The State of the Written Word in Crown Heights

Nothing much of great import to report, friends, besides for the fact that on Tuesday night, after a direct wall-to-wall facebook invite, I decided to attend one of the writing meetings (most likely a spin-off of the poetry meetings) orchestrated by the honourable Mr. Baruch Tauber. I had been feeling my creativity wane anyway so I felt it would be good for me. And it was. Tauber had an image prepared for us which we were to see, and subsequently formulate a story from. In this case it was a girl and a man on a highway fixing a car. Based on that I started writing a short story, since I wasn't sure what protocol called for (it turned out vignettes were more appropriate), and based as well on the fact that, as I've mentioned here before, I'm trying to work on my narrative writing. It was about a girl with divorced parents who was having a frictional relationship with her father who had custody of her on Sundays only. Long story short, my idea was to have them reconcile as a result of a   non-injurious car accident (perhaps I'll post it here later). Though I admitted that was quite a dull scenario, and quite honestly not one I'm interested in myself, but time was of the essence.

Also in attendance from the world of Chabad blogs was Feivel ben Mishael, and I got a chance to chat with him a little afterwards. One thing that stands out in my mind from my conversation with him was the strange reason he admired the no comments policy of Yossi's blog. He said that he's concerned that other bloggers will argue with him and espouse ideas that are seditious to Chabad on his blog. I was flabbergasted to hear of such a withholding of the First Amendment from a compatriot. Though of course his ideas were sound based on Chabad ideology, but I shiver to think how they interact with those of other faiths if they cannot even have a dialog with those of their own faith...

Feivel also mentioned how he's blogging less these days, much like me. And much like me, not because he's lacking ideas, but because the transferral of those ideas from electrons in the brain to pixels on a screen often seems daunting. Perhaps I am just projecting my own issues upon others, but I think there's less blogging going on in general at the moment, and in the Chabad community in particular. It can't just be me, since Sara Bonne seems to be struggling with quite the same issue.

Another Chabad-blogger-related-issue that's crossed my mind is that the poetry slam itself seems not to be happening much recently. I think it may have to do with the fact that it's biggest protagonists were the Kings and the [TRSers], who are now living more sedentary lives, and have less of a need for poetry slams. Oh well, lets hope them well and hope the occasional slam returns in the autumn.

אל תרבה שיחה

You know friends, there's something about me that's been on my mind recently, having to do with my verbal interactions with my peers and acquaintances. It seems that I'm rarely if ever the one to end any conversation. It's like I don't "believe" in ending conversations. Which is strange because it's diametrically opposed to my verbal nature as a child. Growing up, I would never exchange a word with someone I wasn't familiar with, and wouldn't say much to friends either. I was quite the nonverbal character. Since my early adulthood though I've been shocked at times to reveal the loquacious version of my personality. Studying the phenomenon as a whole though, I'm coming to think they're not only related, but a direct cause and effect. It's actually because of my quietness that I'm so talkative! Both due to my childhood "תעניות דיבור" and to my extremely limited social interactions as an adult, it seems I've developed a great hunger for that which I've been deprived of so long: speech.

On the other hand though I also have certain ideals at stake when effecting and listening to vocal cord movements. Firstly, I am a great admirer of the art of speech, and feel that it's all but been lost since a century ago, mostly as a result of modern communicative technology. My ideal is people who can continue a single conversation for days, and not even be strayed by a tangent. To me it's representative of mental wealth. Secondly, in regards to listening to others, I refuse to "space out" or stop a conversation abruptly because I find the subject matter uninteresting, and I base my behaviour on my own negative experience: I've been in many environments where my voice was not heard, since those I was speaking to either did not share my interests, or were objectively extremely dull and uninteresting people. Therefore I always make a point to listen.

Decay

I generally try to veer away from speaking about myself on this blog, since, quite simply, my existence is pointless and uneventful (at the moment), but there are a few recent changes in me that I wished to take note of here.

