its circular, what does that mean? Think of time as a corkscrew, spiraling around so when we hit an day the energy of all of those days in previous years is present . Therefore on Pesach we're not just remembering the exodus from Egypt we're actually reliving it. On Tisha B'Av we're not just remembering the destruction of the temple we're living as if it happened this year. Its a very different way of looking at time then what many of us are taught growing up. Inevitably this way of thinking leads to questions like how the hell can I act as if the temple was just destroyed, more importantly how can I mourn it when I don't even really know what it was? And there are no easy answers for this. Personally I find that during these times I'm given reminders, hints and clues in my life that get me there. This last week I lost two of the most important people to me in Israel, and I've been trying to cope with that. First the person I was closest to in Israel, had a friend die unexpectedly and had to rush home. He was planning on leaving in a month but had to change his ticket and left almost immediately. On moment he was here and the next he was gone. It actually happened so fast that it still doesn't feel real. The second thing that happened was me and the girl I've been seeing realized that although there could be something really special between us that we're currently headed in different directions. I've been in Israel for the last ten months learning at yeshiva and ready to go home. And she just got here a few months ago and isn't ready to think about anything else. I can't say it has been easy for me, I feel a gap where I really believed something special had existed. And I don't know if we made the right decision. Now I don't know what to do, I've never been with someone I thought was worth fighting for, someone who I was willing to change my own plans for. And the more I think about it, the more I don't know what do to. I know I need to go home, I know I need to make money, I know a lot of things but I don't know what to do. I like I said have never fought for a relationship I want to do a lot of things but like I said I don't know what to do. And these two things have really helped me understand what we're doing on Tisha B'Av, they've made me feel a deep sense of loss and they've made me feel it in a way thats hard to verbalize. I know that where once there was a bond, a feeling of connectedness there is now a disconnect. And I think that that's the point of this whole thing. Its why we don't listen to music of have weddings, or sit on comfortable chairs. We're recreating a feeling that isn't comfortable it isn't nice. For many of us our whole lives are spend just trying to be comfortable, just trying to get by with as little involvement as possible. But thats not possible. We must engage we must be willing to put ourselves out there and take risks like being hurt and sad and upset and confused. I mourn on this day the loss of two people who we're very close to me but I'd rather mourn the loss then to be sitting on the sidelines. I accept that the temple isn't here because we as Jews aren't doing enough. Our mission is one of Tikkun Olam, the repairing of this world. We are the sacred guardians of a revelation that has changed the world and it is because of this not in spite of of it that we are still not worthy to experience a world with the temple in it. It is said when a man and a woman enter into a marriage that they create the temple together in the home and life that they build as two halves coming together to make a whole. It is precisely the same way Jews should regard our mission in this world to create the temple by first coming together and then using the energy of that union to facilitate another one, namely as I said before fixing this world. All of our relationships serve that purpose. By coming together by being open with one another and allowing others to share our experience, by not going it alone we can and will rebuild the temple and in the process unite towards common goals and if we're luckily make the world a better place.

Yibaneh beis hamikdash, bimheira b’yameinu.

The Ocean

Certainty is an amazing thing. I really admire people who have it. Case in point a Rabbi, not just any old Rabbi, although I'm not discounting anyone of them. But still there are differences and some of the men I meet at this yeshiva just have 'it' what 'it' is exactly isn't so clear but I'll venture a guess and say its something like this. People who think they have found the purpose of life and who translate that into a coherent world view are transcendent. That is they seem to be above most of the petty, nonsense that most people get caught up in. And I admire that a great deal, I pray for it and search for it and work hard for it. But I think in my moments of clarity I'm not sure I'll ever really have it. And thats a problem because you can never expect to get something that you don't believe exists. I've recently been trying to make some big decisions about the course of my life, an inevitable by product of transition. And its made me evaluate what I've learning here and how much I've grown and I've realized that now I only have more questions that I only have more ideas to bounce around and theories to test. I've realized that this maniac mitzvah is far, far from over. That alone is not a huge shock, after all get busy living or get busy dieing there ain't no third direction. So I know that this search will be ever evolving. And yet there comes a time and a place and I'm rapidly reaching that point where a man, a person has to point themselves in a direction and leave the shore behind so as I drift out to sea I can't help but crane my neck around, looking for the shore trying to see where I've come from. Because if I look ahead I'll realize there is a big vast wide ocean in front of me and I'm not sure where I'm headed and yet even as I look back I realize that the shore holds nothing for me, that all it is is a seemingly safe place. But its narrow to its a place of innocence and ignorance while the ocean is vast and wide and deep. I know even if it scares me I'd rather be sailing into the great unknown then to be tied safely to shore.

Happiness is...

