Don't call the Paramedics yet

My mood is slightly improved. I think it all sucks, but my mood is slightly improved. I made some nice beans today, and am about to watch the 4th Harry Potter movie (and finish the 5th book).

AND- I found God, fell in love and lost 20 pounds.

ha.

Three stages of Yom Kippur

1) Last night I went to davvening ("services"), prayed heartily, and stayed over an hour afterwards to chat with a friend and learn some stuff about the Yom Kippur ritual in the Temple back in the olden days.

2) This morning I was in the Beit Midrash at 6:30am for the beginning of davvening, and did all the introductory stuff. Somewhere early in the official service, I began to get frustrated, feel distanced from all the hundreds of pages of words laid out before me. This feeling was exacerbated by some comment I read in the prayer book about righteous people knowing they have the truth, some overbearing notion that being aligned with God's Will brings with it an acceptable cockiness towards those who don't (heaven forfend).

I began pacing in and out of the room, spending time in a little side room that is being used as a storage closet a few families, and reading a book called Seeing God, hoping to rediscover an understanding of Deity that isn't focused on sneering at other people, obeying commands or obsequiously praising without end. I also read a bit in Kosher Sex.

I made sure to take care of all my gabbai duties, like assigning people to open the ark at specific moments, and running the Torah service section, calling people up for honors and giving them blessings. That's the core of my job, and because I have that role, I had to be in the vicinity of the prayers, although I felt more and more distant from them as the hours rolled by.

3) At around 1:30, having dispensed of all my clerical obligations, I abandoned the davvening for good. I had been there for 7 hours, and was not getting anywhere. I spent the rest of the time (the past 5 hours) in my bed, alternatively reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and sleeping. It has now passed the 12-hour mark, and they are just getting to the end of the day's prayers down there. Not bad, considering the place has a record of sometimes going on until after 9pm

_____________

This was definitely one of the lamest Yom Kippur experiences I've had. This used to be one of my favorite days of the year, even way back, before I had any real connection with Judaism. In 1996, quite memorably, Craig and I fasted while camping in the Badlands on Yom Kippur.

Today, I hardly felt connected with any of the elements of the day- repentance, purification, holiness, unity of the People, or spiritual/emotional realignment. I have been cultivating mundane fantasies of being a substitute teacher in Broward County. I have three weeks of wide-open vacation in front of me, and no idea what I should do.

Happy New Year.

Someone tell Lady Luck that I'm stuck here-

I've been avoiding returning to the Beit Midrash (the Study Hall) to resume my learning. There is only tomorrow left before Yom Kippur, and a three week break. At this moment, I am in the midst of another notorious fit of indolence, confusion and apathy, and have no desire to go learn Torah.

But it's not really apathy. I still care about the stuff I cared about when I was 12. When I went to eat lunch, my friend David started singing "Somewhere That's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors. I promptly and enthusiastically joined in. I came back to my room and started looking for Horror clips on YouTube. After watching a few, out of order, and went back and watched the clip of "Skid Row." The ghetto striving and the deep, deep emotion of the voices, especially the black singers, brought me to tears.

You tell me what that means..

I'm back, and yet...

I got back from Uman, Ukraine this morning about 11 hours ago, after 17 hours of driving, 14 hours of training, 12 hours of Budapesting and 5 hours of planing. I've been in bed ever since. But not sleeping as much as I would like.

If you want to kinda see what the scene is at the grave of Rebbe Nachman, here's a few YouTube videos from previous years. I don't know that any of them really capture the energy. Of course 2 days of Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat don't get filmed. I am surprised that this year's footage hasn't made it online yet. Give it a few days..

• check out the chubby kid dancing in the middle of this one
• a longer video, with Hebrew narration
• here's hundreds of people praying near the gravesite before Rosh Hashanah
• some dancing in the streets after the holiday

eventually i will get some photos of our trip from Rav Natan's sons.

After 10 days in Eastern Europe, I am, once again, all confused about, well, everything. I dunno what the heck is going on, or what I should be doing or where to go to investigate the millions of questions that spin through my mind all the time. I feel shattered. I spent about 3 hours in the Turkish baths in Budapest, the same place I went with Craig in '95. I just lay there, soaking in the water, feeling totally free, feeling that... that thing that comes up when I travel, that kernel of life that I can just about grasp. And then-

Yom Kippur is in three days. We'll see how that irons things out a bit...

Stu got the Look

Before and After


Why?
I was pulling out every damn hair obsessively, staring at it, admiring the texture, analyzing the split ends. Once I got started, usually towards the late afternoon, I couldn't stop. I had to shave it. I couldn't bear the added stress of such an annoying fetish.

And of course, here's my South Park character from Facebook:

Moving towards some sort of truth telling

I've been wanting to make this space a confessional for so so so so so long... but, like I said, the timing just ain't right.

I dunno.
Here's a few facts:

- I am going to the Ukraine for Rosh Hashana, to the grave of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Me and 25,000 other dudes

- When I arrived in Israel 2 weeks ago, I began eating vegetarian again. It's the first time since my brief revolt against all forms of human violence that began September 11, 2001, and lasted about a month.

- I eat too much. Vegetarian or not.

- I feel lonely as hell. A lot.

- I am surrounded by good folks, who are my friends, and I have a mentor who believes in me, no matter how bitchy and lame and despairing I get.

- The Hebrew word for vegetarian is tzimchoni which, literally, is more like "plantetarian."

- I have some bad habits that I am trying to break.

- I haven't gotten any damn mail from anyone.

- I am damn cute.





[i had posted a few pictures up here, but they seem to have vanished]