First off, one new phenomenon of concern to me is that I seem to have become far more boring than I once was. I used to be more of a waxing wellspring of thoughts and ideas, and now...everything seems a lot more self-evident to me, and better off not said. In fact I have been away from the companionship of friends for so long that I've forgotten what my personality was like. If I do come in contact with friends, it's more of an effort to recreate my old personality than spontaneity. Ah, the curse of age! if one does not ensure that they do not get swollowed up by the mundane...

Not that that's what preventing me from writing here more frequently. I have endless things I wish to write about. The only factor preventing that is lethargy, my great foe.

Another disturbing change in me is that these days I find myself in a constant state of jealousy. Of everyone. I find it particularly disturbing because I, in fact, always had trouble understanding the sin of jealousy. I would always be the one to bless my brother in my heart, and I never even understood what purpose there was in beating yourself up over something someone else has and you don't; it doesn't get you any closer to attaining it. It seemed to me to be bringing grief on oneself for no good reason. Yet now, I am perpetually consumed by it and find it unimaginable not to feel the way I do.

And lastly I'm also questioning my interest in parenting children in the near future. While I do, of course, want to raise up a new generation on the purity of proper idealism and continue my dynasty, on the other hand caring for children seems to be an unspeakably great burden from which one can never escape, and which in effect stops a person from living their own life. Even the near future would seem too early for me to give up my life. Every time I thinking of having children I think of these men I used to see in Bene Brak, bearded, dressed in suits and black hats, sweating and pushing a baby carriage through the sweltering streets of Bene Brak in the summer. What man wishes such a thing upon himself? What man does not wish to take some time to explore the world and its knowledge? And such things cannot be done with a child.

Lomo and Time

[The title, obviously being based on the philosophical work Being and Time, for all you non-Heideggernicks out there]

For various reasons I've recently come to reexamine my relationship with temporal movement and the effect or lack of effect that it has on my existence. I'm sorry to say that my relationship with punctuality hasn't always been the closest, which has actually, strangely enough, made me more punctual at times. For example someone I knew once asked me why I was so 'unusually' punctual. The answer, obviously, was that because I naturally wasn't, I had more of an agenda to prove I was...

In order to discuss this subject though, we should understand that "time" is such a relative word. The passage of time on a stone, for example, has little effect on it's lifestyle. Yet for human beings time is our being, the passage of time over us is more of our life having gone by; the flowing of our blood, the pumping of our hearts. When you "take" someones time therefore, it's not only their time you're taking, but their very life. For what does a life consist of if not years, and what do years consist of if not days, and days consist of hours. So creating a situation in which someone is forced to be idle for one of those hours is undoubtedly snatching away part of their life.

In the slaughterhouse in Wisconsin which had the good fortune of finding me employed therein, we worked on shifts, and since there was little management, ones only hope of being relieved of his shift was the goodwill of his fellow worker to come on time. During my time there I noticed the ways of an old Uzbeki man who was actually our oldest member: despite his age he was always five to fifteen minutes early to his shift, thus affording great relief to the worker of the previous shift, and gaining nothing in return. Personally, at the time his practice didn't sit well with me, seeing as if he would fill my shift early I would be obliged to do the same for him. Yet the truth is that temporal form of giving is in fact the highest form.

Even if you are tardy to a class or meeting or group of any kind where your presence is expected, if you are absent, that loss is felt by the group (hopefully!) and it mars their experience to a small extent, but even the slightest extent should be of concern. It's written that rabbi "Nachman of Bratslav" (founder of the Breslov Chasidut) was very off-put if there were missing faces from his sacred gatherings.

Thus if one does wish to engage in a more scrupulous form of time management one thing he will have to acquire is a foresight of every possible prevention from arriving at his destination at the proper moment.

Do not think, by the way, that these ideas are alien to our religion. Although punctuality was greatly stressed by the proponents of the "Mussar Movement", even authors who preceded that era wrote much about time management (especially in relation to prayer and study), and we see it written in more modern works such as the "עלי שור" (Wolbe) and "אור לציון" (Aba Shaul).