I don’t know if I know how to be happy. Now that’s an interesting phrase isn’t it? I mean after all I live an awesome life. I have been blessed many, many times over and yet sometimes I think about that, I’m not sure I really know how to be happy, usually right around the time I feel comfortable and happy I pick myself up and do something else. Part of that is self imposed part of it is life imposed after all I couldn’t have just decided to stay in college for another year because I was comfortable, the four years was up I had my degree it was time to move on. And yet that feel persists in moments of silence when my mind isn’t focused on anything particular. Do I know how to be happy? Maybe it’s a comfort thing I don’t like being comfortable because I know when I begin to settle in I stop growing and pushing myself, so its not so much that I don’t know how to be happy as its I can’t be comfortable. I need to know I’m being pushed and when I’m not I force myself to find a push. I’m not sure I just know that, I had just gotten comfortable and now I’m not sure about what I’m doing anymore as I alluded to in the post below. Who knows, it’s just a thought I had. Maybe I’m totally wrong maybe I’m just being ridiculous. Maybe I just don't know how to be comfortable which is a good thing. But I don’t think I am I think in many ways I’m still earning how to be happy and how most importantly to let myself be happy and to stop worrying so much about everything. I know that I’ve made great steps and I will continue to do so and I am on the right path. It’s a good feeling knowing I’m on the right path, even if I have trouble seeing around the bend…

Spinning

It's amazing, life that is is for lack of a better word amazing. I was reflecting this morning on how much life can change in a split second. How one moment you can think your life is going one way and the next you feel as though you've been hit by a Mack truck going seventy miles an hour in the opposite direction by the time you stop spinning(we're going by cartoon logic / physics here, not real life) you don't know what way your going or if your even headed remotely in the same direction anymore. And you know what? Thats just how life is, and I'm working very hard at just accepting the fact that I am not in control of my life. That at times no matter what my decisions and feelings circumstances will happen, and I'll be left spinning and hopefully I'll know which way I came from when its all over. So what brings on this thought you the reader might ask? It all goes back to honesty. And by that I mean the post I wrote entitled Honesty. That was written because I met a girl, cue the White Stripes "Fell in love with a girl, fell in love once and I'm lost completely now... baah dadada... " yep that right I met a girl. An amazing girl and now I'm utterly confused about what I should be doing when I get home. I've talked with friends, family and Rabbi's alike. All have their own twist and take on the matter, all have their own agenda regarding the matter. And in a way it makes me angry I don't feel as though something this important should should have an agenda attached to it. And yet I know I can't stop that people have their own ideas about what life is and can be and those people impose all those ideas on to me and my situation. So yea I'm a little bit angry, but I think thats just me trying to replace the scared/ excited feelings that have otherwise dominated my mind for the last week or so. Because its now August first, I leave in twenty five days and I'm not sure what to do. If things continue to go well with this girl and then I just up and leave where will that leave us? I'm not sure and thats the problem. I like to be comfortable, I like to know whats going on with things in my life, I prefer not to leave things up to chance and here I feel like theres so much unknown. So many what if this and what if that and what if that other thing?!?! Its enough as I said before to make your head spin. Now I find myself having more difficulty planning anything past the next day. It all just keeps changing so quickly on me. And I don't know what to do some moments. Most of the time this has been making me happy. Happy and scared and excited! Its so wonderful building a connection with another person and trying to figure out if your lives are headed in the same direction, and if you'd be okay with staring across a table at that person for the rest of your life. Its a crazy thing to contemplate but thats where I am right now. I'm no longer a little kid, I'm trying to figure out what makes sense down the road not just here and now. And what can I say? My head is spinning, but at least theres a smile on my face :) Shalom Alechem and a good Shabbat to you all.

Guttenwisdom

-“It must be divinely guided, the search for the right mate, the right partner, or not to have the right partner. It must be divinely guided, because it’s just — how on earth do you do it? You decide to go some place, and this girl that you’ve never met before decides to go some place, and you meet — there must be some spirituality to it.” - The Wisdom of Steve Guttenburg

Honesty

Just a few days ago I thought I might break my blogging record for a month, but then life happened and I hit a wall. Not really a wall so much as I am now dealing with issues that I don't feel entirely comfortable writing on such a public forum. This has been a weird experience for to date I've left very little pardon the expression sacred. I've written with passion and anger, love and fear, and its been a very liberating experience for me. I've talked about this with many close friends and family members. I'm an extremely private person and to have taken the time to write what I have experienced as honestly as I've been able to is a difficult thing for me. It's simply not my nature to be so open. But its been a wonderful experience for me as I said before, I've had a chance to throw caution to the wind and not worry about that others will think when they read this blog. But now I'm feeling closed again, which is not to say I haven't been talking to my trusted friends and family about my life. Because I have, in fact I've been talking so much I think many of them just want to tell me to stick a sock in it. To chill out and just ride the wave. But alas it is simply not my nature though I do my best to fight it. I am a compulsive analyzer. I can not leave well enough alone I simply must look at ever situation in my life from every conceivable angle, multiple times. And so thats what I've been doing talking and not writing, not sharing because there are incredible things happening in my life, things that I don't entirely understand things that make me nervious and happy all at the same time. And I'm so excited I hardly know what to do with myself. Does any of this make sense? I hope it does it just something I've struggled with since I started the adventure of writing this blog, and its a topic I have yet to explore. I thought it was time. Shalom from Eretz Israel.