The man comes around

I did the sweetest, most fantabulous, perfect and long-awaiting thing this evening. And I also mopped the ad-hoc synagogue, and ate some sour soup with dumplings.

As I was walking home from this amazing thing, I was doing my hitbodedut, which means I was talking to the Master of the Universe in an out-loud kind of voice, in the style of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. At one point, I was listing the various responses one might have to a past that is painful, traumatic, tormented, disappointing, or just kinda "eh." I said, "Well, you could be miserable, or you could just give up on life and totally despair-" And just as that thought came out of my mouth, I walked past a dirty car with a dirty bumper sticker on it that I instantly recognized by its ornate lettering----

"Ain shum ya'ush ba'Olam"
which obviously translates to "There is no despair in the world,"

A prerogative for joy, the words of (guess who?) Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.

That Rebbe Nachman, I gotta tell you......

um, yes, okay, here i am and here's what's happening

Blech-- second bad stomach adventure this month---- been running around, running, cleaning, praying, studying, eating, singing, praying and running--- sorry for the lack of updates. A few bullet points:

-- Dr. B_. (Craig) arrived safely and with many hugs at the end of this last Shabbat. We sat in the park the other night, and drank tea yesterday. Tomorrow I am going to Beer Sheva to hear him address the medical students. Thursday night we are camping in the deserrt, then Shabbat with Keren's parents and her Saba (gran'pappy)

-- Lots of amazing people here in the neighborhood. Amazing what a deep and loving community this is. Hope you all can come and see and play.

-- For those of you "down" with the Jewish blog scene (heaven forfend), hand Shabbat with Mobius (Dan) the Orthodox Anarchist-- more famous than ChazarMaveth, and almost as cuddly....

-- That's it. Gotta run. Rosh Hashanah is very soon-- Happy New Year, much health, joy and love for all. Sorry about the short blandness of it all. Just imagine for a moment all the amazing adventures wanderingstu must be having. Ready, set, go.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Better? Great.

Hugs for all.....

You want the truth??? Do ya?? Yeah, I killed it.

This is a photo of the bird I shot. The pheasant I shot in Indiana, Pennsylvania, last winter. The pheasant I shot with a rifle on a chilly Shabbat morning before teaching my Religious school classes in Indiana, Pennsylvania, last winter. The pheasant I shot and then ate, way back then, when we were free and naive.

But, alas, now that we have begun to fully accept the Ol Malchut Shamayim (Oil Malchus Shomoyim- Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven), and the (we hope) profundity that comes with that much less freedom, we feel a tinge of guilt for having, in the role of Rabbi of Indiana, Pennsylvania, hunted on Shabbos and eaten the unkosher carcass.

A tinge, as noted. A tinge.

And that sucker wasn't even a fair kill anyhow, because, while the other pheasants flew away in terror, making the act of destruction an act of skill, this one just sat in a tree, right above my head. Just sat, and waited to meet its Maker.

Meanwhile, the yoked we is now wrestling with how to attend a wedding celebration in Yaffo (on the beach near Tel Aviv) that takes place on EREV SHABBOS---- that's why I love my secular Israeli friends.

(For those of you wondering if I have become a religious nut-- one glimpse of my fantastic shirtless Michael Jackson dance performance last night will assure you that nothing has changed here at wanderingstu.com.)

Tomorrow night I am going on a midnite hike in the desert by the Dead Sea-- full moon! Then I have my longest day of the week on Tuesday-- classes from 8:30 am - 4:15 pm with NO LUNCH BREAK. Then 11 hours later they expect us to be awake to go on a little field trip to a Sefardi synagogue to hear Selichot (penitential prayers done in the month before Rosh Hashanah). Then the Shabbat Wedding Party three nights later, and then Dr. Craig B_. (see earlier post) arrives in the Holy Land.

What a life! Just don't assume I'm having FUN.

Kisses to all.

The Truth Revealed-- I shoulda gotten an MBA

From the glorious minds at the Onion, the truth about the elusive search for meaning.

Take care, enjoy and be well.

back to the blog

But not to the beach-- i haven't been to the beach at all since i came here... UGH!!

So I had an interaction with a shrimp and a cute waitress at the "eem-ka" (Josh Lobel / J-Lo told me that that's how the Israeli's day "YMCA") in Jerusalem over a week ago. The Y here is not a place for boys in leather to lather each other down and eat hot stew, but rather a fancy hotel and utterly not kosher restaurant.

I didn't mean to say "eat hot stew" up there. I mean I did, but the spelling stands.