I'm not verbalizing these dictums for didactic reasons, but as a hope that the repeating of these principles will assist myself and others in their fulfillment.


עבד, ס"ט

"Shabbos Brachos Party"

Another thing I wanted to mention recently was that I, for reasons beyond my control, had to sit in for a "Brachos Party" this past Shabbat. Now, I'm the youngest of my clan, and I don't often see children, so seeing a whole array of toddlers and young children in their own environment is, to me, ...similar to the experience of watching a group of guinea pigs interact with each other. Perhaps it says something about my being "too interested" in the opposite sex or gender relations, but one thing that caught my eye the most was some of the interactions between the boys and the girls. The two specimens I studied most closely were a pair of toddlers (a male Uzbek and a blond female with Swiss features) and a pair of children (both Uzbek-American).

The toddlers concerned me since the girl was only a month older than the boy yet she seemed to run circles around him intellectually (unfortunately, probably a sign of what their future statuses will be in relation to one another in society when they become adults). Though all-in-all, they seemed not to harbor any particular disposition towards each other, in fact they seemed to get on quite well. Not half as well, though, as the two Uzbek-American children (male: 6, female: 4). If I didn't know better I would think they were just a happily married, albeit very small, couple. The way their personalities complimented one another was uncanny, and even when one wronged the other to the point of causing tears, they were not able to, or perhaps did not want to, recall each others wrongs later on.

To me what these children seemed to be doing was enforcing a theory I had already had regarding the spousal compatibility of men and women, namely that any two people have the potential to live side by side in relative harmony. The only reason two people would not do so is because they are both concentrating their vision on unimportant and negligible differences between them, yet they overlook the vast amount of things they have in common with one another. And even if you grouped people with nothing in common (say, a Polish man and Ethiopian woman stranded on a desrted island), chances are they both manage to live in harmony and work for one anthers welfare.

'Lomo's Seder

I don't know man, the more I post on this blog the more I feel a need to post...and the less I do the less I feel it's necessary. ...many aspects of peoples behavior, I have always felt, follow that same "keep-on-doing-what-you're-doing" tendency..

Anyway, I (along with my family) "had" Pesach by my brother's house.. ..I would have liked to visit our cousins in Cincinnati for Pesach, though he wanted to stay where he was..which became a source of some discontent..

He asked me to say something of religious significance by the seder. ..a sudden idea came to me: A notion of "commendable rebelliousness" can be repetitively found in the Exodus narrative. I started by mentioning an idea from Aviva Zornberg, who says that the fact that the rasha' proceeds the h'acham in four sons list seems to indicatethat the rasha' is more commendable than the tam and she'eino yodea lish'al since he at least has the spirit of questioning burning within him. In the Midrash we find that Miriam displayed a sense of rebelliousness towards her father when she questioned his decisions concerning national family planning (which resulted in Moshe being born by her own parents). The daughter of the Pharaoh was doing something unorthodox by taking in a strange (Semitic) baby (especially considering the Hyksos issue, if the chronology we have is legitimate). In fact the Midrash says that she had to go out of her way and greatly exert herself to retrieve the child before he drifted away. Moshe obviously displayed a positive rebelliousness by exacting justice on a taskmaster and leaving Egypt (and act which ultimately ended in his being rewarded by the "burning bush" vision). In fact the whole idea of slave workers wreaking havoc and leaving is a rebellious notion.

Yet in other instances we find those who question authority being criticized, for example Korach's complaining that Moshe had an unbalanced level of power, or the Israelites who complained that G-d was not sufficiently providing for his people in the wilderness. And then again, Ber Borochov is known to have said that he finds the source of his whole ideology in the rasha', since he represents honest inquiry and an ability to express ideas imported from the general world, whereas the h'acham represents the passivity and acceptance of the status quo which is responsible for Jews remaining exiled in foreign countries.

