Y-Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsBd52_6iB0

Who Knows Ten?

Ten years ago this Pesach - the first time I'm away from home for Pesach. In school. A cute red-head who has an Israeli flag on her ceiling arranges places for the two of us for seder at the Hillel house. She bails out; I wander in to the Chabad house, thinking it must be the right place - cuz' that's where the Jews are at. As we get up to wash our hands, one of the fellows in black asks my name and on the spot tells me that my name has numerical value 32, and there are 32 paths of wisdom in Jewish mysticism.

Jewish Mysticism?

Next semester I'm in a course titled 'Jewish Mysticism.' Fear and trembling in the student union. Hooked in by a midrash. Learning about the Chassidei Ashkenaz in the tender pre-dawn hours of morning and putting away my cigarettes, for good.

Nine years ago Pesach is the last time I made seder at my parent's house.

Eight years ago Pesach - having given up a host of other vices, cleaning for Pesach, clean out the treif along with chametz.

Seven years ago Pesach - in a kosher apartment. Cleaning for Pesach almost cleans me out - exhausted. Make seder for my family (and friends).

Six years ago, before Pesach - in the holy land. I'm asking whether I should be keeping one day or two. "You have to make the decision - where are you? Are you a Ben Eretz Yisrael, or a Ben Hu"L?" I wrestle. I visit Florida. It's clear. I keep one day.

Five years ago Pesach - still in Yeshiva.

Four years ago Pesach - I'm in Israel, working for a living, staying in Israel in spite of it all. I hear a bomb explode on the second day.

Three years ago Pesach - I'm in my own apartment. The holy rolling MCA is there. Friends crash out on the couches. We pray sunrise at the Kotel.

Two years ago Pesach - in my apartment in Israel. My parents come to stay. We clean, make Pesach together, eat off of plastic plates.

One year ago Pesach - we drink the fifth cup.

And this year? And this year?

May it be a redemption for us all.

What is your Passion?

When my father counsels people about their career choices, he asks them, "What's your Passion?"

It's a deep, deep question.

I'm busy wrestling with the distinct feeling that I'm compromising on my life. That I am not shooting for the great, but settling for what is merely good. The ironic, and terrible, part of it all is - I have no idea what the great is. I don't really know what I want to do.

So I'm chewing on this. What is my passion? How is it that a person can not even know what their passion is, what it is they care about, enjoy? But I'll give myself a little bit of forebearence as I admit that I really don't know.

I'm praying that God breathes some life and vision into this soul, and puts some real flesh on these dry bones.

Hey now Momma, I got no idea, but that won't stop from rollin' along and prayin' for light and life and lessons in love, love and dancing and drumming on the walls of the heart, land, country! God!


So what is your passion?

Passing Over

Passover cometh, what with all of us in need of freedom - freedom of soul, freedom of body - freedom from thinking that we are already free.

The Ba'al Shem Tov talks about darkness within darkness, where it's so dark, you don't even know it's dark - you think it's broad daylight.

Awareness that we get trapped by our situations, our preconceptions, our very framework of understanding - this awareness arouses the taste for freedom, the desire for freedom.

It's all about wanting it.

If you don't want it, you can at least WANT to want it, and if that fails (R' Simcha Bunem tells us) you can WANT to WANT to want it.

May we all be blessed to come on out of slavery - to WANT freedom - to hang on to the life line that God throws us this month and get pulled on out of all of our traps and masters - physical, mental and emotional.

May it be his will...

Walking with the Maggid

A childhood acquaintance of Rav Dov Ber, the Great Maggid of Mezeritch, once approached him with a question.

"Dov Ber", he began, with no honorific, "why do you daven for so long? I mean, you take forever to daven. I also daven with the mystical intentions of the Arizal. Does it take me that long to daven? No. You daven forever! What's going on?"

The Maggid responded, "You're a businessman, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And you go to the yearly fair in Leipzig, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So let me tell you what to do. This year, when the time for the fair comes, close your eyes, picture yourself loading up the wagon, picture yourself rolling along the roads, coming into the fair, selling what you need to sell and buying what you need to buy, and then picture yourself going home."

