Over and Done

Dr. Panken,

I am writing to let you know that I do not intend to return to HUC in the Fall. I appreciate your patience during my whole process this year. My wishes to you and your family for a great Yom Tov and a relaxing summer.

Chodesh Tov,
Stuart Siegel

I was high and then I

Read a newspaper article and used the restroom and maybe now the espresso buzz has died down, but nonetheless, I will try to recapture my fanatical thoughts upon returning to the trailer park after a day in town...

We left Bat Ayin this morning at 4:15am to drive to the Kotel (the Western Wall) to have sunrise prayer in honor of Yom Yerushalayim-- Jerusalem Day! Then bagels and Torah in the Old City with most of the Yeshiva gang and assorted friends.

Jerusalem! It's dense. Dense with people, dense with holiness, dense with hope, dreams, tears, every stone is cemented to its fellow with the yearnings of the millennia and their concomitant triumphs, disappointments and failures.

Jerusalem is dense with happening, with "coincidence" with encounter. The molecules jump and spin and run and flail and rub and rub and rub together and the whole City bursts over and over again into a Holy Flame of interaction, interconnectedness, blaring interference of life... there is no escape from Jerusalem, especially when you are IN Jerusalem.

Sometimes it burns, sometimes it warms the heart, sometimes it cooks up a feisty stew (ahem). In any manifestation, underneath the grime of catshit, axle grease, stale bread, blood, urine, sloshed-out mikveh water and those ubiquitous tears-- underneath it all, the Heart of Jerusalem beats with pure love. Love? For you, sister. For you, brother. Love from the Lev of Yerushalayim, City of Gold.

Shabbat Shalom!

Precision Operation Averts International Crisis

I got my SIM card replaced today. The SIM card, for those still using archaic technology, is the soul of the cell phone-- it contains the identity that links the phone to your phone number. So you can stick the card into any phone and that phone instantly becomes YOUR phone. Cool. It took me about 10 minutes at the Orange office in Geulah, one of the Haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem. A very quick and easy task.

Bottom line-- you can call me now. I don't have a phone yet, but the replacement of the SIM card means that my voicemail is operative again.

I know it was a difficult 2 days for all of you, who have no doubt been frantically calling me to chat, share, invite, ask, beseech and profess. All is back in order now, and we are together again, thank God.

Cut Off

Here's me looking smooth and "on it," lest we forget. And here is Jason and Sarah's dog-creature.

I lost my phone. In a cab yesterday. Or on the street. After I waited half an hour for a bus that was not running that time of night. The cab cost me $8 that I shouldn't be spending because I am about to enter into the Poor Yeshiva Man era.

Anyway, if you need me, email.

If you need me urgently, call my trailer-mate, David Ivan Fuchs, at 054-819-5111.

And if you love me, leave a friggin' comment. It costs you nothing, and does immense good to this tormented heart. Just think how much love and frickin' joy and light I've given YOU, ya know?

More Rotterdam

This slow hillbilly internet signal doesn't encourage ample blogging. Hope no one is too traumatized.....

There was a better spot, near Station Centraal, with hundreds and hundreds of bikes. In any case, the Dutch ride. Everyone. In suits, dresses, with kids, in ones and twos... Every street has a red bike lane as well as a sidewalk. And it seems that bikes take priority over pedestrians, because they just don't stop when you're standing in the crosswalk.

Bike pics dedicated to Lisa Whiteman (and Dr. B_., who has a pic of himself riding a bike, like Jesus, on an Amsterdam canal).

This tomato reminded me of Jason Rogers for some reason. Either because he eats with gusto, or just because we like to eat on the street together. Or because he's also red and good for the prostate.


People who board the #23 train downtown are often never seen again. I wound up on the train to Profane by accident. I think I was holding the map upside-down.

Dammed if I do

It'll be Rotterdam posts for a while, gang, even though I fly back tomorrow night. I've got some fun(ish) photos for you all, once I get back to the Land. Anyway, the Dutch appear to pleasant thus far. They all speak lovely English, the streets are clean, bicycles everywhere, and lots of gorgeous blondes with blue eyes. Which means I fit in perfectly (although in Israel people seem to suggest that I am a Gingy- a redhead (?!)).

This main street in town, across from the Stadhuis (city hall) has several branches of the offical tourist info center/souvenir store. And there is a free, no-time-limit internet connection here. AND- miracle of miracles!- a pygmy gentleman from Surinam crouches in front of the stool while you surf, and massages your feet with a proprietary Tulip Oil/Edam cheese lotion.

Sublime!!

Linguistic note-- Dutch, more than any other language I have heard on this globe, has a strikingly similar cadence to English. I frequently think I am hearing English, but then hone in on the conversation and realize it is Dutch. In structure, Dutch is very much like German, and, of course, much of English comes from German, but German does not sound like English at all.

(Or are German and English both from Dutch! Akum's Razor... Anyway, it all comes from Hebrew, which comes from the Nephilim, who come from space, so what's the difference? A fish in the ear sorts it all out.)

I found this nice piece from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, on a Talmud lesson e-mail from Yeshivat HarEzion. More evidence of the possibility and beauty of the Torah life partaking in the broader treasures of human culture. This was in reference to honoring the greatness of our forebears (in this case the Rabbis of the Rabbinic period -- 2000 years ago), without denigrating our own potential for and obligation to ample aspirations:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Comment gently, folks-- we all know about the temptations of these Netherlands, and I assure that I am behaving at at least 83%, but never forget that wanderingstu.com is a family site, the spiritual-emotional nexus of much of the world's populace.

Thanks.

Love goes away

I feel silly sometimes when I include the death of Mazzy with the list of shitty stuff that happened over 2 years in New York-- my father's death, my breakup with Olga (and losing Elijah therein) and the death of my Grandmother, Mama Bea. But then I see this picture, recently posted on Troy's photo site (but taken long ago, 8 years before I met either of them), and I remember what good friends we were. How she would wiggle her butt when she saw me, how she knew where my house was, how much fun our trip to Pennsylvania for Tom and Pam's wedding was.

Mazzy was one of the best dogs in the world, and one of my best friends ever. I love her and miss her and won't forget her.

I wish that Mr. Mann and Maxine Mandelbaum could have met her.

Was he right?

Do you get what you need?

There's more to be said on this, but it's late, and I have a 6:15 meeting with Rav Natan to learn tomorrow. So this is a teaser.