I suppose it has something to do with the fact that those whose complaints are frowned upon were lacking self-analysis of their motives, and that had they done so truthfully they would find they were lacking (Luzzatto's Messilat Yesharim speaks about the absurdity of spending time in religious studies that have little bearing on one's own reality, and not spending at least the same amount of time and sober analysis on reflection on one own religious intentions).

..all I managed to accomplish was making him make mock snoring sounds (he doesn't fancy himself the biggest intellectual). All in all I had a nice time though...

BIRTH-DAY: XXV

ה אדר.

Alas! A Quarter Century!

An entire Quarter Century of Shlomo and neither he nor the world around him have changed in any positive way since he was born!

I was not expecting to find myself in this sort of situation at this point in my life.

If I had known that so little would become of myself I would obviously have done something, ...everything quite differently, though it is much too late for that now.

I mean, I would very much hesitate to call this a "failed existence", though I would hesitate more to call this an "accomplished existence"!

It would be difficult for me to verbalize exactly how I feel about things at this point in my life, although if I did have to render it into words, I'm afraid it would exclusively contain four-letter words describing things like excrement and fornication.

One protruding example that has been a disturbance to me recently is my recent realization of the fact that my mind, personality and actions have changed so very little since I was a small child. When I was younger I felt like I had come so far, yet now I feel as if I haven't gotten anywhere. Any accomplishment I may have had seems like some kind of fanciful illusion.

I also feel that the years between 20 and 25 didn't really happen. What were supposed to be some of the most eventful years of life were some of the most eventless. Now I feel like I have to "make it up" or something, ..which, of course, is somewhat impossible, due to the fact that this is the age to "settle down" in life, get married, and get in the same gear as many of my comrades are. This temporal paradox itself is a source of some displeasure.

Another example has been the issue of peers; how I feel that most of my peers have gone beyond me, which for me has become a source of jealousy in recent times.

Though it is also unsettling to me that many of those I see around me are upset and frustrated about the way their existences seem to be leading them. I cannot hide the fact that at times I feel their frustrations are minimally justified in comparison to my own.

Yet I, friends, am a believer in the logical basis for the notion of Divine Providence, and the idea that G_d has a plan for every man. It is my opinion as well, friends, that G_d has something of some particular purpose in this world to be fulfilled by myself and none other.

I therefore pray to He who gives life to all to overlook my trespasses, and lead me into a coming quarter century of great fulfillment, purpose and accomplishment, Amen.

The Jungle

One of my first posts on this blog, dear readers (I like saying that. Sue me!), stated that I wished to have one blog for ideas that may come to me, and one about my life. For various reasons the one that was supposed to be about my life was seldomly posted on, and ultimately abandoned. I also seem to have already written many posts on this very blog that are directly concerned with events in own petty, sorry and pointless existence. It is also very tiring to see the same post displayed for too long if I have nothing pressing to blog about. It is for these reasons that I, at times (now being one of them) take the liberty to say a few words about myself:

I've recently, on a fanciful level only, been considering the prospect of returning to the slaughterhouse I worked at in Green Bay (or one of the others in Minnesota or Nebraska) once again, while taking Accounting on online college. It might very well be impossible and unwise for me, but it is an idea my whims have found attractive. It's not bad there, and I'm not doing too much here anyway.

I was doing some Google searches for "our companies" plants, and I saw some of them listed, but only in Animal Rights sights complaining about kosher slaughter. One of them said something I found to be untrue. It said "A slaughterhouse, under the best of conditions, is a grim and terrible place. That can never change." I actually found it to be surprisingly pleasant! I guess it's just because I'm not a "people person". I'd rather be killing cows than dealing with children (especially with mental disabilities. ...sue me! ...oh, you already have..). It's surprising how accommodating dead cows can be. The only problems are the monotony of factory work, and of course, the fact that cow blood and excrement often find their way to your face.