"What, are you crazy? I need the merchandise!"

"Ahhh", says the Maggid, "So do I...I need the merchandise."



I've been walking with that story for the past few weeks.

It can be easy for me to let the lessons I learn stay in my head, but never really integrate them. The Maggid says it flat out - your lip service is cute. Are you getting the merchandise?

I declare at least three times a day "God is One!", but do I act like God is one? Do I really believe it? When something doesn't fit my little world, do I get my fool self out of the way and make space for God's reality? Do I have space for God in my life, or do I just have space for the little plastic god that I've carved out for myself, that fits so neatly into its little plastic place?

May we all be blessed to learn the holy teachings with our whole beings, not just with our heads. May we be blessed to walk with the teachings, integrating them into our lives, and may our insides and our outsides be unified.

A Little Bit about Dreams

Here we are, many days since last post. My little cluster of blog brothers have been slowing down lately. Seasonal affective disorder? Better things to do? Dunno.

I've been happily busy. Working, learning, trying to organize a non-profit, davening to dream and dance and hope and love and give and grow, reading about Benjamin Franklin in the bathroom (that's where I read about him, not the topic I read about.)

But what, you may ask, is really on your mind? Well, I'll tell ya'. I'm thinking about how under God's blue sky I'm going to find my wife. What is it that I have to fix or do or understand or pray for or hope for?

I'm thinking about how the whole process of dating has completely changed the way I view relationships, women, the world, and myself.

I'm thinking about how I've always thought myself to be an intellectual person, and now I'm realizing I can be quite emotional, and then I'm remembering how I used to write love poems before the scary social realities of adolescence squashed all of that out of me, and now it's coming back to blossom.

I'm thinking about those scary social realities, and how they taught me about cruelty, and how only now am I realizing that women can be caring and open and honest and loving and playful and all that, and that the cruelty I met was the cruelty of adolescent girls and not of women (of the cruelty of women, let us not speak.)

I'm thinking of hope - of dreams - of connecting with potential realities and talking to God about it and having God smile and nod and get a little bit of joy every time there's a little bit more light and sweetness in your dreams for the future.

Dream on.

I'm so thankful for this progress and process. I can see how I am the person that I am, and have the dreams and depth and potential for love that I do, because of all this effort. Don't let me get away without admitting that I have more work to do - in being present, in caring, in sacrificing, and in ways I've yet to concieve.

But let me tell you the truth - I'm scared that it's just going to shlep on forever. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be cooking for myself for the rest of my life (I'd rather cook for someone else.) I want to be there for somebody. I want someone who cares about me. I want to raise a whole mess of kids.

So this is clarifying my dreams.

Good deal.

Are they clear enough yet?

God?

Are they clear enough?

118 in an 80

...but the cop was nice enough to only ticket me for 113 in an 80 (that's kilometers per hour, not miles.)

Rolled all around this holy land the past few days.
First, down from Jerusalem through the desert to views of the dead sea, left at Jericho and up the Jordan Valley (hitting top speeds above what I was ticketed for, to be sure.) Got turned around in Tiberias, ended up westing, then northing up to Meron. Picked up a couple bearded hitchhikers on the way up. Prayed at the grave of R. Shimon Bar Yohai, stopped at the dried fruit store, and dipped across the valley for Shabbos in
Tzfat -
which is a
holy
windy
spa
for the
soul.

Caught up with my two hitchhikers on the way back home. I've got a bug in my head that I want to see the stars, so we take the longer route back home through the desert. Elisha's in front and Shneur's in back. Somewhere around Beit Sha'an, Elisha and I figure out that we were in Mehzbehz and Uman together (note the mention of Israeli Hippy Chassidim.)

Opposite Jericho, we turn off and drive into the wild, looking for stars, but there's still too much light pollution, and all I get is a
hey
now
slow
down
and
into
the
desert
...
again
...

which is well worth the price of admission.

Miles Davis rolls us back up to Jerusalem, and here I am standing and typing, not yet unpacked, looking forward to a rest...