It was the day that the Kerber family arrived (Hope, Justin, Small-E, Daisy), and things were not in good shape due to a filthy apartment with an icky couch, so me and Howie G and Jen-O and J-Lo and Liz-Lo were trying to curb the Kerber's ire with some victuals and conversation. So there I am, fresh from the West Bank, sitting at a restaurant in Jerusalem, and i see meat on the menu, and I see cheese on the menu, and i think, "how odd, that isn't proper in a nice israeli restaurant." And then i see SHRIMP on the menu, and I am utterly conflaburgasted by the fact that I was in an unkosher restaurant in Israel. I mean, I once ate in a not-kosher felafel place in Hadera years ago, but still a felafel place, nu? This was my first encounter with the mysterious (and seemingly not-so-elusive) DAVKA GLATT TREYF offerings of the Holy Land. (translation-- totally shrimp, yo).

And i was wearing tzitzit and a kippah, and the waitress was adorable, and i was giddy with the juxtapose-- i mean, six weeks (approx.) Kosher and Shomer Shabbat, and it's like I had forgotten all my porky friends at New York's finest chinese dives.... It was so nutty, and wacky, and, well, shrimpy-----------------I ordered it.

Then washed hands (netillat yadayim) and made appropriate blessings (hamotzi lechem) and ate. And afterwards blessed again (for the good land that He has given us).

That night, or maybe the next, middle of the night, I had a scare that the old "on-the-bathroom-floor-in-utter-internal-distress-begging-God-to-stop-the-pain" adventure was back (see the wanderingstu archives from 1987, 1992 and 2001 for more on Divine Wrath on the bathroom floor). I hung out on the can, then did a little weeping and crying to God, and the pain never got too too bad, but my stomach was a wreck for 2 days. By Friday night it had morphed into the snotty cold, the end of which I am only now, a week later, seeing. (don't end a sentence with a preposition)

It might be fair to mention that the shrimp lunch was followed by a barbecue at my house for a Sheva Brachot (7 days of partying after a Jewish wedding), and my roommate Yaakov, Der Grillmeister, left his duties briefly, and some cat let me eat an undercooked piece of chicken. That trickster God-- dishing out punishment, then giving hard science to defend alternate explanations of reality that aren't as dramatic or sexy.

So I been sick, and spent last Shabbat in utter blech (except for my lovely Shabbat dinner with Julie Weill and the delicious and tiny Ruthie), and had by then sunk into a yicky lonely funk ("crushing depression" is too harsh a word for a specific portion of wanderingstu.com's more delicate readership), which a week of pretty good classes (you can't get overexcited and decide on the semester based on the first week alone), and some pleasant social interactions have done pretty well to alleviate for the moment.

So that's where the blog was and here's where we are now.

Next time I will try to tell you about Ron Golan the cycling scribe, and the mad junkie who got stabbed after we had felafel.

Shabbat Shalom.

"How is your spiritual life?"

A good friend asked me this question in a recent email. I reckon that the question and its response are relevant to our mission here on wanderingstu.com, so i am presenting some of my answer here for all of you all. It's a bit raw, but it's my thoughts, so hey. Hope all is well. Shabbat Shalom:


so i see these guys who are so friggin on fire with God, all whirling around and sighing and psshhh-ing and moaning---

but that ain't me (usually)-- i've been trying to pray 3 times a day, use the liturgy, and also talk to God in my own words in a form of intimate meditative prayer used by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.

some days are good and others aren't. also been reading these little booklets based on Rebbe Nachman's teachings that promote joy and no despair-

so i sometimes see my thoughts turning in the right direction rather than the wrong, and perhaps these things are helping----

but i feel soulless (as always) without love and without some sort of creative outlet. i live with an accomplished musician- in fact most, of the guys in this Religious-Americans-turned-Israeli crowd with which i hang seem to be musicians. and that gives my spirit a friggen slap in the head, for not practicing, for not taking steps to better myself.

i think the most powerful spiritual idea (for me at least) is humility, real crushing of the ego-- it might help me to have a true love and to play sizzling guitar (or at least to be able to sing some plaintive neil young tunes), but really, the way to be satisfied is to want Nothing. especially since i ain't no impoverished asian monk with a terrible skin condition,,, shit! i have 2 platinum credit cards....

so if i can subdue the ego, that wants to be loved, wants to feel important, skilled, etc, then the world, rather than an endless challenge and frustration, becomes a source of ample blessings and adventures, which is how most people see my life from the outside anyhow.

So i have been trying to cultivate that as well.

But then the next minute, some beautiful woman walks by, or you see some family who "have it all" and you start wanting wanting wanting again..............

So then you breathe again, slowly, deeply, think of that monk with the skin condition, lissen to some more Wilco and Billy Bragg, and try to subdue it all for another hour....