In regards to the social aspects of the factory though, I found them to be very commendable. The morale there was exceptionally high considering the living standards of the employees (and considering most of them are escorted back to prison at night!). Most all of them are in perpetual good cheer, and can always be found laughing or joking about something or another. Employee relations are very good, and each section of the plant has it's own social circle. I don't know...I found that to be very interesting in a way. And best yet, due to the fact that many of the workers are female, even romantic interests are taken up in the plant!

Not that that's necessarily cloud nine for me, but the pay is very good, the rent is free, the hours are few, it's a nice local, and the "chevre" are decent. For Israelis they're pretty refined. I had some meaningful conversations here and there (especially with my elderly "philosopher" friend. He told me I was the only one who "spoke the same language" as him. ..?), and had with whom to do fun local stuff with.

.

And what is here for me in Brooklyn? Don't answer that! But seriously, shidduchim? Who would marry a penniless bloke like me in this situation anyway? So..yeh...I've been looking into the possibilities..

The Lost Gemara

As you can see, dear readers, ....."reader"? ; ), I have been trying to categorize my past posts through the usage of labels, which of course is somewhat difficult, since it's hard to say what many of my posts are "about". Not to mention the difficulty of correcting my grammar and syntax errors, which would take weeks to complete.

Anyway, I was on the subway recently (as I often am), and I was considering all the things that I've written in the past that have become lost to me (mostly Gemara notebooks). I tallied it all up, and all together there are:

• 5 notebooks on פסחים.
• 2 notebooks on בבא מציעא.
• 2 notebooks on בבא קמא.
• 1 notebook on קידושין.
• 1 notebook on סוכה.
• 1 notebook on כתובות.
• 1 teaching notebook on ברכות.
• 1 teaching notebook on קידושין.

that I've lost. (When there's more than one it means I studied the same tractate at different periods). Some of these notebooks were b'iyun (in depth, as heard from the Rosh Yeshiva), and some were b'kiyut (basic outlines and conclusions of studies from later chapters in a given tractate).

Here it may seem a bit negligible, but in my eyes it's a big loss. These in essence were my "blog" before my blog. My writings and my thoughts on the tractates I was able to study. If I had more time with them I could have even rewritten them or typed them up in a way that might have proven useful to me in the future.

..I guess it shows why it's a good idea to keep important stuff in safe places! Hopefully I'll review those tractates again, and come to clearer understandings and gain keener insight in them, having the amount of exposure to them I've had in the past. אכי"ר

קנאה אלימה

בזמנים האחרונים אני מוצא את עצמי אחוז בחבלי קנאה עזה וכמעט אלימה נגד כל מי שהשיג אפילו קב של הצלחה בעולם הזה. י

'dis blasted 'ouse

*sigh*, having to be "at home" (in Brooklyn) for me is quite the chore...or punishment more like.. ...I've been living here "full time" for well over a year now...and I know I must stay for the meanwhile....but it so difficult...there is so very little that is admirable about Brooklyn.. ....though to a large extent I suppose I've learnt to overlook the aspects of this place that do not find favor with me..and basically just ignore it.. ..still, every once in a while pangs come to me like the pangs of birth, reproving me for every day I continue to reside here..

...in my mind at times it's actually quite the subject...though something I rarely if ever verbalize... .."where is it that I must go?" you may ask.. ..honestly; anywhere else.. ...even a few miles out is basically enough for me.. ...I mean, there are still so many things even in this --the American north east-- that I've yet to see...

..very well then....

Finals

I always become semi-nauseous before final exams at my University (where they're obviously done a bit later than usual) because I know I must pass all the exams with at least a reasonable mark (which is no simple task for me!), since you can't take that bloody CPA exam without having a certain grade point average. I also started college quite late, and I wouldn't be able to bear the prospect of having to take an entire class over and stay even longer because of a few hours that should have been spent studying...

As an aside; I recently recalled that there were a number of posts I had intended to have up here a long while ago that were left in eternal limbo in draft form, since at the times they were meant to be posted they (for different reasons) seemed to be discourses that somewhat did not suit the time. One, strangely enough, was meant to be about the romantic life of Elinor Roosevelt(!), another about art...and the third about a YouTube video (if I correctly recall). G-d willing they shall find their place here in the not too distant future.

(By the way, I've seen people write "G_d" as so, recently. To me it seems to make a bit more visual sense in English than the dash; as if to say a letter is missing, as opposed to the somewhat meaningless "G-d").

Only to copy Rachel's rally-post!

Seriously, I just went to the rally to have similar pictures on my blog! Incorrigible, aren't I?(!) ...the NY Police made it very hard to join the group of marchers by the way.

I photographed this man's message partly because it is a point that I feel gives one a bit of perspective on the "Israeli-Arab Conflict". I think it's wrong to use the word "Arabs", but the leaders of the long-time Muslim African state of Sudan have been committing acts towards it's non-Muslim citizens that can only be characterized as "genocide" -most likely in order to move them from land that is sitting atop valuable oil-reserves, but under the excuse and cover-up of "religious intolerance". Yet America is not very concerned with them, because of the two obvious reasons that 1. they are a "darker skinned people", and therefore unimportant, and 2. in the meanwhile America has decided to sacrifice it's military and democratic power for the more profitable and newer oil-reserves in the middle-east, therefore necessitating much more concern when conflicts with allied democracies in the region stand to endanger any of those oil-supply-relations with neighboring countries.

Like Ehav Ever commented on Rachel's rally-post, this is, in my opinion as well, at least, a media-war. Since the 1980's we've been fighting this media-war with the Palestinians and foreign reporters. It was because of the media that we had to stop the Lebanon offensive in 2007. Besides the fact that some Jewish "solidarity" is not a bad thing, but there needs to be something else on the television besides images of angry people protesting Israel's military actions.

.

Like I said, the objective truth and justice are far from anyone's agenda. It has never been America's agenda. I was just reading a book over Shabbat by Howard Zinn called "A people's History of American Empire" (this printing was in comic-book style), in it he proves beyond a doubt that from the beginning America had Imperialistic designs, just as any other world empire in the past, and every war or action it engaged in were to further that goal. ...so we're obviously not waiting for anyone to "see things our way".

There was actually also a small counter-rally around the corner it seems. This Jewish man entered into a bitter discussion with them, unfortunately I didn't think about photographing until it was all but over.

These were part of the counter-rally, though I didn't understand their agenda till I looked at the bottom of their signs on my computer. It leads to "MuslimJewishJornal.com". It's a very interesting site; Muslim articles about the Tanach, and Jewish articles about the Quran... ...the girl is actually kind of hot by the way, no? I should have started talking with these dudes, they seem to harbor little enmity..

.

Also: I approve of the article on Israel in the current "Time" magazine (which I can't seem to find online). I suppose I kind of side with a "three-state-solution" if the Palestinians would agree. ..though that's a pretty long shot..

כיעור

I must admit, I have become very concerned about my hair, which has visibly been shedding over time (freaky, I know). I read about different "treatments" but they are all more than a bit "iffy". I read that drinking Green Tea could have some hair-oriented benefits, but then again drinking tea 24/7 could lead to kidney stones, so...

There are other aspects of my physical self which warrant some concern though. For one I have developed somewhat of a pot belly- me who has always been thin. Also in this climate and environment I receive little physical exercise. That scar on my forehead also never fully disappeared..

It is these and other things which make me worried about how becoming I may seem to "the ladies" (bald fat people who do little exercise are not the most coveted of men among dating-age women)...

Reality Addiction

It has become evident to me, upon verbal investigation (chatting) that the gentleman who sits next to me during English class leads a Rock-music band called “Reality Addiction”. Personally I quite fancy the name, being that it’s curiously taunting in a way, being that few people are "addicted" to reality (quite the opposite usually).

(He wouldn’t be the first musically inclined individual I’ve known though; I roomed once with a fellow named Spitz who also runs a band, and my friend Yosef Chaim Shweky (brother of Yaakov) is producing an album of his own)...

Only Di 'Lomo...

...smashes his head by biking directly into a gate..(may even need a bit of stitching)..

מתנוצץ, גדל, פורח ועולה בי השקפת עתיד חשוך יותר משהיה לי אי-פעם.י

עיטוש

Man, my chest bruises are getting better, but my chest anyway was one of my most frail and sensitive parts (I was born with a hole in my heart for example...or so I was told רחמנא לשיזבן), but now I've even got a cold because of the change in seasons...so I'm coughing and sneezing all the time now. But every time I sneeze (even when I hold it in-which I've obviously had to start learning to do recentely..although I almost never did in the past-it's a Moroccan thing!), it feels like a bomb is going off in my chest! ..but it's getting better!

...why am I mentioning this here again..? Oh yes, because I can! ; )

101- New f--king post already- yay!

Finally, a new post! Well, aside from my summer, I had something fairly interesting happen to me (which I believe is actually a 'mitzva' to discuss in public to some extent). I bought a car in Green Bay with the intention of driving it to New York (with a stop for Shabbat in Cincinnati by my uncle). ...only problem is I'm not the best driver.. Anyway, I had already driven most of the way pretty quickly and successfully, and then 10 minutes out of Cincinnati, on a downhill sharp turn (not to mention the roads were slippery because it was heavily raining) I see a (stopped) car in front of me stretched out sideways blocking my lane! So I had to take a sharp turn to maneuver around it, but I lost control hit another car, and slammed into the rail. But it wasn't so bad! ..but then I realized my car didn't stop yet! It turned around again then slammed head on into the wall. But thank G-d, for he protected me and those around me, for besides some heavy chest bruises I left unscathed, and so did the girl in the car blocking me (who initially lost control there), as well as the woman I hit, and another woman who crashed after me! I tried to introduce G-d's name to them (who were most likely believers) when they were all talking together I said "let's thank G-d none of us got hurt".

הודו לה כי טוב- כי לעולם חסדו

ברוך הגומל לחייבים-טובות, שגמלני כל טוב

Ultimately my insurance just has to pay the lady and I'm hoping I can get some money out of the girls insurance company for causing my crash. But I should also be very thankful that not only did the police there not put me in jail for driving without a license, they even drove me into the city. Once there I ordered a taxi, and the one I found was very interesting; some attractive young 'black' woman who covered her hair and closely affiliated herself and her kids with some form of Judaism. In fact her name was 'Yocheved', her son was 'misha-el', daughter- 'yerusha-ya', son- 'el-hanan'. Very cool. But she did say the recently she has been attracted to a form of religion that feels that the main objective is to keep true at least to what seems proper for us according what is manifest in nature (I told her she might find some form of theological backing in the works of Spinoza...I don't know if that's true! ..but..whatever).

So it was too bad losing the car I just got..but I'm very happy to be OK coming out of such a forceful collision, and happy I have wi-fi Internet connection here in the Dayton airport!

עוד חזון להינתן- בחסדי הא"ל הנותן

100th Post- ומצליח

Well, I started this blog a little before I went to Orlando (to work as a Mashgiach), and here I am again, at the 100th post going off again, this time to the Green Bay (Wisconsin) meat plant to work as a Mashgiach.

..I don't know, I guess it's so easy for me to go be alone in strange places for long periods of time 1. Because I'm naturally a loner! 2. Because I haven't really got anything keeping me in Brooklyn, and 3. Because I'm a travel addict...

..to be honest I always tried to use travel as a way of recharging my "spiritual batteries", and of starting things anew, from a new perspective. ..to be honest, many a time it did work pretty well(!), but I should have definitely have come back to New York and got settled down quite a while ago...I was just always afraid of lowering my spirituality by leaving "the yeshiva".. Well, too late now..

As an aside: I went to Ari Nestlebaums wedding tonight! Yay! We haven't really 'chilled' in quite a while though...